History of the Christian Church (Classic Reprint)

Church History. On the question what it is wise to insert in such a work, and what it is best to exclude, no two persons would judge precisely alike. I must anticipate that readers will occasionally be disappointed in seeking what they do not find, or in finding what they may think it as well to have left out. There are two particulars in which I have sought to make the narrative specially serviceable. In the first place, the at tempt has been made to exhibit fully the relations of the his tory of Christianity and of the Church to contemporaneous secular history. It has been common to dissect Church his tory out of the general history of mankind. To some extent this process of division is required. Yet it must never be for gotten that they are really inseparable parts of one whole. I have tried to bring out more distinctly than is usually done the interaction of events and changes in the political sphere, with the phenomena which belong more strictly to the ecclesiastical and religious province. In the second place, it has seemed to me possible to present a tolerably complete survey of the his tory of theological doctrine. It is true that compressed state ments must be made; but the important point is, not what amount of space is occupied, but whether the exposition is clear and exact. There are two reasons, at least, why it is natural to feel some diffidence in sending forth a work of this kind from the press. One is the difficulty of traversing so wide a field with out falling into inaccuracies of more or less consequence.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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