Book Description

Excerpt from Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 3 of 3: Ancient and Modern; In Four Books, Much Corrected, Enlarged, and Improved From the Primary Authorities 1. In narrating the ecclesiastical affairs of modern times, the same order cannot be followed as was pursued in the preceding periods. For the state of the Christian world having undergone a great change in the sixteenth century, and a much greater number of associations than formerly being found among the followers of Christ, differing widely in doctrines and institutions, and regulating their conduct by different principles; all the various transactions among professed Christians, can by no means be exhibited in one continued series, and so as to form one well-arranged picture. On the contrary, as the bond of union among Christians was severed, their history must be distributed into compartments, corresponding with the division of the Christian world into its principal sects. 2. Yet many events occurred, which affected the whole Christian world, and the state of religion generally, or were not confined to any particular community. And as the knowledge of these general facts, throws much light on the history of the particular communities, as well as on the general state of the Christian world, they ought to be stated separately and by themselves. Hence the work before us will be divided into two principal parts; the one, the general history of the Christian church, and the other, the particular. 3. The general history will embrace all those facts and occurrences, which may be predicated of the Christian religion as such, or absolutely considered; and which in some sense, affected the whole Christian world, rent unhappily as it was by divisions. Of course, we shall here describe the enlargement of the boundaries of Christendom or their contraction, without regard to the particular sects that were instrumental in these changes. Nor shall we omit those institutions and doctrines which were received by all the Christian communities, or by the principal part of them, and which thus produced changes very extensive and general. 4. In the particular history, we shall take a survey of the several communities into which Christians were distributed. And here we may properly make two classes of sects. First, we may consider what occurred in the more ancient communities of Christians, whether in the East, or in the West. Secondly, what occurred in the more recent communities, those that arose after the reformation of both doctrine and discipline in Germany. In describing the condition and character of each particular sect, we shall pursue as far as practicable, the method pointed out in the general Introduction to these Institutes. For according to our conceptions, the less a person recedes from this method, the less will he probably omit of what is necessary to a full knowledge of the history of each individual community. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.