He who judges the first century by the nineteenth will fall into countless¹ errors. He who thinks that the Christianity of the fourth century was identical with that of the New-Testament³ period, will go widely astray. He who does not look carefully into the history of religions before the time of Christ, and into the pagan influences which surrounded infant Christianity, cannot understand its subsequent history. He who cannot rise above denominational limitations and credal restrictions⁴ cannot become a successful student of early Church history, nor of present tendencies, nor of future developments. History is a series of results, not a medley⁵ of happenings. It is the story of the struggle between right and wrong; the record of God’s dealing⁶ with men. The “historic argument” is invaluable⁷, because history preserves God’s verdicts concerning human choices and actions. Events and epochs, transitions and culminations⁸, are the organized causes and effects which create the never-ceasing movement, and the organic unity⁹ called history. Hence we learn that[vi] ideas and principles, like apples, have their time for development and ripening¹⁰; that the stains of sin, the weakness of error, and the influence of truth commingle¹¹ and perdure through the centuries; that good and evil, sin and righteousness, persist, or are eliminated, in proportion as men heed¹² God’s voice, and listen to His verdicts.

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