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the real Church Historian find it a difficult to extract a connected view of his peculiar ct from the Ecclesiastical materials of the

and fifth Centuries, that difficulty is multia hundredfold, while he labours through the and gloomy period, which in the present me engages his attention. apressed, however, with the certain truth of the ration made by the Divine Author of Chris

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"that the gates of hell shall never prevail ast his Church," I have endeavoured all along scover her actual existence. How far I have eeded, the Reader must determine for himself. e fundamental doctrines of the Gospel have een exhibited, both as professed in various parts ne world, and as productive of those fruits of Less, which are peculiarly Christian, my aim Deen missed, and the grand design of the whole ation has failed. But I hope the Scriptural der will see the lineaments of the Church perng these dark Centuries; provided that he divest elf of all partial regards for sects and denomions, ages and countries, and attend exclusively ne marks and evidences of genuine Christianity. is the right frame of spirit, which the subject re us requires; and it is what I have steadily eavoured to preserve.

Tros Rutlusve fuat nullo discrimine habebo.

n the former part of the Volume, Gregory I. Come, and the English Christians, will be found

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me to expect, that the review of the lives and writings of Anselm and of Bernard in this, may not be without similar fruit.

The history of these seven Centuries, as it has hitherto appeared in our common Ecclesiastical narratives, it must be confessed, is extremely uninteresting. If I have had some advantages for enlivening and illuminating the scene, let those be ascribed to the peculiar nature of my plan.

The account of the WALDENSES, which closes the Volume, belongs not to the Thirteenth Century exclusively; it is however, ascribed to it, because in the course of that Century most extraordinary perseuctions and conflicts took place among this people, and particularly excited the attention of Europe. It was also judged proper to give one unbroken narrative of Waldensian transactions in Ecclesiastical matters, till the time of the Reformation.

If the Reader learn some practical lessons concerning the power, wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness of God, from the review of the events which lie before him, I shall have reason to rejoice, nor shall I think my labour to have been in vain.

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