Historical Theology

Plot

It was the object of Dr. Cunningham, in his Lectures on ecclesiastical history, to give forth the instructions to be thus derived from a studyof the records of the Church, in those conjunctures of her history when the leading doctrines of the Faith were put to the test in the strife with men who impugned or misrepresented them; and when, as the result, truth came forth from the furnace all the more pure because of the fire. The examination of these discussions from the apostolic age downwards,--the consideration of the various arguments by which the fundamental articles of Christian truth have been both assailed and defended,--the review of that sifting and winnowing process through which not only truth has been separated from error, but what is essential and non-essential in the truth itself has been distinguished and put apart,--furnished him with the opportunity and the means of exhibiting and inculcating those lessons of ecclesiastical history, for the sake of which it is mainly important that it should be taught and studied.