The Christian Church From The 1st To The 20th Century

Author : Joseph Reeve
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330424384
Total Pages : 564 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (243 download)

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Download or read book History of the Christian Church From Its First Establishment to the Present Century written by Joseph Reeve and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-27 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from History of the Christian Church From Its First Establishment to the Present Century Mysterious are the degrees of God with respect to man; often slow in their operation, but always certain in their effect. Man had lost himself by sinning, God promised him a Redeemer, but a period of about four thousand years elapsed before that promise was fulfilled. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were originally created in a state of innocence, and were finally designed by their bountiful Creator for the supernatural enjoyment of his glory in heaven. They had the garden of Eden, a paradise of earthly delights, allotted them for a temporary abode, till their translation into the heavenly mansions of everlasting bliss. They were endowed with free will, that they might have the merit of obeying and honouring their Creator by choice: for the merit of their obedience they had but one easy precept to observe, arid that was, to abstain from the fruit of a certain tree, under the penalty of death. Such was their primitive situation. A fallen angel, envious of their happiness, resolved to attempt their ruin. He entered the garden in a serpents form, addressed himself to Eve in a most artful manner, and by deceitful assurances at last persuaded her to eat the forbidden fruit. She prevailed on Adam to eat also. By this deliberate act of disobedience, they both incurred the penalty denounced against it: in vain did they try to shift the blame from one to another; they were driven out of paradise, loaded with shame and remorse, and condemned to drag out life in painful labour, till death should reduce their bodies into dust again, out of which they had been first formed. The gate of heaven was moreover shut against them, and against their whole posterity, until full atonement should be made for their transgression. Great was their affliction for the evil they had done; but God was pleased to comfort them with the promise, that the time would come when the woman's offspring should crush the serpent's head. Human nature being thus tainted with sin in its very root, a vicious race of mortals soon began to spring up and multiply. The corruption of their hearts and morals provoked the vengeance of an insulted Deity. God deluged the earth with one universal flood, and in the watery abyss buried every living creature that was not in Noah's Ark. Of all mankind only eight persons escaped destruction; these repeopled the earth with new inhabitants, not better than the former. In the space of a single century their progeny became too numerous for the spot the inhabited. Necessity compelled them to separate in quest of other settlements. 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.