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1873. April 28 By exch. of implicates

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the first day of October, in the fifty second year L.S. of the Independence of the United States of America, John Marsh, of said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof, he claims as Author, in the words following, to wit:-" An Epitome of General Ecclesiastical History, from the carliest period to the present time. History of the Jews, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the present day. With an Appendix, giving a condensed by Maps and Engravings. By John Marsh, A. M. Pastor of a Church in Haddam, Conn." In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the enIllustrated couragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." the Act, entitled "An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors And also to and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." CHAS. A. INGERSOLL,

Clerk of the District Court of Connecticut.

A true copy of Record, examined and scaled by me,

CHAS. A. INGERSOLL,
Clerk of the District Court of Connecticut.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

A COMPENDIOUS history of the Church of God, properly executed, cannot fail of being useful in the Christian community.

The inspired history is both true and eminently beautiful: but its leading facts, detailed in the ordinary style, and illustrated and explained, will be perused with profit and pleasure. The period intervening between the Old and New Testament dates, lies hid from the mass of men in the Apocryphal books, in Josephus, and Pri deaux's Connexions. And modern ecclesiastical history, though ably presented by Mosheim, Milner, Haweis, Gregory, Newton, Neal and others, is extended through many volumes, and accompanied by much dry discussion and minute detail, repulsive to the young. In compiling this work no references are made to authorities, as they would uselessly fill the margin; but the utmost care has been taken that nothing be stated for fact which is not well authenticated. Early notice of errors will be gratefully received. The view given of existing denominations will not probably give universal satisfaction; but the classification of subjects, the attempt to give the history of religious opinions and the rise and fall of the different sects, and the moral and religious reflections will, it is thought, be pleasing to all who " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," and profitable to the youthful inquirer after truth.

The work is divided into three Periods. The first extends from the Creation to the Call of Abraham. The second, from the Call of Abraham to the birth of Christ.

The third, from the birth of Christ to the present time. Occasional notice i. taken of false prophets and false systems of religion, and of various providential dealings with the nations of the earth.

The whole is commended to the blessing of God.

AN EPITOME, &c.

PERIOD I.

FROM THE CREATION TO THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

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CHAPTER I.

Creation.

THIS WORLD, the theatre of the most wonderful divine operations, has been in existence 5838 years. The learned Greeks were fond of speculating upon the origin. of all things. Aristotle supposed the world, in its organized form, eternal; and that the Supreme Being put it in motion. Anaxagoras, followed by Socrates and Plato, believed in a Supreme Mind who organized the world out of matter which always existed; yet held to an animating principle in matter which propelled and regulated the organized system. Epicurus, the father of Atheism, traced the beautiful order of the earth, and all its inhabitants and productions, to a fortuitous concurrence of atoms. No one in Greece or Rome ever acknowledged a Creator of the world.

The old Heathen nations, ignorant of their origin, were fond of ascribing to themselves vast antiquity. The Babylonians and Egyptians boasted of their astronomical observations, and counted their dynasties through thirty and forty thousand years. The modern Chinese and Hindoos make similar pretensions.

"Some drill and bore

The solid earth, and, from the strata there,
Extract a register by which they learn
That he who made it, and revealed its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age."

But the oldest astronomical observations transmitted to us, are within 300 years before Christ. And the most distant Grecian or Chinese record is within 600 years from the same era. The geological argument for a vast antiquity of the earth, vanishes before the cumulative evidence from the same source of an universal deluge, such as Moses describes, and about the time specified by him.

"Ex nihilo nihil fit,"-" from nothing, nothing comes," is a maxim which leads us up to an infinite Intelligence, the maker of all things. And in the Bible we have a plain, simple, and concise account of creation; bearing the stamp of truth, and giving the mind just and elevated views of God. Without excluding the idea that worlds on worlds and systems on systems, angels, principalities and powers may have been created ages before our world, it presents to us the Almighty producing and bringing to perfection, in great majesty and goodness, the heavens and earth, in six days.

The materials which he spake into being, were a mere mass of confusion, without form and void. From the chaos he first separated light; leaving it however diffused throughout the whole. He then constituted the firmament or atmosphere, which should give air for breath, and sustain the clouds. He next broke the earth's surface into mountains and valleys, leaving the water to rush with violence into the deep. "At thy rebuke they fled, at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away." No sooner did the dry land appear, than it was covered with grass and herbs, shrubs and trees; all formed with the wonderful power of re-production to the end of the world. On the fourth day, God created the heavenly bodies, and either concentrated the light into the sun, or gave that body the power of originating its motion. He made visible also the stars, those suns of other systems which had perhaps shone for ages.

Having prepared a beautiful and convenient habitation. for living beings, he proceeded to fill the ocean with fish, the air with every thing that hath wing, and the solid ground with beasts and creeping things. Last of all, and with peculiar solemnity, he formed Man. "And God said, let us make man in our own image after our own likeness;" said it to whom? not to the angels; for what had they to do with creation? It was a solemn consultation of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

God made man in his own image-an immortal spiritupright and holy, and gave him dominion over his creatures.

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