Sketches and Hints OF CHURCH HISTORY, AND THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY. CHIEFLY TRANSLATED OR ABRIDGED FROM MODERN FOREIGN WRITERS. By JOHN ERSKINE, D. D. ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF EDINBURGH. BODLE EDINBURGH: M, DCC, XC. LO N TH PREFACE. HE chief defign of the following sheets is, to impart to others, the entertainment and inftruction which I have received from Foreign Writers, as to the history of the earliest ages of Christianity, and the pre-. fent state of religion and theological controverfy. Imperfect as the information is which. they contain, I flatter myself it is important. In fome inftances, my work is a free tranflation; in others, an abridgment of select paffages in the original Writers. Their fentiments, when different from my own, I have not difguifed. Their opinions of perfons and things, which I could not approve, I have not concealed *. Without flavishly following their words and expreffions, I have endeavoured, though I fear often unfuccefsfully, to exhibit juftly, their reafonings, and * I am forry, that, in the Jewish Letters, the pious, though in fome things mistaken, Lavater, and that the able defender of Chriftianity, Jerufalem, fhould be claffed with fuch writers as Eberhard,. Steinbart, Damm, Bahrdt, &c. |