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The subject of persecution in the early Church, treated as a whole, has been somewhat neglected by English writers. The legal aspects of the matter, the relations of the Church to the Empire, and the nature of the courts and procedure by which the Christians were condemned have been fully dealt with in the researches of Ramsay, Hardy, and others . . . Persecution also, treated merely from the standpoint of the Church, the experiences of the martyrs, has, of course, never lacked presentation in this country from the days of Foxe onward . . . [A] treatment of the subject as a whole, in its legal, historical, ecclesiastical, and experiential aspects, is what I have attempted in the following pages . . . While I trust that no aspect of the subject has been neglected, special attention has been drawn to those aspects of the inner life of the Church which led to persecution. Contents 1. The Master and His Disciples 2. Casesar or Christ 3. The Causes of Hatred 4. The Great Persecution 5. The Experiences of the Persecuted
Persecution and the Christian are as inseparable as the cross and Christ. Yet, many Christians find it difficult to grapple with the history of persecution and martyrdom that has characterized the Church since her infancy. A selective reading of history might give the mistaken impression that each day brought the imminent threat of death or torture for members of the Early Church. On the other hand, some contemporary scholars treat persecution as a myth created by later generations. Thankfully, the scholarship of Herbert Workman dispels both these misconceptions. Workman draws on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, presenting a balanced picture of persecution from the days of the Apostles to the dawn of Christendom. But Workman is more than a scholar-he's a Christian, which means he leaves no room for the reader to approach persecution as a casual observer. He not only demonstrates what true faithfulness looked like in the past, but equips the reader to face the future with faith and courage.
This 1912 text contains a historical account of the development of Methodism and John Wesley's role in this process.