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ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY

EXEMPLIFIED

IN THE

PRIVATE, DOMESTIC, SOCIAL, AND CIVIL LIFE

OF THE

Primitive Christians,

AND IN THE ORIGINAL

INSTITUTIONS, OFFICES, ORDINANCES, AND
RITES OF THE CHURCH.

BY LYMAN COLEMAN.

PHILADELPHIA:

LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO.

162

C6

1852

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

LYMAN COLEMAN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & 00.

PHILADELPHIA.

Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins.

PREFACE.

SEVERAL years have elapsed since the author of this manual published his Antiquities of the Christian Church, as a translation and compilation from Augusti and other sources. Certain circumstances incidental to that publication, which need not be detailed in this place, directed the writer to new and more extensive investigations upon the whole subject of the constitution, discipline, worship, and rites of the ancient church. The results of these inquiries have been, in part, given to the public in another form.*

The interest thus incidentally awakened in this branch of ecclesiastical history directed the writer to continue with renewed diligence the study of the archæology of the church. In the course of these studies, the original compilation on the antiquities of the church has been entirely remodelled, to a great extent rewritten, and repeatedly revised, with additions and omissions, until it has assumed the character of an independent work, rather than the form of a reprint of the former edition.

The archæology of the church is introduced by a brief view of the religious character of the primitive Christians

* The Apostolical and Primitive Church, Popular in its Government and Simple in its Worship.

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