TO THE CRITICAL STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, ATTEMPTED IN AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROGRESS, AND A SHORT NOTICE OF THE SOURCES, OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. BY JOHN GOULTER DOWLING, M.A. OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD, RECTOR OF ST. MARY-DE-CRYPT, GLOUCESTER. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 213110 Bequest of Convers Francis, D. X., of Cambridge . LONDON: GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. то THE REVEREND S. R. MAITLAND, LIBRARIAN TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AND KEEPER OF HIS GRACE'S MANUSCRIPTS AT LAMBETH, AS A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED. PREFACE. It can scarcely be necessary to apologize to the English public for the appearance of a single volume, on a subject which has in Germany already been treated in several works. Since the publication of the Introduction to Ecclesiastical History by Sagittarius and Schmid in the beginning of the last century, Schröckh in the first volume of his Church-history, and C. W. F. Walch, Royko, Pfrogner, Flügge, and Stäudlin, in separate works, have laboured to extend an acquaintance with this branch of knowledge, and have rendered the literary history of Church-history familiar to their countrymen. In the mean time no work of the kind has been undertaken among ourselves. The "Brief Account of the Ecclesiastical Historians," which appeared in the British Magazine between August |