J. A. Wylie - History of Protestantism

J. A. Wylie's History of Protestantism is an esoteric document for this reason: he treats Protestantism as it were a 'school' which alights here, now there, stronger in one era than in another, but everywhere it appears, the school that is, its effect is all out of scale with its numbers or seeming worldly influence.

Protestant is a term that means 'one who confesses and bears witness to the Word of God.' In this inherent meaning of the term you can see that Protestants existed from the beginning of the Christian era.

Wylie's History of Protestantism is also unique for its style. It would probably be called romantic in style by a critic, but it's really more unique than that. It is full of metaphor and bracing scenery and heroism, yes, but it is a style completely free from constraints of the world or the devil. The substance in this sense is the style as well. Wylie sees clearly (faith hath a piercing eye) and describes things with no thought of being artificially 'unbiased' or anything similar. He's writing like a man who doesn't care what any critics will think. He knows God's own, with the Holy Spirit, will see and understand what he is presenting.

It's a unique book also because it is a complete history of Christianity (up through the Reformation) while focusing, as mentioned before, on Protestantism. I.e. focusing on the Word of God and the 'school' that it is and creates wherever it appears and focusing on the individuals and cultures it quickens wherever it appears.

Did I mention it's 2,112 pages? And that would be large pages. Yet on a scale of one to ten of page-turning readability it is a ten. This is a two thousand page book one can actually read complete, with the necessary dedication of time and effort of course, but it's not trudging type reading. The ISBN is: 0-923309-80-2. The latest published edition is by Hartland Publications and is in 4 vols.

It fills the spot of a universal, on-the-mark, inspired history of Christianity, just as Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion fills the spot of inspired, on-the-mark work of theology, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress fills the spot of universal, inspired work of imaginative Christian literature; and then of course the Word of God itself, the pure and whole traditional text Authorized, King James, Version being the obvious fourth work, the foundation, to give one a rather complete, four-work Christian library. I'd add the Fourth Way by Ouspensky, and Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State, and Petrus Dathenus' Pearl of Christian Comfort, and Herman Witsius' Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, and Meredith G. Kline's God, Heaven and Har Magedon, and Louis Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine to make a basic ten.

I can't praise this Wylie book enough. Just start on page one and see how it gives you the history of this age that has been successfully buried by all worldly forces and motivations. It's an unveiling type history, written by a historian both mainstream and competent, yet also inspired and of real faith and understanding.