The object of the author has been to state and summarise in a brief,
succinct form the arguments drawn from History in opposition to the
claim of the Catholic Church: that is, to the claim put forward by
that Church to speak with Divine and Infallible Authority. The author
insists upon the point that he is not attempting a positive apologetic
drawn from History in favour of this claim, but a rebutting of the
evidence drawn from History opposed to this claim. He is engaged in
examining the value of the arguments drawn from History to prove that
the Catholic Church has varied or erred in her teaching or has made it
depend upon immoral methods, and in showing that they have no force.
The little book is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the
three moral arguments: (1) that the Church has made pronouncements
which History can prove to be false; (2) that the Church can be proved
by History to have used material which she knew to be false; (3) that
the Church, being proved by history to be not only organised but
increasingly organised from the beginning of its existence, is thereby
shown to be different from the simple thing which a divine institution
of the sort should be.
Secondly, the intellectual argument, to wit, that the Church can
be proved by History to be man-made, not God-made. This the author
divides into two sections: (1) the Protestant argument that there was
some original good message told by Jesus Christ, which the Church has
gradually corrupted and from the origin of which she has deviated;
(2) the general agnostic argument that the Church can be proved
historically to be but one of many religions, to have grown up like
any other religion, with the same illusions and similar rites and
mysteries, and is therefore man-made--which last form of attack the
author regards as to-day by far the most serious.