“Nero sent Festus as [Felix’s] successor, and Paul was tried before him and brought as prisoner to Rome. Aristarchus went with him, whom he called his fellow prisoner in his epistles [Col. 4:10]. And at this point Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, finished his story with the statement that Paul spent two whole years in Rome in free custody, preaching without hindrance. After defending himself [successfully], the apostle is said to have set out again on the ministry of preaching and, coming a second time to the same city, found fulfillment in martyrdom. During this imprisonment he composed the second epistle to Timothy, mentioning both his earlier defense as well as his impending fulfillment” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 80).

“Thus the saving word started to brighten the whole world like rays of the sun. In every city and village, churches mushroomed, crowded with myriads of members. Those chained by superstition and idolatry found release through the power of Christ as well as the teaching and wonderful deeds of his followers. Rejecting demonic polytheism, they confessed the one God and Creator of the universe whom they honored with the rational worship implanted by our Savior” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 61).

“Philip, however, one of those who had been ordained with Stephen to the diaconate, was among those dispersed. He went to Samaria and, filled with divine power, was the first to preach the word there. So great was the divine grace at work with him that even Simon Magus and many others were captivated by his words. Simon had gained such fame by the wizardry with which he controlled his victims that he was believed to be the Great Power of God. But even he was so overwhelmed by the wonders Philip performed through divine power that he insinuated himself [into the faith], hypocritically feigning belief in Christ even to the point of baptism. (This is still done by those who continue his foul heresy to the present day [e.g., “Simony”]: following the practice of their progenitor, they fasten on to the church like a noxious and scabby disease, destroying all whom they succeed in smearing with the dreadful, deadly poison hidden in them. But most of these have been expelled by now, just as Simon himself paid the proper punishment once his real nature was exposed by Peter.)” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 59)

“We have been forewarned that an enemy relentlessly threatens us [cf. Ephesians 6:12-13], an enemy who is the very embodiment of rash boldness, of military prowess, of crafty wiles, of untiring zeal and haste, of every conceivable weapon and of skill in the science of warfare. We must, then, bend our every effort to this goal: that we should not let ourselves be overwhelmed by carelessness or faintheartedness, but on the contrary, with courage rekindled stand our ground in combat. Since this military service ends only at death, let us urge ourselves to perseverance” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Translated by Ford Lewis Battles, 173).

“. . . I am attempting to traverse as it were a lonely and untrodden path. I pray that I may have God as my guide and the power of the Lord as my aid, since I am unable to find even the bare footsteps of those who have traveled the way before me, except in brief fragments, in which some in one way, others in another, have transmitted to us particular accounts of the times in which they lived” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Arthur McGiffert, I.I.4.).

“This work seems to me of especial importance because I know of no ecclesiastical writer who has devoted himself to this subject; and I hope that it will appear most useful to those who are fond of historical research” (I.I.6.)

“Moreover, since Christ is said to be ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14.6), and that categorically, so that whatever is not Christ is not the way, but error, not truth, but untruth, not life, but death, it follows of necessity that ‘free-will’, inasmuch as it neither is Christ, nor is in Christ, is fast bound in error, and untruth, and death” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 305).

“The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable” (Translated by Ford Lewis Battles, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 164).

“For the church is ruled by the Spirit of God, and Rom. 8 tells us that the saints are led by the Spirit of God (v. 14). And Christ abides with His church till the end of the world (Matt. 28.20). And the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (I Tim. 3:15). This we know; for the Creed which we all hold runs thus, ‘I believe in the holy catholic church.'” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 119-120).

“God has no time for your practitioners of self-reformation, for they are hypocrites. The elect, who fear God, will be reformed by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unreformed” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 99).

“The Manichees [heretics] have only one foundation: that it is wrong to ascribe to the good God the creation of any evil things. This does not in the slightest degree harm the orthodox faith, which does not admit that any evil nature exists in the whole universe. For the depravity and malice both of man and of the devil, or the sins that arise therefrom, do not spring from nature, but rather from the corruption of nature” (Translated by Ford Lewis Battles, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 163).