A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley is about the theory of perfection according to Christian theology. Excerpt: "1. WHAT I purpose in the following pages is, to give a plain and distinct account of the steps by which I was led, during the course of many years, to embrace the doctrine of Christian Perfection. This I owe to the serious part of mankind; those who desire to know all the truth as it is in Jesus. And these only are concerned with questions of this kind. To these I would nakedly declare the thing as it is, endeavoring all along to show, from one period to another, both what I thought, and why I thought so."
George N. H. Peters (1825 – 1909) was an American Lutheran minister whose life work, this three-volume defense of non-dispensational premillennial theology, was published in 1884. Wilbur E. Smith calls it “the most exhaustive, thoroughly annotated and logically arranged study of Biblical prophecy that appeared in our country during the nineteenth century.”
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, reprinted from the 1878 edition, “is rightly regarded as one of the most seminal theological works ever to be written,” states Ian Ker in his foreword to this sixth edition. “It remains,” Ker continues, "the classic text for the theology of the development of doctrine, a branch of theology which has become especially important in the ecumenical era.” John Henry Cardinal Newman begins the Essay by defining how true developments in doctrine occur. He then delivers a sweeping consideration of the growth of doctrine in the Catholic Church from the time of the Apostles to his own era. He demonstrates that the basic “rule” under which Christianity proceeded through the centuries is to be found in the principle of development, and he emphasizes that throughout the entire life of the Church this principle has been in effect and safeguards the faith from any corruption.
Still considered essential reading for serious thinkers on religion more than a century and a half after it was written, this seminal work of modern theology, first published in 1845, presents a history of Catholic doctrine from the days of the Apostles to the time of its writing, and follows with specific examples of how the doctrine has not only survived corruption but grown stronger through defending itself against it, and is, therefore, the true religion. This classic of Christian apologetics, considered a foundational work of 19th-century intellectualism on par with Darwin's Origin of Species, is must reading not only for the faithful but also for anyone who wishes to be well educated in the fundamentals of modern thought.