The design which I have formed to myself, is to give such a methodical account of the Antiquities of the Christian Church, as others have done of the Greek, and Roman, and Jewish antiquities; not by writing an historical or continued chronological account of all transactions as they happened in the church, … by by reducing the ancient customs, usages, and practices of the church under certain proper heads, whereby the reader may take a view at once of any particular usage or custom of Christians, for four or five of the first centuries, to which I have generally confined my inquiries in this discourse. -from the Preface