Refusing to practice a religion foreign to your conscience and belief is the very epitome of what it means to be Protestant. When a tyrannical power forbids a people from practicing according to their own religious belief and conscience, and they do so anyway, even if in secret, they are acting in Protest.

James A. Wylie brings the principle that is Protestantism nearer in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ to its beginning. We learn in these pages that there were protesters long before the moniker became universally used following the 16th century. First there were those that protested against the leaders of the Jewish Religion; then those who protested against the forced pagan practices of the Roman Empire, even called atheist for refusing to worship the many gods; and finally, those who during the 1,260-year reign of the Papal antichrist system, in protest refused to bow the knee to his religious tyranny.

Church government revealed in the pages of scripture was local in nature; we read of "the church at" this town or that, with a bishop, pastors, and elders over the local flock, with Christ the Head over all – the universal mediator between God and man.

Hope! That's what we should find in the pages of this history. Beyond all of the judgment and calamity recorded in these pages, all of the promises of God wait for His elect, who by faith sow into a kingdom that stretches beyond the grave. These promises are verified by the continual fulfillment of God's prophetic word throughout history. God's word is reliable, it will come to pass, because it has come to pass. That which has yet to be fulfilled, will surely happen, even as that which has already been fulfilled. History is Prophecy fulfilled. Our faith is not blind, nor is it in vain, we have seen that God's word is good!