02.0.4. Preface to Revised and Enlarged Edition

Preface to Revised and Enlarged Edition. The Preface to the original edition gives a perfectly accurate and somewhat circumstantial account of the origin of this work. Since its first publication the evidences of the fact that it met a public need have been multiplying. Its sale in America and Great Britain has continued. It has been translated into Welsh and Modern Greek, and used in several theological training schools. The author, in the meantime, has been for fourteen years engaged in the practical work of a theological instructor. His increased knowledge and experience as a teacher have been embodied in this new and enlarged edition, which has grown to its present form through several years in connection with his actual class instructions. The new edition contains nearly fifty per cent more matter than the former one. Two chapters have been dropped, and five new ones have been added. Extracts from the principal Confessions, Creeds, and classical theological writers of the great historical churches have been appended to the discussions of the doctrines concerning which the Church is divided. Several chapters have been entirely rewritten, and many others have been materially recast, and enlarged. And the Appendix contains a translation of the Consensus Tigurinus of Calvin, and of the FORMULA CONSENSUS HELVETICA of Heidegger and Turretin, two Confessions of first class historical and doctrinal interest to the student of Reformed theology, but not easily accessible. The work is again offered to the Christian Church, not as a complete treatise of Systematic Theology, for the use of the proficient, but as a simple Text Book, adapted to the needs of students taking their first lessons in this great science, and to the convenience of many earnest workers who wish to refresh their memories by means of a summary review of the ground gone over by them in their earlier studies. princeton, n. j., august 6th, 1878.