PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

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The call for a new edition of this work in less than a year after its publication is an agreeable surprise to the author, and fills him with gratitude to the reading public and the many reviewers, known and unknown, who have so kindly and favorably noticed it in American and foreign periodicals and in private letters. One of the foremost divines of Germany (Dr. Dorner, in the Jahrbüher für Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 682) expresses a surprise that the idea of such an œcumenical collection of Christian Creeds should have originated in America, where the Church is divided into so many rival denominations; but he adds also as an explanation that this division creates a desire for unity and co-operation, and a mutual courtesy and kindness unknown among the contending parties and schools under the same roof of state-churches, where outward uniformity is maintained at the expense of inward peace and harmony.

The changes in this edition are very few. The literature in the first volume is brought down to the present date, and at the close of the second volume a fac-simile of the oldest MSS. of the Athanasian Creed and the Apostles' Creed is added.

P. S.

NEW YORK, April, 1878.

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