PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

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The call for a fourth edition of this work has made it my duty to give the first volume once more a thorough revision and to bring the literature down to the latest date. In this I have been aided by my young friend, the Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, one of the assistant editors of my "Religious Encyclopædia." The additions which could not be conveniently made in the plates have been printed separately after the Table of Contents, pp. xiv–xvii.

The second and third volumes, which embrace the symbolical documents, remain unchanged, except that at the end of the third volume the new Congregational Creed of 1883 has been added.

Creeds will live as long as faith survives, with the duty to confess our faith before men. By and by we shall reach, through the Creeds of Christendom, the one comprehensive, harmonious Creed of Christ.

P. S.

New York, May, 1884.

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The fifth edition was a reprint of the fourth, without any changes.