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النشر الإلكتروني

THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM,

WITH

A HISTORY AND CRITICAL NOTES.

BY

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, N. Y.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

FOURTH EDITION-REVISED AND ENLARGED.

VOLUME I.

THE HISTORY OF CREEDS.

19193

NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

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ΤΟ

HIS HONORED AND BELOVED COLLEAGUES

IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,

REV. WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D., LL.D..

REV. HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., LL.D.,

REV. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., LL.D., REV. WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D., LL.D.,

REV. GEORGE L. PRENTISS, D.D.,

REV. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D.,

THIS WORK IS

Respectfully Wedicated

BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

A 'symbolical library' that contains the creeds and confessions of all Christian denominations fills a vacuum in theological and historical literature. It is surprising that it has not been supplied long ago. Sectarian exclusiveness or doctrinal indifferentism may have prevented it. Other symbolical collections are confined to particular denominations and periods. In this work the reader will find the authentic material for the study of Comparative Theology-Symbolics, Polemics, and Irenics. In a country like ours, where people of all creeds meet in daily contact, this study ought to command more attention than it has hitherto received.

The First Volume has expanded into a doctrinal history of the Church, so far as it is embodied in public standards of faith. The most important and fully developed symbolical systems—the Vatican Romanism, the Lutheranism of the Formula of Concord, and the Calvinism of the Westminster standards- have been subjected to a critical analysis. The author has endeavored to combine the ἀληθεύειν ἐν ἀγάπῃ and the ἀγαπᾷν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, and to be mindful of the golden motto, In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. Honest and earnest controversy, conducted in a Christian and catholic spirit, promotes true and lasting union. Polemics looks to Irenics-the aim of war is peace.

The Second Volume contains the Scripture Confessions, the anteNicene Rules of Faith, the Ecumenical, the Greek, and the Latin Creeds, from the Confession of Peter down to the Vatican Decrees. It includes also the best Russian Catechism and the recent Old Catholic Union Propositions of the Bonn Conferences.

The Third Volume is devoted to the Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinistic, and the later Protestant Confessions of Faith. The documents of the Third Part (pp. 707-876) have never been collected before.

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