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OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY.

BY

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER HODGE, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, PRINCETON, N.J.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

In introducing this book to the reader, I have only a single word to say upon two points: first, as to the uses which I regard this form of exhibiting theological truth as being specially qualified to subserve; and, secondly, as to the sources from which I have drawn the materials composing these "Outlines."

As to the first point, I have to say, that the conception and execution of this work originated in the experience of the need for some such manual of theological definitions and argumentation, in the immediate work of instructing the members of my own pastoral charge. The several chapters were in the first instance prepared and used in the same form in which they are now printed, as the basis of a lecture delivered otherwise extemporaneously to my congregation every Sabbath night. In this use of them, I found these preparations successful beyond my hopes. The congregation, as a whole, were induced to enter with interest upon the study even of the most abstruse questions. Having put