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.

The creeds and confessions are given in the original languages from the best editions, and are accompanied by translations for the convenience of the English reader.'

While these volumes were passing through the press several learned treatises on the ancient creeds by Lumby, Swainson, Hort, Caspari, and others have appeared, though not too late to be noticed in the final revision. The literature has been brought down to the close of 1876. I trust that nothing of importance has escaped my attention.

I take pleasure in acknowledging my obligation to several distinguished divines, in America and England, for valuable information concerning the denominations to which they belong, and for several contributions, which appear under the writers' names. In a history of conflicting creeds it is wise to consult representative men as well as books, in order to secure strict accuracy and impartiality, which are the cardinal virtues of a historian.

May this repository of creeds and confessions promote a better understanding among the Churches of Christ. The divisions of Christendom bring to light the various aspects and phases of revealed truth, and will be overruled at last for a deeper and richer harmony, of which Christ is the key-note. In him and by him all problems of theology and history will be solved. The nearer believers of different creeds approach the Christological centre, the better they will understand and love each other.

P. S.

'I have used, e. g., the fac-simile of the oldest MS. of the Athanasian Creed from the 'Utrecht Psalter;' the ed. princeps of the Lutheran Concordia (formerly in the possession of Dr. Meyer, the well-known commentator); the Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum, ed. 1654; a copy of the Harmonia Confessionum, once owned by Prince Casimir of the Palatinate, who suggested it; the oldest editions of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, of the Savoy Declaration, etc.

The Rev. Drs. Jos. Angus, W. W. Andrews, Chas. A. Briggs, J. R. Brown, E. W. Gilman, G. Haven, A. A. Hodge, Alex. F. Mitchell, E. D. Morris, Chas. P. Krauth, J. R. Lumby, G. D. Matthews, H. Osgood, E. von Schweinitz, H. B. Smith, John Stoughton, E. A. Washburn, W. R. Williams. See Vol. I. pp. 609, 811, 839, 911; Vol. III. pp. 3, 738, 777, 799.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

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 Jahrbücher 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.

NEW YORK, April, 1878.

P. S.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

THIS edition differs from the second in the following particulars: 1. In the first volume several errors have been corrected (e. g., in the statistical table, p. 818), and a list of new works inserted on p. xiv. 2. In the third volume a translation of the Second Helvetic Confes sion has been added, pp. 831 sqq.

NEW YORK, December, 1880.

P. S.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

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 docu. ments, 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 confes our faith before men. By and by we shall reach, through the Creeda of Christendom, the one comprehensive, harmonious Creed of Christ.

NEW YORK, May, 1884.

P.S.

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

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

SINCE the appearance of the Creeds of Christendom, 1877, no work has been issued competing with it in scope and comprehensiveness. The valuable collection of W. W. Walker, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 1893, and W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 1911, are limited to separate Protestant bodies. The extensive collection of Karl Müller, 1903, is confined to the creeds and catechisms of the Reformed Churches. Professor W. A. Curtis of the University of Edinburgh, in his History of the Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christendom and Beyond, gives the contents of creeds and an account of their origins, not their texts. C. Fabricius, in his Corpus confessionum, etc., 1928, sqq., proposes in connexion with colaborers to furnish not only the texts of the Christian creeds, but also the texts of hymns, liturgies, books of discipline, and other documents bearing on Christian doctrine, worship, and practice. For example, 250 pages of Volume I are devoted to hymns, and 250 pages to "The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1924."

The new material of the present edition is the following:

Volume I. Additions to the literature; notices of the Church of the Disciples and the Universalist and Unitarian Churches; and changes and additions, as, for example, on the primitive creeds and the Russian Church.

Volume II. In the fourth edition Dr. Schaff, in view of the new importance given in Canon Law to papal utterances on doctrine and morals, added one of the important encyclicals of Leo XIII., who was then living. To this encyclical have been added bulls on the Church, by Boniface VIII., 1302, Anglican Orders, by Leo XIII., 1896, "Americanism" and "Modernism" by Pius X., 1907-10, and Pius XI.'s encyelical on Church Union, 1928.

Volume III. Additions giving Recent Confessional Declarations and Terms of Union between Church organizations. The material on the latter subject, so closely akin to the general topic of the book, makes it