ADVERTISEMENT.

THE little work now offered to the public has but gradually attained its present form. Its substance first appeared as an essay in the Studien and Kritiken for 1828, since which time it has undergone many alterations, and been enlarged by various additions in the successive editions which have been called for.

In his preface to the sixth edition (1853), the author says that he was first led to publish this treatise in a separate form, from the desire of showing to others the way by which he had himself been brought to a living belief in Christianity, hoping thereby to assist his own hearers, and younger theologians in general, in attaining a firmer foundation for their faith. The work, however, finding much acceptance beyond the circle for which it was chiefly intended, and new editions being repeatedly demanded, much new matter was added to meet the requirements made by the theological movements of the period, and several sections were rewritten.

Of the present seventh edition, Dr. Ullmann remarks that he has for some years delayed responding to the call made for it, because he could neither feel satisfied to reprint it with merely unimportant corrections, nor find time for such a thorough recasting of the whole as he felt desirable. This task has now at last been accomplished. In executing it, the author says that it has been his endeavour, first, to give, in a more condensed form, such matter as he has retained from former editions, and then so to combine with this those ivnew portions—of which some have been derived from the works which have appeared during the last ten years, while others are the result of his own more thorough investigation and mature consideration of his subject—that the organic connection of the whole may be everywhere maintained. By this process about two-thirds of the sixth edition have been either rewritten or are entirely new, while the rest has received minor corrections and alterations. The present translation retains such passages of the former (by the Rev. R. C. L. Brown) as have been left unaltered by the author, and embodies his corrections and additions.

‘Amidst the various struggles which the Church has to pass through,’ says the author, ‘I am fully persuaded that, if its health and vigour are to be maintained, the silent labours of theology must not be omitted. And I am as certain—nay, I am more deeply penetrated with the truth—that as in every age, so also in our own,, the first and chief concern is to lead souls to Christ, to implant Him and His salvation in the hearts of men. If the work here offered may, in the midst of the turmoils of these times, contribute, in ever so small a degree, to accomplish this most vital duty of theology, it will not have failed in the purpose for which it has been written.’