FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
IN publishing this, the third volume of the Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, I think I may assume that many questions excited by the History of the Doctrine which appeared four years ago will find their answer here. In order to make what is the central doctrine of Christianity intelligible as such, I have been compelled to give an almost complete outline of Systematic Theology, the remaining parts of which could easily be supplied. No one who has given any attention to Vol. II. will be surprised at the fulness of the exposition… . I need not, it seems to me, make any statement in advance regarding what has been my aim in the positive explication of the doctrine. For one thing my path and the goal it leads to were marked out for me by what I have exhibited in Vol. II. as the Biblical material of the doctrine; while for the rest I think I have already made it sufficiently clear in Vol. I. that my theology has no place in the ordinary classification of theological parties.
GÖTTINGEN, July 10, 1874.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE last remark in the Preface to the First Edition has not been understood by all who have thought fit to express an opinion on my theology. In proportion as for the past two years the question has been raised of using force against me, certain of my opponents have made it their aim to brand me with all possible heretical names, by perverting or even directly falsifying what I intended to convey. I find myself in a situation like that of the prophet Jeremiah, whose enemies said: “Come and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words” (Jer. xviii. 18). I therefore decline to allude particularly to the kind of opposition which I have experienced in the majority of cases. In the present volume, which is almost two sheets larger than before, much will be found which, if read connectedly, strengthens my point of view.
GÖTTINGEN, June 4, 1883.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
IT affords me satisfaction that after five years a new edition of this third volume of the Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation has become necessary. Yet I cannot help saying that anyone who thinks he can dispense with a knowledge of the first and second volumes of this work increases his own difficulty in understanding the third. Apart from minor improvements in style, and alterations serving to make my views clearer, which have been adopted in this new edition, fresh material has been introduced only in §§ 27, 29, 34, 44, 56, 60, 61. The controversial situation which I described five years ago still lasts on; my opponents, indeed, have quite recently extended the scope of their exertions, and in part have taken to a harsh and common tone of writing, which redounds not to my discredit, but to their own. At the same time I perceive that in a surreptitious and fragmentary way individual principles of mine which have been vehemently assailed are being admitted even by my opponents. Lastly, from the growing sale of my writings I may draw the conclusion that the number of those is increasing who are not to be intimidated from learning from me directly, by the methods which have been employed to falsify and cast suspicion upon my theological views.
GÖTTINGEN, August 24, 1888.