There lies before me, at this moment, the Preface with which I accompanied this work on its first appearance nine years ago. And just because I do not intend to reprint it, I dwell with pleasure on the wish expressed at its conclusion—namely, that, if possible by its own contents, but if not, then by the antagonism which its imperfections must excite, the book might contribute to an ever clearer understanding as to the meaning of our Evangelical Faith. That wish, thank God, has not remained unfulfilled; though I cannot quite make out how much of the excitement it has aroused among the theological public, or of the antagonism it has encountered, is to be set down to the truth it contains, and how much to its imperfections. This point facts will decide, as the controversy, now so vigorous, goes on its way. May this controversy keep its proper limits; and may no one suppose that acts of violence, even if perpetrated within the Church itself, are the fire which will most surely declare who has built with stubble, and who with precious stones. The issue of conflicts so alien in character can never guarantee the goodness of a cause.
My procedure in this new edition, in essentials, I have already explained elsewhere.1 None the less, many readers may possibly find the difference between the two editions, even apart from the Introduction, greater than they had expected. Yet however great it may be, no leading proposition has been omitted, and none has had its specific content modified. With all my efforts, I have not on the whole succeeded in attaining greater brevity. Success, indeed, was hardly possible, for experience has shown that explanations themselves stood much in need of explanation. Still I did the best I could, and my hope is that many points have been put, if not with greater brevity, at least with greater clearness, and that misapprehensions have been eased or avoided. This chiefly has strengthened my confidence that the time is not far off when it will no longer be necessary to write with fulness on topics many of which either are by now finally antiquated or even yet are misunderstood. When that time comes, some later thinker occupying the same standpoint will be able to write a much shorter Dogmatic. That in the future such a Dogmatic will be written, I have no doubt at all; though at the same time I must protest most emphatically against the honour recently done me in some quarters of bringing me forward as the head of a new theological school. I protest against this, because I am without either of the two requisite qualifications. In the first place, I have invented nothing, so far as I remember, except my order of topics and here or there a descriptive phrase; and similarly in my thinking I have never had any other aim than that of communicating my thoughts by way of stimulus, for each to use in his own fashion. Further, it is only in this sense—not as a mine of formulæ by the repetition of which members of a school might recognize each other—that I issue this book for the second and certainly the last time. Even if I am permitted longer life, I should prefer to attempt what would be at least brief outlines treating of other theological disciplines.
In my first edition I assumed too much when I said that my book was the first Dogmatic which had been composed with special reference to the Union of the two Protestant communions—the Lutheran and the Reformed. This honour I now gladly yield to my dear friend, Herr G. K. R. Schwarz, of Heidelberg; merely remarking that it ought to be regarded as a fundamental characteristic of the Union accomplished in these lands that there exists no necessity for any dogmatic adjustment between the two sides, still less for a new Confession; and that accordingly it was specially incumbent upon me, not only to proceed on this assumption, but also to the best of my power to give effect to it as a fixed principle, by a free and conciliatory treatment of the relevant documents.
Finally, I may observe that as the two volumes of the first edition proved so very unequal in size, I have included one part of the former second volume in the first volume of this edition; but this external change has no bearing on the inner structure of the whole work.
Berlin, April 22, 1830.
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Footnotes
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Cf. Dr. Schleiermacher’s Sendschreiben über seine Glaubenslehre an Dr. Lücke. ↩