PHILIP SCHAF, Ph. D. Professor of Church History and Biblical Literature in the TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN W. NEVIN, D. D. Chambersburg, Pa. 36 PUBLICATION OFFICE" OF THE GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH. INTRODUCTION. The work, of which a translation is here presented to the English public, has grown out of the author's INAUGURAL ADDRESS, delivered at Reading on the 25th of October, 1844, and still retains to some extent its original form. Only a part of the Address however as previously prepared, was spoken at that time; and it has been since considerably changed and enlarged in the way of preparation for the press. It is now accordingly more like a book than a pamphlet. If this may be supposed to require any apology, it is found in the difficulty and importance of the subject, and in the anxiety of the writer to have his views with regard to it fully understood, from the first, by the Church which has called him into her service. Both the difficulties and perils of the subject indeed were felt to be greater in the progress of the work than had been anticipated at the start; and hence it became necessary that the investigation, only to do justice to itself, should be extended in the same proportion, It is trusted that the circumstances which have led to the publication, will exonerate the author, in the view of all reasonable persons, from the charge of any improper presumption, in venturing so soon before the American public with the discussion of so momentous a theme. He has himself felt sensibly the delicacy of his position in this respect; and would have been glad in the end to have kept back the work entirely, if circumstances had permitted, until he might have become more fully acquainted with the relations of the Church in this country, that so no room might have been left for the semblance of impropriety even in his making them the subject of public remark. But the case has been one, which he had no power, properly speaking, to control. His inauguration made it necessary that he should deliver an address; and he felt it to be due to the solemnity of the occasion, that he should select a theme of central interest, belonging to the life of the age, and suited to reveal his own general position with regard to the Church. The theme, as already mentioned, has controled the |