PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
IT is with gratitude to God that I send forth this book for the fifth time; and now, as the first part of an apology for Christianity. For I hope, during the course of this year, to be able to carry out my long cherished resolution of adding to these Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of Christianity, a second series, which will treat of the Saving Truths, properly so called, which are grouped around sin and grace.
I have again reviewed, improved, and supplied deficiencies in the whole work, and especially in the Notes. The literature of the subject is too copious for me to attempt to furnish a complete statement of it. I mention only the meritorious and valuable apologetic periodical, Beweis des Glaubens, which appears at Gütersloh, the powerful and original testimony of Stutz Die Thatsachen des Glaubens, Zurich 1865, which is the more valuable as the production of a man of science, and above all, the lectures, rich both in matter and talent, of G. v. Zeschwitz, 1866.
May these Lectures continue to decide inquirers, to guide wanderers, and to strengthen believers!