Excerpt from A System of Christian Doctrine, Vol. 1 The next best thing, it has been said, to writing a good book, is to translate one. Whatever be the merits of the translation, the original of this work is assuredly a good book. Its author is already favourably known to the English-speaking nations by previous translations in the Foreign Theological Library. The stupendous work upon The Person of Christ has now become in Great Britain and America, what it had been in Germany from its publication, a classic in Christology. The equally valuable History of Protestant Theology, so full of mature wisdom, keen criticism, wide sympathy, liberal thought, and evangelical power, contains one of the most philosophical and lucid statements in the English tongue of the origin and aims of Lutheranism, whilst by its history of religious thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it affords at once one of the best guides to the modem German schools, and one of the clearest and most prophetic exponents of that regeneration of Theology now in such rapid progress. Still, large as are the merits of Dr. Dorner's previous labours, the System of Christian Doctrine, to judge from the twelve hundred pages already issued, is distinctly his masterpiece, the ripe fruit of a long and thoughtful life. In Theology, as in every other branch of thought and practice, there are pioneers and colonists, inventors and collaborateurs, those who plant and those who water. Hence the history of Theology is the narrative of new impulses given, corrected, and exhausted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.