REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. SECOND EDITION. CAMBRIDGE: Printed by J. Smith, Printer to the University. FOR J. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE: AND C. & J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. SOON after the first edition of this work issued from the Press, I received a copy of a German work on the writings of Tertullian, published at Berlin in 1825, by Dr. August Neander, under the title of "Antignosticus Geist des Tertullians, &c." As it is probable that few other copies have yet reached England, a short account of its object and contents may not be unacceptable to the reader. The learned author states in his Preface, that he is engaged in writing an Ecclesiastical History of the first three centuries, a portion of which will be occupied by an enquiry into the different forms under which the Christian Doctrine developed itself; in other words, into the different doctrinal and practical systems which arose during that period. The authors of those systems he divides into two classes, |