SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY:

a complete body of

Wesleyan Arminian Divinity

consisting of

Lectures on the Twenty-five Articles of Religion

by the late

REV. THOS. O. SUMMERS, D.D., LL.D.,

professor of systematic theology in vanderbilt university

The Whole Arranged and Revised, With Introduction, Copious Notes, Explanatory and Supplemental

by the

REV. JNO. J. TIGERT, M.A., S.T.B.,

professor in vanderbilt university

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I & II

Second Thousand

NASHVILLE, TENN.:

Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South

J. D. BARBEE, AGENT

1888

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888,

By the Book Agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE

For conservatism, orthodoxy, broad theological scholarship, and, particularly, for careful, conscientious, and patient study of all the elements of the Arminian system of theology—the system which gave such complete satisfaction to his head and heart—Dr. Summers was confessedly without a superior in the ranks of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. From the separate organization of the Church until his death, he stood over Hymnbook and Discipline and theological publications, as the guardian of orthodoxy, saving the Church from the taint of many an incipient heresy. For seven consecutive years (1875–1882) the material collected in this work was read as a series of lectures before the theological students of Vanderbilt University. Throughout this period of the active discharge of the duties of his chair, Dr. Summers was at work with untiring diligence, recasting, amending, and enlarging his course of instruction. All the lectures were subjected to repeated revision, and many portions to frequent rewriting. It may well be supposed that this instructed scribe fairly got his mind expressed upon the great topics of Systematic Theology, concerning which the studies of a life-time so well qualified him to pronounce. A conviction of the permanent value of results thus wrought out, and of the pressing need for such a body of divinity in the Church, has led to the preparation of these volumes.

This work is at once a complete system of Wesleyan Arminian divinity and an exhaustive commentary on the Twenty-five Articles of Religion which embody the doctrinal views of American Methodists. It is believed to answer a twofold purpose: first, It may be presented to the theological world as a reliable, full, and, in some sense, authoritative, exposition of Evangelical Arminianism as developed within the limits of Southern Methodism; and, secondly, It may serve as a standard text and reference-book for ministers of religion and for students of divinity throughout the Connection. Every Church owes it to itself to provide the former; and no pains have been spared to adapt the publication to the latter use. To this end the matter has been carefully distributed into Books, Parts, Chapters, and Sections, to all of which it has been the aim to prefix ...