Of Creeds in General - Philip Schaff

Schaff was born in Chur, Switzerland, and educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart. His father died when he was young and he was sent to an orphanage.

Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. So much so that when the German Reformed Church, in a desire to begin producing more and better published material for the denomination published Samuel Miller's work entitled A Treatise on Mercersburg Theology: Mercersburg and Modern Theology Compared in 1866. Schaff's History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858–1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.

In 1854, Schaff visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfurt am Main and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel.

In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which opposed the "continental Sunday") in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862–1867 he lectured on ecclesiastical history at Andover Theological Seminary.

Schaff was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general