Half-title, title page, and preface (KA 366). It appears from the preface that this printer’s proof was a design for the title page and preface for the three-volume series of biblical-theological studies that was ultimately published under the title Uit het Woord. Tweede serie [From the Word: Second series] (see 1884.09, 1885.04, and 1886.24; for the first series, see 1875.10, 1875.11, and 1879.01). Ultimately the second series would include approximately thirty articles more than the preface to Mabdîl announces; changes also appear to have been made to the classification of the articles and the series. Item 1883.06 would also be added to the series, being “nothing else than the consistent application of the ‘Mabdîl’ to the Church of Christ as well.”

Kuyper apparently had second thoughts about publishing these volumes with such an obscure title, which he would have had to explain in the preface. Therefore, the title was dropped along with the preface explaining it. In addition to a detailed table of contents for the projected three volumes, the dropped preface also provides a pithy analysis of the way in which pantheism blurs the boundaries set up by God. Kuyper thus also left out the background information about what had given rise to the first volume: “The awful danger [of pantheism] moved me more than three years ago now to bravely raise up the watchword once again that ‘grace is particular!’—a saying which caused everyone, however finely and imperceptibly afflicted they were, to detest me ever since; but which also led many in the nation to offer me thanks and sympathy. The effects of this phrase were actually so strong that the pressure continued unabatedly to put the series which elaborated this phrase within everyone’s reach.”