Old Princeton Quotes

We do not...wish to see a criticism which puts all the foundations out of course introduced into our church; we dare not rejoice in the skepticism that already creeps into some minds with regard to the canonical integrity, the authenticity, and the inspiration of the Bible. But we are persuaded that if the Church consents to close her eyes upon the increasing facilities for biblical investigation which are now possessed in Germany, and to turn away from the controversies there waged, she will find herself in a field of battle without armour, or, if armed, with the mail and greaves and heavy weapons of a former age, wholly unsuited to the emergency and the new modes at attack. -- Archibald Alexander, "Survey of Modern German Works on Interpretation" (Biblical Repertory and Theological Review)

A Christian is one who knows and receives as true what Christ has revealed in his word, whose inward state (religious consciousness) is determined by that knowledge, and whose life is devoted to the obedience and service of Christ. Christianity is therefore a system of doctrine, it is an inward life, and it is a rule of action. -- Hodge, Conference Papers: Analyses of Discourse, Doctrinal and Practical

The question is not first and mainly, 'What is true to the understanding', but 'what is true to the renewed heart'? The effort is not to make the assertions of the Bible harmonize with the speculative reason, but to subject our feeble reason to the mind of God as revealed in his Word, and by his Spirit in our inner life.  The true method in theology requires that the facts of religious experience should be accepted as facts, and when duly authenticated by Scripture, be allowed to interpret the doctrinal statements of the Word of God. -- Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology

If the temple of God's truth is ever to be completely built, we must not spend our efforts in digging at the foundations which have been securely laid in the distant past, but must rather give our best efforts to rounding out the arches, carving the capitals, and fitting in the fretted roof. What if it is not ours to lay the foundations? Let us rejoice that that work has been done! Happy are we if our God will permit us to bring a single capstone into place! -- B.B. Warfield, "The Idea of Systematic Theology"

The Holy Spirit does not work a blind, an ungrounded faith in the heart. What is supplied by his creative energy in working faith is not a ready-made faith, rooted in nothing, and clinging without reason to its object; nor yet new grounds of belief in the object presented; but just a new ability of the heart to respond to the grounds, sufficient in themselves, already present to the understanding. We believe in Christ because it is rational to believe in him, not though it be irrational. -- Warfield, "Introduction to Beattie's Apologetics"

We are being told that the Reformed Faith or Calvinism is dead today or at least about to pass away. Doubtless it has not many representatives among the leaders of religious thought, nor does it court a place alongside of the wisdom of this world. But wherever humble souls catch the vision of God in His glory, and bow in adoration and humility before Him, trusting for salvation only in His grace and power, there you have the essence of the Reformed Faith. Once let this life blood of pure religion flow from the heart to nourish the anemic brain and work itself out in thought, and it will wash away many a cobweb spun by a dogmatic naturalism claiming to be modern, but in reality as old as Christianity itself. -- Caspar Wistar Hodge Jr. "The Significance of Reformed Theology Today"

The attack upon the intellect has assumed many forms, and has received an elaborate philosophical grounding. With that philosophical grounding I am not so presumptous as to attempt to deal. I am not altogether unaware of the difficulties that beset what may be called the common-sense view of truth; epistemology presents many interesting problems and some puzzling antinomies. But the antinomies of epistemology are like other antinomies which puzzle the human mind; they indicate the limitations of our intellect, but they do not prove that the intellect is not reliable so far as it goes. I for my part at least am not ready to give up the struggle; I am not ready to rest in a pragmatic skepticism; I am not ready to say that truth can never be attained. -- Machen, What is Faith?

Much mischief has been wrought in the church by false notions of ‘the witness of the Spirit’; it has sometimes been supposed that the Holy Spirit makes us independent of the Bible. Just the opposite is the case. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He does not contradict in one generation what He has said in another. He does not contradict the Scriptures that He himself has given. On the contrary, what He really does is to make the words of Scripture glow with a heavenly light and burn in the hearts of men.

Those Scriptures are placed in your hands. You may not say with the prophets of old: ‘God has spoken directly and independently to me; I appeal to no external authority; when I speak it is “Thus saith the Lord.”’ But you can do something else. You can mount your pulpit stairs; open reverently the Bible on the desk; pray to the gracious Spirit to make plain the words that He has spoken; and so unfold to needy people the Word of God.

Do you think that that is a low function? Do you think that it involves a slavish kind of dependence on a book? Do you think that it means that advance and freedom are to be checked? The history of the church should be the answer. Again and again history has shown that the Bible, when accepted in the very highest sense as the Word of God, does not stifle life but gives life birth; does not enslave men, but sets them free. Those who talk about emancipating themselves from the slavish doctrine of what they call ‘verbal’ inspiration are not really emancipating themselves from a tyranny, but they are tearing up the charter upon which all human liberty depends. -- J. Gresham Machen, God Transcendent

How infinitely superior is God's Word to all human attempts to summarize its teaching! Those attempts are necessary; we could not do without them; everyone who is really true to the Bible will engage in them. But it is the very words of the Bible that touch the heart, and everything that we--or for that matter even the greatest theologians--say in summary of the Bible must be compared ever anew with the Bible itself. -- Machen, God Transendent