DISCOURSES 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 REV. WILLIAM HENRY^REEN, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL AND ORIENTAL LI MATURE 
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARS AT PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 DELIVERED AT PRINCETON, SEPTEMBER 30, 1851, 
 
 BEFORE THE DIRECTORS OF THE SEMINARY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 C. SHERMAN, PRINTER. 
 
 1851. 
 
DISCOURSES 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, 
 
 AS PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL AND ORIENTAL LITERATURE IN THE 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 DELIVERED AT PRINCETON, SEPTEMBER 30, 1851, 
 
 BEFORE THE DIRECTORS OF THE SEMINARY. 
 
 THE CHARGE; 
 
 BY THE REV. SAMUEL BEACH JONES, D.D., OF BRIDGETON, N. J. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 C. SHERMAN, PRINTER. 
 
 1851. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/datinauOOgree 
 
A CHARGE 
 TO THE PROFESSOR. 
 
 REV. SAMUEL BEACH JONES, D.D., 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN BRIDGETON, N. J. 
 
CHARGE. 
 
 It has devolved upon me, in the behalf of the 
 Directors of this Seminary, to address to you the 
 "charge" deemed appropriate to this occasion. To 
 us, not less than to yourself, the assumption of your 
 present office is a matter of solemn and sacred interest. 
 Our whole Church, indeed, regards with wise concern 
 the induction of a new incumbent into the office of 
 Professor in her oldest and most influential Theological 
 School. But our interest is something more than what 
 is common to the Church at large. With scarce an 
 exception, the clerical members of this Board sustain 
 to this institution a relationship of special interest, 
 aside from that of official supervision. Among us are 
 still found some of the fathers, through whose counsels, 
 prayers, and labours, this Seminary was planted and 
 reared into vigorous life ; while most of us have been 
 permitted to sit under its shade, and partake of its 
 invaluable fruit. Our interest in this Seminary, there- 
 fore, is the interest of parents and children ; the fond 
 
b CHARGE. 
 
 pride and anxious solicitude of parental love, or the 
 affectionate veneration of filial gratitude. 
 
 This interest, naturally inspired by past and present 
 relationships, is enhanced by the conviction that at no 
 former period of its history has our Seminary occupied 
 a position of such importance to the Church. Upon 
 the inauguration of its earliest officers, it was as yet 
 problematical whether such a school was competent 
 to realize the anticipations of its sanguine friends ; 
 whether the Church, which founded, would continue 
 to afford to it her confidence and love ; whether the 
 enterprise would meet the approval of the Head of the 
 Church ; or whether its influence upon the various 
 interests of the Church was destined to be wide-spread 
 and enduring. The history of forty years has solved 
 these questions, in a way which claims the devout 
 gratitude of our Church. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive in what way the King of 
 Zion could have attested his complacent regard for 
 this institution more unequivocally than He has done. 
 The character of those who here have exercised office, 
 the rare longevity to which the services of its original 
 teachers have been protracted, the remarkable har- 
 mony of sentiment and feeling, and the concert of 
 action, which have marked the labours of all its 
 instructors, the happy union of learning with sober 
 wisdom and a sound faith, and, above all, the spirit of 
 evangelic piety which has reigned here, evince, with 
 
CHARGE. t 
 
 delightful clearness, the love of Christ for this institu- 
 tion and for the Church which dedicated it to his 
 glory. 
 
 Scarcely less evident is the place which this Semi- 
 nary holds in the affections of the Church. The con- 
 viction that this school has fulfilled the high ends for 
 which it was founded, has never been better esta- 
 blished, nor more pervading, than at this hour. 
 Never was the Church more sensible of the services it 
 has rendered her; and never has she reposed more 
 confidence in those to whom she has entrusted its 
 management. Although similar schools have been 
 reared within her pale, the supposition that other 
 seminaries were flourishing at the expense of that at 
 Princeton, or that in any way its power for good was 
 impaired, would excite painful solicitude throughout 
 all her borders. 
 
 To this assurance of the place which our Seminary 
 holds in the favour of Christ, and of that branch of 
 the Church to which it specially belongs, is added our 
 knowledge of the prominence which it has assumed 
 before the Church at large. Far beyond the limits of 
 our own denomination and our own country, Princeton 
 Semhiary has secured an enviable reputation. The 
 adherents of a sound and complete Scriptural creed 
 look with hope and confidence to this school, as the 
 faithful and accomplished teacher of the doctrines of 
 grace ; while the numerous enemies of the truth have 
 
8 CHARGE. 
 
 learned to dread it, as their most formidable adver- 
 sary. 
 
 These feelings towards our Seminary, and these 
 convictions of its importance to the highest interests 
 of Christ's cause, render the services of to-day much 
 more than a mere ceremonial. 
 
 In charging you to " take heed to thyself and to 
 thy doctrine," we feel that none but the Divine Head 
 of the Church can estimate the consequences which 
 must ensue upon the accession of a new member to 
 the corps of instructors in this school, and that member 
 called to fill a department of increasing interest and 
 importance to the Church. That you have felt the 
 responsibilit} T of becoming a teacher to the future 
 teachers of the Church, and especially of teacher in 
 this school of teachers; that, in contemplating the 
 magnitude of your work, you have considered its 
 manifold difficulties as well as its pleasures, — we doubt 
 not. In the admonitions, cautions, and exhortations 
 addressed to you, we by no means imply that now, 
 for the first time, your thoughts will have been directed 
 to these considerations. It is possible that you may 
 anxiously have revolved every topic which I shall 
 present Yet we trust that the occasion will serve to 
 invest with increased weight and interest what may 
 lack the advantage of originality. 
 
 The counsels I now offer to you are suggested by a 
 view of yov/r <>iji<-< oonricU red in itself; in ito relation to 
 
CHARGE. ' 9 
 
 the present age; and in its bearings upon the interests of 
 this Seminary, and of the Church to v:hich it specially 
 belongs. 
 
 It cannot be too urgently pressed upon your con- 
 sideration, that the Church is what her authorized 
 teachers are ; and her teachers are, chiefly, what their 
 theological training makes them. Had the teachers 
 of the Alexandrian school adhered to the simplicity 
 and purity of the Gospel, instead of forcing an incon- 
 gruous alliance between divine truth and Pagan 
 sophistries, the early Church would have been spared 
 many of its distractions and corruptions. How limited 
 would be the range of Socinian nationalism and 
 Popish infatuation, if the theological schools of Geneva, 
 Germany, Holland, and England, were under the 
 tuition of men like Calvin, and Turrettine, and Luther, 
 and Lampe, and Owen ! 
 
 The power and value of a sound training have been 
 signally exemplified in the recent history of our own 
 Church. Had other doctrines and another spirit than 
 those which have prevailed in this Seminary, been 
 permitted to mould our ministry for the last forty 
 years, under what auspices would our Church now be 
 placed ? and where would be, or what would be, those 
 institutions by which she is now prosecuting her divine 
 work with so much success ? To what single agency, 
 so much as to the wholesome influence exerted here, 
 does the Presbyterian Church owe her present condi- 
 
10 CHARGE. 
 
 tion? — her soundness in doctrine, her harmony of 
 sentiment, her compactness of organization, and her 
 efficient machinery for accomplishing her appropriate 
 work? On all the great questions of doctrine and 
 polity which have agitated the Church itself, and upon 
 those exciting topics which have convulsed the country 
 and rent in twain more than one branch of the Church, 
 the pupils of this school have proved the potency of 
 the conservative influence here exerted over their 
 minds. Without overlooking other influences, or dis- 
 paraging other instruments, we cannot but feel that 
 this Seminary has done for the Church what our 
 national Military Academy has done for our country ; 
 it has trained the men whose services were most 
 effective in securing victory and peace. 
 
 What, in these respects, has been, will be. If the 
 principles you inculcate be those of truth and sober- 
 ness, — if your spirit be the spirit of evangelical 
 " power, and love, and a sound mind," — your scholars 
 will imbibe and diffuse them through the Church. If, 
 on the contrary, your instructions or your spirit be 
 alien from those which have hitherto held the ascen- 
 dency in our Seminary, the Church cannot but catch 
 the infection. 
 
 You are aware how prevalent is the sentiment that 
 scholastic occupations, such as yours will be, tend to 
 (jiiench the fervour of piety, and to leave a teachers 
 mind cold, dry, and spiritless. Too many examples 
 
CHARGE. 11 
 
 seem to give countenance to this opinion ; and one in 
 your situation, so much of whose labour must neces- 
 sarily be intellectual, and — what is more — intellectual 
 conflict with pestilent error, has need to keep his 
 heart with anxious diligence. There is danger, preat 
 danger, that the heart lose its unction, while the head 
 is taxed with such toil. There is danger that the 
 theoretical engross the place which belongs of right to 
 the practical ; and thus that, by an undue devotion to 
 one duty, the health of the soul become impaired, and 
 its powers fail of their symmetrical development. 
 There is danger that a Professor, in exposing and 
 refuting the errors of books, overlook the more preva- 
 lent and practical errors which his pupils will be called 
 to encounter. But there is no necessary inconsistency 
 between the most diligent professional studies and the 
 culture of a warm, genial, and profound piety. Where 
 shall we look for more of a devout, spiritual, heavenly 
 mind, than in the writings of Calvin, Witsius, and 
 Leighton, and in those very writings, too, which con- 
 stituted a part of their theological instructions ? 
 
 You may, then, even while serving the Church by 
 your intellectual labours, aid in the promotion of a 
 higher piety ; and you will do this by the habitual 
 exhibition of a devout spirit to your pupils. It is not 
 enough that you fulfil your vows of ordination and 
 inauguration by inculcating an orthodox creed ; that 
 creed must be the utterance of a faith which standeth 
 
12 CHARGE. 
 
 " not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God ;" 
 a faith wrought in you, not by the convincing logic of 
 reason alone, but by the powerful demonstration of 
 the Holy Ghost. We might point to melancholy 
 chapters in the Church's history, which prove the in- 
 sufficiency of a frigid orthodoxy to mould aright the 
 ministers of truth. We might point to examples, 
 where a sound creed has been inculcated by the lips, 
 but where levity and irreverence of spirit, or an over- 
 weening self-esteem and a haughty contempt for others, 
 on the part of teachers, has been followed by sad defec- 
 tions from purity of faith and life, on that of the 
 pupils, and where such defections have been the pal- 
 pable fruits of vicious examples. We could also refer 
 you to instances in which the aid mas of the teacher 
 has done well-nigh as much to secure a cordial adoption 
 of his doctrines, as the formal reasonings by which 
 they were sustained. If the spirit you breathe be in 
 harmony witli your doctrines, those doctrines, to the 
 minds of your students, will be endowed with vitality ; 
 and they will grow wherever they are scattered through 
 the Church. If your faith in the divinity of the book 
 which you are called to interpret be a sincere, fervent, 
 and profound faith; if your students discover that you 
 unfold and illustrate its meaning, not as a mere 
 amateur; that you exhibit an orthodox exegesis, not 
 to comply with professional engagements, but from 
 deep-rooted, experimental conviction of its truth and 
 
CHARGE. 13 
 
 preciousness, — nothing can destroy the power of your 
 example; it will be felt even by sceptical minds, 
 when ingenuity has exhausted all its cavils and 
 sophistries. 
 
 The department to which you have been called by 
 the voice of the Church, derives a special interest from 
 several circumstances, which deserve to be noticed as 
 " signs of the times." 
 
 It is not necessary to prove, that the disposition to 
 draw Christian doctrine from its original fountains, 
 rather than to receive it through the channels of theo- 
 logical systems, has very decidedly increased among 
 ministers and candidates for the ministry in our Church 
 and country. Methodized views of divine truth seem 
 to have lost much of the authority which they once 
 exerted. The restive spirit of the age is impatient 
 under any authority, or system ; and especially under 
 systems of hoary antiquity. The ablest systems of 
 divinity, moreover, are in obstinate antagonism to 
 current theological predilections. To those, too, who 
 wish to appear independent investigators of Christian 
 doctrine, the study of the Scriptures in their original 
 tongues is a captivating thought : it has the air of 
 greater freedom from bias to all human authority ; it 
 looks like real independence. These and other rea- 
 sons have, doubtless, contributed to weaken even the 
 lawful influence of systematic theology, and to encou- 
 rage greater attention to studies strictly biblical. 
 
14 CHARGE. 
 
 A more obvious cause may be found, in the extent 
 to which the critical and philological labours of the 
 ripest modern scholars have become available to stu- 
 dents. The apparatus for the advantageous study of 
 biblical criticism and exegesis is now accessible, and is 
 now employed by multitudes, who, fifty years since, 
 would scarcely have understood its design and use. 
 It is not necessary, in this place, to maintain the 
 value and necessity of an acquaintance with systema- 
 tic theology. We do not need to be assured of its 
 service in disciplining the mind ; in imparting clear, 
 discriminating, and enlarged views of revelation, and 
 in training vigilant, quicksighted, and expert defenders 
 of the truth. Still, it is ground for rejoicing, that the 
 teachers of God's Word are qualifying themselves to 
 draw their religious knowledge from the inspired 
 Word, rather than from human compilations of its 
 truths. We, at least, have no reason to dread the 
 most rigorous application of sound Hermeneutics to 
 the Sacred Volume. Kecent occurrences in this insti- 
 tution have assured even the timid, that consummate 
 scholarship, when united with those moral pre-requi- 
 sites which are essential to the understanding of the 
 Bible, so far from invalidating, greatly confirms the 
 authority of those doctrines maintained by our Church. 
 We have seen that, to the most accomplished scholars, 
 who consult it with a becoming spirit, the Bible yields 
 ilr ame response, as l<» the most unlettered student; 
 
CHARGE. 15 
 
 except that it enounces, with greater distinctness, the 
 truths which, in every age, have nourished humble 
 piety. 
 
 But cheering as is the prospect of an increased at- 
 tention to strictly biblical studies, there is one phe- 
 nomenon which demands the notice of the Church, 
 and especially of those who are set to defend the 
 canonical authority and inspiration of the Sacred 
 Volume, and to evolve its meaning by their interpre- 
 tations. It is the unseemly and alarming fact, that, 
 to a very large extent, the critical appliances of the 
 scholar have been constructed by notorious enemies 
 of the Gospel of God. 
 
 It is not, indeed, a new thing for intelligent theolo- 
 gians to study the writings of infidels and heretics. 
 They have always done so; but they have studied 
 them as infidel and heretical. They have read them 
 for purposes of information or refutation ; and, there- 
 fore, with all the caution and circumspection which a 
 knowledge of their mischievous character and design 
 would naturally inspire. But, in our day, it is cus- 
 tomary to consult such writers, as authorities and 
 helps to the understanding of the mind of the Spirit ! 
 
 How monstrous would it have seemed to our 
 fathers, for a student of theology to sit down to the 
 study of Introduction, with the assistance of Voltaire ; 
 or of Prophecy, with the help of Anthony Collins; or 
 of the Mosaic Economy, with the aid of Chubb; or 
 
10 CHARGE. 
 
 the Mysteries of the Christian system, with that of 
 Toland and Tindal; or Miracles, with the aid of 
 Blount, Woolston, or Hume. Yet, to an extent, this 
 is virtually done, by those who employ the Introduc- 
 tions, Hermeneutical Treatises, Lexicons, and Com- 
 mentaries of many of the most popular and eminent 
 German scholars. The Rationalism of Germany is 
 pronounced by German divines themselves, the growth 
 of the English Deism of the seventeenth century. 
 The seed, which in England fell on stony or thorny 
 ground, found in the "dead orthodoxy" of Germany 
 a congenial soil ; and brought forth fruit an hundred- 
 fold. That fruit is now set before us in much of the 
 apparatus furnished to students, as an aid to the 
 knowledge of God's inspired word. 
 
 This fruit has already produced "seed after its 
 kind," both in our own land, and in the land of our 
 fathers. Even where a sounder faith has revolted at 
 its more flagrant enormities, we can often see that 
 error has left its taint. We see it in the deference 
 paid to learned errorists, even in matters respecting 
 which they have no claim to deference. We see it in 
 that sort of apologetic tone, in which certain great 
 truths are still professed. We see it in laboured 
 efforts to prove as true, what should be assumed as 
 such ; because it finds a better witness in an unsophis- 
 ticated Christian conscience than in any mere reason- 
 in- whatsoever. We hear only a faint and hall- 
 
CHARGE. 17 
 
 hearted protest against godless temerity, from some 
 who are bound to speak out in tones of reprobation 
 loud, deep, and unequivocal. We see it in the low 
 views of inspiration, inculcated in some of the high 
 places of theological instruction in our land. We 
 hear an eminent biblical teacher asserting, that "an 
 inspiration of words is quite improbable ;" and by 
 elaborate attempts aiming to convince us that we are 
 bound to assign to the words of the loftiest prophecies, 
 no other meaning than the prophets themselves as- 
 signed. 
 
 How far the theory which undertakes to distinguish 
 between an inspiration of ideas and an inspiration of 
 words may have owed its birth and consequence to 
 those distinctions, which sounder men have ventured 
 to assume when they speak of an " inspiration of 
 superintendence," and of " elevation," and of " sugges- 
 tion," it would be unseasonable now to consider. It 
 is a subject, however, which the defenders of God's 
 truth in its integrity will be compelled to consider. 
 Certain it is, that those who profess to recognise the 
 sacred writers as supernaturally inspired of God, while 
 they ignore the claims of the writings themselves to 
 such an inspiration, are standing on slippery places. 
 It is impossible for them to receive and treat Holy 
 Scripture with that devout reverence, which is pro- 
 duced by a hearty belief in the apostolic assertion : 
 " Which things also we speak, not in the words which 
 
18 CHARGE. 
 
 man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost 
 teacheth; irvsv^xriKQig nvtvuaTiKCL crvyKgivovres, explaining the 
 things of the Spirit, by the words of the Spirit." How 
 is it possible, to regard and treat as the infallible voice 
 of God those writings, which, whatever may be said 
 of the sentiments they contain, were, as to their lan- 
 guage, the work of fallible men ? Such teachers have 
 no cause for astonishment, whatever may be their 
 alarm, when their pupils venture a step in advance ; 
 and claim for the illumination which is common to all 
 true Christians, an equality with that infallible guid- 
 ance vouchsafed to prophets, apostles, and evangelists. 
 
 This last phase of opinion respecting the doctrine of 
 inspiration claims the vigilant notice of the Church, 
 and especially of her theological teachers. Not that 
 it is wholly a new form of human pride and delusion ; 
 for claims to an inward light, of equal brightness and 
 safety with the written word, have been made by 
 enthusiasts and mystics in every age. But it comes 
 to us now in imposing forms ; and it is diffused among 
 us through new and more dangerous channels. 
 
 The recent defection from among the faculty of the 
 orthodox school of Geneva has attracted special atten- 
 tion, because public sentiment in that meridian has 
 compelled a public renunciation of office. In Ger- 
 many, and among writers, too, usually esteemed evan- 
 gelical, .similar views are widely prevalent. Who can 
 view without a shudder the cool nonchalanoe with which 
 
CHARGE. 19 
 
 such an authority as Neander sits in judgment upon 
 Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John ? — pro- 
 nouncing them right here, and wrong there ; ascribing 
 this statement of fact, or that announcement of doc- 
 trine, to the mere "subjectivity" of the writer, who, 
 in his estimation, is as lawful subject of criticism and 
 correction as Luther, or Calvin, or any other pious 
 but fallible man. 
 
 The prevalence of such errors among professed 
 defenders and expounders of Holy Writ has not been 
 without its influence in producing another pheno- 
 menon which well deserves your notice. I refer to 
 the recent abandonment of the great Protestant doc- 
 trine, and the open avowal of the Romish dogma 
 respecting the authority of the Scriptures, on the part 
 of many professed Protestants. It is, indeed, natural 
 for men who cannot find in Scripture a sufficient 
 authority for their belief and practice, to deny its suf- 
 ficiency as a rule for the Church of Christ. It ought 
 not to excite surprise, when the members of a commu- 
 nion which retained so many vestiges of Popery, and 
 which has betrayed so many affinities for it, should, 
 under favourable circumstances, be disposed to con- 
 federate with it. Still less should we wonder, that 
 men whose faith has never stood "in the power of 
 God," should, under the pressure of temptation, seek 
 in the authority of the Church a firmer foundation 
 than what is afforded by their individual convictions 
 
20 CHARGE. 
 
 and reasonings. But those who have participated in 
 the Romeward movement of the Oxford Tractarians 
 assign, as a special cause of their retrogression, the 
 danger to which the very foundations of Christianity 
 are exposed from Rationalistic views of the Bible, and 
 the impossibility of deciding the points at issue but by 
 the authority of the Church. 
 
 These signs of our times clearly indicate that the 
 battle in defence of the sufficient and sole authority of 
 the Scriptures is to be fought with renewed earnest- 
 ness ; and your department covers the ground on 
 which the contest is to be decided and the victory 
 won. For various reasons, therefore, it becomes you 
 to keep a steady eye to this conflict, in your profes- 
 sional instructions. The contest, which now waxes 
 more and more rife, is not a dispute for outposts, but 
 for the possession of the citadel itself. 
 
 As a teacher in the Presbyterian Church, you should 
 be prepared to assume and maintain the high ground 
 already occupied by your Church, as to the points at 
 issue. Be admonished, by the history of the Church, 
 to refuse all concessions and compromises with the 
 enemies of God's truth. The high ground of defence, 
 when once abandoned, is not permitted by the enemy 
 to remain a neutral territory. Posts deserted through 
 a false confidence in your strength, or a spurious libe- 
 rality towards your adversaries, will soon be occupied 
 as positions whence with greater effect to assail the 
 
CHAR G E. 2 1 
 
 ark of God. In an eminent degree may the Presbyte- 
 rian Church be said to maintain the sufficient and 
 exclusive authority of the Bible, as the Christian's 
 rule of faith and life. Her doctrines, polity, and 
 usages, rest their claims on the authority of the 
 written Word alone ; and the highest degree of inspi- 
 ration, the inspiration of the writings as well as of the 
 writers, — if there be meaning in such a distinction, — 
 is everywhere in her standards assumed as an incon- 
 trovertible fact. The position and reputation of this 
 Seminary demand the maintenance of the Church's 
 faith on this subject. You and your colleagues are 
 justly viewed as the representatives of a church, the 
 very fulness of whose doctrinal symbols, and the sharp 
 exactness with which those doctrines are defined, tend 
 to render her conservative of the ancient faith. Lati- 
 tudinarian views and experimental vagaries in some 
 quarters excite little surprise ; but should Princeton 
 venture to follow wandering stars, the consternation 
 felt would be " as when a standard-bearer fainteth." 
 There are, doubtless, truths which the steady evolu- 
 tions of Providence may develope with greater clear- 
 ness to the Church ; and the history of our Church 
 shows how ready she is to acknowledge these develop- 
 ments, by giving to such truths greater prominence, 
 and new applications. As a church, we may be said 
 to occupy the via media between rigid immobility and 
 precipitate progress. But old truths are truths still ; 
 
22 CHARGE. 
 
 and with respect to a truth so fundamental to the life 
 of the Church as that of the sufficient and sole autho- 
 rity of God's Word, we need expect no new light ; and 
 we dare not swerve a line from the ancient landmark. 
 
 To you, in part, it belongs to teach what is the real 
 office of the Church as to the Scriptures, by exhibiting 
 her function and position with respect to the integrity, 
 canonical authority, and inspiration of the Sacred 
 Books. You have within your reach the most effec- 
 tive weapons with which to repel the assaults of tra- 
 ditionists on the one hand, and the advocates of a 
 mere nominal inspiration on the other. The subject 
 of Inspiration may properly enough be made the 
 theme of a lecture, as introductory to a course of 
 didactic theology ; but you possess the amplest means 
 of exhibiting, illustrating, and confirming this doctrine. 
 The incompetency of the Church to impart authority 
 to those very records upon which alone rests all her 
 own authority to do and to teach, may properly enough 
 be treated by your colleagues ; but to you belong the 
 fairest opportunities of convincing your pupils that the 
 Sacred Word carries within itself the highest creden- 
 tials of its divinity ; so that, without the witness 
 of the Church, it is able to substantiate its claims to 
 inspiration, and to supreme authority over the under- 
 standing and conscience. 
 
 A lecturer on theology may teach the inspiration and 
 sufficiency of Scripture, as a botanist or geologist may 
 
CHARGE. 23 
 
 teach their respective sciences by the illustrative aids 
 of a hortu8 siccus or cabinet specimens. But the ex- 
 pounder of the Bible is like the botanist who roams 
 field and forest with his pupils ; or the geologist who 
 exhibits to the eye the actual formations of the globe. 
 In every part of that volume which you will be 
 called to interpret to your pupils, you find manifest 
 and numberless proofs that He who so framed the 
 heavens as to declare the glory of His eternal power 
 and Godhead, has so framed his Word as to unfold the 
 glory of his wisdom, holiness, and grace; that if the 
 footprints of God our Creator are visible throughout 
 the world, the handiwork of God our Saviour is, with 
 equal distinctness, displayed in the volume of his 
 Word ; and that if the laws of our intellectual constitu- 
 tion compel us to own an intelligent contriver of the 
 one, the laws of our moral nature constrain us to 
 acknowledge a holy and omniscient Spirit as the 
 author of the other. Without formal and elaborate 
 disquisitions, you may incidentally furnish to your 
 students convincing illustrations of the apostolic doc- 
 trine, that the written Word is a surer testimony to 
 the soul than the voice heard on the mount of trans- 
 figuration, and much more than the voice of the 
 Church, were that voice semper, ubicunque, et ah omni- 
 bus idem. You may direct their notice to the manifold 
 evidences of a divine hand, as well as a divine mind, 
 in this sacred book. You may exhibit the fallacy of 
 
24 CHARGE. 
 
 all attempts to discriminate between the parts of 
 Scripture, as more or less fully inspired. You may 
 teach them to regard the words of Scripture as Christ 
 and his apostles regarded them, — even as the words of 
 the Holy Ghost. Thus will you guard them against 
 the insidious subtleties by which they are now endan- 
 gered, and convince them that those who bring their 
 philosophy to the explanation of an acknowledged 
 mystery are, after all, but "minute philosophers." 
 Let your students be well versed in these proofs of 
 the divinity of the Bible; let them be familiarized, 
 not only with the direct assertions, but with the 
 indirect and various evidences, which declare it to be 
 God's work, and not man's; and you furnish them 
 at once with the safest panoply and the most formida- 
 ble weapons against the two great heresies of the age, 
 — that which asserts the necessity of the Church's 
 authority in order to that of Scripture, and that which 
 claims for personal illumination equal authority with 
 Scripture itself. Though seemingly heterogeneous, 
 these errors are scions of a common stock ; and hence, 
 in time, they always produce the same fruit. They 
 both proceed from a moral incapacity to discern, and 
 a consequent denial of, the " self-evidencing power of 
 Holy Scripture." The one exalts the authority of 
 individual man, the other the authority of man in the 
 collective capacity of the Church ; and, in thus exalt- 
 ing man, each becomes guilty of degrading the Word 
 
CHARGE. 25 
 
 of God. It is, therefore, no mystery that each in their 
 season becomes productive of flagrant infidelity. The 
 Bible itself is the armory from which your students 
 can best equip themselves for successful warfare 
 against both. 
 
 Be careful to magnify your office, by asserting and 
 vindicating the importance of your own department. 
 
 You have a special need to do this. Observation 
 has taught you the proneness of students to underrate 
 it. You will have numerous applications for dispen- 
 sation and indulgence, from those who are approach- 
 ing the end of their curriculum. Be resolute in your 
 purpose, to refuse all requests for a release from the 
 closing course of your instructions. After all that the 
 Church has said and done, to make of her ministers 
 biblical scholars, it is worse than unwise in students 
 to intermit their efforts in your department, at the 
 very time when these studies are becoming of prac- 
 tical value. The Church has not endowed professor- 
 ships and placed her choicest men here, in order to 
 give to her sons such a smattering of Greek and He- 
 brew, as will just secure a Presbyterial licensure. By 
 the explicit declaration of the "Plan" of this Semi- 
 nary, her aim is to impart such a knowledge of the 
 original tongues, as will be available to her ministers 
 through life. Be stringent, therefore, in your requi- 
 sitions on your students, down to the close of the pre- 
 scribed course of study. 
 
26 CHARGE. 
 
 Just in proportion to the facility with which you 
 yield to the pleas of weak vision, and weak digestion, 
 will you find these infirmities multiply. Be not 
 afraid to disclose the unpalatable truth, that infirmi- 
 ties of head and heart are much more frequent mala- 
 dies among students, than infirmities of the body. If, 
 among your pupils, you find a head too weak to appre- 
 ciate the importance of ample furniture; or a heart 
 too weak to endure the toil necessary to the highest 
 future usefulness; then help these weaknesses by re- 
 quiring all such valetudinarians faithfully to follow 
 you to the very termination of your course. 
 
 But we would not recommend the exercise of your 
 lawful authority, as the principal means of securing 
 attention to your special department. Aim to con- 
 vince your students, that the man who, with right 
 motives, goes to the very fountain, rather than to the 
 streams of divine truth, puts most honour upon the 
 word of God; and, therefore, is most likely to be 
 honoured of God. Let them know that, with few 
 exceptions, the men whom God has made most exten- 
 sively and permanently useful to his Church, were 
 eminent in their times as biblical scholars; and that 
 this must be the case, even to a greater extent than it 
 lias been. Let them know, that the student who can 
 draw his theology and philosophy from the Bible, is 
 less likely than others, to be entangled in the meshes 
 of a false philosophy. Let them know, that amid the 
 
CHARGE. 27 
 
 ceaseless mutations of philosophical systems, there is 
 one system which remains unchanged; and that sys- 
 tem is the only one which the Bible recognises as true, 
 — the Philosophy of Common Sense. In demolishing 
 specious sophistries, and in reaching the souls of sin- 
 ners, they will find this philosophy a trenchant wea- 
 pon; inferior in keenness only to "the sword of the 
 Spirit." In a word, aim to inspire the conviction 
 that it is more seemly for Protestants to be expert 
 interpreters of their Kule of Faith than to be dex- 
 terous defenders of human symbols and systems ; and 
 that the deductions of a fair scriptural exegesis must, 
 to a right-feeling mind, be more conclusive than the 
 most rigid theological dialectics. You will have done 
 much towards the formation of accomplished divines, 
 when you persuade your students of the truth of the 
 maxim, "Bonus Textuarius est Bonus Theologus." 
 
 As preachers of the Word, too, your students should 
 be made to feel the importance of a competency to 
 consult that Word in its originals. The student who 
 examines every text in the language and connexion 
 in which God has given it, is conscious of standing on 
 firmer ground, and he will move with a steadier step, 
 than he who depends for his knowledge on a mere 
 version, or popular commentator. The sermons of such 
 preachers are likely to possess more of freshness, and 
 raciness, and agreeable variety, than where theological 
 knowledge is drawn from systems of divinity, however 
 
28 CHARGE. 
 
 judicious. For the sake of uniformity and harmony of 
 doctrine in a church, it is of eminent importance that 
 her ministers be conducted through the same system 
 of theology. Our Church contemplated this end in 
 the foundation of this Seminary; and her history has 
 proved the wisdom of the design. 
 
 But if digests of divinity be the only or the chief 
 sources of theological information, the sermons of 
 ministers, thus trained, will be likely to betray an un- 
 desirable sameness of features. To secure circumstan- 
 tial variety with substantial unity, in the matter of 
 preaching, our students should be as expert inter- 
 preters, as they are well-disciplined theological logi- 
 cians. 
 
 It may not be amiss in this connexion, to urge upon 
 your attention what, perhaps, is more likely to be 
 overlooked where the work of ministerial training is 
 divided among several teachers, than where the whole 
 work is entrusted to an individual. It is the obvious, 
 but sometimes forgotten fact, that the great aim of 
 each department should be, to make good preachers. 
 
 Scholarship is but a means to an end ; and, except 
 in a few cases, its value is to be measured by its availa- 
 bility to the pulpit. Our congregations are but indif- 
 ferent judges of proficiency in Greek inflections, or 
 Hebrew roots; but they esteem themselves, and they 
 will be, judges of every man's capacity to preach. 
 The kind of work, too, which is demanded in our 
 
CHARGE. 29 
 
 country, calls for special attention to the art of popu- 
 lar address. In aiming to make scholars, then, let it 
 never be forgotten that this scholarship is designed to 
 reach the multitude chiefly through the pulpit. To 
 secure excellence in the work of preaching should be 
 the aim of every theological school 5 but most of all, 
 of the schools of our own Church. 
 
 For her increase and legitimate influence, no church 
 is so dependent on her preachers, as the Presbyterian s* 
 and it is one proof of her apostolicity, that this is so. 
 She has less to captivate mankind, aside from the style 
 of her preaching, than any other Christian denomina- 
 tion. She holds forth no diluted system of doctrine, 
 by which to propitiate the carnal mind to the mortify- 
 ing truths of the Gospel. She employs no pompous 
 ritual, by which to fascinate the senses. She does not 
 consult the deep-seated propensity of man to substitute 
 ceremonies for spiritualities ; by exalting a mere sacra- 
 ment above the very truths upon which it is founded. 
 She does not venture to relieve the sinner's soul of its 
 sense of direct responsibility to God, by becoming a 
 virtual sponsor for its salvation. She has no such 
 flattering unction for the conscience, as that which is 
 found in the delightful delusion — in the Church, in 
 Christ. She knows nothing of that religious material- 
 ism by which contact with a certain line of ministry, 
 
 * T\ r e of course include under this term the different branches of 
 the great Presbyterian family. 
 
30 CHARGE. 
 
 and communication in sacraments duly solemnized, 
 assures the soul of its union with the Fountain of life. 
 With an emphasis which would be unseemly in many 
 quarters, she may say, " Christ sent me, not to baptize, 
 but to preach the Gospel." Upon her preaching, more 
 than upon all else besides, and more than any sect 
 besides, does she depend, under God, for her lawful 
 position in, and before, the world. To furnish accom- 
 plished preachers, therefore, should be the aim of every 
 teacher in our Seminary. 
 
 Before I turn to my last topic, permit me to suggest 
 to you the propriety of keeping steadily before your 
 mind a service of another kind which you may 
 render to the Church, without trenching upon your 
 principal duties in this Seminary. I refer to the pre- 
 paration of some treatise, for the use of scholars in 
 your own department. 
 
 The condition of students who desire to search the 
 Word of God with the best appliances furnished by 
 recent scholars, is very like that of Israel, when " they 
 went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man 
 his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mat- 
 tock." We are, in some measure, compelled to resort 
 to the uncircumcised, when we would sharpen our im- 
 plements of industry, or warfare ; and it is not without 
 peril that we adventure ourselves into the enemy's 
 territory. Not only arc the streams defiled, but the 
 vety fountains are tainted. The venom distilled into 
 
CHARGE. 31 
 
 introductions and commentaries may be detected even 
 in lexicons and systems of Hermeneutics. To those 
 in your station we are compelled to look for our much- 
 needed helps. Your predecessors in this department 
 have led the way, and laid the Christian world under 
 obligations, by the fruits of their labour. Like the 
 conquerors of Napoleon, they learned the art of 
 modern warfare from the enemies of truth, and then 
 vanquished them by their own tactics and weapons. 
 Like David, they have spoiled the uncircumcised of 
 their treasures, and consecrated them to the service 
 of God, in a monument which, we trust, will be more 
 enduring than the temple itself. It is no small satis- 
 faction to reflect, that while they still perform the 
 duties of the living teacher, their writings are mould- 
 ing influential minds, not only throughout their own 
 church and country, but in distant lands and in foreign 
 tongues. They have convinced the timid, that the 
 cause of truth has nothing to dread, but much to hope, 
 from consummate scholarship, wherever it is directed 
 by a devout heart and a solid judgment. May we 
 not hope, that the Church is destined to receive from 
 you, as it has from every other teacher in this school, 
 a contribution to her literature which shall do honour 
 to the name of Princeton, and lasting service to truth 
 and godliness. 
 
 I have thus far had respect, chiefly, to your labours 
 for the intellectual welfare of this Seminary, and of 
 
32 CHARGE. 
 
 the Church. There is another department of duty, to 
 overlook which, would be to lose sight of one great 
 end for which this institution was reared. 
 
 No one can inspect the original "Plan" of this 
 Seminary, without being impressed by the pre-emi- 
 nence given to the culture of piety, above mere scho- 
 lastic acquisitions. 
 
 High as was the place assigned to professional 
 knowledge, it was in the view of the Church, and by 
 the distinct avowal of its " Plan," wholly subordinate 
 to a practical obedience to Christ, in a holy, spiritual 
 life. Learning, in the estimation of those who drafted 
 our " Plan," was subsidiary to the promotion of vital 
 godliness in the Church, and throughout the world. 
 They press this upon the hearts of teachers and scho- 
 lars. They are not content with the bare assertion of 
 its importance, but suggest the means by which it 
 may be promoted. In addition to the sedulous culture 
 of piety in the closet, they recommend daily, weekly, 
 and monthly meetings for prayer and Christian con- 
 ference. They look to the intimate social life here 
 led by the students, as a precious means of fostering 
 piety, as well as of laying a foundation for valuable 
 friendships. They view the professors, not simply as 
 teachers, but as pastors ; and, through their Christian 
 intercourse, they hoped to nurture the hearts, as well 
 as to store the minds of their students. 
 
 And this Seminary has in a good measure realized 
 
CHARGE. 33 
 
 the wishes and prayers of its founders. Through the 
 grace of God, experimental piety, as well as orthodoxy, 
 have flourished here. This Seminary owes its hold on 
 the confidence of the Church, far more to its religious 
 character, than to its orthodoxy, or its learning. May 
 this ever be its highest, as it is its most honourable 
 distinction. 
 
 You possess immense advantages for promoting the 
 life of religion ; may you be enabled to improve them, 
 by diffusing the savour of godliness among all who 
 come within the sphere of your influence. Our coun- 
 try, in a special manner, requires an active, practical, 
 and executive, rather than a recluse and contemplative 
 piety ; may you be successful in nurturing it. The 
 low tone of religious feeling, even among evangelical 
 men, in the universities of Germany, has been ascribed 
 to the absence of frequent and confidential religious in- 
 tercourse between professors and their students. May 
 you, as your colleagues have done, prove yourself the 
 Christian friend and spiritual counsellor, as well as 
 the acceptable teacher of your scholars. Never forget, 
 that symbols, however sound ; forms of government, 
 however scriptural ; subscription to formulas, however 
 stringent, are inadequate safeguards against heresy, 
 when vital piety is gone. A fervid piety, nurtured 
 by the Spirit of God, is the only preservative of the 
 truth. The rapid spread of English Deism among the 
 clergy of Germany has been ascribed by Neander to 
 
34 CHARGE. 
 
 the " dead orthodoxy" which there prevailed. Has 
 not God permitted Germany to commit her speculative 
 absurdities and impieties for the benefit of his Church, 
 as he permitted France to perpetrate her practical 
 atrocities for the instruction of the nations ? France 
 cast away from her the very word of God itself, and 
 God deluged her with her own blood. Germany, 
 while it retained the letter of the word, cast contempt 
 upon that Spirit who gave it ; and God has permitted 
 a wasting deluge of impiety to sweep over the very 
 birthplace of the Reformation. May the spectacle 
 prove a beacon to our Church and our schools, warn- 
 ing us to beware of a vain confidence in the letter, 
 when the spirit of life is wanting, and pointing to the 
 doom which God has reserved for pride of intellect and 
 godless learning. 
 
 With one heart can we this day unite in the prayer, 
 that your admission to the corps of revered and be- 
 loved teachers may be to them, to their students, and 
 to the Church, a ground of grateful joy for many years 
 to come ; that your feelings, as well as your doctrines, 
 may so harmonize with theirs, as to preserve " the 
 unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace ;" that your 
 name may be associated with " whatsoever is honest, 
 and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report," 
 as is the venerable name of Samuel Miller ; and 
 when your work here shall have been accomplished, 
 may your memory and services be enshrined in the 
 
CHARGE. 35 
 
 heart of a grateful Church, as will be those of the 
 venerated men, to whom God so graciously entrusted 
 the infancy of this Seminary. 
 
 " May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
 love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, 
 be with you alway. Amen." 
 
AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 REY. WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL AND ORIENTAL LITERATURE IN THE THEOLOGICAL 
 SEMINARY AT PRINCETON. 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 The religious questions of the age seem to be con- 
 centrating more and more about one point, — the 
 authority due to the Holy Scriptures. Are they the 
 sole infallible rule of faith ? Or are they an infallible 
 rule of faith at all ? It is here precisely that there 
 must be fought the grand battle with Ritualism on the 
 one hand, and with Scepticism on the other. The 
 parties are merely skirmishing about the outposts, so 
 long as they confine their controversy to other matters. 
 It is not until they come to this, that they are joined 
 in close and mortal combat, and the result here is 
 decisive of the entire conflict. Ritualism, entrenching 
 itself in the felt necessities of human nature, and its 
 cravings for divine light and guidance, is not content 
 with that single medium by which those necessities 
 are in fact met, and that guidance is in fact furnished, 
 but has set up, in addition to the reality of an inspired 
 word, the figment of an inspired church, whose tradi- 
 tions preserved within her communion, and whose 
 decisions pronounced ex cathedra are to be received 
 
40 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 as of equal authority and value with the true sayings 
 of God. Eeacting from the absurdities and inconsis- 
 tencies which follow upon this claim for infallibility 
 for what is liable to err and often has erred, Scepticism 
 flies to the opposite extreme, of refusing to admit any 
 infallible guide at all ; and, because it has been deluded 
 by the ignis fatuus, distrusts the pole-star. 
 
 But this transition, however natural, and however 
 easily accounted for, is an irrational one. It is no 
 superstition of a past age, such as advancing know- 
 ledge should sweep away, to be held by the authority 
 of the word of God. There is a bondage in authority, 
 and that of the most degrading kind, and against it 
 every correct and every noble principle of our nature 
 rises in rebellion, when it would constrain to cleave to 
 error. It imposes on its subjects a craven fear of 
 examination, a dread to see the truth even when 
 exhibited, and an obstinate adherence, in spite of clear 
 light and convincing argument, and even the evidence 
 of the senses, to the dicta of their teachers. But there 
 is no slavery, and no unmanliness, in committing our- 
 selves to the guidance of infallible truth. It is no 
 constraint laid upon a man's faculties to require him 
 to believe simply on authority, where that authority 
 cannot mislead ; it is then itself a sufficient reason for 
 believing. The free spirit of investigation need not 
 be fettered, nor the ear closed upon any of the whis- 
 perings of truth which can be caught anywhere 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 41 
 
 around us. We are not required to walk blindfold in 
 following our guide, but rather to keep our eyes wide 
 open, that we may see how safely he conducts us, and 
 how treacherous is every other path but that in which 
 he leads. It is no part of our creed to discard facts, 
 wherever or by whomsoever brought to light, nor to 
 refuse just inferences, nor to decline the most thorough 
 searching of the conclusions which we have reached, 
 nor their examination from the most varied points of 
 observation, nor to forbid the investigation of new and 
 untrodden paths, from an anxiety lest all this should 
 prove hazardous to the symbols of our faith. With 
 our conviction of their truth is allied the confident 
 persuasion that every fresh discovery, in whatsoever 
 direction, must ultimately tend to confirm them. We 
 are, indeed, saved by the confidence we repose in them 
 from joining in the wild chase after every vagary, 
 losing our balance at every blow, or being driven 
 about by every shifting wind. We shall not at the 
 first shock throw ourselves off the firm foundation 
 tested by ages, and commit our fortunes to the un- 
 steady sea of conjecture. We feel entirely secure of 
 our standing, even when appearances seem momenta- 
 rily to lie against it. The winds may roar, and the 
 floods may dash tumultuously ; but when the tempest 
 clears away and the waves recede, it will be seen that 
 the tower of our defence still stands ; and if the sand 
 and earth which had gathered about its base are 
 
4J INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 washed away, it will only be to reveal still more dis- 
 tinctly the solid rock on which it is built, and which 
 can neither be shaken nor destroyed. If we might, in 
 the first instance, have been disposed to tremble for 
 the stability of God's truth, yet the invariable result 
 which has followed in a thousand cases before, is of 
 itself sufficient to reassure us, and to show how power- 
 less is every weapon of hostility, and how certain the 
 Bible is of being at last fully and triumphantly vindi- 
 cated. Doubts and difficulties have been started with 
 reference to the Bible, as great as any that now 
 remain or are likely ever to be raised again, and they 
 have been solved. Objections have been paraded with 
 a great show of triumph, as though the cause of the 
 Bible had now received its finishing-stroke ; but they 
 have been answered, to the confusion of their authors. 
 Investigations have been set on foot, which at the 
 outset seemed to bode only evil to the Scriptures ; yet 
 the end has always been, to add a new verification of 
 their truth. Supposed harmonies with natural truth, 
 once much relied upon in vindication of Scripture, 
 have been stricken from us ; but even this has had no 
 other result than to give us, instead of the apparent 
 and the superficial, real harmonies, lying far deeper, 
 which bring out a stronger evidence than had been 
 before suspected. 
 
 Neither in the reason of the thing, therefore, nor in 
 experience, is it either slavish or unsafe to subject our 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 43 
 
 faith to the authority of Scripture. Nor is it peculiar 
 to theological science that it obliges us to trust thus 
 implicitly to the veracity of God. This is unhesita- 
 tingly done, and is necessary to be done, in every other 
 science, in every department indeed of human life. Cer- 
 tainty of knowledge is impossible in anything without 
 it. Why is the plain testimony of the senses, or why 
 are the evident deductions of reason, rested in as un- 
 doubted, but from the conviction that the Author of 
 our nature cannot deceive us ? What confidence have 
 we in the real existence of things, or that phenomena 
 are actually as we observe them, — what confidence 
 even in those primary principles we call self-evident, — 
 which does not base itself at last upon the assumption 
 that God is true ? And who ever cherishes the fear 
 that Nature, which is his work, will speak falsely as 
 to that of which she is the depository, or that she will 
 ever contradict herself? Who indulges an apprehen- 
 sion that a truth fairly deducible from the phenomena 
 of any part of the material universe, will be shown to 
 be a falsity by phenomena derived elsewhere ? The 
 chemist commits himself implicitly to the guidance of 
 that domain of physics which is his chosen field. But 
 that does not make him bigotedly despise or denounce 
 investigations elsewhere. He does not fear the re- 
 searches of the natural philosopher, astronomer, or 
 mathematician, as though his favourite pursuit were 
 in any danger of being unsettled or overthrown by 
 
44 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 theirs. And yet either one of them may bring him in 
 facts in apparent conflict with the results of his own 
 observations. But this only compels him to re-examine 
 his grounds and modify his previous conclusions. It 
 never awakens a doubt of the reality or the truthful- 
 ness of what Nature actually teaches, whether in his 
 own department or in any other. His conviction is 
 unshaken that the phenomena which he has been 
 inspecting spoke truth, and that either what now 
 appears in other quarters to contradict them shall be 
 found at last to be perfectly consistent with the laws 
 he has inferred, if not actually sequences from them ; 
 or, if he has fallen into error, it is from imperfect 
 observation or too hasty deductions ; and a more care- 
 ful and cautious examination, aided by the fresh light 
 he has now received, will set him right. 
 
 Now we may claim in Theology the same that is 
 everywhere else freely allowed, — that the testimony 
 of God should be accepted as undoubted truth. God 
 speaking in his Word is worthy of the same implicit 
 deference as when he speaks in his works. We claim, 
 too, for this science what is accorded to all others, — 
 that it shall be suffered to base itself upon its proper 
 evidence. The Scriptures cover ground respecting 
 which we have no other means of information. God 
 has made in them no superfluous revelation. That is 
 not bestowed upon man by immediate gift from heaven 
 which his own exertions can procure for himself. The 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 45 
 
 arts of civilized life can be taught him sufficiently by 
 the necessities of his condition. Natural science lies 
 in a region which his own faculties are competent to 
 investigate. But God, and spiritual things, and the 
 divine scheme of a sinner's salvation, and the method 
 by which it may be made available to us as indivi- 
 duals, are subjects respecting which God alone can 
 inform us. Untaught by him, we must remain igno- 
 rant; and ignorance here involves perdition. The 
 Bible, therefore, must be made the basis of our reli- 
 gious knowledge, for the simple reason that in all the 
 great, leading, essential points, it is its exclusive source. 
 "We admit that there is a border line between reason 
 and revelation, and that there are points of contact 
 which are covered by both. Here we shall listen to 
 both, and expect their utterances to be consistent. 
 But we shall not discard the Word of God in favour 
 of some alleged testimony from his works. We shall 
 not for the first fancied inconsistency, in the veriest 
 trifle it may be, give up our faith in it as unreliable 
 and untrue. But while we hearken to Nature's voice 
 wherever she has any claim to be heard or has any- 
 thing to utter, we yet, throughout, base our faith ulti- 
 mately and solely upon the Scriptures. We know 
 nothing superior to them in authority, nothing co-ordi- 
 nate with them. While we yield the domain of nature 
 to the student of physical and intellectual science, the 
 word of God is to us the great storehouse of know- 
 
46 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 ledge ; our aim is simply to educe its teachings ; our 
 primary question is, What saith the Scripture ? And 
 to insist upon our discarding it, or exalting anything 
 above it in this its proper sphere, would be like 
 requiring the chemist to leave his laboratory, destroy 
 his apparatus, and discontinue his experiments, and to 
 pursue his investigations with the aid only of the 
 telescope of the astronomer. 
 
 It is the grand aim of the ministry, as the religious 
 teachers of the world, to diffuse abroad the truths of 
 the Bible ; the Bible, as the only source of saving 
 knowledge, the only guide to the favour of God, and 
 holiness and heaven ; which alone speaks of atonement 
 by the blood of the cross, and whose faithful proclama- 
 tion is accompanied by the renewing energy of the 
 Holy Ghost. It is their sacred office to expound its 
 heavenly teachings to the understanding; to give 
 them a lodgment in the heart and a hold upon the 
 conscience ; to persuade men to embrace them and be 
 saved. 
 
 The Holy Scriptures form, therefore, deservedly 
 the chief object of study in a theological course ; and 
 to promote a thorough and exact acquaintance with 
 their contents as seen from all sides, and to qualify 
 for their exposition and defence, is the aim, not of one 
 of its departments merely, but of all. Of the various 
 aspects under which we may view the Scriptures, and 
 the various methods in which their study may be pro- 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 47 
 
 fitably pursued, it is not our purpose now to speak. 
 We ask your attention but to the peculiar advantages 
 of one particular method, which may be called the 
 direct, consecutive, or exegetical study of the inspired 
 volume. By this, as distinguished from a systematic 
 or topical method, we mean that which takes up the 
 Scriptures, or any individual portion of them, in regular 
 course, developing the meaning chapter by chapter 
 and verse by verse. 
 
 The first consideration in favour of this method is, 
 that it places before us the lively oracles in the precise 
 form given to them by the inspired writers. If it 
 were from no other motive than a laudable curiosity, 
 we would wish to acquaint ourselves familiarly with 
 the precise form in which a revelation so important 
 was first communicated to the world ; and if it had no 
 advantage but this, it would still possess both interest 
 and importance as a branch of historical inquiry. If, 
 again, the form of Scripture were wholly a human 
 one, and no divine superintendence or direction had 
 been exerted over it to make it what it is, we would 
 still esteem it of importance; for we would expect 
 that the sacred penmen had presented these heavenly 
 truths in such a shape and such combinations as most 
 impressed themselves, or seemed to them best adapted 
 to promote the end of their communication. But 
 when we call to mind that Scripture was neither acci- 
 dental in its form, nor merely human, but, like the 
 
48 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 temple of old, wrought after a celestial pattern, and, 
 even in its minutest parts, accurately designed from 
 above in number, weight, and measure, this is suffi- 
 cient to teach us that there are good reasons for its 
 being as it is, rather than otherwise. If the form of 
 Scripture, no less than its substance, is from God, then, 
 however superior in intrinsic value the latter may be, 
 no one will say that the former ought to be over- 
 looked. 
 
 The contents of Scripture are not there exhibited 
 according to any systematic arrangement. Neither 
 here nor in Nature are things drawn out in regular 
 order, squared to a rule, or labelled by genera and 
 classes. Nature exhibits to us neither a botanist's 
 herbarium nor a mineralogical cabinet. But it pre- 
 sents its objects in that mingled yet artless diversity 
 which is the charm of its landscapes, and adds to the 
 impressive grandeur of its scenery. Its very seeming 
 confusion produces an exquisiteness of effect, which 
 the artificial dispositions of science could never accom- 
 plish. We want Nature just as it is, and we want 
 the Bible just as it is. There are advantages in classi- 
 fication, and method, and scientific distribution; and 
 these may be employed with profit in the study of the 
 Bible as of other things. But let not the importance 
 which really attaches to its inspired form be over- 
 looked. If the Book of God was to accomplish its end, 
 it must not only contain the truth which was needed 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 49 
 
 to be known, but it must present it in such shapes 
 and combinations as would fit it to attract, instruct, 
 and impress, and that not one class of men, nor one 
 generation of men, but the race. Who does not feel 
 how it would be stripped of its magic power over the 
 popular mind and heart, if, instead of being what it is, 
 it were a book of dry, didactic formulas, methodically 
 arranged ? if, instead of its living forms of flesh and 
 blood, it gave us only abstract generalizations ? The 
 precise adaptation of the truths of Scripture to man's 
 nature and necessities furnishes a strong argument for 
 the divinity of its origin ; and in this argument a point 
 of no small force may be supplied by the adaptation 
 visible in the very form in which these truths are 
 presented. Instead of admitting it as an argument 
 against the completeness of Scripture that there is in 
 it no appearance of systematic arrangement, and that 
 it looks so like an aggregation of parts which owed 
 their origin and their shape to occasional influences, 
 we point rather to the fact that this lack of system, 
 joined with inexhaustible fulness, and even a lavish 
 profusion, is a general feature of God's works; and 
 that, instead of detracting from the worth of the Bible, 
 it was really a necessary element in its fitness for its 
 grand design. If there is this value attaching to the 
 form of Scripture, it is no small recommendation to 
 any method of study that it preserves it intact. 
 
 It is, moreover, characteristic of the word of God 
 
50 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 not to convey its teachings after one determinate 
 method, but to be continually varying its exhibitions 
 of the same truth. To draw out its teachings into a 
 system in which each truth shall have assigned to it 
 its precise position, and stand in its definite relation to 
 each of the others, and to study it only thus, would 
 be to lose the benefit of this boundless variety. Let 
 us, in illustration of this, direct our attention to some 
 of the diversities of the inspired volume. 
 
 1. The diversity in the character of the composition. 
 There is the parable, the proverb, the psalm, the 
 various styles of poetry, prophecy, history, the epistle, 
 and we may add, the symbolic representation. The 
 same truth comes to us in every different dress to 
 adapt it to varying tastes, or to enable it to act upon 
 different minds or in different ways upon the same 
 mind. Each has its respective merit of simplicity, or 
 vividness, or pointed brevity, of quiet beauty, lofty 
 grandeur, impassioned feeling, or resistless argument. 
 Who would reduce all this to the dead level of a rigid 
 uniformity ? Who would go through its rich imagery, 
 its eloquent appeals, its truthful exhibitions of life and 
 character, extracting merely the truth which lies at 
 the bottom, and which is thus variously illustrated 
 and enforced, starching it into the uniformities of 
 didactic statement, presxsing it into the mould of a 
 system, and then hold it up as the equivalent of its 
 inspired original, and think that it has lost nothing by 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 51 
 
 the process ? Who would deal thus with even the classic 
 volumes of profane literature, substituting a digest of 
 Milton for his immortal poem, or accepting, instead 
 of the masterpieces of oratorical power, a logical sum- 
 mary of their contents ? The truth may be preserved 
 and given to us in well-balanced statements. The 
 intellectual conception of it in all its parts and har- 
 monies and relations may be aided ; but we lack the 
 glow of thought, the ardent feeling, the forceful illus- 
 tration. What didactic statement could supply the 
 place of the parable of the Prodigal Son ? Or what 
 moral drawn from the book of Job would answer 
 instead of its sublime descriptions and its touching 
 argument? What summary of abstract principles 
 embodied in the lives of holy men of Scripture would 
 make us willing to dispense with what we read of 
 Abraham, and David, and Daniel, and Paul? Or 
 what formulas of doctrine could lift us to the concep- 
 tion of a character such as that of the blessed Re- 
 deemer, or could take its place in the effect upon the 
 heart? Could any systematic presentation of the 
 truths relating to the person, character, and work of 
 Jesus equal the simple recital of what he did and 
 said? 
 
 2. The diversities of aspect under which the truth 
 is presented. When viewed in a system, each truth 
 has its definite position and its relation to other parts 
 of the system, which it preserves unchanged. But 
 
52 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 when it is taken out of this artificial structure, in 
 which for convenience in viewing it in its totality we 
 have placed it, and is regarded in other than its logi- 
 cal relations in the abstract, we find that it may be 
 presented in various lights, looked upon from different 
 sides, and set in a variety of combinations. Truth in 
 the abstract is one, but in its applications it is end- 
 lessly diversified; and it will change its hue with the 
 medium through which it is examined. The same 
 truth may be so exhibited as to alarm, to console, to 
 instruct ; it may be presented as a promise, a threat- 
 ening, a didactic statement to the understanding, a 
 solemn appeal to the heart. It may come in the 
 shape of a precept, or an example. It may be adapted 
 to the believer, or to the unbeliever, and that in the 
 various conditions or states of feeling in which either 
 may be. It appears in one light in the reproof ad- 
 ministered to the Pharisee, and in another in the re- 
 buke of his rival the Sadducee. It is brought out in 
 its different shades by conflict with the errors of 
 Judaism on the one hand, and Paganism and false 
 philosophy on the other. It is seen in the course of 
 the inspired volume in contact with the shifting cir- 
 cumstances of individuals, with changing states of 
 society, and fluctuations in opinion, through a space of 
 fifteen hundred years. Now, although it is the same 
 truth which is thus variously exhibited, and a general 
 mode of statement might be adopted which would 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 53 
 
 include under it all these particulars, yet what a dif- 
 ference would be made in its impressiveness and 
 power ! There are in the law the direct utterances of 
 the divine will; and then in the Psalms we have the 
 answering echo from the human heart. Do we feel 
 that we could dispense with either the law or the 
 Psalms, though the lessons of each are the same, only 
 exhibited in different forms? Or, because the ten 
 commands contain a summary of human duty, do they 
 render every other scriptural injunction, or prophetic 
 argument, or apostolic exhortation superfluous ? 
 
 3. The diversities arising from the characteristics of 
 individual writers. The Spirit of truth evinced infi- 
 nite wisdom in selecting as his organs men of such 
 various capacities and modes of thought, trained in 
 different ways and under different circumstances, and 
 adapted to play different parts in whatsoever they 
 were called to engage. When they were inspired, this 
 did not efface their peculiarities and reduce all to one 
 level, and make Isaiah speak or think like Daniel, 
 Ezekiel like Moses, Paul like John, a James like 
 Peter. They were still in individual peculiarities 
 what they had been before. We can trace the men 
 in their writings when they were under the guidance 
 of God's Spirit, just as plainly as though they were 
 not. Moses was designed to be the legislator of the 
 Hebrews; and he was first instructed in all the wis- 
 dom of the Egyptians. Saul of Tarsus was to preach 
 
54 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 a righteousness not of the law, and that he might 
 know thoroughly the system which he was to expose, 
 he was brought up after the straitest sect, a Pharisee, 
 and sent to sit at the feet of Gamaliel. The penmen 
 of the Bible were first trained in God's providence to 
 do a particular work in his kingdom, and they were 
 then called to do it. They were so inspired as to 
 record the truth and that only. But they exhibit it 
 in just such different ways as the pure truth unadul- 
 terated by error would present itself to men of their 
 various minds, habits, and tastes. This does not 
 detract from the perfection of Scripture, but really 
 renders the volume more complete, and adapts it 
 better to the wants of men of every class. Their 
 writings, tinged each by the peculiarities of its author, 
 complete each other, as the various prismatic colours 
 blend to form one pure white ray. They are like 
 sketches of the same landscape taken from different 
 points, the same objects in a new grouping, conveying 
 a more adequate idea when looked at together than 
 either could alone. We have, for example, four paral- 
 lel narrations of the life of Christ. Who would be con- 
 tent to have one gospel of the four and part with the 
 rest, even if it contained all the facts ? Or who would 
 take an artificial combination of the whole, a so-called 
 harmony, and substitute it to the exclusion of the four 
 in their present shape ? Each one is adapted to make 
 an impression of its own, is designed especially for a 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. o-J 
 
 particular class of readers, seizes the character of 
 Christ upon a different side. And thus the impossi- 
 bility of such a character as his being adequately con- 
 ceived by any one man, or draughted in any one 
 representation, is countervailed in a measure by allow- 
 ing it to impress itself on different men, and letting 
 them bring out each the precise impression it made 
 upon themselves. 
 
 And yet, mistaking this design of the duplicate and 
 the quadruplicate portions of Scripture, their existence 
 has been made an occasion of cavil. And when, for 
 instance, the same Psalm has been found repeated as 
 used on different occasions, the variations, instead of 
 being admitted to be original and designed, are con- 
 verted into a pretext for carping at the accuracy of 
 the text, as flagrant proofs of negligent transcription. 
 The varying accounts of Kings and Chronicles have 
 been wrested as though they were discrepancies, and 
 invalidated, instead of completing and supporting each 
 other. Minute and laborious examination has been 
 expended in searching out pretended errors and grounds 
 of complaint. But when a similar examination can- 
 didly pursued reveals as its result a separate principle 
 which guided in the choice and the rejection of mate- 
 rials for either book, and shows each to be what it is 
 and to contain what it does in order that it might be 
 a unit, and might answer that particular end for which 
 it was designed, then we see here again harmony in 
 
56 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 the midst of diversity, not only preserved, but height- 
 ened by it to completeness. The attempt has been 
 made to show from the inner constitution of the 
 gospels and their relation to each other, that they are 
 spurious and their accounts wholly fictitious, or highly 
 coloured and unreliable. True, the external evidence 
 in favour of these gospels is not so easy to be set aside 
 by the plausibilities of ingenious but baseless hypo- 
 theses. But even if that were less convincing than it 
 is, a more narrow scrutiny of those very features which 
 have been made grounds of objection, is able to de- 
 velop from them irrefragable evidence of truth and 
 genuineness. 
 
 4. The diversities arising from the gradual commu- 
 nication of divine truth. The revelation of God was, 
 after the analogy of most of his works, progressive ; 
 and that not only in its spread over the world, and in 
 the effect that it produces on the individual soul 
 which savingly embraces it, but in the fulness and 
 clearness of its announcements. It was first the blade, 
 then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. It 
 was at first the dawning light, then shone more and 
 more unto the perfect day. The people of God were, 
 as the Apostle teaches, placed under pupilage, to be 
 trained up unto the coming of Christ. The education 
 of the race in divine things was conducted upon a plan 
 similar to that observed in the education of an indivi- 
 dual from infancy to manhood. The elements were 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 57 
 
 taught before the maturer lessons. It does not fall 
 within our present purpose to discuss the reasons why 
 such a method of revelation was adopted, nor to show 
 the ends which were answered by it. It is enough 
 that He who does all things in the best method and 
 at the proper time must have had adequate reasons 
 for it. Now, if we throw all these communications of 
 the Divine will and purposes into one general mass, 
 instead of studying each separately in its order and 
 considering the time of its unfolding and the place it 
 holds in the gradual advance, we shall fail entirely to 
 perceive the scheme that was observed in the revela- 
 tion. We shall discern nothing of its wise orderings 
 and of the fitness of its arrangements, which were such 
 that nothing superfluous, nothing unseasonable, was at 
 any time brought forward, but ever that which pre- 
 cisely met the necessities of each particular period, 
 and was best adapted to pave the way for the ultimate 
 supply of the necessities of the world. We shall close 
 our eyes, too, upon much and striking evidence of the 
 divine origin of the Scriptures which is thus furnished. 
 When we see the communications of men in widely- 
 different ages not only perfectly harmonizing with each 
 other, not only marked every time by that precise 
 adaptation, of which we have just spoken, to the con- 
 dition and wants of God's people in each successive 
 period, but, in addition, making steady advances to an 
 end which, though manifestly beyond the reach of 
 
58 IXAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 human foresight, was yet as manifestly in contempla- 
 tion from the outset, then, in the very construction of 
 the Bible itself, and the relation of its several parts, 
 we have the evidence that He is its author who knows 
 the end from the beginning. We may take either the 
 doctrines or the facts of the New Testament, and then 
 turn to the pages of the Old, and we shall find reach- 
 ing far back, ages before the perfect disclosure, hints 
 of what was to come, or dim and shadowy outlines, or 
 institutions evidently prefigurative, or lines tending 
 toward it, or partial and for that reason oftentimes 
 seemingly conflicting announcements, which can all be 
 gathered up and harmonized in nothing else but that 
 which we first learn completely when the mystery of 
 God is finished and the fulness of time has come. 
 And it is impossible to escape the conviction that He 
 who gave these first obscure hints and partial intima- 
 tions, had in view from the very beginning the full 
 doctrine which should afterwards be revealed, and the 
 great facts of redemption as they should ultimately be 
 wrought out. 
 
 Besides, these elementary lessons still have their 
 value ; and they should still be consulted as they were 
 originally given. The Church has not yet outgrown 
 them, and it never will. But as the man of mature 
 years may have his conceptions cleared by resorting 
 again to the brief but well-constructed text-book of his 
 childhood, so the Church, in all after ages, may turn 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 59 
 
 back with profit to the very earliest instructions she 
 received from her heavenly Teacher. 
 
 The neglect of this advance in Scripture revelation 
 may also be attended with positive injustice to the 
 truth, if our ideas of doctrine and our proof-texts are 
 drawn indiscriminately from all parts of the sacred 
 volume, and we place side by side, as of equal value, 
 the partial with the complete, and even that which 
 was to be done away with that which has since taken 
 its place. Or it may lead to an improper dealing 
 with the word of God ; to putting a force upon its 
 expressions in order to extort from them a meaning 
 which, though true in itself, and contained in its after 
 revelations, would not be in its place there ; — such as 
 the vain attempts to find the deity of the Messiah, or 
 a full exposition of justifying faith, among the first 
 things in the Bible. This can only have the effect of 
 encouraging a perversion of Scripture from its just 
 import on the one hand, or, on the other, of weaken- 
 ing to thinking minds, instead of supporting, truths 
 which are really contained in the Bible, though, for 
 sufficient reasons, they were not unfolded in the 
 earlier stages of divine revelation. 
 
 These various diversities to which we have referred 
 (and it is needless to prolong the enumeration), have 
 their value and importance in the constitution of the 
 book of God ; and they furnish a very powerful reason 
 why, among our various methods of studying the 
 
60 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 sacred volume, we should have one which, neither 
 fusing all these into a uniform mass, nor exalting any 
 one into an unnatural prominence, shall inspect them 
 all just in that order and measure in which they lie 
 spread before us in the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 Allow me to urge again, in favour of the consecutive 
 exegetical study of the Bible, its tendency to promote 
 an unbiassed and correct interpretation. The sen- 
 timents of an author cannot of course be gathered so 
 readily or so well from disjointed sentences brought 
 together because of their real or supposed bearing on 
 the same subject, as from a careful perusal of his 
 writing, weighing each paragraph as it stands, and 
 forming a judgment from the combined impression of 
 the whole. Each sentence is modified in meaning by 
 the context in which it is found, by the position it 
 holds in the argument, by the general drift of the 
 discourse, in fine, by a hundred things which can only 
 be appreciated by him who comes regularly upon it 
 in its connexion. An entire book, too, will of course 
 be better understood by being studied thus. The 
 circumstances of its origin, the design of its compo- 
 sition, the state of opinion among those to whom it 
 was addressed, the errors, it may be, which it aimed to 
 controvert, individual peculiarities in the use of words 
 or turns of expression, can all then be taken into the 
 account, and allowed their proper weight in determin- 
 ing the meaning. 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 61 
 
 In this way, also, we can best meet the difficulties 
 and objections which have been raised respecting 
 various parts of Scripture. They are far less formi- 
 dable when we come upon them in detail ; and the very 
 fact of viewing them thus often supplies all the answer 
 they require. It is an artifice of the opposers of the 
 Bible to produce a false glare by culling these out, and 
 putting them all together, so as to create the impres- 
 sion of an appalling array. And even when they are 
 brought together for the sake of answering them, it 
 lends them a factitious importance, creates an undue 
 sense of their number and magnitude, and gives an 
 appearance of strength to many a point, which, con- 
 sidered alone, would be seen to be perfectly trivial. 
 
 It is an important advantage, likewise, that we thus 
 study the Scriptures independently and in themselves, 
 and not simply as they bear upon a given creed, which 
 we are labouring to establish. If we go through the 
 Bible simply for materials to build up a certain system, 
 however true that system may be, we are not so fa- 
 vourably circumstanced for arriving at its true mean- 
 ing, as though we had no aim beyond that of simply 
 unfolding whatever it may be discovered to teach. 
 Our investigations will be warped by the one idea 
 which we are pursuing, and we will be tempted to 
 seek dogmatic senses where none were intended. We 
 are aware that the pretence of impartiality has been 
 made the cover of great abuse, and under professions of 
 
62 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 candour and freedom from prejudice, the inspired word 
 has been divested of its real sense, and made to teach 
 everything in fact but what it does teach. We do not 
 wish our exegete to be without a settled creed, or a 
 knowledge of the analogy of faith, or to be so in love 
 with novelties of interpretation that anything being 
 embraced within the belief of past ages shall be with 
 him a positive reason for its rejection. Let the exami- 
 nation of the Scriptures be conducted on right prin- 
 ciples ; let no insidious maxims be covertly adopted. 
 Insist on rigid interpretation, and assume them to 
 mean precisely what they say, as judged of by the 
 ordinary laws of human speech. Then let their con- 
 tents be developed fairly and fully. Let them speak 
 their own language, and tremble at no results which 
 may be disclosed. If any article of faith has been 
 customarily bolstered up by a wrong interpretation of 
 any passage, have no apprehension as to the result, 
 though you let the unsound prop fall. A truly scrip- 
 tural creed need have nothing to fear from bringing 
 the inspired testimony fairly out ; for one proof-passage 
 that is lost or weakened to its cause, a hundred will 
 be summoned around it entirely new, or will be found 
 to possess unlooked-for strength and pertinence. And 
 if a creed be not truly scriptural, the sooner the rotten- 
 ness of its foundation is exposed, the better. We wish 
 nothing to remain among our tenets which the word of 
 God, honestly expounded, will not sanction. With an 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 63 
 
 increased attention paid to the direct study of the 
 Bible, we may expect that the creeds of Christendom 
 will be more closely assimilated to it, and of course to 
 each other; the importance of tenets will be more 
 exactly graduated by that assigned to them in the 
 word of truth ; false and erroneous modes of statement 
 will be discarded for the scriptural and the true. And 
 thus we may hope for a nearer approximation to that 
 unity of belief which some dream of as already brought 
 about. 
 
 It is a farther recommendation of this mode of 
 study, that by it the whole of the contents of the 
 inspired volume are most likely to be brought out, and 
 all in their due proportion. The divine sovereignty 
 cannot be left out of view, nor can human responsi- 
 bility. He who goes regularly through the Bible can- 
 not avoid finding both. If he be disposed to place 
 doctrine above practice, or to despise doctrine and 
 exalt practice, he will still find here a correction of 
 his error. That which he might have overlooked, or 
 which might find no place in his system, will yet 
 inevitably be brought before him. 
 
 The faith of the Church, and her knowledge of what 
 is given to her in the Scriptures, have never been sta- 
 tionary, and there is no reason why they should be con- 
 sidered more so now than at any former period. She 
 has received in the inspired volume an inexhaustible 
 fund of truth, and it is her province to evolve from it 
 
64 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 whatever is adapted to her wants and circumstances. 
 Every period in her history, every controversy she 
 has had to wage, has settled more definitely points of 
 her faith. She has not changed her creed, but more 
 clearly defined it. She has brought out with more 
 distinctness, and fixed with greater precision, the 
 tenets she has learned from the Bible. We do not 
 know that the multiform shades of error are exhausted 
 yet. "We do not know what points of the truth, now 
 unthought of or little regarded, may, in a new condi- 
 tion of the Church, or a new turn of the conflict she 
 is waging, be lifted into unexpected prominence. We 
 know not what pieces of celestial armour, offensive 
 and defensive, lie yet unused in this great magazine, 
 nor what future exigencies may arise which shall 
 require them. If all Scripture is profitable, we must 
 not take our stand barely upon the faith evolved from 
 it by the early fathers, nor must we make a dead 
 halt when we reach the faith of the Reformation. 
 Truth is one, but it has its changing relations to the 
 changing state of things. At one time, certain fea- 
 tures are called forth into bold relief, — at another, 
 others. The exhibition of the same system must of 
 course be varied by the wants of the age and the 
 Church. If we would fulfil our duty in this respect, 
 and neither be swung off from the true foundation, 
 nor bring in a load of human fancies and traditions, 
 we must resort perpetually to the Scriptures as the 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 65 
 
 fountain-head and well-spring of truth. We wish the 
 Scriptures searched, that all the divine store here 
 made over to us may be drawn forth and made avail- 
 able, and that none of its choice pieces of trusty armour 
 may be left to lie rusting near us, when they ought to 
 be furbished ready for use. 
 
 It is an additional reason for thorough exegetical 
 study, that the Bible is already studied thus by its 
 adversaries ; and we can in no other way qualify our- 
 selves for its successful defence. This is an age of 
 minute searching investigation. Every department 
 of knowledge has received from it a fresh impetus. 
 Thousands of eager eyes are in every direction prying 
 into the mysteries of nature, and with astonishing 
 success. History is put to the proof, and forced to 
 divulge her secrets ; and even from the hoary monu- 
 ments of Egypt and of Nineveh the rubbish of many 
 centuries has been cleared away, their pictures copied, 
 and their strange inscriptions read. It is not surprising 
 that in this general activity of mind, this craving for 
 new results, a share of attention should be directed upon 
 the Bible, possessing the attractions that it does, and 
 of such a varied kind. Philology, History, Antiqua- 
 rian Research, Beligious Symbols and Architecture, 
 Metaphysics, Morals, Philosophy, and even Physical 
 Science, have each their points of contact with it. 
 And from all these different directions, as well as from 
 that of Christian doctrine and Church questions, it has 
 
66 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 been approached and searched with microscopic care, 
 and it would be wonderful if there were no useful 
 result from all this labour. The enthusiasm for science 
 that has impelled the search, or the literary zeal ex- 
 pended, has too frequently, it is true, forgotten the 
 sacredness of the ground it was treading, and been no 
 more concerned about the results at which it should 
 arrive, and rated no higher the authority of the vo- 
 lume it held, than if Moses, Isaiah, or John, were no 
 more than Herodotus, Homer, or Plato. Sometimes 
 there has been carried into the investigation a rage 
 for novelty, which found its delight in unsettling 
 established opinions, and smiled at the greatness of 
 the ruin it could make. Sometimes there has been a 
 worse spirit still, — one of positive hostility to this holy 
 book, — which took a malignant pleasure in raising 
 doubts respecting its genuineness and its truth, or in 
 venting its spleen by sneers and misrepresentations. 
 Still, whether in pretence or in truth, whether from 
 envy and strife, or from good-will, the Bible is 
 searched; and we therein do rejoice, — yea, and will 
 rejoice. If it has not always been with a proper 
 spirit of reverential inquiry, if it has been sometimes 
 with a spirit most opposite to a love of Christian 
 truth, we are yet glad of anything which has been 
 made the occasion of directing so many acute and 
 learned observers upon the scrutiny of the sacred 
 volume, and which lias led to the development of its 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. b< 
 
 contents under so many and such widely-different 
 points of view. We are glad if devotion to science 
 and letters — we may even say that we are thankful 
 if malignity against the book of God itself, — had been 
 made in his good providence thus to contribute to our 
 increased knowledge of his blessed word. Much vain 
 display of learning there has been, and many crazy 
 theories and idle fancies ; but with all the rubbish, 
 there have been thrown up gems and lumps of pre- 
 cious metal. While we reject the worthless and the 
 false, it is our wisdom eagerly to treasure up the 
 valuable and. the true. 
 
 More is demanded of the theologian, however, than 
 simply that he should stand quietly by, and avail 
 himself of what is valuable in the labours of others. 
 To lean upon foreign researches, especially when they 
 have been conducted upon unsound principles, is 
 neither sufficient nor safe. These researches have led 
 to every variety of result. Many things have been 
 brought out, many more pretended, which seem to 
 have a doubtful or injurious bearing upon the cause 
 of religious truth. Learning must be met by learning 
 on its own chosen field. The friends of sound doc- 
 trine owe it to themselves and to the goodness of their 
 cause, that it should not be worsted through their 
 inefficiency or neglect. They must subject the Scrip- 
 tures to an independent investigation, and especially 
 upon those points where they have been impugned ; 
 
68 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 they must make strong their defences, and show how 
 on every side the faith once delivered to the saints 
 rests on a firm foundation, and is surrounded by im- 
 pregnable bulwarks. There are questions which can- 
 not be evaded, which it were unmanly to attempt to 
 evade, and which can only thus be put to rest. If 
 the genuineness of parts of Holy Writ is contested on 
 philological grounds, or if its thorough inspiration is 
 denied on internal evidence, it is well if we can rebut 
 it from other sources, by bringing satisfactory and con- 
 clusive proof of the truth that is impugned. But the 
 objection is only then completely demolished, when 
 the question in philology is itself inquired into, and 
 the alleged internal evidence is sifted, and it is shown 
 that even there the argument is not against the truth, 
 but for the truth. 
 
 As a closing consideration upon this subject, we 
 would have you look at the position which exegetical 
 study occupies with respect to other branches of minis- 
 terial training, and to the active duties of ministerial 
 labour. The chief design of theological education is, 
 as we have said before, to train up men who shall be 
 mighty in the Scriptures, able rightly to expound, 
 defend, and enforce them. We want a ministry well 
 versed in every branch of Scriptural knowledge. For 
 this, exegetical study must of course lay the ground- 
 work. It furnishes the materials from which they 
 are to draw in their systematic or topical study of the 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 69 
 
 sacred volume. After we have first gone through 
 the Bible, and ascertained the meaning of its various 
 parts, we are then prepared to reduce what we have 
 gained to one comprehensive system, or to examine it 
 under the various points of view, in which it may be 
 properly and profitably presented. Dogmatic Theology, 
 as it brings the creed of the Church to the test of the 
 Bible ; Systematic Theology, as it developes its creed 
 out of the Bible ; Historic Theology, as it traces the 
 growth of the Scripture revelation, or the subsequent 
 unfolding of its truths to the consciousness of the 
 Church ; Polemic Theology, as it deals with the various 
 errors that have arisen in conflict with the truth ; 
 Pastoral Theology, as it dwells upon the nature and 
 the active duties of the ministerial office ; — all pre- 
 suppose for their successful pursuit a sound and 
 thorough exegesis as their basis. And the recent 
 Assembly, when they embodied in the form of a reso- 
 lution the long-established practice of this institution, 
 rightly judged that every professor in the Theological 
 Seminary ought " to give instruction in some portion 
 of the Sacred Scriptures." 
 
 For the duties of the sacred desk a thorough exege- 
 tical acquaintance with Scripture is a most invaluable 
 aid. It will prepare the minister truly to teach the 
 people knowledge, instead of bringing before them 
 superficial and desultory harangues. It will make 
 his preaching biblical, both in the matter of his dis- 
 
70 INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 course, and the manner of its presentation. It will 
 enable him, instead of merely connecting some topic 
 with the language of the Scriptures, to develop what 
 they truly contain. It will open up before him a 
 boundless variety in the mode of handling, illus- 
 trating, and enforcing truth. It will furnish him, in 
 the well-studied volume of inspiration itself, a model 
 which he cannot too closely follow, in adapting the 
 truth to tell with the most effect upon the hearts and 
 consciences of his hearers. It will provide him the 
 requisite material for a mode of preaching which has 
 of late fallen greatly into abuse, but which, properly 
 managed and lifted above the merely commonplace, 
 has such obvious advantages that its revival is ear- 
 nestly to be desired, — that of continuous exposition. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Board of Directors : 
 
 You may readily imagine with what trembling I 
 assume the duties of the new position to which the 
 voice of the Church has called me from the midst of a 
 much-loved congregation, and with what diffidence I 
 find myself placed beside these fathers in age and 
 experience, and these luminaries in learning and theo- 
 logical science, who have made this Seminary what it 
 is in the eyes of the Church and of the world. No- 
 thing but a trust in your kind indulgence, and in that 
 which I have already so largely experienced from 
 these venerated instructors, at whose feet I should 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 71 
 
 esteem it a rare privilege to be still permitted to sit, 
 would ever have prevailed upon me to suffer myself 
 to be placed where I stand this day. It is my comfort 
 that there is One in whom weakness itself can be 
 made strong, and who can use the feeblest instrument 
 for spreading abroad his glory.