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 Discourses occasioned by th 
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DISCOURSES 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE 
 
 lNAUGUp0110FBEH].B.W>tiFIELD,D.D. 
 
 TO THE CHAIR OF 
 
 New Testament Exegesis and Literature, 
 
 I N 
 
 Western' Theological Seminary, 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE EVENING OF 
 
 Tuesday, April QOth, 1880. 
 
 IN THE 
 
 JSOF^TH f*RZ:pBYTERIAJ^ PnURCH, cyM.LEQHENY, f^. 
 
 riTTSBURCrH : 
 PRiUTED BY Kevin Brothers, lir. Liherty Street 
 
 1880. 
 

<1 
 
 DISCOURSES 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE 
 
 INAlIGUpiOpFBENJ.BJjlIiFlELD.D.D. 
 
 TO THE CHAIR OF 
 
 New Testament Exegesis and Literature, 
 
 IN 
 
 Western Theological Seminary, 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE EVENING OF 
 
 Tuesday, April QOth, 1880, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 j^OF(TH pRE^BYTERI/^JM j^HURCH, ^LLEQHENY, f/<. 
 
 PITTSBURGH : 
 Printed ry Nevin Brothers, li') Liberty Street. 
 
 1880. 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES. 
 
 j^YMN. 
 
 fRAYER. 
 By Ri:V. DR. TJIOMPSOX, Thlnl Chnrrh, Pillshi(r;,li. 
 
 Statement. 
 
 Bii REV. DR. ('. a BEATTY, Pre.v>/en( of the Bonnl. 
 
 j^EADING AND SiGNTNG OF THE PLEDGE. 
 By the Professor Elect. 
 
 pHARGE. 
 By REV. DR. ELLIOT E. SWIFT, First Church, Allegheny. 
 
 _^YMN, 
 
 Inaugural Discourse. 
 
 By PROF. WARFIELD. 
 
 P 
 
 OXOLOGY. 
 
 Benediction. 
 By RBV. DR. COOPER, of the U. P. Samlnary. 
 
CHARGE 
 
 TO 
 
 Benjamin B. Wakfield, D. D. 
 
 BY 
 
 Elliot E. Swift, D. 1), 
 
 My Dew Brother : — 
 
 The scene which has just been witnessed, is one of the 
 most solemn and impressive, on which an assemblage of Christian 
 people can look. And you, with all your conscious insufficiency 
 for your great work, have been the central figure. 
 
 A very high honor has been conferred, in that you have been 
 selected, so early in life, to occupy this position. The Church, 
 through her directors of this institution, is committing to you a 
 very high and sacred trust, and you have just come under the 
 accustomed obligation to be faithful. 
 
 This assemblage of interested people, the presence of these 
 alumni, these reverently standing directors, the explicitness and 
 comprehensiveness of the pledge, the breathless stillness of the 
 moment, have added to the impressiveness of the occasion. 
 
 With your inauguration, the five professorships in this honored 
 institution, are filled with competent and trusted men. 
 
 We know of no great advantage resulting from discussions, as 
 to the relative importance of the several branches in our curricu- 
 lum. Each appears as necessary to a thorough preparation, as are 
 the several sides which constitute the figure we call a pentegon ; 
 and in these later times, we wonder how either the directors, in- 
 structors, or students, of thirty years ago, could be content with 
 but three professors. 
 
6 CHARGE TO 
 
 We all have times, however, when we are impressed with the 
 importance of some one department. It may be that of Sacred 
 Rhetoric. And we are ready to ask, what more necessary to a 
 theological student, than discipline in the composition and delivery 
 of sermons? What will all the precious fruits of three years 
 study avail, if he cannot present them acceptably and impressively 
 to the people ? 
 
 But, anon, we gravitate toward Systematic Theology as the de- 
 partment of superlative importance. For, in an age like this what 
 will the most graceful and attractive delivery avail, w'ithout well 
 arranged and profitable matter ? Vie can only compare it to the 
 elaborate frame, suspended on the wall, wdth its profusion of gilt, 
 w^orthy of some painting correspondingly elegant, and yet filled 
 with an unartistic daub, such as are manufactured by dozens, with 
 river and mountain, and castle and cloud, as unfailing elements in 
 the scene. 
 
 Your professorship, my dear Brother, is that of New Testament 
 Literature and Exegesis. 
 
 We hope that, as directors, we have some adequate sense of the 
 dignity of the office of a theological professor. And next to a 
 sense of its dignity, we desire to have adequate impressions of the 
 importance of your department. And it may not be improper to 
 state some of the grounds on which our estimate is based. 
 
 1st. The importance of your w^ork appears from the character 
 of the God, by the inspiration of whose Spirit the Scriptures have 
 been given. 
 
 As the happy inheritors of Westminster teachings, we cannot be 
 sufficiently thankful for that inimitable answer in our catechism, 
 " God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable ; in his being, 
 wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." After the 
 test of more than two hundred years, this answer is accepted by 
 increasing multitudes. How comprehensive and yet how concise ! 
 What depths of unfathomed mystery in each of its terms ! What 
 better prescription for divesting a man of his pride, and reducing 
 
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D. D. 
 
 him to the minutest point of conscious insignificance, than to bid 
 him take that answer and meditate upon its attributes consecu- 
 tively, devoting but a year to each. 
 
 God is infinite. Go one thousand million of miles beyond the 
 farthest fixed star, and he is there. He is there by no diffusion of 
 his essence. ^' The whole Godhead, in his one undivided essence, 
 is present at the same moment, in every point of infinite space. '^ 
 
 God is eternal. His existence is without beginning, succession 
 or end. His thoughts, emotions, purposes and acts do not chase 
 each other in the activities of his infinite mind. ^^ They are one 
 and inseparable, without succession ; the same forever.'' It is the 
 glory of our God that he is no wiser, nor holier, than he was a 
 million of ages before the earth was made. 
 
 Well may we exclaim : " Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
 me ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." 
 
 Now, if this God has made a revelation to men of earlier times 
 and other tongues, Avhat nobler office can be assigned to any, 
 than to become the interpreter of it? And the importance 
 of the service is greatly magnified, if there is anything in the 
 character and expression of the revelation, to show that "the things 
 which were written aforetime, were written for our learning." If 
 it were condescension in him to reveal his will, it were exhaltation 
 to us to be permitted to become the expositors of it. And though 
 we come not to it, as Daniel did, with breathless haste, at a mo- 
 ment of supreme interest, amid wild excitement and paralyzing 
 fear, the work is the same. It is to be the interpreter of what 
 God has written. 
 
 Do not the very appointments of our academies and colleges in- 
 dicate the importance of this work ? If the productions of poets 
 and orators, philosophers and historians of Greece and Rome have 
 been preserved ; if the text of each has been made the matter of 
 critical study ; if class books have been supplied with notes and 
 explanations ; if it be a proud distinction of some professors, that 
 they are perfectly familiar with every section and every verse ; is 
 
8 CHARGE TO 
 
 nothing due to the communication which the eternal God has 
 made? Shall not the noblest intellect and the richest stores of 
 learning be consecrated to the task of putting in clearest light be- 
 fore the minds of men, the things that God hath said? 
 
 2d. The importance of your work appears from the preparation 
 and discipline which it aifords for the great missionary enterprise 
 of the church. 
 
 There are few things which impress one so much with the pro- 
 gress of the gospel, as to be conducted into the depositories of one 
 of our great national Bible Societies, the British or the American, 
 and into the apartment where specimens of the two hundred and iifty 
 languages into which the Bible has been translated are arranged. 
 And it might not be without some salutary effect if a list of lan- 
 guages into which, in coming years, the Scriptures must be rendered, 
 were also provided. Thus, in a new and curious form, one might 
 have an exhibit of the work accomplished, and the work now- 
 waiting for competent and willing hands. 
 
 It is not assumed that every one who reads the Scriptures in the 
 original is prepared to be what is technically known as a transla- 
 tor, nor is it probable that every student of this Seminary will be 
 called to such a service. Still, this institution has never been 
 without a measure of the missionary spirit, and we trust it never 
 will. And it is quite certain that some who have sat and will sit 
 under your instructions, will go to heathen lands. Perhaps it will 
 be your privilege, when you have attained to fifty or sixty years, 
 as you hear of this one and that who has accomplished the mag- 
 nificent work of translating the Bible into some new tongue, to say, 
 with expanding heart, he was a boy of mine. I taught him to 
 see the force and beauty of the Greek. If he has only mastered 
 this new and unpronounceable dialect, as he did the old and 
 familiar Greek, I will guarantee the excellence of his work. Those 
 hungering, perishing tribes have gotten an equivalent for every 
 term by which the Holy Ghost has revealed his mind. And 
 who can estimate the influence of that translation as the ages roll on? 
 
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D. 1). 9 
 
 3d. The importance of your work will appear from the rela- 
 tion which it sustains to the department of Systematic Theology. 
 
 If we conceive of the system of Christian doctrine as a stately, 
 well-proportioned structure, then your share of the work in its up- 
 building is well defined. It is for you to provide the material. 
 The only source of supply is the word of God. Outside of this, 
 you dare not go. It is the quarry, in the working of which your 
 stones are to be had. It is your mountain of Lebanon, from 
 whose heights your timber is to be secured. And as the noble 
 structure rises, you will often find resting side by side the materials 
 which you have secured from different parts of the Bible. There 
 will be solidly inwrought, in close proximity, statements from its 
 prophecy and its history, from its gospels and its epistles, from the 
 Acts of the Apostles and from the Apocalypse of John. And 
 each of these statements will be giving its support to all 
 the rest. 
 
 It is sometimes objected to the teaching of theology in a syste- 
 matic form, that it is indicative of a presumptuous spirit, and 
 must be offensive to God. It is intimated that He can take no 
 pleasure in such books as our catechism and confession of faith ; 
 that if God had desired that these doctrines should be so taught, 
 He would have revealed them in systematic form. It is said that 
 He could have inserted little com })ends of doctrine in the midst of 
 the books of the Bible, making each exact and sufficient for the 
 dispensation of religion for which it was designed, the last to be 
 the most complete, exhaustive, and satisfactory of all. 
 
 But God has not given a revelation, say they, in any such 
 form. And shall men arrogate to themselves superior wisdom ? 
 Shall they undertake to improve upon God's plan? Shall not 
 such pretentious efforts be offensive to Him, especially when 
 these books are elevated to a position of superiority to His 
 word ? 
 
 The answers to this objection are numerous and overwhelming. 
 We do not elevate our books of systematic theology to the dispar- 
 
10 CHARGE TO 
 
 agement of the Word. We do not place them in positions of co- 
 ordinate importance. The Word of God stands alone, in high 
 supremacy, as our source of doctrine. Your own professorship is 
 an answer to all such mere assertion. 
 
 Might not the same objection be urged to any disturbance of 
 the original arrangement of the physical world? 
 
 The hardy pioneers, settling on these very grounds some 
 eighty years ago, found them in all their native wildness. They 
 were just as God had made them and the face of the natural 
 world, we all accept, as a revelation from Him. 
 
 Is it not presumptuous in man then, to project towns, cut down 
 trees, grade streets, rear edifices and prepare parks ? 
 
 Is it not an ostentatious improvement on God's work, when 
 men bridge the Susquehanna and tunnel the Alleghenies and bind 
 the eastern and western portions of the State by a splendid railway ? 
 
 We do not know why God made the Scriptures, to be composed ^ 
 of sixty-six different treatises, by forty different authors. But we 
 do know that you are in the line of duty, even in the judgment 
 of these superficial objectors. You are taking the doctrines di- 
 rectly from the Word. 
 
 4th. The importance of this department will appear from the 
 rich and abundant material which it affords in preaching. 
 
 We are not now thinking of material, for the frame work of a 
 discourse, by which its masses of beauty and fragrance are to bo 
 sustained. 
 
 Nor are we thinking of material for expository remark, to 
 which a place is assigned, before announcing the proposition or pur- 
 }K)se of the sermon. The discourse must be built upon the text 
 and the latter must sustain the same relation to the former, that a 
 foundation does to the superstructure. Expository remarks are 
 designed to exhibit the breadth and security of the basis. Of 
 course the doctrine or duty must be gotten from the Word. 
 
 The thought we wish to emphasize is, that the Scriptures afford 
 the most abundant material for all the details of a sermon. They 
 
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D. D. 11 
 
 afford the richest and best matter for the amplification, ilhistration 
 and enforcement of the subject. 
 
 Doubtless there may be faults in the use of illustrations. They 
 may be too numerous or too humorous. They may occupy space 
 to the exclusion of a direct and adequate statement of the truth. 
 They should be like the gas-lights in our cities. They should be nu- 
 merous enough to help the hearer in pursuing the avenues of thought, 
 in which you are trying to lead him, and they should not be like the 
 ignis-fatuus, which engages the attention and then diverts the traveler 
 from the straight way and the solid track. Nothing is more un- 
 fortunate in the handling of the illustration than to allow it to 
 engross the thought of the listener to such an extent that he for- 
 gets the truth which it was intended to impress. The effect is 
 quite as though a man should use a spike for the purpose of nail- 
 ing up a notice on the highway, and in the vigor of his effort in 
 driving his spike, never miss the hand-bill which his awkwardness 
 has torn and the winds have caught and carried away. 
 
 Some years ago we had a president in one of our most venera- 
 ble collegiate institutions whose earlier studies had largely been in 
 classic literature. Nothing could surpass the exquisite elegance 
 and taste with which, from his familiar field, he embellished an 
 address of dismission to the students of this institution. 
 
 But after all what source of illustration like the Bible itself. 
 
 How often the preacher going aback of our common ver- 
 sion, can see in the original a force and beauty, of conception, 
 which the English does not express, and, Avithout disparaging our 
 common version, he can proceed to develop, at length, a thought, 
 which no one word of our translation could fully express. 
 
 Perhaps the experience of Albert Barnes will have value in 
 corroborating our position. Some remember how much the Chris- 
 tian world was taken by surprise when he announced the process 
 by which his voluminous " Notes ^^ had been prepared. He had 
 commenced his studies early and had always laid down his pen at 
 nine o'clock in the morning ; and after he h^d iiccomplished what 
 
]2 CHARGE TO 
 
 many would regard as a good day's work, he commenced the 
 preparation of his sermons. But the point of special interest just 
 now, is his testimony, that his studies in the Scriptures, supplied 
 material so ample that this other service was reduced to a minimum 
 of labor. 
 
 One of the most interesting and attractive speakers this institu- 
 tion has ever had among its professors, was in the department 
 which you now fill. 
 
 5th. The importance of your work appears from the peculiar 
 opportunities which it affords for promoting the spiritual life of 
 candidates for the ministry. 
 
 There can be no question that this Seminary is designed as a place 
 of discipline in quick, accurate, vigorous thought. Its professors 
 aim to secure the largest amount of study from the eight months in 
 which students are with them. This is just as it should be. The 
 curriculum is exhaustive. The departments are in the hands of 
 competent men. The demands of the age are excessive. Young 
 men may be actuated by an ambitious spirit, and time is rapidly 
 passing. 
 
 But, the jaded condition of mind and body, to which students 
 may be reduced, with a maximum of study, and a minimum of ex- 
 ercise in the open air, may not be the most favorable for lively de- 
 votional feeling. And the serious question in all our seminaries 
 has, therefore, been, how shall the cultivation of the heart be 
 kept in pace with the improvement of the intellect ? How can 
 we produce a class of men, of the representative of whom, the 
 fathers and mothers in Israel will say : He is a man of devout 
 spirit and it is his piety which gives strength, beauty and effi- 
 ciency to all his intellectual stores. Without doubt, he will be 
 useful among us. 
 
 A solicitude with regard to this matter is the more necessary, 
 because students may reason thus : My duties as a Christian are 
 completely covered by the employments of my higher character as 
 a student of theology, my whole thought is given to religion. 
 
BENJAMIN B. WAEFIELD, D. D. 13 
 
 These are no secularizing studies. These are no writings of 
 heathen poets and sages. These are no works on natural or 
 mental philosophy. We are busied about religion by the month. 
 We have no time for any thing else, even if we had the taste. 
 
 All this may be admitted. And yet there have been men who 
 have passed through the Seminary. They have been licensed and 
 ordained by discriminating Presbyteries, and then have preached 
 to large congregations for twenty or thirty years, only to be cast- 
 aways. 
 
 Your department affords peculiar opportunities for promoting 
 the spiritual life of the students. If there be any power in the 
 Word, under the operation of the Spirit, you are sure as you tra- 
 verse the gospels and the epistles, to come upon most suitable and 
 suggestive passages. And your searching remarks, injected in 
 the midst of instruction will not fail of some salutary result. 
 
 I solemnly charge you, my dear Brother, ever to give promi- 
 nence to the thought, that the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
 taments are the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and 
 practice. I charge you to maintain the doctrine of the plenary 
 inspiration of the Scriptures. I charge you to be conscientiously 
 honest in your handling of the Word, endeavoring to give the 
 mind of the Spirit, nn modified by any speculations or fancies of 
 men. I charge you to maintain that sacred enthusiasm which yon 
 have already discovered in your w^ork and to infuse it, if possible, 
 into your classes. I charge you to find your chief reliance in the 
 profered help of the Holy Ghost, that great Interpreter, who takes 
 the things of Christ and shows them unto us. I charge you to be 
 unfalteringly loyal to our beloved church, venerating her stand- 
 ards and cherishing a becoming respect for all her deliverances ; 
 and, finally, I charge you to leave no opportunity unimproved, of 
 promoting among the young men, the spirit of honest and unre- 
 served consecration to the service of Christ. 
 
 We are not ignorant of your feeling, as you assume this great 
 responsibility. You are to mold the characters of those who 
 
14 CHARGE TO 
 
 shall go out, in years to come, to preach the gospel in the growing 
 cities and the unoccupied wastes of our own country ; in Asia and 
 Africa, and the islands of the ocean. Let me assure you of the 
 earnest sympathy of these directors and alumni. They feel an 
 interest in you, because your theological studies and scholarly 
 habits, have given promise of some distinction in this department > 
 because you have entered upon your work so early in life, and 
 because there flows in your veins, the blood of one of those majes- 
 tic old characters, of whose name the Presbyterian Church will 
 ever be proud. 
 
 Tliough you have had no long experience in the pastoral work, 
 it has perhaps already occurred to you, that your present position 
 is less satisfying in one regard. There is less to meet the cravings 
 of a social nature. You are without the loving sympathies of a 
 flock, ever ready to notice variations in physical condition, to make 
 financial provision for your comfort, to express their appreciation 
 of your efforts, and to do a dozen other things, which a devoted 
 and loyal people can do. 
 
 But should not the Presbyterian people of these cities and of 
 the densely settled country around, be taught to take a deeper in- 
 terest in this institution. Should they not be taught to remember 
 it in their prayers, to make provision for it in their benefactions, 
 to rejoice in the popularity of its professors, and to glory in the 
 acceptance and favor, with which its graduates are received. They 
 should be taught that this institution is a stronghold of our Zion ; 
 a stronghold to be made still stronger in the completeness of its 
 financial basis, in the intellectual vigor of its teachers, in its hold 
 on the sympathies of the people, in the commanding positions of 
 its alumni and in the increasing gracious favor of the Head of the 
 Church, in whose name it has been founded. 
 
 Let us remember the time for devising and doing, will soon be 
 over. Soon we shall have crossed the river, and have been lost to 
 mortal view. 
 
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D. D. 15 
 
 It is not yet fiftv-two years since the first inaugnration was 
 witnessed in this institution. Jacob L. Janeway was the profes- 
 sor. Elisha P. Swift preached the sermon. Matthew Brown 
 delivered the charge, and John McMillan, the pioneer in Western 
 Pennsylvania one hundred years ago, made the introductory prayer 
 and gave the people the benediction at its close. Perhaps there is 
 no one here, who was present on the evening of October 16, 1828, 
 in the First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh. Our venerable 
 President of this Board, was a member of it then. He was then 
 in the freshness and vigor of his early ministry, and he may have 
 been present. 
 
 But all other members have passed away. Yet their work 
 abides, and they are having the ecstatic visions of our exalted 
 
 Redeemer. 
 
 May the Head of the Church make us faitliful in preserving, 
 strengthening and transmitting this sacred trust. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 Prof. Benjamin B. Warfieij). 
 
 Fathers and Brothers : 
 
 It is without doubt a very wise provision by which, in institu- 
 tions such as this, an inaugural address is made a part of the cere- 
 mony of induction into the professorship. Only by the adoption 
 of some such method could it be possible for you, as the guardians 
 of this institution, responsible for the principles here inculcated, 
 to give to each newly-called teacher an opportunity to publicly de- 
 clare the sense in which he accepts your faith and signs your 
 standards. Eminently desirable at all times, this seems particu- 
 larly so now, when a certain looseness of belief (inevitable parent 
 of looseness of practice) seems to have invaded portions of the 
 Church of Christ, — not leaving even its ministry unaffected ; — 
 when there may be some reason to fear that "enlight- 
 ened clerical gentlemen may sometimes fail to look upon sub- 
 scription to creeds as our covenanting forefathers looked upon the 
 act of putting their names to theological documents, and as mer- 
 cantile gentlemen still look upon endorsement of bills."* And 
 how much more forcibly can all this be pled when he who appears 
 before you at your call, is young, untried and unknown. I wish, 
 therefore, to declare that I sign these standards not as a necessary 
 form which must be submitted to, but gladly and willingly as the 
 expression of a personal and cherished conviction ; and, further, 
 that the system taught in these symbols is the system which will 
 be drawn out of the Scriptures in the prosecution of the teaching 
 
 * Peter Bayne in The Puritan Revolution, 
 
18 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 to Avhich you have called me, — not, indeed, because commencing 
 with that system the Scriptures can be made to teach it, but be- 
 cause commencing with the Scriptures I cannot make them teach 
 anything else. 
 
 This much of personal statement I have felt it due both to you and 
 myself to make at the outset ; but having done with it, I feel 
 free to turn from all personal concerns. 
 
 In casting about for a subject on which I might address you, 
 I have thought I could not do better than to take up one of our 
 precious old doctrines, much attacked of late, and ask the simple 
 question : What seems the result of the attack ? The doctrine I 
 have chosen, is that of ^' Verbal Inspiration/' But for obvious 
 reasons I have been forced to narrow the discussion to a considera- 
 tion of the inspiration of the New Testament only; and that 
 solely as assaulted in the name of criticism. I wish to ask your 
 attention, then, to a brief attempt to supply an answer to the 
 question : 
 
 Is THE Church Doctrine of the Plenary Inspiration 
 OF the New Testament Endangered by the Assured 
 Results of Modern Biblical Criticism? 
 
 At the very out-set, that our inquiry may not be a mere beating 
 of the air, we must briefly, indeed, but clearly, state v^^hat we mean 
 by the Church Doctrine. For, unhappily, there are almost as 
 many theories of inspiration held by individuals as there are possi- 
 ble stages imaginable between the .slightest and the greatest in- 
 fluence God could exercise on man. It is with the traditional 
 doctrine of the Reformed Churches, however, that we are concerned ; 
 and that we understand to be simply this: — Inspiration is that ex- 
 traordinary, supernatural influence {or, jmssiveiy, the result of it,) 
 exerted by the Holy Ghost on the ivriters of our Sacred Books, by 
 ichich their tcords loere rendered also the ivords of God, and, there- 
 fore, jjerfectly infallible. In this definition, it is to be noted : 1st. 
 That this influence is a suDernatural one — something different from 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 19 
 
 the inspiration of the poet or man of genius. Luke's accuracy is 
 not left by it Avith only the safeguards which " the diligent and 
 accurate Suetonius " had. 2d. That it is an extraordinary in- 
 fluence — something different from the ordinary action of the Spirit 
 in the conversion and sanctifying guidance of believers. Paul 
 had some more prevalent safeguard against false-teaching than 
 Luther or even the saintly Rutherford. 3d. That it is such an 
 influence as makes the words written under its guidance, the words 
 of God ; by which is meant to be affirmed an absolute infalli- 
 bility (as alone fitted to divine words), admitting no degrees what- 
 ever — extending to the very word, and to all the words. So that 
 every part of Holy Writ is thus held alike infallibly true in all its 
 statements, of whatever kind. 
 
 Fencing around and explaining this definition, it is to be re- 
 marked further : 
 
 1st. That it purposely declares nothing as to the mode of in- 
 spiration. The Reformed Churchee admit that this is inscrutable. 
 They content themselves with defining carefully and holding fast 
 the effects of the divine influence, leaving the mode of divine 
 action by which it is brought about draped in mystery. 
 
 2d. It is purposely so framed as to distinguish it from revela- 
 tion ; — seeing that it has to do with the communication of truth 
 not its acquirement. 
 
 3d. It is by no means to be imagined that it is meant to pro- 
 claim a mechanical theory of inspiration. The Reformed Churches 
 have never held such a theory -^ though dishonest, careless, igno- 
 rant or over-eager controverters of its doctrine have often brought 
 the charge. Even those special theologians in whose teeth such an 
 accusation has been oftenest thrown (e. g., Gaussen) are explicit in 
 teaching that the human element is never absent.f The Reformed 
 
 * See Dr. C. Hodge's Systematic Theology, page 157, volume 1. 
 
 t Compare Gaussen 's Theopneusty, "New York, )842; pp. 34, 36, 44 sq et passim. In 
 these passages he explicitly declares that the human element is never absent. Yet he has 
 been constantly misunderstood : thus, Van Ooste-zee (Dog. i, p. 202), Don er (Protes-ant Theo 
 ii: 477) and even late English and American writers who, if no others, should have found it 
 impossible to ascribe a mechanical theory to a man who had abhorently repudiated it in an 
 
20 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without 
 exception, is the word of God ; but, alongside of that, they hold 
 equally explicitly that every word is the Avord of man. And, 
 therefore, though strong and uncompromising in resisting the 
 attribution to the Scriptures of any failure in absolute truth and 
 infallibility, they are before all others in seeking, and finding, and 
 gazing on in loving rapture, the marks of the fervid impetuosity 
 of a Paul — the tender saintliness of a John — the practical genius of 
 a James, in the writings which through them the Holy Ghost has given 
 for our guidance. Though strong and uncompromising in resisting 
 all effort to separate the human and divine, they distance all com- 
 petitors in giving honor alike to both by proclaiming in one breath 
 that all is divine and all is human. As Gaussen so well expresses it, 
 " We all hold that every verse, without exception, is from men, 
 and every verse, without exception, is from God ; '^ " every word 
 of the Bible is as really from man as it is from God." 
 
 4th. ^or is this a mysterious doctrine — except, indeed, in the 
 sense in w4iich everything supernatural is mysterious. We are not 
 dealing in puzzles, but in the plainest facts of spiritual experience. 
 How close, indeed, is the analogy here with all that we know of the 
 Spirit^s action in other spheres ! Just as the first act of loving faith 
 by which the regenerated soul flows out of itself to its Saviour, is 
 at once the consciously-chosen act of that soul and the direct work of 
 the Holy Ghost; so, every word indited under the analogous in- 
 fluence of inspiration was at one and the same time the consciously 
 
 English journal and In a note prefixed to the subsequent English editions of his work. (See : 
 "It is written," London : Bagster&Sons, 3d edition, pp. i-iv.) In that notice he declares that 
 he wishes "loudly to disavow " this theory, "that ht feels the greatest r^pugnatice to it," "that 
 it is gratuitously attributed t" him," " that he Las never, for a single moment, entertained the 
 idea of keeping it," &c. Yet so late a writer as President Bartlett, of Dartmouth, (Princeton 
 Review, January, 1880, p. 34,) can siill use Gaussen as an example of the mechatdcal theory. 
 Gdusstn's book ought never to have been misunderstood ; it is plain and simple. Tbe cause 
 of the constant misunderstanding, however, is doubtless to be found in the fact that his one 
 object is to give a proof of the existence of an everywhere present divine element in the 
 Scriptures, — not to give a rounded statement of the doctrine of inspiration. He has, there- 
 fore, dwelt on the divinity, and only incidentally adverted to the humanity exhibited in its 
 pages. Gaussen may serve us here as sufficient example of the statement in the text. The 
 doctrine stated in the text is the doctrine taught by all the representative theologians in our 
 own church. 
 
PROF. BEN.I. B. WARFIELD. 21 
 
 self-chosen word of the writer and the divinely-inspired word of 
 the Spirit. I cannot help thinking that it is through failure to 
 note and assimilate this fact, that the doctrine of verbal inspiration 
 is so summarily set aside and so unthinkingly inveighed against by 
 divines otherwise cautious and reverent. Once grasp this idea, and 
 how impossible is it to separate in any measure the human and 
 divine. It is all human — everv word, and all divine. The human 
 characteristics are to be noted and exhibited ; the divine perfection 
 and infallibility, no less. 
 
 This, then, is what we understand by the church doctrine : — a 
 doctrine which claims that by a special, supernatural, extraordi- 
 nary influence of the Holy Ghost, the sacred writers have been 
 guided in their writing in such a way, as while their humanity 
 was not superseded, it was yet so dominated that their words be- 
 came at the same time the words of God, and thus, in every case 
 and all alike, absolutely infallible. 
 
 I do not purpose now to undertake the proof of this doctrine. 
 I purpose rather to ask whether, assuming it to have been accepted 
 by the Church as apparently the true one, modern biblical criti- 
 cism has in any of its results reached conclusions which should 
 shake our previously won confidence in it. It is plain, however, 
 that biblical criticism could endanger such a doctrine only by un- 
 dermining it — by shaking the foundation on which it rests — in 
 other words by attacking the proof which is relied on to establish 
 it. We have, then, so far to deal with the proofs of the doctrine. 
 It is evident, now, that such a doctrine must rest primarily on the 
 claims of the sacred writers. In the very nature of the case, the 
 writers themselves are the prime witnesses of the fact and nature 
 of their inspiration. Nor does this argument run in a vicious cir- 
 cle. We do not assume inspiration in order to prove inspiration. 
 We assume only honesty and sobriety. If a sober and honest 
 writer claims to be inspi'-ed by God, then here, at least, is a phe- 
 nomenon to be accounted for. It follows, however, that besides 
 their claims, there, are also secondary bases on which the doctrine of 
 
22 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures rests, and by the shaking 
 of which it can be shaken. These are : — first, the allowance of their 
 claims by the contemporaries of the writers, — by those of their 
 contemporaries, that is, who were in a position to judge of the truth 
 of such claims. In the case of the New Testament writers this 
 means the contemporary church, who had the test of truth in its 
 hands : '^ was God visibly with the Apostles, and did he seal their 
 claims with his blessing on their work?" And, secondly, the ab- 
 sence of all contradictory phenomena in or about the writings 
 themselves. If the New Testament writers, being sober and hon- 
 est men, claim verbal inspiration, and this claim was allowed by the 
 contemporary church, and their writings in no respect in their 
 character or details negative it, then it seems idle to object to the 
 doctrine of verbal inspiration on any critical grounds. 
 
 In order, therefore, to shake this doctrine, biblical criticism 
 must show : either, that the New Testament writers do not claim 
 inspiration ; or, that this claim Vv^as rejected by the contemporary 
 church ; or, that it is palpably negatived by the fact that the books 
 containing it are forgeries ; or, equally clearly negatived by the fact 
 that they contain along with the claim errors of fact or contradic- 
 tions of statement. The important question before us to-day, 
 then, is : Has biblical criticism proved any one of these 
 positions ? 
 
 I. Note, then, in the first place, that modern biblical criticism 
 does not in any way weaken the evidence that the New Testament 
 writers claim full, even verbal, inspiration. Quite the con- 
 trary. The careful revision of the text of the New Testament 
 and the application to it of scientific principles of historico-gram- 
 matical exegesis, place this claim beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
 This is so clearly the case, that even those writers who cannot 
 bring themselves to admit the truth of the doctrines, yet not in- 
 frequently begin by admitting that the New Testament writers 
 claim such an inspiration as is in it presupposed. Take, for in- 
 stance, the twin statements of Richard Rothe: f^To wish to main- 
 
PEOF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 23 
 
 tain the inspiration of the subject-matter, without that of the 
 words, is a folly ; for everywhere are thoughts and words insepar- 
 able,'' and " It is clear that the orthodox theory of inspiration [by 
 which he means the very strictest] is countenanced by the authors 
 of the New Testament." If we approach the study of the New 
 Testament under the guidance of and in the use of the methods of 
 modern biblical science, more clearly than ever before is it seen 
 that its authors make such a claim. Not only does our Lord 
 promise a supernatural guidance to his Apostles, both at the be- 
 ginning of their ministry (Matthew x : 19, 20) and at the close of 
 his life (Mark xii : 11 ; Luke xxi : 12, cf. John xiv and xvi) but 
 the New Testament writers distinctly claim divine authority. 
 With what assurance do they sjeak — exhibiting the height of 
 delirium, if not the height of authority. The historians betray 
 no shadow of a doubt as to the exact truth of their every word, — 
 a phenomenon hard to parallel elsewhere among accurate and truth- 
 loving historians who commoi ly betray less and less assurance in 
 proportion as they exhibit more and more painstaking care. The 
 didactic writers claim an absolute authority in their teaching, and 
 betray as little shadow of doubt as to the perfectly binding charac- 
 ter of their words (2 Cor. x : 7, 8). If opposed by an angel 
 from heaven, the angel is indubitably wrong and accursed (Gal. i : 
 7, 8). Therefore, how freely they deal in commands (1 Thes. iv : 
 2; xi: 12. 2 Thes. iii : 6-14; iv : 2); commands, too, which 
 they hold to be absolutely binding on all ; so binding that it is the 
 test of a Spirit-led man to recognize them as the commandments 
 of God (1 Cor. xiv : 37), and no Christian ought to company 
 with tliose who reject them (2 Thes. iii : 6-14). Nor is it doubt- 
 ful that this authority is claimed specifically for the written word. 
 In 1 Cur. xiv : 37, it is specifically ^^the things which I am writ- 
 ing " that must be recognized as the commands of the Lord ; and 
 so in 2 Thes. ii : 15; iii: 6-14, it is the teaching transmitted by 
 letter as well as by word of mouth that is to be immediately and 
 unquestionably received. 
 
24 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 Now, on what is this immense claim of autliority grounded ? If 
 a mere human claim, it is most astounding impudence. But that 
 it is not a mere human claim, is specifically witnessed to. Paul 
 claims to be but the transmitter of this teaching (2 Thes. iii : 6 ; 
 ii : riafx)) ; it is, indeed, his own (2 Thes. iii: 14, ''il'-oyv)^ but still, 
 the transmitted word is God's word (1 Thes., ii : 1 3). He speaks, 
 indeed, and issues commands, but they are not his commands, but 
 Christ's, in virtue of the fact that they are given through him by 
 Christ (1 Thes. iv : 2). The other writers exhibit the same phe- 
 nomena. Peter distinctly claims that the Gospel was preached in 
 (Iv) the Holy Spirit (1 Peter, i : 12) ; and John calls down a curse 
 on those who would in any way alter his writing (Rev. xxii : 18, 
 19; cf. 1 John, v: 10). These, we submit, are strange 
 phenomena if we are to judge that these writers professed no in- 
 spiration. 
 
 ^' But,'' we are asked, '^ is this all ? " We answer, that we have 
 but just begun. All that we have said is but a cushion for the 
 specific proof to rest easily on. For here we wish to make two 
 remarks : 
 
 1. Tlie inspiration 'which is implied in these jjassages, is diredbj 
 claimed elseiohere. We will now appeal, however, to but two pas- 
 sa2:es. Look at 1 Cor. vii : 40, where the best and most scientific 
 modern exegesis proves that Paul claimed for his ^' opinion " ex- 
 pressed in this letter direct divine inspiration, saying, "this is my 
 opinion," and adding, not in modesty, or doubt, but in meiotic 
 irony, " and it seems to me that I have the Spirit of God." If 
 this interpretation be correct, and with the " it seems to me " and 
 the very emphatic "I" staring us in the face, drawing the contrast 
 so sharply between Paul and the irapugners of his authority, it 
 seems indubitably so ; then it is clear that Paul claims here a 
 direct divine inspiration in the expression of even his " opinion " 
 in his letters. Again look for an instant at 1 Cor. ii : 13: 
 " Which things, also we utter not in words taught by human wis- 
 dom, but in those taught by the Spirit ; joining spiritual things 
 
PKOF. BEN J. E. WARllELD. 25 
 
 with spiritual things ; " where modern science, more clearly even 
 than ancient faith, sees it stated that both the matter and the man- 
 ner of this teaching are from the Holy Ghost — both the thoughts 
 and the words — yes, the words themselves. ^' It is not meet/' says the 
 Apostle, ^' that the things taught by the Holy Ghost should beex- 
 j)ressed in merely human words; there must be Spirit-given words 
 to clothe the Spirit-given doctrines. Therefore, I utter these 
 things not in the words taught by human wisdom — not even in the 
 most wisely-chosen human words — but in those taught by the 
 Spirit, joining thus with Spirit-given things (as was fit) only Spirit- 
 given words.'' It is impossible to deny that here there is clearly 
 taught a sttggestio verborum. Nor will it do to say that this does 
 not bear on the point at issue, seeing that /o;'oc and not f>7jf/.a is 
 the term used. Not only is even this subterfuge useless in the face 
 of what we have still to urge, but it is even meaningless here. No 
 one supposes that the mere grammatical forms separately considered 
 are inspired : the claim concerns words in their ordered secjuence — 
 in their living flow in the sentences — and this is just what is ex- 
 pressed by Xoyoc. This passage thus stands before us dis- 
 tinctly claiming verbal inspiration. The two together seem 
 reconcilable with nothing less far reaching than the church 
 doctrine. 
 
 2. But we must turn to our second remark. It is this : The 
 New Testament writers distinctly place each other's vritings in the 
 same lofty category in which they place the loritings of the Old Tes- 
 tament ; and as they indubitably hold to the full — even verbal — in- 
 spiration of the Old Testament J it Jollows that they claim the same 
 verbal inspiration for the New. Is it doubted that the New Testa- 
 ment writers ascribe full inspiration to the Old Testament? Mod- 
 ern science does not doubt it ; nor can anyone doubt it who will 
 but listen to the words of the New Testament writers in the mat- 
 ter. The whole New Testament is based on the divinity of the 
 Old, and its inspiration is assumed on every page. The full strength 
 of the case, then, cannot be exhibited. It may be called to our 
 
26 INAUGUKAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 remembrance^ however, that not only do the New Testament 
 writers deal with the Old as divine, but that they directly quote it 
 as divine. Those, very lofty titles, ^'Scripture,'' "The Scriptures,'^ 
 *^The Oracles of God," which they give it, and the common formula of 
 ({uotatioD, "It is WTitten," by which they cite its words, alone im- 
 ply their full belief in its inspiration. And this is the more 
 apparent that it is evident that for them to say, " Scripture says," 
 is equivalent to their saying, "God says," (Romans ix : 17; x: 19; 
 Galatians iii : 8.) Consequently, they distinctly declare that its 
 writers wrote in the Spirit (Matthew xxii : 43 ; cf. Luke xx : 
 42 ; and Acts ii : 34) ; the meaning of which is made clear by 
 their further statement that God speaks their words (Matthew i : 
 22 ; ii : 15, &c.), even those not ascribed to God in the Old Testa- 
 ment itself (Acts xiii : 35 ; Hebrew^s viii : 8 ; i : 6, 7, 8 ; v : 5 ; 
 Eph. iv : 8), thereby evincing the fact that what the human 
 authors speak God speaks through their mouths (Acts iv : 25). 
 Still more narrowly defining the doctrine, it is specifically stated 
 that it is the Koly Ghost who speaks the written words of Scrip- 
 ture (Hebrews iii : 7) — yea, even in the narrative parts (Hebrews 
 iv : 4). In direct accordance with these statements, the New Tes- 
 tament writers use the very words of the Old Testament as authori- 
 tative and '' not to be broken." Christ, himself, so deals with a 
 tense in Matthew xxii : 32, and twice elsewhere founds an argu- 
 ment on the words (John x : 34 ; Matthew xxii : 43) ; and it is in 
 connection with one of these word arguments that his divine lips 
 declare " the Scriptures cannot be broken." His Apostles follow 
 his example (Galatians iii : 16). Still, further, we have, at least, 
 two didactic statements in the New Testament, directly affirming 
 the inspiration of the Old (2 Timothy iii: 15, and 2 Peter i: 20). 
 In one of these it is declared that every Scripture is God-inspired ; 
 in the other, that no prophesy ever came by the will of man, but 
 borne along by the Holy Ghost it was that holy men of God 
 spoke. It is, following the best results of modern critical exegesis, 
 therefore, quite certain that the New Testament writers held the 
 
PEOF. BEN.I. B. WARFIELD, 27 
 
 full verbal inspiration of the Old Testament. Now, they plainly 
 place the New Testament books in the same category. The same 
 Paulj who wrote in 2 Timothy, " Every Scrij)ture is God-in- 
 spired," (piotes in its twin letter, 1 Timothy, a passage from 
 Luke's Gospel calling it "Scripture" (1 Timothy, v:18), — nay, 
 more, — paralleli>^ing it as equally Scripture with a passage from 
 the Old Testament. And the same Peter, who gave us our other 
 didactic statements, and in the same letter, does the same for Paul 
 that Paul did for Luke, and that even more broadly, declaring (2 
 Peter, iii : 16) that all Paul's Epistles are to be considered as oc- 
 cupying the same level as the rest of the S(;riptures. It is quite 
 indisputable, then, that the New Testament writers claim full in- 
 spiration for the New Testament books. 
 
 Now none of these points are weakened in either meaning or 
 reference by the application of the principles of critical exegesis. 
 In every regard they are strengthened. We can be quite bold, 
 therefore, in declaring that modern criticism does not set aside 
 the fact that the New Testament writers claim the very fullest 
 inspiration. 
 
 II. We must ask, then, secondly, if modern critical investigation 
 has shown that this claim of inspiration was disallowed by the 
 contemporaries of the New Testament writers. Here again our 
 answer must be in the negative. The New Testament writings 
 themselves bristle with the evidences that they expected and 
 received a docile hearing ; parties may have opposed them, but 
 only parties. And again, all the evidence that exists coming 
 down to us from the sub-apostolic church — be it more or less 
 voluminous, yet such as it is admitted to be by the various schools 
 of criticism — points to a very complete reception of the New 
 Testament claims. No church writer of the tinie can be pointed 
 out who made a distinction derogatory to the New Testament, 
 between it and the Old Testament, the Divine authority of which 
 latter, it is admitted, was fully recognized in the church. On the 
 contrary, all of them treat the New Testament with the greatest 
 
28 * INAUGUEAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 respect, hold its teachings in the highest honor, and run the 
 statement of their theology into its forms of words as if they held 
 even the forms of its statements authoritative. They all know the 
 ditference between the authority exercised by the New Testament 
 writers and that which they can lawfully claim. They even call 
 the New Testament books, and that, as is now pretty weJl admitted, 
 with the fullest meaning, "Scripture.'^ Take a few examples : 
 No result of modern criticisui is more sure than that Clement 
 of Rome, himself a pupil of Apostles, wrote a letter to the 
 Corinthians in the latter years of the first century ; and that we 
 now possess that letter, its text witnessed to by three independent 
 authorities and therefore to be depended on. That epistle exhibits 
 all the above-mentioned charac^teristics, except that it does not 
 happen to quote any New Testament text specifically as Scripture. 
 It treats the New Testament with the greatest respect, it teaches 
 for doctrines only for what it teaches, it runs its statements into 
 New Testament forms, it imitates the New Testament style, it 
 draws a broad distinction between the authority with which Paul 
 wrote and that Avhich it can claim, it declares distinctly that Paul 
 wrote ^^ most certainly in a spirit-led way'^ ( Ia' olrfiz'ta:: ttvso- 
 /mrrxcd;. c. 47.) Again, even the most sceptical of schools place 
 the Epistle of Barnabas in the first or at the very beginning of the 
 second century, and it again exhibits these same phenomena, — 
 moreover quoting Matthew definitely as Scripture. One of the 
 latest triumphs of a most acute criticism has been the vindication of 
 the genuineness of the seven short Greek letters of Ignatius, which 
 are thus proved to belong to the very first years of the second cen- 
 tury and to be the production again of one who knew Apostles. In 
 them again we meet with the same phenomena. Ignatius even knows 
 of a collected New Testament equal in authority to the Divinely 
 inspired Old Testament. But we need not multiply detailed .evi- 
 dence; every piece of Christian writing which is even probably to 
 be assigned to one who knew or might have known the Apostles, 
 bears like testimony. This is absolutely without exception. They 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELI). 29 
 
 all treat the New Testament books as differentiated from all other 
 writings, and no single voice can be adduced as raised against 
 them. The very heretics bear witness to the same effect ; anxious 
 as they are to be rid of the teaching of these writings they yet 
 hold them authoritative and so endeavor to twist their words into 
 conformity with their errors. And if we follow the stream further 
 down its course, the evidence becomes more and more abundant in 
 direct proportion to the increasing abundance of the literary 
 remains and their change from purely practical epistles or addresses 
 to Jews and heathen to controversial treatises between Christian 
 parties. It is exceedingly clear, then, that modern criticism has 
 not proved that the contemporary church resisted the assumption 
 of the ^ew Testament writers or withstood their claim to inspira- 
 tion. Directly the contrary. Every particle of evidence in the 
 case exhibits the apostolic church, not as disallowing, but as dis- 
 tinctly recognizing the absolute authority of the New Testament 
 writings. In the brief compass of the extant fragments of the 
 Christian literature of the first two decades of the second century 
 we have Matthew and Ephesians distinctly quoted as Scripture, the 
 Acts and Pauline Epistles specifically named as part of the Holy 
 Bible, and the New Testament consisting of evangelic records and 
 apostolic writings clearly made part of one sacred collection of 
 books with the Old Testament.'^ Let us bear in mind that the 
 belief of the early church in the inspiration of the Old Testament 
 is beyond dispute, and we will see that the meaning of all this is 
 simply this : The apostolic church certainly accepted the New 
 Testament books as inspired by God. Such are the results of criti- 
 cal enquiry into the opinions on this subject of the church writers 
 standing next to the Apostles. 
 
 III. If then, the New Testament writers clearly claim verbal 
 inspiration and the apostolic church plainly allowed that claijn, 
 any objection to this doctrine must proceed by attempting to 
 undermine the claim itself. From a critical standpoint this can 
 
 * See Barn, 4, Poly. 12. Test, xii., Patt. Benj. 10. Ign. Phil. 5, 8, &c. 
 
30 INAUGUKAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 be done only in two ways : It may be shown that the books 
 making it are not genuine and therefore not authentic, in which 
 case they are certainly not trustworthy and their lofty claims must 
 be set aside as part of the impudence of forgery. Or it may be 
 shown that the books, as a matter of fact, fall into the same errors 
 and contain examples of the same mistakes which uninspired writ- 
 ings are guilty of, — exhibit the same phenomena of inaccuracy and 
 contradiction as they, — and therefore, of course, as being palpably 
 fallible by their very character disprove their claims to infalli- 
 bility. It is in these two points that the main strength of the 
 opposition to the doctrine of verbal inspiration lies, — the first being 
 urged by unbelievers, who object to any doctrine of inspiration, 
 the second by believers, who object to the doctrine of plenary and 
 universal inspiration. The question is : Has either point been 
 made good ? 
 
 1. In opposition to the first, then, we risk nothing in declar- 
 ing that modern biblical criticism has not disproved the authenticity of 
 a single book of our New Testament. It is a most assured result of 
 Inblical criticism that every one of the twenty-seven books which 
 now constitute our New Testament is assuredly genuine and 
 authentic. There is, indeed, mtich that arrogates to itself the 
 name of criticism and has that honorable title carelessly accorded 
 to it, which does claim to arrive at such results as set aside the 
 authenticity of even the major part of the New Testament. One 
 school would save five books only from the universal ruin. To 
 this, however, true criticism opposes itself directly, and boldly pro- 
 claims every New Testament book authentic. But thus two 
 claimants to the name of criticism appear, and the question arises, 
 before what court can the rival claims be adjudicated ? Before the 
 court of simple common sense, it may be quickly answered. Nor 
 is^t impossible to settle once for all the whole dispute. By criti- 
 cism is meant an investigation with three essential characteristics : 
 (1) a fearless, honest mental abandonment, apart from presupposi- 
 tions, to the facts of the case, (2) a most careful, complete and un- 
 prejudiced collection and examination of the facts, and (3) the most 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 31 
 
 cautious care in founded inferences upon them. The absence of 
 auy one of these characteristics throws grave doubts on the results^ 
 while the acme of the uncritical is reached when in the place of 
 these critical graces we find guiding the investigation that other trio, 
 — bondage to preconceived opinion, — careless, incomplete or 
 prejudiced collection and examination of the facts, — and rashness 
 of inference. Now, it may well be asked, is that true criticism 
 which starts Avith the presupposition that the supernatural is im- 
 possible, proceeds by a sustained eifort to do violence to the facts, 
 and ends by erecting a gigantic historical chimera — overturning 
 all established history — on the appropriate basis of airy nothing ? 
 And, is not this a fair picture of the negative criticism of the 
 day ? Look at its history, — see its series of wild dreams, — note 
 how each new school has to begin by executing justice on its 
 predecessor. So Paulus goes down before Strauss, Strauss falls 
 before Baur, and Eaur before the resistless logic of his own nega- 
 tive successors. Take the grandest of them all, — the acutest critic 
 that ever turned his learning against the Christian Scriptures, 
 and it will require but little searching to discover that Baur has 
 ruthlessly violated every canon of genuine criticism. And if this 
 is true of him, what is to be said of the school of Kuenen which 
 now seems to be in the ascendant ? We cannot now follow theories 
 like this into details. But on a basis of a study of those details 
 we can remark without fear of successful contradiction that the 
 history of modern negative criticism is blotted all over and every 
 page stained black with the proofs of work undertaken with its 
 conclusion already foregone and prosecuted in a spirit that was 
 blind to all adverse evidence. * Who does not know, for example 
 
 * We hear much of "apologists " undertaking critical study with such preconceived theo- 
 ries as I elider the conclusion foregone. Perhaps this is sometimes true, but it is not so necessar- 
 i)v. A Theist, believing that there is a petsonal God, i open to the proof as to whether any 
 particular message claiming to be a revelation is really from him or not, and according to the 
 proof, he decides. A Pantheist or Mat-nalist begins by denying the existence of a personal 
 God. and hence the possibility of the supernatural. If he begins the study of an asserted 
 revelation, his conclusion is necessarily foregone. An hone^st Theist, thus, is open to evidence 
 either way ; an honest antheis ■ or Materialist is not open to any evi<ience for the super- 
 natural, f-ee some line remarks on this subject by Dr. Westcott, Contemporary Review 
 XXX : p. 1070. 
 
32 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 of the sustained attempts made to pack the witness box' against the 
 Christian Scriptures ? — the wild denials of evidence the most nn- 
 deniable, — the wilder dragging into court of evidence the most 
 palpably manufactured ? Who does not remember the remarkable 
 attempt to set aside the evidence arising from Barnabas' quotation 
 of Matthew as Scripture, on the ground that the part of the 
 epistle which contained it ^vas extant only in an otherwise con- 
 fessedly accurate Latin version; and when Tischendorf dragged 
 an ancient Greek copy out of an Eastern monastery and vindi- 
 cated the reading, who does not remember the astounding efforts 
 then made to deny that the quotation was from Matthew, or to 
 throw doubt on the early date of the epistle itself? Who does 
 not know the disgraceful attempt made to manufacture, — yes, 
 simply to manufacture, — evidence against John's gospel, persever- 
 ed in in the face of all manner of refutation until it seems at last 
 to have received its death blow through one stroke of Dr. Light- 
 foot's trenchant pen on "the silence of Eusebius?" * In every 
 way, then, this criticism evinces itself as false. 
 
 But false as it is, its attacks must be tested and the opposition 
 of true criticism to its results exhibited. The attack, then, pro- 
 ceeds on the double ground of internal and external evidence. It 
 is claimed that the books exhibit such contradictions anions them- 
 selves and errors in historical fact, as evince that they cannot be 
 authentic. It is claimed, moreover, that external evidence such 
 as would prove them to have existed in the Apostolic times is 
 lacking. How does true criticism meet these attacks? 
 
 Joining issue first with the latter statement, sober criticism 
 meets it with a categorical denial. It exhibits the fact that every 
 New Testament book, except only the mites Jude, 2 and 3 John, 
 Philemon and possibly 2 Peter, are quoted b}^ the generation of 
 writers immediately succeeding the Apostles, and are thereby 
 proved to have existed in the Apostolic^ times ; and that even these 
 four brief books which are not quoted by those earliest authors in 
 
 Contemporary Review XXV*: 169, 
 
PROF. BEN.T. B. WARFIET.I). 33 
 
 the few and brief writings wliicli have come down from them to 
 us, are so authenticated afterwards as to leave no rational ground 
 of doubt as to their authenticity. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands that there; is less evidence for 2 
 Peter than for any other of our books. If the early date of 2 
 Peter then can be made good, the early date of all the rest follows 
 afortiore; and there can be no doubt but that sober criticism fails 
 to find adequate grounds for rejecting 2 Peter from the circle of 
 apostolic writings. It is an outstanding fact that at the beginning 
 of the third century this epistle was well known ; it is durino- the 
 early years of that century that we meet with the first explicit 
 mention of it, and then it is quoted in such a way as to exhibit 
 the facts that it was believed to be Peter's and was at that time 
 most certainly in the canon. What has to be accounted for, then, 
 is how came it in the canon of the early third century? It was 
 certainly not put there by those third century writers; their 
 notices utterly forbid this. Then, it must have been already in it in the 
 second century. But Avhen in that century did it acquire this 
 position? Can Ave believe that critics like Irenaeus, or Mel i to, or 
 Dionysius would have allowed it to be foisted before their eyes 
 into a collection they held all-holy? It could not, then, have first 
 attained that entrance during the latter years of the second 
 century ; and that it must have been already in the New Testa- 
 ment, received and used by the great writers of the fourth quarter 
 of the second century, seems scarcely open to doubt. Apart from 
 this reasoning, indeed, this seems established : Clement of Alex- 
 andria certainly had the book, Irenaeus also in all probability pos- 
 sessed it. If, now, the book formed a part of the canon current 
 in the fourth quarter of the second century, there can be little 
 doubt but that it came from the bosom of the Apostolic circle. 
 One has but to catch from Irenaeus, for instance, the grounds on 
 which he received any book as scripture, to be convinced of this. 
 The one and all-important sinequa-non was that it should have 
 been handed down from the fathers, the pupils of the Apostles, as 
 
34 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 the work of the Apostolic circle. And Irenaeus was an adequate 
 judge as to whether this was the case; his immediate predecessor 
 in the Episcopal office at Lyons was Pothinus, whose long life 
 spanned the whole intervening time from the Apostles, and his 
 teacher was Poly carp, who was the pupil of John. That a book 
 formed a part of the New Testament of this period, therefore au- 
 thenticates it as coming down from those elders who could bear 
 personal witness to its authorship. This is one of the facts of 
 criticism apart from noting which it cannot proceed. Tlie ques- 
 tion then, is not : do we possess independently of this, sufficient evi- 
 dence of the Petrine authorship of the book to place it in the 
 canon ? but : do we possess sufficient evidence against its Petrine 
 authorship, to reject it from the canon of the fourth quarter of 
 the second century authenticated as that canon as a whole is? 
 The answer to the question cannot be doubtful when we remember 
 that we have absolutely no evidence against the book ; but, on the 
 contrary, that all the evidence of whatever kind which is in exis- 
 tence goes to establish it. There is some slight reason to believe, 
 for instance, that Clement of Rome had the letter, more that 
 Hermas had it and much that Justin had it. There is also a good 
 probability that the early author of the Testaments of the XII. 
 Patriarchs had and used it. Any one of these references, independ- 
 ently of all the rest, would, if made good, throw the writing of the 
 book back into the first century. Each supports the others, and 
 the sum of the probabilities raised by all, is all in direct support 
 of the inference drawn from the reception of the book by later 
 generations, so that there seems to be really no room for reasonable 
 doubt but that the book rightly retains its position in our Kew 
 Testament. This conclusion gains greatly in strength when we 
 compare the data on which it rests, with what is deemed sufficient 
 to authenticate any other ancient writing. We find at least two 
 most probable allusions to 2 Peter within a hundred years after its 
 composition, and before the next century passes away we find it pos- 
 sessed by the whole church and that as a book with a secured position 
 
PEOF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 35 
 
 in a collection super-authenticated as a whole. Now, Herodotus, for 
 instance, is but once quoted in the century which followed its com- 
 position, but once in the next, not at all in the next, only twice in 
 the next, and not until the fifth century after its composition is it 
 as fully quoted as 2 Peter during its second century. Yet who 
 doubts the genuineness of the histories of Herodotus? Again the 
 first distinct quotation from Thucidides do(\s not occur until quite 
 two centuries after its composition ; while Tacitus is first cited 
 nearly a century after his death, by Tertulian. Yet no one can 
 reasonably doubt the genuineness of the histories of either Thu- 
 cidides or Tacitus.* We hazard nothing then, in declaring that 
 no one can reasonably doubt the authenticity of the better authen- 
 ticated 2 Peter. 
 
 If now such a conclusion is critically tenable in the case of 2 
 Peter, what is to be said of the rest of the canon ? There are 
 some six writings which have come down to us, which were writ- 
 ten within twenty years after the death of John ; these six brief 
 pieces alone, as we have said, prove the prior existence of the 
 whole New Testament, with the exception of Jude, 2 and 3 John, 
 Philemon and (possibly) 2 Peter, and the writers of the succeed- 
 ing years vouch for and multiply their evidence. In the face of 
 such contemporary testimony as this, negative criticism cannot pos- 
 sibly deny the authenticity of our books. A strenuous effort has 
 consequently been made to break the force of this testimony. The 
 genuineness of these witnessing documents themselves has been 
 attacked or else an attempt has been made to deny that their quo- 
 tations are from the New Testament books. Neither the one effort 
 nor the other, however, has been or can be successful. And yet 
 with what energy have they been prosecuted! We have already 
 seen what wild strivings were wasted in an attempt to get rid of 
 Barnabas' quotation of Matthew. That whole question is now 
 given up; it is admitted that the quotation is from Matthew- 
 and it is admitted that Barnabas was written in the immediate- 
 ly sub-apostolic times. But Barnabas quotes not only Mat- 
 
 *See Kawlinson's Hist. Evid., p 376, 
 
36 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 thew, but 1 Cor. and Eph.,and in Keim's opinion witnesses also to 
 the prior existence of John. This may be taken as a type of the 
 whole controversy. The references to the New Testament books 
 in the Apostolic fathers are too plain to be disputed and it is sim- 
 ply the despair of criticism that is exhibited by the invention of 
 elaborate theories of accidental coincidences or of endless series of 
 hypothetical books to which to assign them. The quotations are 
 too numerous, too close, and glide too imperceptibly and regularly 
 from mere adoption of phrases into accurate citations of authorities, 
 to be explained away. They therefore stand, and prove that the 
 authors of these writings already knew the New Testament books 
 and esteemed them authoritative. 
 
 Nor has the attempt to deny the early date of these witnessing 
 writers fared any better. The mere necessity of the attempt is in- 
 deed fatal to the theory it is meant to support ; if to exhibit the 
 unauthenticity of the New Testament books, we must hold all 
 subsequent writings unauthentic too, it seems plain that we are on 
 a false path. And what violence is done in the attempt! For 
 instance, the Epistle of Polycarp witnesses to the prior existence of 
 Matthew, Luke, Acts, eleven Epistles of Paul, 1 Peter and 1 
 John ; and as Polycarp was a pupil ot John, his testimony is very 
 strong. It must then be got rid of at all hazards. But Irenaeus 
 was Poly carp's pupil, and Irenaeus explicitly cites this letter and 
 fl( olares it to be Polycarp's genuine production ; and no one from 
 iiis lime to ours has found cause to dispute his statement 
 lu.iii it lias become necessary to be rid of the testimony of the 
 Hirer to our canon. But if Polycarp's letter be genuine, it sets its 
 own date and witnesses in turn to the letters of Ignatius, which 
 themselves bear internal testimony to their own early date ; and 
 these letters of Ignatius testify not only to the prior individual ex- 
 istence of Matthew, John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesiims, 
 Philippians, 1 Thessah)niaijs and 1 John ; but also to the 
 prior existence of an authoritative Divinely-inspired New Test- 
 ament. This is but a specimen of the linked character of 
 
PROF. BEXJ. B. WARFIELD. 37 
 
 our testimony. Not only is it fairly abundant, but 
 it is so connecte'l by evidently undesigned, indeed, bnt yet in- 
 detachable aMiculations, that to set aside any one import- 
 ant piece of it usually necessitates such a wholesale attack 
 on the literature of tl e second century as to amount to a 
 reductio ad absu cium. We may, then, boldly formulate as our 
 conclusion that external evidence imperiously forbids the dethrone- 
 ment of any ^ew Testament book from its place in our canon. 
 
 What, then, are we to do with the internal evidence that is relied 
 upon by the negative school? What, but set it summarily aside 
 also? It amounts to a two-fold claim : (].) The sacred writers 
 are hopelessly inconsistent with one another, and (2.) they are at va- 
 riance with contemporary history. Of coarse, disharmony between 
 the four gospels, and between Acts and the Epistles is what is 
 mainly relied on under the first point, and it must be admitted 
 that much learning and acuteness has been expended on the effort 
 to make out this disharmony. But it is to be noted : (1.) Tha* 
 even were it admitted up to the full extent claimed, it would be no 
 proof of unauthenticity ; it would be no more than that found 
 between secular historians admitted to be authentic, when narur;- 
 ing the same actions from difierent points of view. A: d 
 (2.) in no case has it been shown that disharmony must be admire i. 
 No case can be adduced where a natural mode of harmonizing 
 cannot be supplied, and it is a reasonable principle, recognized 
 among critics of secular historians, that two writers must not be 
 held to be contradictory where any natural mode of harmonizing 
 can be imagined. Otherwise it amounts to holding that we know 
 fully and thoroughly all the facts of the case, — better even than 
 eye-witnesses seem ever to know them. In order to gain any force 
 at all, therefore, for this objection, both the extent and degree of 
 the disharmony has been grossly exaggerated. Take an example : 
 It is asserted that the two accounts (in Matthew and Luke) of the 
 events accompanying our Lord's birth are mutually exclusive. 
 
38 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 But even a cursory examination Avill show that there is not a single 
 contradiction between them. How then is the charge of dishar- 
 mony supported ? In two ways : First, by erecting silence into 
 contradiction. Since Matthew does not mention the visit of the 
 shepherds, he is said to contradict Luke who does. Since Luke 
 does not mention the flight into Egypt he is said to contradict 
 Matthew who does. And secondly, by a still more astounding 
 method which proceeds by first confounding two distinct transac- 
 tions and then finding irreconcilable contradictions between them. 
 Thus Strauss calmly enumerates no less than five discrepancies 
 between Matthew's account of the visit of the angel to Joseph 
 and Luke's account of the visit of the angel to Mary. On the 
 same principle we might prove both Motley's ^^Dutch Republic" 
 and Kingslake's " Crimean War " to be unbelievable histories by 
 gravely setting ourselves to find "discrepancies" between the 
 account in the one of the brilliant charges of Egmont at St. Quen- 
 tin and the account in the other of the great charge of the six 
 hundred at Balaclava. This is not an unfair example of the way 
 in which the New Testament is dealt with in order to exhibit its 
 internal disharmony. We are content, however, that it should 
 pass for an extreme case. For it will suffice for our present pur- 
 pose to be able to say that if the New Testament books are to be 
 proved unauthentic by their internal contradictions, by parity of 
 reasoning the world has never yet seen an authentic writing. In 
 fact so marvelously are our books at one that, leaving the defensive, 
 the harmonist may take the offensive and claim this unwonted 
 harmony as one of the chief evidences of Christianity. Paley 
 has done this for the Acts and Epistles ; and it can be done also 
 for the Gospels. 
 
 Perhaps we ought to content ourselves with merely repeating 
 this same remark in reference to the charge that the New Testa- 
 ment writers are at variance with contemporary history. So far is this 
 from being true that one of the strongest evidences for Christianity 
 is the utter accord with the minute details of contemporary history 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 39 
 
 which is exhibited in its records. There has been no lack indeed 
 of " instances '^ of disaccord confidently put forth ; but in every 
 case the charge has recoiled on the head of its maker. Thus, the 
 mention of Lysanias in Luke, iii : 2, was long held the test case of 
 such inaccuracy and sceptics were never weary of dwelling upon 
 it; until it was pointed out that the whole ^^ error" was not 
 Luke's but — the sct-ptic's. Josephus mentions this Lysanias and 
 in such a way that he should not have been confounded with his 
 older namesake ; and inscriptions have been brought to light 
 which explicitly assign him to just Luke's date. And so this 
 stock example vanishes into the air from which it was made. The 
 others have met a like fate. The detailed accuracv of the New 
 Testament writers in historical matters is indeed wonderful, and 
 is more and more evinced by every fresh investigation. Every 
 now and then a monument is dug up, touching on some point ad- 
 verted to in the New Testament ; and in every case only to cor- 
 roborate the New Testament. Thus not only has Luke long ago 
 been proved accurate in calling the ruler of Cyprus a "proconsul," 
 but Mr. Cesnola has lately brought to light a Cyprian inscription 
 which mentions that same Proconsul Paulus whom Luke repre- 
 sents Paul as finding on the island. — (Cyprus, p. 425.) Let us 
 but consider the unspeakable complication of the political history 
 of those times ; — the frequent changes of provinces from senatorial 
 to imperial and ^;^ce versa, — the many alterations of boundaries and 
 vacillations of relation to the central power at Rome, — which 
 made it the most complicated period the world has ever seen, and 
 renders it the most dangerous ground possible for a forger to enter 
 ^^pon • — and how impossible is it to suppose that a book whose every 
 most incidental notice of historical circumstances is found after most 
 searching criticism to be minutely correct, — which has threaded all 
 this labyrinth with firm and unfaltering step, — was the work of 
 unlearned forgers, writing some hundred years after the facts they 
 record. Confessedly accurate Roman historians have not escaped 
 error here j even Tacitus himself has slipped. * To think that a 
 
 ^Cf. Annal xi: 23. 
 
40 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 second ceatiiry forger could have walked scathless among all the 
 pitfalls that gaped around him, is like believing a blind man could 
 thread a row of a hundred cambric needles at a thrust. If we 
 merely apply the doctrine of probabilities to the accuracy of these 
 New Testament writers they are proved to be the work of eye- 
 witnesses and wholly authentic* 
 
 We can, then, at the end, but repeat the statement with which 
 we began : Modern negative criticism neither on internal nor on 
 external grounds has been able to throw any doubt on the authen- 
 ticity of a single book of our New Testament. Their authen- 
 ticity, accuracy and honesty are super-vindicated by every new in- 
 vestigation. They are thus proved to be the productions of sober, 
 honest, accurate men ; they claim verbal inspiration ; their claim 
 was allowed by the contemporary church. So far modern criticism 
 has gone step by step with traditional faith. There remains but 
 one critical ground on which the doctrine we are considering can 
 be disputed. Do these books in their internal character negative 
 their claim ? Are the phenomena of the writings in conflict with 
 the claim they put forth? We must, then, in conclusion consider 
 this last refuge of objection. 
 
 2. Much has been already said incidentally which bears on 
 this point ; but something more is needed. An amount of accu- 
 racy which will triumphantly prove a book to be genuine and 
 surely authentic, careful and honest, may fall short of proving it 
 to be the very word of God. The question now before us is : 
 granting the books to be in the main accurate, are they found on 
 the application of a searching criticism to bear such a character as 
 will throw destructive objection in the way of the dogma that they 
 are verbally from God ? This inquiry opens a broad — almost 
 illimitable — field, utterly impossible to fully treat here. It may 
 be narrowed somewhat, however, by a few natural observations. 
 (1). It is to be remembered that we are not defending a mechanical 
 theory of inspiration. Every word of the Bible is the word of God 
 
 * See this slightly touchtnl on by Dr. Peabody, Princeton Rev., March, 1880. 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 41 
 
 according to the doctrine we are discussing ; but also and just as 
 truly, every word is the word of a man. This at once sets aside as 
 irrelevant a large number of the objections usually brought from 
 the phenomena of the New Testament against its verbal inspira- 
 tion. No finding of traces of human influence in the style, word- 
 ing or forms of statement or argumentation touches the question. 
 The book is throughout the work of human writers and is filled 
 with the signs of iheir handiwork. This we admit on the thresh- 
 hold ; we ask what is found inconsistent with its absolute accu- 
 racy and truth. (2). It is to be remembered, again, that no objec- 
 tion touches the question, that is obtained by pressing the pri- 
 mary sense of phrases or idioms. These are often false ; but they 
 are a necessary part of human speech. And the Holy Ghost in 
 using human speech, used it as Re found it. It cannot be argued 
 then that the Holy Spirit could not speak of the sun setting, or 
 call the Roman world ^' the whole world.'' The current sense of 
 a phrase is alone to be considered ; and if men so spoke and were 
 understood correctly in so speaking the Holy Ghost, speaking their 
 speech would aloo so speak. No objection then is in point which 
 turns on a pressure of language, inspiration is a means to an end 
 and not an end in itself; if the truth is conveyed accurately to the 
 ear that listens to it, its full end is obtained. (3). And we must 
 remember again that no objection is valid which is gained by over- 
 looking the prime question of the intentions and professions of the 
 writer. Inspiration, securing absolute truth, secures that the writer 
 shall do what he professes to do ; not what he does not profess. 
 If the author does not profess to be quoting the Old Testament 
 verbatim, — unless it can be proved that he professes to give the 
 ipsissima verba, — then no objection arises against his verbal inspi- 
 ration from the fact that he does not give the exact words. If an 
 author does not profess to report the exact words of a discourse or 
 a document — if he professes to give, or it is enough for his pur- 
 poses to give, an abstract or general account of the sense or the 
 wording, as the case may be, — then it is not opposed to his claim 
 
42 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 to inspiration that he does not give the exact words. This remark 
 sets aside a vast number of objections brought against verbal in- 
 spiration by men who seem to fancy that the doctrine supposes 
 men to be false instead of true to their professed or implied inten- 
 tion. It sets aside^ for instance all objection against the verbal in- 
 spiration of the Gospels, drawn from the diversity of their accounts 
 of words spoken by Christ or others, written over the cross, &c. 
 It sets aside also all objection raised from the freedom with which 
 the Old Testament is quoted, so long as it cannot be proved that 
 the jN^ew Testament writers quote the Old Testament in a different 
 sense from that in which it was written, in cases where the use of 
 the quotation turns on this change of sense. This cannot be 
 proved in a single case. 
 
 The great majority of the usual objections brought against the 
 verbal inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures from their phenomena, 
 being thus set aside, the way is open to remarking further, that no 
 single argument can be brought from this source against the 
 church doctrine which does not begin by proving an error in state- 
 ment or contradiction in doctrine or fact to exist in these sacred 
 pages. I say, that does not begin by proving this. For if the 
 inaccuracies are apparent only, — if they are not indubitably in- 
 accuracies, — they do not raise the slightest presumption against the 
 full, verbal inspiration of the book. Have such errors been pointed 
 out ? That seems the sole question before us now. And any 
 sober criticism must answer categorically to it. No ! It is not 
 enough to point to passages difficult to harmonize ; they cannot 
 militate against verbal inspiration unless it is not only impossible 
 for us to harmonize them, but also unless they are of such a character 
 that they are clearly contradictory, so that if one be true the other 
 cannot by any possibility be true. No such case has as yet been 
 pointed out. Why should the New Testament harmonics be dealt 
 with on other principles than those which govern men in dealing 
 with like cases among profane writers? There, it is a first princi- 
 ple of historical science that any solution which affords a possible 
 
PROF. BENJ. B. WARFIELD. 43 
 
 method of harmonizing any two statements is preferal)le to the 
 assumption of inaccuracy or error — whetlier tliosc statements are 
 found in the same or different writers. To act on any other basis, it is 
 clearly acknowledged, is to assume, not prove, error. We ask only 
 that this recognized principle be applied to the New Testament. 
 Who believes that the historians who record the date of Alexan- 
 der's death — some giving the 28th, some the 30th of the month- 
 are in contradiction?* And if means can be found to harmonize 
 them, why should not like cases in the New Testament be dealt 
 with on like principles? If the New Testament writers are held 
 to be independent and accurate writers, — as they are by both par- 
 ties in this part of our argument, — this is the only rational rule to 
 apply to their writings ; and the application of it removes every 
 argument against verbal inspiration drawn from assumed dishar- 
 mony. Not a single case of disharmony can be proved. 
 
 The same principle and with the same results, may be applied 
 to the cases wherein it is claimed that the New Testament is 
 in disharmony with the profane writers of the times, or other con- 
 temporary historical sources. But it is hardly necessary to do so. 
 At the most, only three cases of even possible errors in this sphere 
 can be now even plausibly claimed : the statements regarding the 
 taxing under Quirinius, the revolt under Theudas, and the lord- 
 ship of Aretas over Damascus. But Zumpt^s proof that Quirinius 
 was twice governor of Syria, the first time just after our Lord's 
 birth, sets the first of these aside ; whereas the other two, while 
 not corroborated by distinct statements from other sources, vet are not 
 excluded either. Room is found for the insignificant revolt of this 
 Theudas — who is not to be confounded with his later and more im- 
 portant namesake — in Josej)hus' statement that at this time there 
 were ^^ ten thousand" revolts not mentioned by him. And the 
 lordship of Aretas over Damascus is rendered very probable by 
 what we know from other sources of the posture of affairs in that 
 region, as well as by the significant absence of Roman-Damascene 
 
 * For methods by wliich these are harmonizod, see Leo " Insjiiration," pat^e ""io. 
 
44 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 coinage for just this period. Even were the New Testament 
 w^riters in direct conflict in these or in other statements, with pro- 
 fane sources, it would still not be proven that the New Testament 
 was in error. There would still be an equal chance, to say the 
 least (much too little as it is), that the other sources were in error. 
 But it is never in .^uch conflict ; and, therefore, cannot be charged 
 with having fallen into historical error, unless we are prepared to 
 hold that the New Testament writers are not to be believed in any 
 statement which cannot be independently of it proved true ; in 
 other words, unless it be assumed beforehand to be untrustworthy. 
 This, again, is to assume, not prove error. Not a single case of 
 error can be proved. 
 
 We cannot stop to even mention the fact that no doctrinal con- 
 tradictions, or scientific errors can be proved. The case stands or 
 falls confessedly on the one question: Are the New Testament 
 writers contradictory to each other or to other sources o^* informa- 
 tion in their record of historical or geographical facts? This settled, 
 indubitably all is settled. We repeat, then, that all the fierce light of 
 criticism which has so long been beating upon their open pages has not 
 yet been able to settle one indubitable error on the New Testament 
 writers. This being so, no argument against their claim to write 
 under a verbal inspiration from God can be drawn from the phe- 
 nomena of their writings. No phenomena can be pled against 
 verbal inspiration except errors, — no error can be proved to exist 
 within the sacred pages ; that is the argument in a nut-shell. Such 
 being the result of the strife which has raged all along the line 
 for decades of years, it cannot be presumptuous to formulate our 
 conclusion here as boldly as after the former heads of discourse : — 
 Modern criticism has absolutely no valid argument to bring 
 against the church doctrine of verbal inspiration, drawn from the 
 phenomena of Scripture. This seems indubitably true. 
 
 It is, indeed, well for Christianity that it is. For, if the phe- 
 nomena of the writings were such as to negative their distinct 
 claim to full inspiration, we cannot conceal from ourselves that 
 
PROF. BEN J. P.. WAEFJET.D. 4r> 
 
 much more than their verbal inspiration would have to be o-iven 
 up. If the sacred writers were not trustworthy in such a witness- 
 bearing, where would they be trustworthy? If tliey, by their 
 ])erformance, disproved their own assertions, it is ])lain that not 
 only would these assertions be thus i)roven false, but, also, by tlic 
 same stroke the makers of the assertions convicted of either fanati- 
 cism or dishonesty. It seems very evident, tlien, that there is no 
 standing ground between the two theories of full verbal inspira- 
 tion and no inspiration at all. Gaussen is consistent ; Strauss is 
 consistent : but those who try to stand between ! It is by a 
 divinely permitted inconsistency that they can stand at all. Let 
 us know our position. If the j^ew Testament, claiming full in- 
 spiration, did exhibit such internal characteristics as should set 
 aside this claim, it would not be a trustworthy guide to salvation. 
 But on the contrary, since all the efforts of the enemies of 
 Christianity — eager to discover error by which they might convict 
 the precious word of life of falsehood — have proved utterly vain, 
 the Scriptures stand before us authenticated as from God. They 
 are, then, just what they profess to be ; and criticism only secures 
 to them the more firmly the position they claim. Claiming to be 
 verbally inspired, that claim was allowed by the church which re- 
 ceived them, — their writers approve themselves sol)er and honest 
 men, and evince the truth of their claim, by the wonder of their 
 performance. So, then, gathering all that we have attempted to 
 say into one point, we may say that modern biblical criticism has 
 nothing valid to urge against the church doctrine of verbal inspira- 
 tion, but that on the contrary it puts that doctrine on a new and 
 firmer basis and secures to the church Scriptures which are truly 
 divine. Thus, although nothing has been urged formally as a 
 proof of the doctrine, we have arrived at such results as amount 
 to a proof of it. If the sacred Avriters clearly claim verbal in- 
 spiral ion and every phenomenon supports that claim, and all criti- 
 cal objections br eak down by their own weight, how can we escape 
 admitting its truth? What further proof do we need? 
 
46 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 
 
 With this conclusion I may fitly close. But how can I close 
 without expression of thanks to Him who has so loved us as to 
 give us so pure a record of his will, — God-given in all its parts, 
 even though cast in the forms of human speech, — infallible in all 
 its statements, — divine even to its smallest particle ! I am far 
 from contending that without such an inspiration there could be no 
 Christianity. Without any inspiration we could have had Chris- 
 tianity; yea, and men could still have heard the truth, and through 
 it been awakened, and justified, and sanctified and glorified. The 
 verities of our faith would remain historically proven true to us — so 
 bountiful has God been in his fostering care — even had we no 
 Bible ; and through those verities, salvation, But to what un- 
 certainties and doubts would we be the prey ! — to what errors, 
 constantly begetting worse errors, exposed ! — to what refuges, all 
 of them refuges of lies, driven ! Look but at those who have lost 
 the knowledge of this infallible guide : see them evincing man's 
 most pressing need by inventing for themselves an infallible 
 church, or even an infallible Pope. Revelation is but half reve- 
 lation unless it be infallibly communicated ; it is but half commu- 
 nicated unless it be infallibly recorded. The heathen in their 
 blindness are our witnesses of Avhat becomes of an unrecorded 
 revelation. Let us bless God, then, for his inspired word ! And 
 may he grant that we may always cherish, love and venerate it, 
 and conform all our life and thinking to it ! So may we find 
 safety for our feet, and peaceful security for our souls. 
 

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