Charles Hodge (1797–1878), professor at Princeton Theological Seminary for over fifty years and its principal for most of them, founder and editor of the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, and the leading voice of Old School Presbyterianism and of Reformed orthodoxy in nineteenth-century America. He taught some three thousand ministers, and liked to say that no new idea had ever originated at Princeton. His Systematic Theology was the standard American Reformed dogmatics for two generations.
Works (11)
- A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians — An exposition of Ephesians verse by verse, each chapter opening with an analysis of its argument. (7 notes)
- An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians — Hodge’s commentary on Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, from the author’s Princeton lectures. An introduction treats Corinth, Paul’s labours there, the state of the church, the date and contents of the letter and its importance; then each of the sixteen chapters is taken section by section, a summary and the verses in italics followed by the comment: the divisions and the cross as the wisdom of God, discipline and lawsuits, marriage and virgins, meats offered to idols, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts and the hymn to love, and the resurrection of the dead. (17 notes)
- An Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians — Hodge’s commentary on Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the most personal of his epistles. Each of the thirteen chapters opens with a summary and is taken section by section, the verses set out and then explained: Paul’s comfort in affliction and the defence of his conduct, the ministry of the new covenant and the treasure in earthen vessels, the ambassadors for Christ, the collection for the saints, and the apostle’s defence of his authority against the false teachers, his visions and the thorn in the flesh. (13 notes)
- Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans — Hodge’s commentary on Romans, first published in 1835 and here rewritten, the book through which he taught Paul’s doctrine of justification to two generations of Princeton students. An introduction on Paul, the church at Rome and the plan of the epistle is followed by the sixteen chapters, each taken section by section: a summary of contents, an analysis of the argument, a verse-by-verse commentary weighing the Greek text and the interpreters from the Fathers to Tholuck and De Wette, and the doctrines and practical remarks the passage teaches. (17 notes)
- Essays and Reviews — Eighteen of Hodge’s reviews, on regeneration, Stuart on the Romans, the atonement, the ground of faith in the Scriptures, theories of the church, the Church of Rome, Finney’s theology, the support of the clergy, Bushnell on Christian nurture, the Lord’s Supper, boards of missions, slavery and emancipation, and the ‘theology of the intellect and that of the feelings’. (18 notes)
- Princeton Sermons — The outlines of the addresses Hodge gave to the students of Princeton Theological Seminary on Sabbath afternoons, from 1852 to 1878, edited after his death by his son A. A. Hodge and arranged under ten heads: God and his attributes; Christ, his person and offices; the Holy Spirit; Satan, sin and sins; conversion; Christian experience and privileges; Christian duties; the means of grace; death and the consummation of redemption; and the papers of his last year. 249 outlines, each with the date it was given, together with A. A. Hodge’s preface on the Sabbath conference at Princeton. (250 notes)
- Systematic Theology — The summa of Old Princeton: fifty years of teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary set out in three volumes — an Introduction on theological method and the rule of faith, then Theology Proper, Anthropology, Soteriology and Eschatology. Hodge’s theologian is to be “governed by the same rules as a man of science”: the Scriptures contain the facts, and theology arranges them. (314 notes)
- The Church and its Polity — Hodge’s collected writing on the doctrine and government of the Church, gathered after his death by his son A. A. Hodge from the annual articles on the General Assembly he wrote for the Princeton Review from 1835 and from his other articles and lectures on ecclesiology; it is the same book as Discussions in Church Polity (New York: Scribner, 1878). Part I sets out the principles: the idea of the Church as the communion of saints, the Oxford and Roman theories of it, its visibility and perpetuity, the principles of church union, its province, the relation of Church and State, Presbyterianism, the orders of the Church of England, and liturgies. Part II applies them to the Presbyterian constitution, from the particular church and its officers through the presbytery and the General Assembly to discipline, article by article on the questions the Assembly had to decide. (53 notes)
- The Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church — Hodge’s history of the Presbyterian Church in America from its beginnings to 1788, written to show what its constitution was by tracing it from the origin of the churches and ministers through the adopting act of 1729, the Great Revival, the schism of 1741 and the union of 1758, in answer to the claim that American Presbyterianism rested on Congregationalism or on a looser subscription than the Westminster Confession. It first appeared in two parts, in 1839 and 1840. Each chapter opens with a summary of its argument; a list of the members of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia from 1758 to 1788 closes the book. (8 notes)
- The Way of Life — Hodge’s plain answer, written for intelligent young readers, to two questions: are the Scriptures the word of God, and what do they teach a man to believe and experience in order to be saved? Nine chapters take the reader from the evidence for Scripture through sin, indifference and conviction, to justification, faith and repentance, the profession of religion and the sacraments, and holy living. (10 notes)
- What is Darwinism — Hodge’s answer to the question in his title: not evolution as such, but natural selection as Darwin meant it — the exclusion of design from nature. “What is Darwinism? It is Atheism.” (8 notes)