William Robertson Smith and B B Warfield

https://banneroftruth.org/us/about/banner-authors/b-b-warfield/

George Reid, Public domain USA, via Wikimedia Commons

The last two subjects in the series of ten biographies were the Scots heretic William Robertson Smith 1846-1894 and the American theological giant B B Warfield 1851-1921.

In 1889 Spurgeon wrote in The Sword and Trowel

"The Free Church of Scotland must, unhappily, be for the moment regarded as rushing to the front with its new theology, which is no theology, but an opposition to the Word of the Lord. That church in which we all gloried, as sound in the faith, and full of the martyrs’ spirit, has entrusted the training of its future ministers to two professors who hold other doctrines than those of its Confession. This is the most suicidal act that a church can commit. It is strange that two gentlemen, who are seeking for something newer and better than the old faith, should condescend to accept a position which implies their agreement, with the ancient doctrines of the church; but delicacy of feeling is not a common article nowadays, and the action of creeds is not automatic, as it would be if consciences were tender. In the Free Church there is a Confession, and there are means for carrying out discipline; but these will be worth nothing without the personal action of all the faithful in that community. Every man who keeps aloof from the struggle for the sake of peace, will have the blood of souls upon his head."

Smith (along with A B Bruce to some extent) was the man who brought Free Church students under liberal teaching and was at least removed from office.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), though not really evangelical or orthodox himself, offered his own assessment of what was going on, saying, “Have my countrymen’s heads become turnips when they think they can hold the premises of German unbelief and draw the conclusions of Scottish evangelical orthodoxy?”

As for B B Warfield the focus was on his stand for inerrancy, his view of Darwin and his far-sightedness in dealing with racism.

Some quotes

The mystical tendency is showing itself in our day most markedly in a wide-spread inclination to decline Apologetics in favour of the so-called testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The convictions of the Christian man we are told, are not the product of reasons addressed to the intellect, but are the immediate creation of the Holy Spirit in his heart. Therefore, it is intimated, we can not only do very well without these reasons, but it is something very like sacrilege to attend to them. Apologetics, accordingly, is not merely useless, but may even become noxious, because tending to substitute a barren intellectualism for a vital faith.

Christian men, under the pressure of their race antipathy, desert the fundamental law of the Church of the Living God, that in Christ Jesus there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman.

Warfield quoted William James with approbation saying 

And here religion comes to our rescue and takes our fate into her hands. There is a state of mind, known to religious men, but to no others, in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God. In this state of mind, what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety, and the hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday. The time for tension in our soul is over, and that of happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing, of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be anxious about, has arrived. Fear is not held in abeyance as it is by mere morality, it is positively expunged and washed away.

Dr Needham ended by saying

The treasure-trove of Warfield’s writings shows us one of the finest intellects that ever lived, expounding the many-sided truths of biblical Christianity with profound scholarship and in crystalline prose. When (if I may so put it) I have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon, I know I can use my time to excellent effect in picking up and perusing a volume of Warfield, whether on the Divine Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, the emotional life of Jesus, or any of a hundred other topics. 

10 Church Leaders in the 19th Century

1. Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768-1834
2. Samuel T Coleridge 1772-1834
3. Edward Irving 1782-1834
4. Félicité de La Mennais 1782-1854
5. John Henry Newman 1801-1890
6. John W Nevin 1803-1886
7. Soren Kierkegaard 1813-1855
8. Albrecht Ritschl 1822-1889
9. William R Smith 1846-1894
10. B B Warfield 1851-1921

Nevin, Newman and Ritschl

Yesterday it was the American Presbyteran theologian, John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886), the Anglican turned Roman Catholic, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and German liberal theologian Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) from Nick Needham. Dr Needham like Nevin but he fell out with Charles Hodge and William Cunningham over how to understand the Lord's Supper. Hodge ended up claiming that Calvin's view of the real presence was not really Reformed and an uncongenial foreign element that was extreme and dubious. Hodge seems to have somehow been unaware of Calvin's views.

Alexander Whyte was a fan of Newman's early sermons printed up in eight volumes and never repudiated by Newman. Whyte quoted favourably this statement

"Dr. Newman's sermons stand by themselves in modern English literature; it might be said, in English literature generally. There have been equally great masterpieces of English writing in this form of composition, and there have been preachers whose theological depth, acquaintance with the heart, earnestness, tenderness, and power have not been inferior to his. But the great writers do not touch, pierce, and get hold of minds as he does, and those who are famous for the power and results of their preaching do not write as he does. His sermons have done more perhaps than any one thing to mould and quichen and brace the religious temper of our time; they have acted with equal force on those who were nearest and those who were furthest from him in theological opinion."

I found it hard to get a handle on Ritschl. I'll need to look at that again.

Edward Irving and Félicité de La Mennais

Today at the seminary we looked at two more nineteenth century figures with Nick Needham - Edward Irving (1792-1834), of whom I had heard thanks to Arnold Dallimore's book (see here), and Félicité de La Mennais (1782-1854), of whom I knew nothing. La Mennais was a Catholic liberal in a word. On Irving's death, M'Cheyne famously said "I look back upon him with awe, as on the saints and martyrs of old. A holy man, in spite of all his delusions and errors. He is now with his God and Saviour, whom he wronged so much, yet, I am persuaded, loved so sincerely."