Turretin's Impact

chapter 8 Turretin’s Impact The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries While the Reformed tradition had a profound influence upon the making of early and Civil War era America, perhaps the most important voices after the time of Turretin were the Princeton theologians.1 Named, aptly, for their work at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, these theologians professed a mindful Calvinism. That is, much like their seventeenth- century counterparts, the Princeton theologians knowingly and enthusiastically promoted the Reformed faith as the Christian faith.2 “The Princetonians, however, drew upon different aspects of the Reformed heritage as if it constituted a unified whole. In his Systematic Theology, for example, [Charles] Hodge regularly interweaves testimony from Calvin, the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566, the English Westminster Con- fession and Catechism of the mid- seventeenth century, and the works of late seventeenth- century polemicist Francis Turretin to support his own Reformed conclusions.”3 The four most prominent of the Princetonians were Archibald Alexander (1772– 1851), Charles Hodge (1797–1878), Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823– 86), and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851– 1921).4 These four men constitute the “principal chairs” of theology during the tumultuous nineteenth century and while they were not the only prominent theologians from Princ- eton during this time, their well- known works make them the most obvious Princeton representatives.5 Due to the sheer volume of works, both primary and secondary, on the Princeton theologians, it will be necessary to limit this section to only two: Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge. They represent the founder and successor of Princeton Seminary and will suffice to show Tur- retin’s influence in the antebellum United States. Nineteenth- century America was no less a time of turmoil than it was for the European continent. This century would bring about the escalation and eventual culmination of tension between the northern and southern halves of 1 Ibid., pp. 292– 3. 2 M. Noll, The Princeton Theology, 1812– 1921: Scripture, Science, and Theological Method from Ar- chibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (Grand Rapids, MI, 2001), pp. 28– 9. 3 Ibid., p. 28. Ibid 4 ., pp. 13– 18. 5 Alexander 1812–50, C. Hodge 1851– 78, A. A. Hodge 1878– 86, and Warfield 1887–1902: Ibid., p. 13. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | DOI:10.1163/9789004348011_009 Turretin’s Impact. THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES 161 the country, resulting in the emancipation of thousands of slaves. Beyond the world of politics, however, was the development of Enlightenment ideas in the nineteenth century. For the Princeton theologians, this constituted a very real threat to historic Christianity. As early as 1805, many conservative Christians in the U.S. were stunned by the appointment of a universalist to the Harvard Di- vinity faculty, resulting in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary a few miles away from Harvard’s campus.6 In the establishment of Princeton’s seminary, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. approved a plan that “students were to be trained thoroughly in the Bible, learning to ‘explain the principal difficulties which arise in the perusal of the Scriptures … from apparent inconsistencies … or objections arising from history, reason, or argument,’ and being taught the main arguments of ‘the deistic controversy’ in order to become defenders of the faith.”7 In addition to Andover’s inauguration, Noll argues that Archibald Alexan- der’s General Assembly sermon of 1808 sparked the church’s desire to form a new body to train ministers. In his sermon, Alexander identified several “assaults of the enemy” upon the church of Christ. One that he believed had been abated was philosophical atheism, though he warned that the church should not rest should this issue reappear. Alexander also presaged what may belie the church next: “From the signs of the times, I apprehend the danger to evangelical truth which will now arise will be from two opposite points: from what is called rational Christianity, and enthusiasm.”8 Alexander argued that “rational Christianity” can be found in nascent Socinianism and Unitarianism. This form does not worry Alexander much, though, as he believed that it “di- vest[ed] religion of all its awful and interesting attributes” with the result that the common person would not be interested in such religion. On the other hand, however, Alexander strongly cautioned his listeners to beware of over- enthusiastic religion which “profess[es] to be guided by inspiration at every step.”9 The prescription for overly rational and/ or enthusiastic religion is properly trained ministers, something which, according to Alexander, the pcusa was sorely lacking. Therefore, the founding of the seminary was, in many ways, a response to two problems in early nineteenth- century Christianity: a lack of properly trained, orthodox ministers and the expansion of Enlightenment 6 M. Noll, “The Founding of Princeton Seminary,” Westminster Theological Journal, 42 (1979), p. 77. 7 Ibid., p. 80. These quotations come from the General Assembly’s “The Plan of a Theological Seminary Adopted by the General Assembly … in their Sessions of May Last, A.D. 1811: Togeth- er with the Measures Taken by them to Carry the Plan into Effect” (Philadelphia, PA, 1811). 8 A. Alexander found in Noll, Princeton Theology, p. 53. Author’s emphasis. 9 Ibid..

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