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History of the Eastern Church. 8vo, from $4 to.. Trench's (ARCHBISHOP) Studies in the Gospels. 12mo, from $3 to. THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY REV. DRS. H. B. SMITH AND PHILIP SCHAFF. Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. 2 vols. 8vo, from $7.50 to.. Van Oosterzee's Christian Dogmatics. 2 vols. 8vo, from $6 to..... $5 o 5 00 *The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, express charges paid, upon receip Scribner, Armstrong & Co., Publishers, 743 and 745 BROADWAY, New York. THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY AND PRINCETON REVIEW. NEW SERIES, No. 21.-JANUARY, 1877. Art. L-EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD By CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Prof. in Union Theological Seminary, N. Y. EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY is one of the four grand divisions of Theological Science. It is related to the other divisions, historical, systematic, and practical, as the primary and fundamental discipline upon which the others depend, and from which they derive their chief materials. Exegetical Theology has to do especially with the sacred Scriptures, their origin, history, character, exposition, doctrines, and rules of life. It is true that the other branches of theology have likewise to do with the sacred writings, in that their chief material is derived therefrom, but they differ from Exegetical Theology, not only in their methods of using this material, but likewise in the fact, that they do not themselves search out and gather this material, directly from the holy writings, but depend upon Exegetical Theology therefor; whilst their energies are directed in Historical Theology in tracing the development of that material as the determining element in the history of the people of God; in Systematic Theology, in arranging that material in the form most appropriate for systematic study, for attack and defense, in accordance with the needs of the age; in Practical Theology, in directing that material to the conversion of souls, and training them in the holy life. The substance of this article was delivered as an Inaugural Address, by occasion of the induction of Dr. Briggs (Sept. 21, 1876) into the chair of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages in the Union Theological Seminary, N. Y. Thus the whole of theology depends upon the exegesis of the Scriptures, and unless this department be thoroughly wrought out and established, the whole structure of theological truth will be weak and frail, for it will be found, in the critical hour, resting on the shifting sands of human opinion and practice, rather than on the rock of infallible divine truth. The work of Exegetical Theology is all the more important, that each age has its own peculiar phase or department of truth to elaborate in the theological conception and in the life. Unless, therefore, theology freshen its life by ever-repeated draughts from the Holy Scriptures, it will be unequal to the tasks imposed upon it. It will not solve the problems of the thoughtful, dissolve the doubts of the cautious, or disarm the objections of the enemies of the truth. History will not, with her experience, unless she grasp the torch of divine revelation, which alone can illuminate the future and clear up the dark places of the present and the past. Systematic Theology will not satisfy the demands of the age if she appear in the worn-out armor or antiquated costume of former generations. She must beat out for herself a new suit of armor from Biblical material which is ever new; she must weave to herself a fresh and sacred costume of doctrine from the Scriptures which never disappoint the requirements of mankind; and thus armed and equipped with the weapons of the Living One, she will prove them quick and powerful, convincing and invincible, in her training of the disciple, and her conflicts with the infidel and heretic. And so Practical Theology will never be able to convert the world to Christ, and sanctify the church, without ever renewing its life from the Bible fountain; and so pervading our liturgy, hymnology, catechetical instruction, pastoral work and preaching, with the pure, noble, and soul-satisfying truths of God's word, that the necessities of the age may be supplied, for "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matt. iv: 4; Deut. viii: 3.) And the history of the church, and, indeed, Christian experience, has shown that in so far as the other branches of Theology, have separated themselves from this fundamental discipline, and in proportion to the neglect of Exegetical Theology the church has fallen into a dead orthodoxy of scholasticism, has lost its hold upon the masses of mankind, so that with its foundations undermined, it has yielded but feeble resistance to the onsets of infidelity. And it has ever been that the reformation or revival has come through the resort to the sacred oracles, and the organization of a freshly stated body of doctrine, and fresh methods of evangelization derived therefrom. We thus have reason to thank God, that heresy and unbelief so often drive us to our citadel, the sacred Scriptures, and force us back to the impregnable fortress of divine truth, in order that, depending no longer merely upon human weapons and defenses, we may use rather the divine, and thus reconquer all that may have been lost, and advance a stage onward in our victorious progress toward the end. Our adversaries may overthrow our systems of theology, our confessions and catechisms, our church organizations and methods of work, for these are, after all, human productions, the hastily thrown up out-works of the truth; but they can never contend successfully against the word of God that liveth and abideth forever (1 Peter i: 23), which, though the heavens fall and the earth pass away, will not fail in one jot or tittle from the most complete fulfillment (Matt. v: 18), which will shine in new beauty and glory as its parts are one by one searchingly examined, which will prove itself not only invincible but allconquering, as point after point is most holy contested, until at last it claims universal obedience as the pure and faultless mirror of him who is himself the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person. (2 Cor. iii: 18: Heb. i: 3.) Now it is an important characteristic of our Reformed and Calvinistic churches, that they give the sacred Scriptures such a fundamental position in their confessions and catechisms, and lay so much stress upon the so-called formal principle of the Protestant Reformation. Thus in both Helvetic confessions and the Westminster they constitute the first article, whilst in the Heidelberg and Westminster catechisms they are placed at the foundation, in the former as the source of our knowledge of sin and misery, and of salvation (Quest. iii, xix), in the latter as dividing the catechism into two parts, teaching "what *Niemeyer, Collectio Confess., pp. 115, 467. man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man."-(Larger Catechism, Quest. v; Shorter Catechism, Quest. iii.) And the authority of the word of God as “the only rule of faith and obedience" (Larger Catechism, Quest. v), has ever been maintained in our churches and seminaries. Exegetical Theology being thus according to its idea the fundamental theological discipline, and all important as the fruitful source of theology, it must be thoroughly elaborated in all its parts according to exact and well-defined scientific methods. The methods proper to Exegetical Theology are the synthetic and the historical, the relative importance of which has been hotly contested. The importance of the historical method is so great that not a few have regarded the discipline, as a whole, as at once a primary division of Historical Theology. The examination of the Bible sources, the sacred writings being of the same essential character as the examination of other historical documents, they should be considered simply as the sources of Biblical history, and thus the writings themselves would be most appropriately treated under a history of Biblical literature (Hupfeld, Reuss, Fuerst, et al.), and the doctrines under a history of Biblical doctrine (the school of Baur).* But the sacred writings are not merely sources of historical information; they are the sources of the faith to be believed and the morals to be practiced by all the world; they are of everlasting value as the sum total of sacred doctrine and law for mankind, being not only for the past, but for the present and the future, as God's holy word to the human race, so that their value as historical documents becomes entirely subordinate to their value as a canon of Holy Scripture, the norm and rule of faith and life. Hence the synthetic method must predominate over the historical, as the proper exegetical method, and induction rule in all departments of the work; for it is the office of Exegetical Theology to gather from these sacred writings, as the storehouse of divine truth, the holy material, in order to arrange it by a process of induction and generalization into the generic forms that may best express the generic conceptions of the sacred Scriptures themselves. From this point of view it is clear, that the analytic method * Compare my article on Biblical Theology, Am. Presb. Review, 1870; p. 122, seq. |