Top 69 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Hodge

The Church is everywhere represented as one. It is one body, one family, one fold, one kingdom. It is one because pervaded by one Spirit. We are all baptized into one Spirit so as to become, says the apostle, on body.

All Church power is, therefore, properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions.

Christ has not only ordained that there shall be such officers in his Church - he has not only specified their duties and prerogatives - but he gives the requisite qualifications, and calls those thus qualified, and by that call gives them their official authority.

So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.

Romanists tell us that the Pope is the vicar of Christ; that he is his successor as the universal head and ruler of the Church on earth. If this is so, he must be a Christ.

If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.

All Church power arises from the indwelling of the Spirit; therefore those in whom the Spirit dwells are the seat of Church power. But the Spirit dwells in the whole Church, and therefore the whole Church is the seat of Church power.

The Church, however, is a self-governing society, distinct from the State, having its officers and laws, and, therefore, an administrative government of its own.

The Popish theory, which assumes that Christ, the Apostles and believers, constituted the Church while our Saviour was on earth, and this organization was designed to be perpetual.

The ultimate ground of faith and knowledge is confidence in God.

But to be the Vicar of Christ, to claim to exercise his prerogatives on earth, does involve a claim to his attributes, and therefore our opposition to Popery is opposition to a man claiming to be God.

Our first remark on this subject is that the ministry is an office, and not merely a work.

The Church, during the apostolic age, did not consist of isolated, independent congregations, but was one body, of which the separate churches were constituent members, each subject to all the rest, or to an authority which extended over all.

The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased.

Ruling elders are declared to be the representatives of the people.

That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

Original sin is the only rational solution of the undeniable fact of the deep, universal and early manifested sinfulness of men in all ages, of every class, and in every part of the world.

All the reasons which require the subjection of a believer to the brethren of a particular church, require his subjection to all his brethren in the Lord.

The office of presbyters is a permanent one.

The Independent or Congregational theory includes two principles; first, that the governing and executive power in the Church is in the brotherhood; and secondly, that the Church organization is complete in each worshipping assembly, which is independent of every other.

The Galatians are severely censured for giving heed to false doctrines, and are called to pronounce even an apostle anathema, if he preached another gospel.

When the great promise of the Spirit was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, it was fulfilled not in reference to the apostles only.

Our second remark is, that the office is of divine appointment, not merely in the sense in which the civil powers are ordained of God, but in the sense that ministers derive their authority from Christ, and not from the people.

The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.

It is a thoroughly anti-christian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the ministry, to the exclusion of the people.

If the Church is a living body united to the same head, governed by the same laws, and pervaded by the same Spirit, it is impossible that one part should be independent of all the rest.

As the Church is the aggregate of believers, there is an intimate analogy between the experience of the individual believer, and of the Church as a whole.

There can, therefore, be no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to a substantive part in its discipline and government.

The right of the people to a substantive part in the government of the Church is recognized and sanctioned by the apostles in almost every conceivable way.

A Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so affected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ the rule of his obedience, and the glory of Christ the great end for which He lives.

Sanctification is not a work of nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of character effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.

In opposition... to all the suggestions of the devil, the sole, simple, and sufficient answer is the word of God. This puts to flight all the powers of darkness.

Christian humility does not consist in denying what there is of good in us; but in an abiding sense of ill-desert, and in the consciousness that what we have of good is due to the grace of God.

The grace of God exalts a man without inflating him, and humbles a man without debasing him.

Every man, therefore, who expects justification by works, must see to it, not that he is better than other men, or that he is very exact and does many things, or that he fasts twice in the week, and gives tithes of all he possesses, but that he is sinless.

The sin of Adam did not make the condemnation of all men merely possible; it was the ground of their actual condemnation. So the righteousness of Christ did not make the salvation of men merely possible, it secured the actual salvation of those for whom He wrought.

Our duty, privilege, and security are in believing, not in knowing; in trusting God, and not our own understanding. They are to be pitied who have no more trustworthy teacher than themselves.

To be in Christ is the source of the Christian life; to be like Christ is the sum of his excellence; to be with Christ is the fullness of his joy.

If Christ has risen the Bible is true from Genesis to Revelation. The kingdom of darkness has been overthrown. Satan has fallen like lightning from heaven; and the triumph of truth over error, of good over evil, of happiness over misery, is forever secured.

The gospel is so simple that small children can understand it, and it is so profound that studies by the wisest theologians will never exhaust its riches.

Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for His divine perfection, our gratitude for all His mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in His forgiving love, our submission to His authority, our confidence in His care, our desires for His favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others.

When we are weak, then are we strong. When most empty of self, we are most full of God.

There is no form of conviction more intimate and irresistible than that which arises from the inward teaching of the Spirit.

The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself.

It is because God is infinitely great and good that his glory is the end of all things; and his good pleasure the highest reason for whatever comes to pass. What is man that he should contend with God, or presume that his interests rather than God's glory should be made the final end?

This is true religion, to approve what God approves, to hate what he hates, and to delight in what delights him

Faith is not a blind, irrational conviction. In order to believe, we must know what we believe, and the grounds on which our faith rests.

Original sin is the only rational solution of the undeniable fact of the deep, universal and early manifested sinfulness of men in all ages, of every class, and in every part of the world

As we fell in Adam, we are saved in Christ. To deny the principle in the one case, is to deny it in the other; for the two are inseparably united in the representations of Scripture

The Spirit never makes men the instruments of converting others until they feel that they cannot do it themselves; that their skill in argument, in persuasion, in management, avails nothing.

It is important that when we come to die we have nothing to do but die.

It is only when men associate with the wicked with the desire and purpose of doing them good, that they can rely upon the protection of God to preserve them from contamination.

There is more of power to sanctify, elevate, strengthen, and cheer in the word Jesus (Jehovah-Saviour) than in all the utterances of man since the world began.

No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when they please...As it is a truth both of Scripture and of experience that the unrenewed man can do nothing of himself to secure his salvation, it is essential that he should be brought to practical conviction of that truth. When thus convinced, and not before, he seeks help from the only source whence it can be obtained.

No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when they please.

It is a fact that unless children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they, and the society which they constitute or control, will go to destruction. Consequently, when a state resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools and other literary institutions, it virtually resolves on self-destruction.

This whole process of education is to be religious, and not only religious, but Christian. And as Christianity is the only true religion, and God in Christ the only true God, the only possible means of profitable education is the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Foolish talking and jesting are not the ways in which Christian cheerfulness should express itself, but rather "giving of thanks" (Eph. 5:4). Religion is the source of joy and gladness, but its joy is expressed in a religious way, in thanksgiving and praise.

The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.

If, unable to solve the mysteries of Providence, we plunge into Atheism, we only increase a thousand fold the darkness by which we are surrounded