Quotes from Charles Hodge

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.

The 'last issue of history' will be a conflict between 'Atheism and its countless forms and Calvinism. The other systems will be crushed as the half-rotten ice between two great bergs.

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.

The Reformed Church in adhering to the doctrine as it had been settled in the Council of Chalcedon, maintained that there is such an essential difference between the divine and human natures that the one could not become the other, and that the one was not capable of receiving the attributes of the other. If God became the subject of the limitations of humanity He would cease to be God; and if man received the attributes of God he would cease to be man.

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.

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

The office of presbyters is a permanent one.

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.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin

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.

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 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.