Outlines of Theology (Hodge)

‘We commend the Outlines of Theology to all who would be well instructed in the faith. It is the standard textbook of our college. We differ from its teachings upon baptism, but in almost everything else we endorse Hodge to the letter’. — C.H. SPURGEON

A.A. Hodge, son of Charles Hodge, first issued this, his best-known work, in 1860- following three years’ missionary work in India and eleven in American pastorates. Enlarged and revised, it was reprinted in its final form in 1878 when the younger Hodge had reached his full maturity and entered upon his eight memorable years’ teaching at Princeton. As a masterful condensation, not only of what had been taught at Princeton Seminary for more than sixty years but of the doctrinal positions of historic Christianity itself, the Outlines earned for the author the description given him by Dr. Shedd, ‘the populariser of scientific theology’. ‘It will be difficult’, wrote another contemporary, ‘to find a work of the same size where so much theology is so clearly presented, and at once so briefly and so interestingly discussed’. Yet A.A. Hodge was more than an able condenser, he was himself one of the great theologians of the world, possessed- as W.M. Paxton declared at his death-of some of the sublimities of genius, ‘the mighty elements of great thinking’.

Speaking of his aim as a teacher of theology, the author once wrote, ‘I would pray and labour that in gaining breadth we may not lose height, and in gaining peace and love we may not lose purity and truth’.

Table of Contents: 

I. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY; ITS SEVERAL BRANCHES; AND THEIR RELATION TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 

II. THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF GOD AND PROOF OF HIS EXISTENCE 

III. THE SOURCES OF THEOLOGY 

IV. THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

V. THE SCRIPTURES OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS THE ONLY RULE OF FAITH AND JUDGE OF CONTROVERSIES 

VI. A COMPARISON OF SYSTEMS 

VII. CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS

VIII. THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

IX. THE HOLY TRINITY, INCLUDING THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST, THE ETERNAL GENERATION OF THE SON, THE PERSONALITY, DIVINITY, AND ETERNAL PROFESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST, AND THE SEVERAL PROPERTIES AND MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE PERSONS OF THE GODHEAD 

X. THE DECREES OF GOD IN GENERAL 

XI. PREDESTINATION

XII. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

XIII. ANGELS

XIV. PROVIDENCE

XV. THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL, WILL, CONSCIENCE, LIBERTY, ETC 

XVI.    CREATION AND ORIGINAL STATE OF MAN 

XVII. THE COVENANT OF WORKS 

XVIII. THE NATURE OF SIN AND THE SIN OF ADAM 

XIX. ORIGINAL SIN.-(Peccatum Habituate.)

XX. INABILITY

XXI. THE IMPUTATION OF ADAM’S FIRST SIN TO HIS POSTERITY 

XXII. THE COVENANT OF GRACE

XXIII. THE PERSON OF CHRIST 

XXIV. THE MEDIATORIAL OFFICE OF CHRIST 

XXV. THE ATONEMENT: ITS NATURE, NECESSITY, PERFECTION, AND EXTENT 

XXVI. THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST

XXVII. THE MEDIATORIAL KINGSHIP OF CHRIST 

XXVIII. EFFECTUAL CALLING

XXIX. REGENERATION 

XXX. FAITH 

XXXI. UNION OF BELIEVERS WITH CHRIST 

XXXII. REPENTANCE, AND THE ROMISH DOCTRINE OF PENANCE

XXXIII. JUSTIFICATION 

XXXIV.  ADOPTION, AND THE ORDER OF GRACE IN THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION, IN THE SEVERAL PARTS OF JUSTIFICATION, REGENERATION, AND SANCTIFICATION 

XXXV. SANCTIFICATION 

XXXVI. PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS 

XXXVII. DEATH, AND THE STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH 

XXXVIII. THE RESURRECTION

XXXIX. THE SECOND ADVENT AND GENERAL JUDGMENT

XL. HEAVEN AND HELL

XLI.THE SACRAMENTS

XLII. BAPTISM 

XLIII. THE LORD’S SUPPER

Author

Pastor, preacher, missionary, theologian, educator, and churchman, Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823 – 1886) was the first-born son of Charles and Sarah Hodge. He served several years as a Presbyterian missionary to India. He received a call, in 1864, to serve as Professor of Systematic Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. In 1878 he returned to Princeton Theological Seminary as Professor of Didactic and Exegetical Theology. His outlook predates modern evangelicalism’s interest in the integration of faith with learning and the development of a Christian worldview which seeks to integrate all aspects of the created order under Christ’s lordship.