Warfield did not merely have a ready pen, but a powerfully precise one harnessed for the propagation of the Reformed faith, or what Warfield deemed as nothing less than biblical Christianity. He was regarded as the apologist for the Reformed faith in the English speaking world during his life-time. Despite being misrepresented by scholars of his own time and after his death, Warfield’s essays illumine the reader to how the doctrines of the Christian faith are their own defense.

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921), who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887-1921, is arguably the greatest American biblical and theological scholar.  While growing up on a Lexington, Kentucky cattle farm, Warfield was nurtured in the categories and content of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). By the age of six, he had memorized the Shorter Catechism, along with the Scripture proofs, and then went on to the Larger Catechism. Warfield graduated from Princeton at nineteen with highest honors and “won the Thompson prize for the highest rank” his junior year.[1] His academic prowess appeared to be destined for math and science upon graduation from college, but to the surprise of his family he decided to go to Princeton Seminary. David B. Calhoun, in his magisterial two volume work on Old Princeton, summarized Warfield’s intellectual legacy:

“By profound study and extensive reading in English, German, French and Dutch, B. B. Warfield, to a degree that has rarely been equaled, excelled in the whole field of theological learning—exegetical, historical, doctrinal. . . . John De Witt said that he had known intimately the three great Reformed theologians of America in the preceding generation—Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd and Henry B. Smith—and that he was certain not only that Warfield knew a great deal more than any one of them, but that he knew more than all three of them put together!”[2]  

Warfield was a prolific writer, although he never wrote a traditional single or multi-volume systematic theology text. Instead, his views on Christian theology are gleaned from his numerous occasional writings. Some are long, academic discourses, while others are shorter more popular pieces. Today, a great bulk of his work can be accessed in the two-volume set of his Selected Shorter Writings and the ten-volume set of his Collected Works.

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