“The Hodge family had a history of pietist activity within the church. They remained active in Second Church through successive generations down to Charles’s elder brother Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge, who served as ruling elder. Thus Hodge grew up an heir of evangelical piety, familiar with its religious enthusiasm and activism. Hodge, however, also recounted other practices reflecting that in addition to pietism, his family retained important elements of Old Side confessionalism, an alternative and somewhat antagonistic expression of religious experience from that of New Side evangelicalism. Confessionalist Presbyterians, like their counterparts in Lutheran and Episcopalian denominations, explained religious experience primarily in terms of doctrinal faithfulness to church confessions and participation in the sacraments and corporate worship over against revivalist-inspired piety that characterized the Great Awakening. They stressed catechetical instruction and participation in congregational life under careful oversight of the clergy, which stood in contrast to the privatism and individualism of revivalism. Charles Hodge’s theological perspective and deepest religious convictions as well as his teaching, publishing, and participation in denominational affairs mirrored his family’s background in the internecine quarrels of these two rival traditions that competed in forming the identity of American Presbyterianism from mid- to late eighteenth century” (W. Andrew Hoffecker, Charles Hodge, 31).

“The conductor of a great symphony orchestra was once asked which was the most difficult instrument to play. ‘The second violin,’ he answered. ‘I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play second violin with enthusiasm–that is a problem. And if we have no second violin, we have no harmony'” (Kent & Barbara Hughes, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, 46).

“Henry W. Coray, one of Machen’s students at Princeton and Westminster, recalled that Machen often said, ‘Boys, there are two things wrong with this institution: you’re not working hard enough and you’re not having enough fun.’ ‘You can’t be a good theologian,’ another oft-repeated admonition, ‘unless your a good stunter'” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 187).

“‘Modern pedagogy has emancipated us, whether we be in the pulpit or in the professor’s chair or in the pew, from anything so irksome as earnest labour in the acquisition of knowledge.’ [Machen] then refers to the ascendancy of methodology, observing, ‘It never seems to occur to many modern teachers that the primary business of the teacher is to study the subject that he is going to teach. Instead of studying the subject that he is going to teach, he studies ‘education’; a knowledge of the methodology of teaching takes the place of the particular branch of literature, history, or science to which a man has devoted his life'” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 179).

“Playing off of the New Testament analogy of the new birth, Machen points out that in birth one is passive, not contributing at all. He then adds, ‘But birth is followed by life: and though a man is not active in his birth he is active in the life that follows” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 113).

“Justification by faith is consequently crucial because it gets to the heart of saving faith. Machen puts the matter this way: ‘The efficacy of faith, then, depends not on the faith itself, considered as a psychological phenomenon, but upon the object of the faith, namely Christ” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 111).

“Contrary to the liberal point of view, which holds that Christianity is a lifestyle, Machen argues that Christianity is a doctrine. He nuances his views by adding that it is, indeed, also a lifestyle, but quickly adds that it is one founded on and necessarily preceded by doctrine” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 89).

“Is Christianity a true religion, in accordance with the facts of history, and therefore, because of that truthfulness, meaningful? Or does it become real and meaningful as it is borne out by experience?” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 83).

“These two books [Christianity and Liberalism and What Is Faith?] accomplish far more than a response to liberalism, as they offer succinct and compelling presentation of the Christian view of the Bible, Christ, God, humanity, salvation, and faith” (Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen, 79).