Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 41:161 (Jan 1884)
Article: Church History As A Science, A Theological Discipline, And A Mode Of The Gospel
Author: John Richard de Witt

BSac 41:161 (Jan 1884) p. 95

Church History As A Science, A Theological Discipline, And A Mode Of The Gospel

Rev. John De Witt

The first duty which the occasion calls me to discharge is the duty of expressing gratefully my sense of the high honor which you have conferred upon me in inviting me to the Chair of History in this school of sacred learning.1 I need not say that my sense of this honor is made livelier by the reflection that I succeed one so highly and so justly esteemed as was the late Dr. Zephaniah Moore Humphrey. My life as a pastor in Philadelphia began not long after Dr. Humphrey had accepted your invitation to become Professor of Church History. His exceptional ability, his large and varied culture, and the charming grace of character and life with which in that city he adorned the office of Christian pastor, enabled him to exert a large and beneficent influence both as a citizen and as a churchman. The universal regret with which his decision to leave that important field of labor was received, prepared those even who did not know him well for the far deeper sorrow of many hearts in many states when your message was received, that God had called him from his earthly labor to his heavenly reward. To the depth of this sorrow you have already testified. To the fact that it was wide-spread no testimony is needed. The event is too recent for us to have forgotten it. “We might know,” wrote the honored pastor who succeeds Dr. Humphrey in the pulpit of Calvary Church, “We might know that a prince has fallen by the universal expression of regret and affectionate regard. The tree indicates its magnitude and weight when

BSac 41:161 (Jan 1884) p. 96

the echoes of its fall fill the forest.”2 The act of God which removes such a man just at the time when his usefulness is the largest, and “when,” to quote your own words, “the promise seems given of a long period of successful labor on his part,” is deeply afflicting and mysterious. But we are justified in believing — and the belief is our highest consolation— that the powers with which God endowed his servant, and which by his providence and grace he nurtured and disciplined for service so effective and distinguished, are not lost to the eternal kingdom of God. “Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” May God grant to me, his successor—may God grant to us all— the devotion always manifested by Dr. Humphrey to him who is the central figure, and whose glory is the final cause of all history!

You have invited me to teach Church History; to teach it as a branch of theological study; to teach i...