Benjamin B. Warfield

Warfield entered Princeton Theological Seminary in 1878 and was graduated with the class of 1876. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ebenezer of Kentucky in 1875, he was stated supply of the Presbyterian Church of Concord, Kentucky, during that summer. During the summer of 1876 he was stated supply of the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio. He received a call to become the pastor of the latter church but declined it in order that he might go abroad for further study. On the third of August of that summer he was married to Miss Annie Pearce Kinkead, daughter of a prominent lawyer, and shortly thereafter they sailed for Europe where he studied at Leipsic. In the course of the year he was offered an appointment in the Old Testament Department of Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh but declined the offer because the New Testament had now become his main interest.Following his return to America, late in the summer of 1877, he became assistant pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore but resigned this position after a short period to accept another call from Western Theological Seminary—this time as instructor in New Testament Language and Literature. Going there in September 1878 as an instructor he was appointed professor the following year. It was not until then (1879) that he was ordained as a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

He remained at Western Theological Seminary for nine years during which he won a reputation as a teacher and Biblical exegete rarely attained by so young a man.

Warfield received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1880 and that of Doctor of Laws in 1892 from the College of New Jersey; that of Doctor of Laws from Davidson College in 1892; that of Doctor of Letters from Lafayette College in 1911; and that of Sacrae Theologiae Doctor from the University of Utrecht in 1913.