The Facts of Christianity Meaningless apart from Their Doctrinal Significance

Warfield:

If, then, we are to affirm that Christianity consists of facts, wholly separated from those ideas by which these facts obtain their significance and meaning and which it pleases us to call "dogmas"—what shall we do but destroy all that we know as Christianity altogether? The great facts that constitute Christianity are just as "naked" as any other facts, and are just as meaningless to us as any other facts, until they are not only perceived and understood, that is, until not only they themselves but their doctrinal significance is made known to us.

—Benjamin B. Warfield, "The Right of Systematic Theology" (vol. 2 in Selected Shorter Writings; ed. John E. Meeter; Phillipsburg: P&R, 1973), 237.

The Actual Subject of Augustin's "Autobiography"

B. B. Warfield:

His actual subject is not himself, but the goodness of God; and he [Augustin] introduces his own experiences only as the most lively of illustrations of the dealings of God with the human soul as he makes it restless until it finds its rest in him. 

A little further on, after discussing how the Confessions of Augustin are in a different class from Rousseau's Confessions, Warfield makes a nearer generic comparison to bring out what sort of book the Confessions is:

 The closest analogy to Augustine's Confessions, among books, at least, which have attained anything like the same popular influence, is furnished by John Bunan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Bunyan's purpose is precisely the same as Augustine's—to glorify the grace of God.

Furthermore, he says:

The interval that divides Augustine's Confessions from the Pilgrim's Progress is less than that which separates them from any simple autobiography—veracious and searching autobiography though a great portion of it is. For the whole concernment of the book is with the grace of God to a lost sinner. It is this, and not himself, that is its theme. 

—"Augustine and his 'Confessions,'" in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (vol. 4; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 240–241.

No Mistake More Terrible

B. B. Warfield says this cautionary word that I find so important for those of us Christians who are so busy, busy, often in "ministry."  Christless activism are perhaps the right words.

"There is no mistake more terrible than to suppose that activity in Christian work can take the place of depth of Christian affections."