SOME CHRISTIAN CONVICTIONS

OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE CREED OF JESUS AND OTHER SERMONS

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE CROSS

HYMNS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

EDITED BY H.S. COFFIN AND A.W. VERNON

The Same for Use in Baptist Churches

REV. CHARLES W. GILKEY, Co-editor

IN A DAY OF SOCIAL REBUILDING

(Second printing)

UNIVERSITY SERMONS

(Second printing)

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS WITH A CHRISTIAN APPLICATION TO PRESENT CONDITIONS

Some Christian Convictions

A PRACTICAL RESTATEMENT IN TERMS OF PRESENT-DAY THINKING

BY

HENRY SLOANE COFFIN

MINISTER IN THE MADISON AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK CITY

Non enim omnis qui cogitat credit sed cogitat omnis qui credit, et credendo sogitat et cogitando credit.—AUGUSTINE

COPYRIGHT, 1915 BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

First published, 1915
Second printing, 1915
Third printing, 1916
Fourth printing, 1920

TO

D.P.C.

SOCIÆ REI HUMANÆ ATQUE DIVINÆ

PREFACE

Bishop Burnet, in his History of His Own Time, writes of Sir Harry Vane, that he belonged "to the sect called 'Seekers,' as being satisfied with no form of opinion yet extant, but waiting for future discoveries." The sect of Sir Harry Vane is extraordinarily numerous in our day; and at various times I have been asked to address groups of its adherents, both among college students and among thoughtful persons outside university circles, upon the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. Some of my listeners had been trained in the Church, but had thrown off their allegiance to it; others had been reared in Judaism or in agnosticism; others considered themselves "honorary members" of various religious communions—interested and sympathetic, but uncommitted and irresponsible; more were would-be Christians somewhat restive intellectually under the usual statements of Christian truths. It was for minds of this type that the following lectures were prepared. They are not an attempt at a systematic exposition of Chris

tian doctrine, but an effort to restate a few essential Christian convictions in terms that are intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years. They do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship; they aim at the less difficult, but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who (to borrow a phrase of Augustine's) "believe in thinking" and wish to "think in believing."

They may be criticised by those who, satisfied with the more traditional ways of stating the historic Christian faith, will dislike their discrimination between some elements in that faith as more, and others as less, certain. I would reply that they are intentionally but a partial presentation of the Gospel for a particular purpose; and further I find my position entirely covered by the words of Richard Baxter in his Reliquiæ: "Among Truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain unto me; and even of the Mysteries of the Gospel, I must needs say with Mr. Richard Hooker, that whatever men pretend, the subjective

Certainty cannot go beyond the objective Evidence: for it is caused thereby as the print on the Wax is caused by that on the Seal. I am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty to be greater than it is, merely because it is a dishonour to be less certain. They that will begin all their Certainty with that of the Truth of the Scripture, as the Principium Cognoscendi, may meet me at the same end; but they must give me leave to undertake to prove to a Heathen or Infidel, the Being of God and the necessity of Holiness, even while he yet denieth the Truth of Scripture, and in order to his believing it to be true."

In preparing the lectures for publication I have allowed the spoken style in which they were written to remain; several of the chapters, however, have been somewhat enlarged.

I am indebted to two of my colleagues, Professor James E. Frame and Professor A.C. McGiffert, for valuable suggestions in two of the chapters, and especially to my friend, the Rev. W. Russell Bowie, D.D., of St. Paul's Church, Richmond, Va., who kindly read over the manuscript.

CONTENTS

• Introduction—Some Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century Which Have Affected Christian Beliefs 1
• Chapter 1. Religion 23
• Chapter 2. The Bible 49
• Chapter 3. Jesus Christ 78
• Chapter 4. God 118
• Chapter 5. The Cross 140
• Chapter 6. The New Life—Individual and Social 160
• Chapter 7. The Church 181
• Chapter 8. The Christian Life Everlasting 205

SOME CHRISTIAN CONVICTIONS

INTRODUCTION

SOME MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WHICH HAVE AFFECTED CHRISTIAN BELIEFS

When King Solomon's Temple was a-building, we are told that the stone was made ready at the quarry, "and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house." The structures of intellectual beliefs which Christians have