Evangel ... The gospel for an age of doubt and The gospel for a world of sin

Front matter

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Preface

The two books in this volume came directly out of the experience and work of a man trying, however imperfectly, to help other men through the service of the Christian ministry.

The light which Christ had given me in the conflict with intellectual doubt, the aid and comfort which his Cross had brought me in the inward and outward fight with evil, I wished to pass on to other men.

How closely limited this power of “ passing on” is, how little our systems and theories in religion can do for others, how truly every man must “come and see” for himself what Christ can do for him, I know now even better than I felt then. Writing to-day I might press some arguments and conclusions less absolutely than I did twenty years ago. But my central conviction that the light and hope and deliverance of the world are in the gospel of a person, and that Jesus Christ is that person, and that to know him as the Son of God is immortality, — this conviction remains unchanged. Why change the form in which it was uttered ? vii

PREFACE

After all the volume makes no claim to be a system of theology; it is only the partial record of a working, struggling faith. The spirit in which it was written is that of the apostle John, in his first epistle: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, . . . declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.”

The first book, The Gospel for an Age of Doubt , consists of lectures given on the Lyman Beecher Foundation at Yale University in 1896. The divinity students to whom they were addressed appealed to me less as budding theologians than as young men with a life to live and a work to do in the modern world, in their own age, in their own way. The question, “How to make sermons,” was far less important for them than the question, 44 What to preach.” For if they did not have a real gospel, — good news, — there was no call for them to be ministers. They would better be carpenters or mechanics or farmers, — more useful !

Now that age, — the close of the nineteenth century, — was one of doubt. Not of atheism, nor of positive disbelief, you understand, but of universal questioning, hesitation to believe in anything spiritual, and consequent uncerviii

PREFACE tainty and sadness. The only good news that I could find in such an age was the answer of Jesus to the questionings and needs of the souls of men, which physical science had neither stilled nor satisfied. This was the gospel which had brought help to me in a battle with doubt whose darkness I did not care tQ recall. This was the gospel I wished to persuade my brothers to receive and preach, — the gospel of a person for persons, — the gospel of Jesus, bringer of that eternal light which is the life of men.

The second book in this volume. The Gospel for a World of Sin , consists of lectures and university sermons delivered at Harvard, Princeton, and other colleges in 1897 and 1898. I felt, more and more, (and friends deepened this feeling by their frank criticism,) that the first lectures were incomplete. They dealt chiefly with the difficulties which religion presents to the mind, and not enough with those burdens which the sense of sin lays upon the heart. Most men, at some time, are doubters. But all men are sinners, and that is what makes them restless and unhappy. The mystery of evil, — the saving power of the Cross, — to leave these out is to miss the full meaning of the gospel.

But I have not tried to define that vital truth

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PREFACE which is known to theologians as the doctrine of the atonement. No definition is sufficient. It is beyond words. It is the crowning act of the human life of God. It is the unsearchable glory of divine self-sacrifice.

In these dark days that follow the dark war, we see from the valley of vision the light of the cross on the hill. If God could not suffer he would be far from man. Christ giving himself for the world is the wisdom, power, and love of the Eternal to everyone that believeth.

Henry van Dyke.

Avalon, December 8, 1920.

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