Produced by Eric Betts and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net 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. SOCIAE REI HUMANAE ATQUE DIVINAE 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 Christian 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."