THE OLD GOSPEL by Word and Work

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 12.

THE OLD GOSPEL.

By Word and Work

Modern sermons may be artistic in conception and elegant in expression, yet, with few exceptions, they lack the power to touch the conscience and move the heart. No acuteness of exposition or grandeur of speculative fancy can compensate for the absence of truth. The thoughts of man, even at his best, are a sorry substitute for the thoughts of God. Freshness and force acquired by departure from the "old paths" may gratify an Athenian appetite for novelty, but to carry life to a dead soul we need nothing less than the word and witness of the Holy Ghost.

The doctrines which determined the great spiritual awakenings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have not lost their potency for good. They proved effectual in repelling the skepticism and vivifying the death of the eighteenth century, and their force is unspent though we are nearing the close of the nineteenth. It may be that thousands are doubtful as to their truth, and thousands more meet them with a bold denial; nevertheless, the same old gospel which Paul preached, and Luther recovered at the Reformation, is the "power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Wherever the gospel of the grace of God is proclaimed in its simplicity sinners are converted and saints are edified in the faith.—Word and Work.