had Lazarus lifted up his hand against his Benefactor, with what horror ought we to look upon whatever tends to "crucify Christ afresh, and put Him to open shame!" whatever tends to trample his blood under foot, and pour contempt upon his sufferings! Instead of this, it should be our constant desire to gratify and honour Him; the uppermost feeling in our hearts should be, "What can I do for Christ? How shall I make it appear that I have been with Him, that I have learned of Him?" If we are influenced by this spirit, He will come and make his abode with us; He will manifest himself to us. hold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, should be called the sons of God!" Let every saint esteem all beside but loss, in comparison with the possession of his love! Let us live on Him as the bread of life, and live to Him as the Lord of conscience. Let his love be the commanding principle in all our hearts.*

"Be

that we

LXV.

THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS.f

1 CORINTHIANS, ., 18: For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of

God.

[Preached at the Anniversary of the Baptist Missionary Society, at Oxford, October 1, 1817.]

THE apostle in this chapter informs us what was the chief matter and design of his ministry; he denominates it by that which constitutes its principal part, which was the preaching of the cross. I need not remind you that by this expression he means preaching the gospel; but we learn from it, that the cross of Christ is a fact of so much moment as to give its designation to the whole of the apostolical ministry and the Christian economy. Now, when a particular part of a subject is selected for the purpose of giving an appellation to the whole, it is manifest it must not only be a part, but the principal part, a part so essential that every thing belonging to it must bear towards it an intimate relation. This is the rank, this is the department, occupied by the doctrine or word of "the cross," which the apostle here tells us, though foolishness to them that perish, is to all that are saved the power of God.

*The Rev. Joseph Hughes, M.A., the highly-esteemed [originator and] secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, offered the prayer before this exquisite sermon. It was the last which he heard from his early and admired friend. Within less than a year he was called to deliver, from the same pulpit, the funeral discourse over its departed ornament. Of him Mr. Hall remarked, on the present occasion, "It was good for mankind that such a man was born." Describing Mr. Hall as a preacher, Mr. Hughes, with a graphic fidelity, observes, "The compass of his voice was small, but the character of his sentiments, their lucid order, his rich and appropriate expressions, the melody of his tones, the rapidity of his utterance, and the fire of his eyes, combined as they all were with dignity, earnestness, and pathos, drew from our lips and from our hearts the testimony which none controverted, 'This is genius, this is wisdom, this is eloquence indeed!"-GRINFIELD. † From the notes of W. B. Gurney, Esq.

The cross, you know, was the instrument of our Saviour's death, and as such, by a usual figure, it is placed for the death of Christ itself. But when Paul speaks here of the death of Christ under the term cross, we are not, I apprehend, to confine our attention to the mere fact of his dying; we are to take the death of Christ, when spoken of in Scripture, as including the whole of the doctrine connected with that fact, that is, the doc trine of the atonement. Under this phrase is comprehended all that the New Testament teaches us respecting the dignity of his person, the nature of his death as a vicarious sacrifice, and the great effects and blessings which are to result from it in all succeeding ages; an adequate idea of the atonement of Christ in all its branches, in what it presupposes, and what it secures, is to be considered as included in this representation. The preaching of this cross, the apostle says, was of such importance as to be the power of God. But here we must distinguish between the cross itself and the preaching of it. The cross itself was not the power of God; it existed in an evil world; it operated for far superior, or at least for sublimer purposes. The immediate de

sign of this was to satisfy the justice of God by the value of that blood which was shed, and the dignity of that obedience which was rendered. It operated towards God, though we cannot say upon him in the strict sense of the word, yet as the great consideration upon which, morally considered, he proceeded in affording mercy and salvation to sinful men, so as to render such a manifestation consistent with the essential purity of his character and the majesty of his government. When it is said, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," the term, you are aware, is to be taken in a reciprocal sense, as including, in the first place, the providing an expedient, or moral medium, by which he could show himself propitious; and, by the display and annunciation of these glad tidings, to produce a reconciled state of that mind which was carnal and enmity against God. The cross of Christ, or the atonement, is to be considered as being the basis on which the dispensation of the gospel was foundedon which all its promises rest; it is, speaking in the language of Scripture," Christ our redemption"-that medium through which the Governor of the world acted in making the grant of pardon to all who repent and turn to God through his Son.

But the preaching of this cross, the apostle says, is "the power of God." It is, in its place and order, as necessary as the cross itself; it brings the creature into contact with this great benefit; it applies the purchase of the Redeemer's blood to all believers. As the cross removed all moral obstructions, this removes the natural obstructions arising from a carnal mind, slaying the enmity, and binding the creature with the eternal Creator in ties of eternal amity. When it is said, "it is the power of God," we are to understand it to be an instrument of the Divine powerthe means by which the Divine Being subdues the minds of men,

through this medium, to himself, and makes them the proper subjects of his eternal regard; they are actually saved by him: and, as every instrument implies an agent, we are not to lose sight of the efficacy of the Divine Spirit, which is, throughout the Scriptures, represented as necessary to render the preaching of the cross itself, however valuable, efficacious. "Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God only giveth the increase." But, if it be an instrument of Divine power, it must be adapted to the purpose for which it is employed; it must be the fittest instrument, and must contain all properties in it which can render it fit that Infinite Wisdom should select it for the purpose of accomplishing thereby the purposes of his power and of his goodness. It is the chosen, and select, and, in an important sense, the only power of God, as the apostle reminds us in the context: "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect;" implying that the cross of Christ was the great means which, while it rendered effectual the preaching of the apostles, destroyed the wisdom of the wise, and brought to nothing the understanding of the prudent; it is this whereby God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world.

Let us, then, briefly consider in what respects the cross of Christ, or the preaching of the cross, more properly-the preaching of reconciliation through the cross of Christ is an instrument actually employed for the purpose of human salvation; and the fitness and propriety of this instrument, with respect to the use made of it by the apostle and by his associates in the ministry of the gospel. It is too manifest to be for a moment doubted or denied. The apostle, in this very passage, establishes it, by styling the gospel the preaching of the cross. He elsewhere tells us, in the very next chapter, that he is determined to know nothing among them but "Jesus Christ, and him crucified." "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Christ crucified, he declares in the passage before us, to be "the power of God, and the wisdom of God." He never seems to have lost sight of this doctrine; and whatever he taught besides was either subservient to it, or the result of it; it was either derived from it by necessary consequence, or it was communicated to man for the purpose of enforcing it. The death of the Redeemer is essential to justification in the Divine sight. It occupied the place of a centre in their ministry, from which every ray in their ministry emanated. You have seen the spirit with which Peter entered on his ministry; in his reference to it in his discourse to Cornelius, he at once, without preface, enters upon this doctrine: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ; he is Lord of all." You can scarcely read a passage of the New Testament, not even the practical parts of it, in which the attention is not directed to this subject; the doctrinal parts of it refer to what that presupposes, VOL. IV. K K K

and the practical parts are for the most part grounded upon it, and they are all enforced by the motives which are supplied by this great truth.

In the first place, in considering the fitness of the preaching of the cross as the instrument of salvation, we would observe, that it is, above every thing else, calculated to produce conviction, conviction of sin. The knowledge of sin, indeed, is by the law; it is the law which reveals the will of the Divine Being, and prescribes the duty that will commands; it is the law which establishes the penalty which enforces obedience; for the matter of your duty it is necessary to have recourse to the law of God, by which we do not mean so much the Ten Commandments separately taken, as the whole preceptive part of the Old and New Testaments. Not only no part of our duty with respect to the first table, the instruction that communicates, or the obligation to our duty to God, is in the slightest degree superseded by the cross of Christ; but, supposing the law of God to be made known to men, partly by the light of conscience, and partly by the express dictates of Divine revelation, the impressing it upon the mind, so as to produce a deep conviction of sin, is more effected by the preaching of the cross than by any other doctrine whatever; and its importance in this respect must be very manifest to every one who reflects on what passes in the world. How difficult to bring men to a conviction of sin! A great part of mankind have agreed to explode the term, and to introduce vice instead of it, referring to that conduct which has a baleful effect on society in general. They are sufficiently alive to the offences against society, and frequently very zealous in the promulgation of penal laws for their prevention; but they do not look at it in its whole; it is seldom that they advert to vice itself considered as sin against God; it is seldom that they attach any weight to that expression of the Psalmist, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." They very faintly recognise the relation which sin has to God as an offence and contradiction to his will, a presumptuous attempt to shake off his authority. But the cross of Christ is calculated immediately to strike at the root of this prejudice; it takes cognizance of sin, its presupposed existence, and its guilt, as consisting chiefly in its contradiction to the Divine character, and the injury the laws of God are likely to sustain from it. When Divine justice stretches forth its sword, and smites the man who is his fellow, the low and degraded ideas of the men of the world are completely lost sight of; in contemplating the doctrine of the cross, it appears completely to disperse them, and leaves nothing to be contemplated but the conscience of the sinner, and the stern voice of justice requiring compensation.

Again, the cross of Christ exhibits, to a much greater extent than you can possibly otherwise conceive, the magnitude of human transgression. When we measure it by the greatness of the sacrifice necessary to make atonement for it, how do our

ideas of the strictness and purity of the Divine justice rise in our view! How awful does that justice appear which the wisdom of God displays, whose office it is to balance the Divine perfections, that nothing should be accepted as a sacrifice but the blood of his own Son, the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person! Who would not be guilty of impiety in supposing that the Divine Being would be prodigal of that blood, and would expose him to degradation which was not necessary to the object? But when we read that "it became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings," we cannot help estimating the greatness of the danger by the extraordinary means to avert it; the greatness of that wound which sin had inflicted on human nature, by the qualities of that balm which is found only in the blood of the Saviour. No abstract contemplation of the nature of sin as compared with the law of God, no abstract considerations of the justice and purity of the Divine Being, would have given us any thing like that deep impression of the evil of sin, of the great breach rebellion had made in the government of God, of the critical and awful exigency of the case, as the plainest Christian is capable of receiving in the spectacle of his own Son crucified for us. When conscience is alarmed, and when its sacred voice enforces the dictates of the Divine law, and pronounces sentence of condemnation, it will never reach to that extent of the evil of sin as springs from the contemplation of the cross of Christ. It is true, the denunciations of the Divine law are extremely awful. We cannot contemplate the curse the Divine Being has denounced against transgressors, and remember it is the curse of God, without feeling our minds affected; but we shall enter more deeply into the spirit of those passages, and have a greater practical impression of the wrath to come, when we consider that no sacrifice was found sufficient to lay a foundation for deliverance from it, but in the propitiation of the eternal Son. Hence you find, that in the whole course of the Christian life, those whose minds have been deeply imbued by the cross of Christ have had a greater reverence of the Divine majesty, and a greater fear of God as a just legislator, than when this doctrine is not announced. I remember Mr. Brainerd, in the account he gives of his mission among the Indians, remarks that he never found his hearers so much dismayed as when he was, not denouncing the terrors of Divine justice, but displaying the riches of Divine grace in the death of the Redeemer. Those who had reason to believe that they had not laid hold of salvation by the Redeemer, had such a conception of the difference between the lost and the saved, when measured by that standard, that they seemed to be oppressed and sunk into despair almost by the annunciation of the glad tidings.

In the second place, the preaching of the cross is the power