SERMON LXXIX.

the cross! It is impossible for us to call to remembrance the great day of thy exaltation, without fixing our eyes upon thee, with those blessed disciples of thine who were the wit

TIAN. PART I.

GALATIANS Vi. 14.

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

THE solemnity which in a few days we are going to celebrate, I mean the Ascension of Jesus Christ, displays the triumph of the cross. The Saviour of the world ascending in a cloud, received up into heaven amidst the acclamations of the church triumphant, removes the offence given by the Saviour of the world hanging on a tree. The period of the crucifixion, I acknowledge, was precisely that in which he carried magnanimity to its most exalted pitch. Never did he appear so truly great as when" descended into the lower parts of the earth," Eph. iv. 9; humbled, made of no reputation, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," Phil. ii. 7, 8; he accomplished what was most repulsive to nature, in the plan of redemption. But how difficult is it to recognise heroism, when the hero terminates his career upon a scaffold!

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The darkness which overspread the mystery of the cross, is passing away; the veils which concealed the glory of Jesus Christ, begin to withdraw; heaven, which seemed to have conspired with earth and with hell to depress and overwhelm him, declares aloud in his favour; his splendour bursts out of obscurity, and his glory from the very bosom of shame: because he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant; because he humbled himself; because he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: therefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," Phil. ii. 9, 10.

What circumstances more proper could we have selected, Christians, to induce you to seek your glory in the cross of your Saviour, than those which display it, followed by so much pomp and magnificence? I am going to propose to you as a model the man who of all others best understood the mystery of the cross: for my part, says he in the words which I have read, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Let us meditate on this subject with all that application of thought which it so justly merits.

And thou great High Priest, " Minister of the true tabernacle! thou holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens," Heb. vii. 26; viii. 21, graciously look down on this people, now combating under the banners of

with the bodily organ, and with all the powers of thought, and without crying out, "Draw us, Lord, we will run after thee," Cant. i. 4. But in giving way to such desires, we misunderstand the nature of our vocation. We must combat as thou hast done, in order to triumph with thee. Well, be it so! "Teach my hands to war, and my fingers to fight," Ps. cxliv. 1. Teach us to make thy cross a ladder, whereon to mount to thy throne. Amen.

The text which we have announced, is, as it were, a conclusion deduced from the chapters which precede it. We cannot possibly have a clear comprehension of it, without a general recollection of the whole epistle from which it is taken. St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, has this principally in view, to revive the spirit of Christianity which he himself had diffused over the whole province of Galatia. Never had preacher greater success than the ministry of our apostle was attended with in this city of the Lesser Asia. He himself gives this honourable testimony in favour of the Galatians, in chap. iv. ver. 15, that "they had received him as an angel of God," and, which is saying still more, "even as Christ Jesus." But the Gauls, of which this people was a colony, have, in all ages, been reproached with the faculty of easily taking impressions, and of losing them with equal facility. The sentiments with which St. Paul had inspired them, shared the fate of all violent sensations; that is, they were of no great duration. With this he upbraids them in the very beginning of the epistle. I marvel, says he to them, chap. i. 6, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel." Mark the expression, removed unto another gospel.

We are not possessed of memoirs of the first ages of the church sufficiently ample to enable us to determine, with precision, who were the authors of a revolution so deplorable. But if we may give credit to two of the earliest historians, to whom we are indebted for the most complete accounts which we have of the first fathers of heresy, I mean Philostratus and St. Epiphanius, it was Cerinthus himself, in the first instance, and his disciples afterward, who marred the good seed which St. Paul had sown in the church of Galatia. One thing is certain, namely, that respect for the ceremonial observances which God himself had prescribed in a manner so solemn, and particularly for the law of circumcision, was the reason, or rather the pretext, of which the adversaries of our apostle availed themselves to destroy the fruits of his ministry, by exciting suspicions against the soundness of his doctrine. St. Paul goes to the root of the evil: he conveys just ideas of these ceremonial institutions; he demonstrates, that, however venerable the origin of them might be, and whatever the wisdom displayed in their establishment, they had never been laid down as the essential part of religion, much less still, as the true means of reconciling men to God. We perceive at first sight this design

of the apostle in the words of my text, and through the whole epistle from which they are taken.

But what is perhaps not so easily discoverable in it, but which ought to be very carefully observed, is, that as St. Paul was maintaining his thesis against opponents of different sorts, so he likewise supports it on different principles. Three descriptions of persons argued in favour of the Levitical observances. The first did so from a prejudice of birth and education. The second, from an excess of complaisance. The third from a criminal policy.

1. A part of the Jews, who had been converted to Christianity, could not help preserving a respect for the Levitical ceremonies, and wished to transmit the observance of them into the Christian church. These were the persons who acted from a prejudice of birth and education.

2. Some of them, more enlightened, out of complaisance to others, would have wished to retain the practice of those rites. In this class we find no less a person than St. Peter himself, as we learn from the second chapter of this epistle, the eleventh and following verses; and what is most to be regretted in the case, this apostle fell into such an excess of compliance, that he not only authorised by his example that respect which the Jews had for the Levitical institutions; but, being at Antioch when certain Jews were sent thither by St. James, he pretended to break off all intercourse with the Gentile converts to Christianity, because they had not submitted to the ordinance of circumcision; in this he acted from an excessive and timid complaisance. This weakness of St. Peter, to mention by the way, has been laid hold of by one of the most declared enemies of Christianity, I mean the philosopher Porphyry. The reproaches which he vents against the Christians, on this ground, appeared so galling to them, that they had recourse to a pious fraud to defend themselves. They alleged, nay, they perhaps seriously believed, that the person thus branded with timidity was not Peter the apostle, but one Cephas, who, as they are pleased to give out, was of the number of the seventy disciples of Jesus Christ, mentioned in the gospel. A most chimerical supposition! which has been latterly adopted by a celebrated Jesuit, and which has swelled the catalogue of his extravagances.

3. But if some from prejudice wished to transmit the Levitical ceremonies into Christianity, and others from an excess of complaisance, there was still a third description of persons who did so, out of a criminal policy. Such were the pagan converts. Respecting which it is necessary to remark, that the Jewish religion was tolerated by the Roman laws; whereas the religion of Jesus Christ was proscribed by them, and Christians were thereby exposed to the most violent persecution. This it was which induced the pagan converts to conform to the Levitical ceremonies, that they might pass for Jews under this veil of Judaism. A passage of St. Jerome to this purpose deserves to be here inserted. "CAIUS CESAR,"

* Father Hardouin, in his Dissertation on Gallatians ii. 10.

says he,* "AUGUSTUS and TIBERIUS enacted laws, by which the Jews dispersed over the Roman empire were authorised to practise the rites of their religion, and the ceremonial institutions transmitted to them from their fathers. All those who were circumcised, though they had embraced Christianity, were considered all over the pagan world as Jews; but all those who remained in a state of uncircumcision, while they professedly received the gospel, were equally persecuted by Jews and pagans. There were teachers among them, therefore, who, in order to screen themselves from these persecutions, submitted to be circumcised, and recommended circumcision to their disciples." These are the words of St. Jerome, and they throw much light on what our apostle says in the twelfth verse of the chapter from which I have taken my text. "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ." And as a relaxed morality has always the most numerous supporters, we see that in the church of Galatia, the teachers who made the greatest use of this artifice, not only attracted the greatest number of disciples, but likewise made that superiority a source of vain-glorious boasting. This is the sense of the words which immediately precede our text: "For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they might glory in your flesh."

These were the three descriptions of opponents against whom Paul had to maintain the inutility of the observance of the Levitical ceremonial, and to assert the exclusive doctrine of the cross.

One of the principal causes of the obscurity of St. Paul's Epistle is this, that it is not always easy to distinguish the general arguments which that apostle advances in them, from certain reasonings of a different kind, which are conclusive only against some particular adversaries. Is it not evident, for example, that all the consequences which he deduces from the history of Hagar, whom he makes the emblem of the ancient dispensation; and from that of Sarah, whom he makes the emblem of the evangelical, could make an impression only on the minds of Jews, who were accustomed to allegory, and who particularly discovered it in the different condition of that wife, and of that handmaid of Abraham; as appears in many passages of Philo, which it would be improper at present to introduce?

Now, my brethren, it is impossible to have a clear conception of the Epistles of our apostle, without carefully distinguishing those different adversaries whom he had to combat, and the different arguments which he employs to confute them. Nay, this distinction is the very key which explains to us the different conduct observed by the apostles toward their proselytes. For they believed themselves obliged, with respect to those who had come over from Judaism, to tolerate that Levitical ceremonial to which they were attached by the prejudices of birth; whereas this connivance might have proved dangerous to others who conformed to

Hieron. tom. 9. in Galat, vi. 12.

the practice of it merely from the dastardly motive which induced them to disguise their religion, or to screen themselves from the persecution to which it exposed them who gloried in making profession of it.

But whatever difference there may be in the character of the opponents whom the apostle was combating, and in the arguments which he employed to confute them, he presses on all of them this principle, on which the whole fabric of Christianity rests. The sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered up, that of his own life, is the only one capable of satisfying the demands of divine justice, awakened to the punishment of human guilt; and to divide the glory of the Redeemer's sacrifice with the Levitical ceremonial, was, as he expresses it, to preach another gospel; was to fall from grace; was to lose the fruit of all the sufferings endured in the cause of Christianity; was a doctrine worthy of being rejected with execration, were it to be preached even by an angel from heaven." Our apostle goes still farther; he solemnly protests that no worldly consideration should ever have power to make him renounce this leading truth of the gospel; that the more it exposed him to hatred and suffering, the more he would rejoice in the knowledge of it, and in making it known to others; in a word, he declares he will continue to preach the cross, were the consequences to be, that he himself should be nailed to it: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." This is the general scope of the epistle to the Galatians, particularly of our text, which is the conclusion of it.

But it is of importance to descend into a more particular detail. And, in order to throw more light on my subject, I propose, as far as the limits prescribed me permit, to attempt the three following things:

I. I shall examine wherein those sentiments of the Christian consist, which enable him to say that "the world is crucified unto him, and he unto the world."

II. I shall show that in such sentiments as these true glory consists.

III. I shall demonstrate that it is the cross of Christ, and the cross of Christ alone, which can inspire us with these sentiments; from which I shall deduce this farther consequence, that in the cross of Christ alone we can find a just ground of glorying. Vouchsafe us a few moments more of your attention to the elucidation of these interesting truths.

I. What is the disposition of mind denoted by these expressions, "the world is crucified unto me; I am crucified unto the world?" In order to have just ideas of this reciprocal crucifixion, we must comprehend, 1. The nature of it. 2. The degrees. 3. The bitterness.

1. The nature of it. "The world is crucified unto me; I am crucified unto the world:" this is a figurative mode of expression, importing a total rupture with the world. Distinguish two different senses in which the term world may be taken: the world of nature, and the world of cupidity. By the world of nature we understand that vast assemblage of beings which the almighty arm of Jehovah has formed, but these considered as they are in themselves.

By the world of cupidity we understand those self-same beings, considered so far as by our abuse of them, they seduce us from the obedience which we owe to the Creator. Of the natural world it is said, Gen. i. 31, "God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good." And St. Paul says, 1 Tim. iv. 4, that "every creature of God is good... if it be received with thanksgiving." The Christian does not break with the world in this first sense of the word. On the contrary, he makes it the object of his frequent meditation; he discovers in it the perfections of the great Being who created it: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy work," Ps. xix. 1. Nay more, he makes it the object of his hope: For the promise, I quote the words of St. Paul, in chap. iv. 13, of his Epistle to the Romans, "For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was made to Abraham: and all things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world," 1 Cor. iii. 22.

It is the world of cupidity, therefore, that our apostle speaks in the words which I am attempting to explain, that world of which it is said, "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," 1 John ii. 15. 17. "The friendship of the world is enmity with," or as it might have been rendered, "is hatred to God." This is the world which " is crucified" to the Christian; the Christian "is crucified" to this world. The apostle, in expressing himself thus strongly, refines upon a form of speech which frequently occurs in Scripture, that of "dying to an object." To die to an object, is, in the style of the sacred authors, to have no farther intercourse with that object. In this sense our apostle says, in chap. ii. of this Epistle, ver. 19, "I through the law am dead to the law;" in other words, the genius of severity which predominates in the Mosaic economy, lays me under the necessity of entirely renouncing it, "that I might live unto God;" the meaning of which evidently is this, that I may have undivided recourse to a dispensation which presents the Deity as more accessible to me. In like manner, "to die to the world of cupidity," or what amounts to the same thing, "to die unto sin," is to renounce sin; "how shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin: but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom. vi. 2 11. I am still quoting the words of St. Paul.

But as if a violent death were more really dying than death in a milder form, Scripture, in order to mark more decidedly the sincerity of the renunciation of the world, which is ascribed to the Christian, is not satisfied with representing him as dead, but holds him up as crucified to the world of cupidity: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him," Rom. vi. 6. "They who are in Christ have crucified the flesh, with its lusts;" and in the text, "the world is crucified unto me, and I am crucified unto the world:" that is, illicit cupidity exists no longer with respect to me, and I subsist no longer with respect to it.

2. There is, however, a certain degree of ambiguity in these ideas of "deadness to the

Where, then, are those saints to be found, in whom an ill-smothered cupidity emits no sparks? That female is an example of what is called virtue, by way of eminence, in her sex; and which, according to the ideas of the age in which we live, seems to constitute the whole of virtue, as far as she is concerned; but, impregnable to all the assaults which can be made upon her chastity, she succumbs under the slightest temptation that attacks her on the side of avarice; and she loses all self-government, the moment you recommend to her, to take care that her charities be in something like proportion to her opulence.

That man is a pattern of reflective retirement, and modest silence: but, unshaken by the rudest attacks made upon his spirit of reserve, he yields to the slightest solicitations of pride, he decks himself out with the names and titles of his ancestors, he admires himself in the poorest effusions of his brain. How easy would it be to multiply examples of this sort!"

But if it be impossible to say, taking the expression in the strictness of interpretation, that the Christian has broken off all commerce with the world, that he is "dead to the world," that "the world is crucified unto him," and that "he is crucified unto the world;" he possesses this disposition of mind, nevertheless, in various respects, and to a certain degree. "He is crucified unto the world;" he is so in respect of intention, he has that sincere will "to pull down every strong hold, every thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God;" it is an expression of St. Paul's, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. Hence such protestations as these, "O Lord! thou hast searched me, and known me," Ps. cxxxix. 1. "Lord! thou knowest that I love thee," John xxi. 17. Hence the bitterness of regret on account of remaining imperfection, "Ŏ wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. vii. 24. Hence those prayers for the communication of fresh supplies of heavenly aid; "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," Ps. cxix. 18. "Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God: thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness," Ps. cxliii. 10.

"He is crucified unto the world." He is so in respect of exertion and actual progress. Hence those unremitting conflicts with the remains of indwelling corruption; "I keep under

ix. 27. Hence those advances in the Christian course; "not as though I had already attained, either, were already perfect, but I follow after . . . This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," Phil. iii. 12-14. "He is crucified unto the world." He is so in respect of hope and fervour. Hence those sighings after the dissolution of the body, which forins, as it were, a wall of separation between God and us. Hence those ardent breathings after a dispensation, and economy of things in which we shall be able to give an unrestrained effusion to the love of order, and be completely united to Jesus Christ. "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; nor for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life,

knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 4. 6. 8.

3. But the Holy Spirit, in representing to us our renunciation of the world, under the idea of a death, of a crucifixion, intended to mark not only the nature and the degrees of the disposition of mind which these expressions denote, but likewise to indicate the difficulty, the bitterness, of making such a sacrifice.

In very rare instances do men die without suffering. Death, in the gentlest form, is usually preceded by violent symptoms, which some have denominated the harbingers of death.— These harbingers of death are mortal swoonings, feverish heats, paroxysms of pain, tortures insupportable. Crucifixion, especially, was the most cruel punishment which human justice, shall I call it? or human barbarity ever invented. The imagination recoils from the repre- sentation of a man nailed to a tree, suspended by the iron which pierces his hands and his feet, pressed downward with the weight of his own body, the blood of which is drained off drop by drop, till he expires merely from excess of anguish.

Is this frightful image overstrained, when employed to represent the pains which the Christian is called to endure, the conflicts which he has to maintain, the sacrifices which he is bound to make; agonies which he is under an indispensable necessity to undergo, before he possibly can attain that blessed state which our apostle had, through grace, arrived at, when he said, in the words of my text, "the world is crucified unto me, and I am crucified unto the world?"

Represent to yourselves a Christian, represent to yourselves a man as yet a novice in the school of Jesus Christ, called to combat, sometimes the propensities which he brought with him into the world; sometimes to eradicate a ha bit which has grown up in him, till it is become a second nature: sometimes to stem the torrent of custom and example; sometimes to mortify and subdue a headstrong passion, which engrosses him, transports him, drags him away captive; sometimes to bid an everlasting farewell to the place of his birth, to his kindred,