close without a word to such, if any such there are in the presence of God, who have never sought an interest in the Prince of Peace, never put in a claim to the legacy of peace; what will you do when the storms of life assail? You will be like a vessel without pilot, or compass, or anchor; you will try perhaps to drown your griefs and cares in intemperance and gay company; but these will only aggravate the evil they pretend to cure. You will perhaps be lulled into senseless stupidity, or perhaps driven to wild desperation; for the world cannot heal the wounds it inflicts: and "there is no peace saith my God to the wicked."

And if you are thus unqualified to bear the troubles of life, "what will you do in the swellings of Jordan?" how will you stand against the terrors of death, and judgment, and eternity? My soul trembles for you; oh that you might be roused to tremble for yourselves! and, ere it be too late, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

SERMON VII.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED.

1 COR. ii. 2.

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

THIS is the noble resolution of the great apostle of the Gentiles, a man who had at his command all the learning of Greece and Rome, who might have commanded the attention and admiration of his hearers by a pompous shew of deep reasoning, by lofty flights of sublime eloquence, by an ostentatious display of human skill, science, and philo. sophy and did he this? no, he disdained it. It was not his object to excite attention or admiration to himself; his commission was to go and tell sin ners that they were perishing; but that Christ died upon the cross for the salvation of all, who, feeling their need, humbly and heartily applied to him. If St. Paul could thus induce men to look at his master, he was well content that the servant should be kept out of sight: he was therefore very careful that nothing in himself or his preaching

should divert the people from this grand end; and therefore he resolved to make Christ in his person and offices, as he is,-the sum and substance of the Gospel, the great subject of his preaching; to preach nothing, to discover the knowledge of nothing, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. This resolution it is the wisdom of every minister to adopt; for by this alone he can be faithful, honourable, and successful.

divine

Brethren, this too is my humble yet firm determination, "to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And oh, may grace make the preaching of this mystery (though to the pride of worldly wisdom it be foolishness, and to the fond conceit of self-righteousness a stumbling-block yet) in your experience, "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, through faith unto salvation."

To preach Christ crucified, appears to be, in the sense which the apostle intended it, to proclaim him in his original glories and condescending grace, as the medium of a sinner's acceptance, the foundation of his hope, and the fountain of his holiness. Let us consider the subject in these views.

The Scripturés represent, and the faithful minister of the Gospel constantly displays the Lord Jesus in all his original glories." He was rich" he stood possessed of all the fulness, the perfections, the happiness, and the glory of Deity. He is God over all, blessed for ever. Ten thousand ages ere the lofty skies were built, or this vast universe

brought into motion, or sin was formed, or Adam's dust was fashioned into man; he, the great Creator filled his throne, before which unnumbered angels fell prostrate, and cried," Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts!"

But the Almighty, this self-existent Jehovah, has condescended to join our feeble human nature to his own. "When the fulness of time was come," he took on him the seed of a woman, and "was made flesh and dwelt among us... the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." All the innocent infirmities and wants of human nature he sustained, and was made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted. But whence this vast condescension? It was for us men, and for our salvation, that he was thus made flesh. The manger at Bethelem had reference to the cross at Calvary; when he entered life, it was that he should taste all the sufferings, and exemplify all the duties of humanity, and close his course by an ignominious, painful and shameful, but meritorious death. There he accomplished the mighty work that was given him to do; there he wrought out and brought in for his people an everlasting righteousness; there he bore our sins in his own body on the tree; there he conquered the powers of death and hell; and in virtue of the sufferings he then endured, he is seated for ever on his mediatorial throne, as the Prophet, Priest, and King of his church, and has obtained a name which is above every name; Jesus, the approved of the Father; the admiration of angels;

H