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PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, LANE SEMINARY, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS.*

"For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified."-1 COR. ii. 2.

THE Apostle Paul was a model preacher. In all that constitutes a wise, faithful, efficient and successful minister of the gospel, he stands next to him who "spake as never man spake." One important source of his power is developed in the declaration of the text: "I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Not more at Corinth than every where else, from the moment he bowed his soul to Christ, on the plains of Damascus, till his work on earth was finished, this language expressed his governing purpose.

Fitted by natural gifts and by liberal study to apprehend more fully perhaps than any other man ever did, what is implied in such a purpose, when Christ was revealed to him and in him-when he grasped the great thought wrapped up in the words "Christ crucified," it filled his whole being and absorbed all his energies. He bowed beneath its weight, saying-it is enough. Let this one idea fill my soul and govern my life. To study it, to fathom it, to preach it, this, by the grace of God,

Preached before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at its opening in the city of Philadelphia, May, 1854, and published by request.

shall be my one business while I live. If I may know this, I desire to know nothing else I need to know nothing else. Thence, onward, that glorious truth was to the Apostle, not his guiding polar star, but the central sun, in whose light he pressed on his heavenly way. It was the very atmosphere he breathedthe vital element of the life he lived. Filling all his heart, and sent in full and strong pulsations through every limb and muscle of the frame, it made him a living, earnest, mighty man.

Was Paul herein the model for the preacher of our own day? In the progress of ages and the march of intelligence, in this day of intense mental action and of fearless plunging into the profoundest depths of philosophy, is there not developed some other thought, better fitted to be the one idea of the preacher's life, than that old theme of the Apostle Paul? Does not our philosophy demand some other? Does not the upheaving of old foundations warn us that we must re-construct on new principles? Does not the tremendous pressure of the world upon the church instruct us that a mightier weapon of defence is needed? Does not the unequalled progress of the age justify the presumption that, if the ministry still cling to the old idea of Paul, they must fall behind the times, and lose their power over the people? Or if a new theme be not adopted, is it not at least due to the age that a new dress be sought in which to present the venerable theme, so as to make it more attractive than we are wont to make it?

Questions of this sort have suggested the subject of discourse on this occasion. They call upon us, as intelligent men, acting in behalf of great interests and with reference to permanent results, to examine our weapons, to review our principles of action, and to justify them to ourselves and to the world. The propriety of such a purpose as Paul expressed, depends on the question whether this theme be broad enough for all the exigencies of the ministry, and comprehensive enough to include the whole range of study which the minister needs to fit him for his work?

THE COMPREHENSIVENESS, then, OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS, is our theme.

I. I begin with its comprehensiveness in Theology.

The beautiful Bible figure concerning the relation of Christ to the church is equally applicable to the system of truth of which the church is the pillar and the ground.

Jesus Christ is the chief corner stone-tried, elect, precious. But, more than this-that is a living stone; having life, and giving life; so that they that are built upon it, are living also; and so that the whole building, fitly framed together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, "groweth in him

into an holy temple in the Lord." Such is the relation of the doctrine of the cross to the entire system of divine truth, necessitating its form and development, giving symmetry, beauty, life and power to the whole.

It is a beautiful idea of Neander, though very unsound and unsafe, that the doctrine of a crucified Saviour-a doctrine that could come only from God, and is therefore inspired-furnishes a test by which to determine what portions of the sacred volume are inspired and what are not. Every thing that unfolds and impresses the Christian idea is, like that idea itself, inspired. The Christian consciousness of the regenerated man, in quick and lively sympathy and affinity with these truths, readily detects them, and separates them for its own use, as the magnet attracts the iron filings from out the mass of dust, and thus safely applies the test of inspired Scripture.

Rejecting utterly this theory of inspiration, both in its philosophy and in its application, we might yet say with truth that the inspiration of the Holy Ghost goes through the records of this sacred book along with the life-giving power of the cross of Christ; and then add, that there is not a branch, nor a twig, nor a leaf, that is not made comely and vigorous and green by the vital current from the living vine, and therefore that it is in whole and in every part the inspired word of God.

We can only glance a moment at a few of the relations of this truth to the system of theology. Who was Jesus Christ? God manifest in the flesh, or a created being? At what a measureless distance asunder do the different answers to these questions at once reveal men to be, in all their views of God and of man;— of human character and human hopes. The divinity of Christ involves at once the tri-unity of the Godhead, the mystery of the incarnation, and the unfathomable depths of the infinite intelligence. Why was the Son of God crucified? This question brings before us on the one hand the fact and the nature of the moral government of God, the nature of Justice as an attribute of God, and as an attribute of his law; the nature of right and wrong, of freewill and conscience: and involves, directly and indirectly, the profoundest questions of morals and of mental science. It points us on the other to the condition of those for whom the sacrifice was made, and involves the question of the fall as a tremendous fact of human history, and the influence of that event upon Adam and upon his posterity. Depravity, imputation, the nature of sin, original and actual, the whole group of correlated topics, assume their positions, and aspects and bearings, in accordance with the answer to this question. Nay more, this question sweeps back into the ages of a past eternity, involving the covenant of Redemption and the eternal, sovereign and immutable decrees of Jehovah; and it opens to our study those depths which no human mind has penetrated, in which lie hid the reasons for

the divine permission of sin, the immediate sentence of fallen angels, and yet the institution of a new probation for fallen man. The results of the death of Christ in respect to individuals, involve the nature and necessity and fruits of Regeneration by the Spirit; the extent of human ability and obligation, both before and after regeneration; the relations of the regenerate to the Redeemer in this life, and the ground of their security of life eternal. The results of the atonement on other beings and other worlds, unveil to us the future with its dread and glorious realities of resurrection, judgment, heaven and hell. They unveil to us the relation of this life to another, and of this scene of probation and redemption to the government of God over other intelligences, and throughout eternity; "when unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, shall be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Thus the doctrine of the cross may be seen to be the vital element of the whole system of Christian truth. It is the head from which the whole body, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Without it, the collections of doctrines this volume contains, these specimens of poetry and eloquence, these sublimest conceptions of the human mind, are like pearls scattered on the ocean's bed, without order, without design, comparatively without value. The mind that attempts to study the system, whatever other ideas it may have, if it have not grasped this one all-pervading idea, will study in vain and grope in darkness, as the blind man gropeth for the wall. But, on the other hand, this one truth correctly apprehended and cordially received, not only are all the rest in an important sense involved and made necessary, but the greatest obstacles to the reception of all the rest are overcome or removed.

The Saviour alluded to this idea when in reply to Peter, who had nobly avowed his faith in Christ, saying, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; He said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Paul uttered the same testimony, in his first letter to the Corinthians: "No man can say that Jesus is the Christ, but by the Holy Ghost;" and John uses the truth to mark the dividing line between the regenerate and the unregenerate; "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." The very idea of the Incarnation of Deity, and especially, incarnation of Deity for the purpose of an atoning death in behalf of humanity, when men look at it as a matter of speculation, so outstretches the boundaries of human reason, so staggers human faith, that in its fullest sense, certainly in all its meaning, in all its precious relations to human wants, no man can receive it but by the Holy Ghost. When one's mind attempts to grasp the idea of the infinite, when he thinks, on the

one hand, of the Maker and Sovereign of all worlds and all beings, in his boundless and eternal dominion, and on the other, what is involved in his becoming flesh, to dwell among us for the suffering of death, the mystery of incarnation is so utterly impenetrable, the condescension is so amazing, the love so inconceivable, the sacrifice so stupendous, that nothing short of the clearest affirmations of the infinite God himself can, or ought to lodge it firmly in the confidence of the human mind. But when this is done -when the soul bows to receive, as it must, this truth from the pen of inspiration, not only does it receive the whole system of gospel truth, fastened to this by logical necessity, but it is prepared to receive any and every truth, which that same authority may unfold. It implies a surrender, to be led by faith in divine teaching, into regions which reason cannot penetrate. It is just the surrender that prepares him to gaze "on the mysterious splendors of the cross, and not be proud. His heart within him is like a little child's, while yet the mind is filled with images of surpassing glory, and might, and love."

II. Its comprehensiveness in history.

This world is given to Christ. He is promised here a seed to serve him, that he shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. "There was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." For the establishment of this kingdom, the government of this world is on Christ's shoulder. All power in heaven and earth is his, and in his infinite wisdom he is working out his benevolent and glorious designs. Human depravity makes it a slow, and oftentimes an exceedingly painful process. Great lessons, embodying the principles of the divine government, and of individual and national well-being, must be so taught, reiterated and impressed, that they shall be deeply imbedded in the thoughts and purposes and plans of men, and become at length the acknowledged and abiding principles of human conduct. But so averse is the human heart to these truths of God, that no teacher but experience, protracted, perpetuated, and often most painful experience, by means of which they shall be inwrought into the very being and life of men and nations-no teacher but experience can fasten them firmly upon the mind. Facts might be presented indefinitely, did time permit, illustrating the principle that Christ is inweaving, and that on a vast scale, and by the agency, in no small part, of wicked men and nations themselves, Christ is inweaving into the permanent texture, and into the very being of human society, the great moral lessons which alone can prepare the way for the complete establishment of that kingdom, which is right

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