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They hold in their hands the oracles of truth, and the false oracles of Satan are silent. They approach, the ark of Dagon and the idols of the nations are overthrown. They preach the King of kings, and the proudest monarchs bow before him. They cause the light of the world to shine, and the darkness of superstition is dispersed. They unfold the standard of salvation, and infidelity sees its banners forsaken. They display the sign of redemption, and the people are saved. In a word, they raise the brazen serpent, and all the wounds which the infernal serpent has inflicted, are healed. What wonders does the powerful virtue of the Cross effect, without borrowing any thing from man * !”

This part of the subject brings the question home to ourselves. The Gospel thus propagated by the Apostles, we have received and profess to obey. If therefore we are true Christians, we know the power of the Cross IN ITS ACTUAL INFLUENCE ON OUR OWN HEARTS AND LIVES. This influence is, after all, the most astonishing proof of its virtue, and that in which all other proofs end. The doctrine of the crucifixion is eminently the power of God, because it is the only doctrine which, being accompanied by the Holy Spirit, changes the heart, overcomes the customs and prejudices and lusts of men, brings

*Duquesné in loc.

them to repentance for sin, and to faith in the atonement of Christ for pardon and justification; which sanctifies and purifies the affections and life, produces the real love of God, consoles and supports us under trouble, strengthens us under fears and weaknesses, and carries us undismayed through the terrors of death. Every true Christian is crucified with Christ, and has the

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power*

Nor is there any other way in which the power of God is to be shown in THE FUTURE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. No other doctrine will be employed in subduing the proud Mohamedan, and in convincing the stubborn Jew, but the preaching of Christ crucified. No other will be the means of overthrowing the various rites and superstitions of Paganism, and of illuminating a dark world. This, and this only, will finally subvert the kingdom of Satan, and confound all his subtle devices and machinationsThy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

Thus is the preaching of the Cross the mystery in which the power of God is stupendously displayed; and this IN OPPOSITION TO EVERY OTHER MEANS FOR SAVING MEN. For what have all other means accomplished? What has ever been done to change the heart and lives of men but by the doctrine of the Cross? What have heathen ethics, or abstract morals, or vain philosophy, or human suasion, or political theories

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done to reach and gain the heart? If the Jews should have their sign from heaven, if new miracles were to be performed, if the stumblingblock of the Cross were to be removed, if the doctrines of the self-righteous and worldly could be acted upon to their utmost extent, what would be accomplished? Would all these be the power of God unto salvation? What has been ever done by similar methods? Nothing effectual, nothing saving. No. We want no sign from heaven, we want no new miracle; this is our sign, this is our miracle, a crucified Sa-. viour. If the Jew require additional evidence, and be determined not to believe but on the eondition of receiving it, we preach to him the Cross as the miracle of the divine power, which ought to be, and which will be when the vail is taken from his heart, more convincing than any merely external interpositions of the Almighty. If the infidel or the worldly professor of Christianity requires something sufficiently powerful and energetic to influence and purify the human heart, we direct him to the dying Saviour, as the most surprising and affecting of all exhibitions of the power of God. This we do, be

cause we are fully convinced

of the power of

the doctrine of the Cross. It is not a mere

letter, but full of might and grace. We believe the miracles which our Lord performed on earth, and these are sufficient for us as to signs. We

see all the prophecies exactly accomplished in his person and sufferings, and this removes the offence of his external weakness. We experience in some measure the power of the Cross in our own hearts, and this does more than any sign from heaven; it not only takes away the offence of the Cross, it makes that Cross our glory. It renders it, not a rock of stumbling, but the sure foundation of all our hopes. It clothes it, not with scandal and difficulties, but with splendour and victory. We allow indeed that God may still be thought by an ignorant world to act weakly in this way of salvation ; but it is enough for us to know that the weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men. We wish to have no power, no wisdom, but what spring from the summit of Calvary.

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But this brings me to show, as was proposed, II. THAT THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS THE MYSTERY IN WHICH GOD MAINLY DISPLAYS HIS WISDOM.

The doctrine of it, indeed, APPEARS TO LE FOOLISHNESS. The Greeks, elated with human learning, and accustomed to a proud search after wisdom, could perceive no trait of reason in the doctrine that a man-and far less in the declaration that the Son of God-should die for the sins of the world. It appeared to them, not so much a weak and insufficient means of reforming

mankind, as a foolish and irrational one. Nothing seemed to them more unreasonable than to state, as an eminent reformer expresses it, "that God was mortal, that life was obnoxious to death, that righteousness was covered with the likeness of sin, that blessedness was subject to a curse." They found also in the manner in which this doctrine was proposed, no turns of wit, no charms of rhetoric, no displays of ingenuity and 'skill. When therefore they examined whether the doctrine itself was adjusted according to the rules of their philosophy, whether it descanted at large on the highest good of man, and entered profoundly into the causes of things; and perceived that all their accustomed topics of argument were neglected, and that the doctrine of the fall of man, of redemption by the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and of the resurrection of the Saviour from the dead was insisted upon; and insisted upon, not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; it appeared to them to be foolishness in the abstract, a statement unworthy the least degree of notice. Thus, whilst the Jew stumbled at the Cross through a perverse zeal for the Law, the Greek turned away from it as irrational and absurd.

In like manner, though the wisdom of God in this doctrine may now, in a sense, be admitted by professed Christians, yet the real

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