all other proofs end. This 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 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 weakness, and carries us undismayed through the terrors of death. Every true Christian is crucified with Christ, and has the power of Christ resting upon him.

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 the stubborn Jew, but the preaching of Christ crucisubduing the proud Mohammedan, and in convincing fied. 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 machinations-Thy 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 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 accom

plished? 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 Saviour. If the Jew require additional evidence, and be determined not to believe but on the condition 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 veil 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, because 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.

But this brings me to show, as was proposed,

ISHNESS.

II. THAT THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS THE MYSTERY IN WHICH GOD MAINLY DISPLAYS HIS WISDOM. The doctrine of it, indeed, APPEARS TO BE FOOLThe 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, 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 pro

fessed Christians, yet the real meaning and importance of it still appears foolishness to those who are not truly enlightened by the blessed Spirit. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The false wisdom of the world, though professedly Christian, would substitute some other modification of truth for the simple doctrine of the Cross. They who consult merely human reason can see no wisdom in the ignominious death of Jesus Christ. They pervert or abuse the most sober statements of the doctrine founded upon it; and tacitly substitute for it the covenant of works, or mere details of morals, or some scheme of a remedial law. In every age there is a tendency to obscure, or neglect, or misrepresent the pure truth of the Gospel of Christ. Human wisdom would improve on divine. Only the true penitent and humble are willing to become fools that they may be wise.

Still the cross of Christ is really THE MOST ASTONISHING DISPLAY OF DIVINE WISDOM. The designs of wisdom were, in this instance, laid as deep, as the arm of power was lifted high. In human efforts, we seldom see the union in an equal measure of wisdom and power. Where the mightiest force is exerted, prudential considerations are often overlooked. Or, on the contrary, where a consummate wisdom is discernible, we do not always perceive the full display of power. But in the plans of God, and especially in that before us, we discover the greatest degree of both; it is as much the wisdom of God, as it is his power. To the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. In the cross of Christ, God hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. The Apostles, in declaring it, preached the wisdom of God in a mystery,

even the hidden wisdom; which the angels desire to look into.

Something of this will appear if we consider THE PERSON OF THE CRUCIFIED SAVIOUR. To have laid

help upon one that was mighty; to have given his only begotten Son to be made man; to have found out a way in which the human and divine nature might be united in one mysterious person; to have made this union of the two natures in Christ, the foundation of the reconciliation of God and the fallen creature; to have discovered a method in which God might suffer, and suffer in the same nature which had sinned; to have united finite with infinite, omnipotence with weakness, immortality with mortality, is beyond all question the highest evidence of wisdom.

THE PREPARATION OF THE WORLD FOR THE COMING OF CHRIST, AND ESPECIALLY FOR HIS OFFERING HIMSELF A SACRIFICE FOR SIN, discovers the supreme wisdom of God. The longer any great design is in preparation, and the more numerous the expedients and events, which, though apparently unconnected, yet all tend to the production of a common end, the greater is admitted to be the skill of the contriver. Now, in the measures which for four thousand years were preparing for the mysterious sacrifice of the cross, what wisdom is manifested! The gradual revelation of this mystery from the first dawn of promise in the garden of transgression, to the full blaze of light in the predictions of Isaiah and Malachi, is an evidence of this. The successive dispensations of the covenant of grace to Adam, and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses; the separation of a particular person as the father of the faithful and the progenitor of the Messiah; the selection, first of Jacob, and then of Judah, from the descendants of Abraham ; the whole economy of Moses, calculated in the highest degree to preserve the memory of the original