If the gospel was hid, it This power was always present. These glorious thoughts were always ready to pass into the mind. was only hid because we were lost. justified of her children. Oh the "sweet wonders" of the Cross! What power and love and holiness and truth and skilfulness does it unfold! All sinks by its side, all fades in its presence! It is the only greatness, the only strength, the only excellence! Perish all that withstands it! Vanish all that dims it! Let it stand forth, and name none other conception or type of conception, none other regard or bond of regard, none other marvel or possibility of marvel! Pillar, on which all moral victories are inscribed! Monument, to which heaven turns to learn that God is merciful, and even hell that God is just! Mark the Necessity. Until we be brought nigh to it, until we take hold of it, the doctrine of the Crucified Saviour is an unintelligible and uninteresting thing. "He is of none effect to us." It is alienated from holy use. We see it only at a distance, and it scarcely moves the most transient feeling. Until it comes into contact with our mind, it can command no proper influence. It is not a blind agent, operating perforce. It works in no occult manner. It addresses the understanding. It convinces and persuades. It excites the moral dispositions. It puts forth its mastery upon all the sensibilities of the heart. It wins. It brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. We are called to his fellowship. He is our Lord Jesus Christ,-our life, our hope, our peace! It is our gospel! We are Christ's! And this oneness with Him who endured the cross and with all the purposes of his death, secures the ascendancy of every spiritual principle and the perfection of every Christian virtue. Mark the Effect. There is a suddenly, though a most intelligently, developed charm. It is the infinite of attraction. All concentrates on it. It absorbs the tenderness and the majesty of the universe. It is full of glory. It combines whatever can make great or constitute greatness. It is the simplest of all simple things, the deepest of all deep things. Is it occasion of astonishment that, when perceived, our mind should become transformed by its power, and our existence rapt in its vision? "Behold, all things are become new. Scandal once appeared to us as the badge of the Cross. We saw an opprobrium in it which nothing could redeem. We cannot deceive ourselves in this matter. It is no palliation that as symbol, either patriotic or ecclesiastical, it did not offend. We speak of it as a system of truths and a centre of influences. We speak of the unsophisticated, the undespoiled, the uncorrupted, Cross. Like the inverted magnet, it revolted and repelled. But our heart has now yielded to it; is drawn, is held; coheres, coalesces; is itself impregnated by the sacred effluence. And now, in the only manner safe, beneficial, honourable,—in the only manner which secures to it all its efficacy and all its grandeur,-THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS HAS CEASED! -Let us see to it that the Cross, in all its points of opposition to human pride, sensuality, ambition, selfishness, malevolence, shall offend. This opposition must always exist, and it must as certainly operate unless there be some attempt at accommodation. If you turn it into a worldly object or instrument, the world will love its own. But it is our duty to uplift it as the naked specimen of what was. Turn it every way against the natural principles of man: his self-righteousness, his self-dependence, his self-applause. Let not its powers sleep. It is the antagonist, necessary and natural, of sin. It must not distantly rise or faintly gleam on some imaginary Calvary, but move through the avenues of society, plant itself amidst the collisions of passion, and send forth its appeals among the children of this world. It is a thing of interposition, of rebuke, of action, of life. -Let us see to it that whatever be its offence, it shall merely be its own. For there may be charges which can bear no semblance of righteous application. If, while we would vindicate it, we contradict its absolute nature and intent,-if we crucify the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame,—if we tread underfoot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant with which He was inaugurated a common thing,-then a new stumblingblock is heaped in the way of men, a new source of repugnance arises, with which the Cross cannot be commixed. It does offend, it would offend, all the evils of the world. This condemnation it provokes and boasts. But if inconsistency mark its defenders, if the corruptions which are in the world cleave to those who are its declared followers, it answers not for these. It is not implicated in the scandals by which the enemies of God are made to blaspheme. He who died upon it shall answer,-when of these stabs so foully, falsely, dealt, it shall be asked, "What are these wounds in Thy hands ?"-" Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." -Let us see to it that we honour the Cross in the very proportion of the offence which is awakened by its reproof and counteraction of human prejudice and wickedness. How heavenly is this its unveiled character! How divine the glories which shine around it! It is a perpetual witness of God, like the sun in the firmament. It condemns sin.. It is the spring of charity. It is the shield of justice. It is the cause of all happiness in the world. It is the Yea and Amen of truth. It can only bless as it is maintained in its salient and sublime offensiveness ! -Let us see to it that we confide in the Cross, on this account alone, as the instrument of turning men to God. Obliterate its offence, and it may partially lull, it may heal slightly, but it will not save. It must be for the fall, ere it can be for the rising, of any. It must probe to cure. It must subvert to establish. It must eradicate to implant. It must kill to make alive. This is the means. It calls for self-renunciation throughout all the strongholds, all the deep-seated retreats, in which the accursed principle of selfishness has entrenched itself. It proclaims eternal war against it. It pursues it to destruction. It will not spare. But thus it saves the man, in that course which only consists with his salvation and which only can terminate in it, even by saving him from himself! Now we command the secret how he may be saved! Now we command the means of saving him! His disgust at it is an auspice of hope! Its irritation of him is a token for good! "God forbid that we should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!" U SERMON XIII. THE CONTRASTED HUMILIATION AND EPH. iv. 9, 10. "Now THAT HE ASCENDED, WHAT IS IT BUT THAT HE DESCENDED FIRST INTO THE LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH? HE THAT DESCENDED IS THE SAME ALSO THAT ASCENDED UP FAR ABOVE ALL HEAVENS, THAT HE MIGHT FILL ALL THINGS." THE mighty Angel has winged his way from heaven,-earthquake has dislodged the ponderous stone which closed the entrance of the Sepulchre, the hardy centinels, trained to watch and warfare, rush from their guard and flee in consternation,—the veteran legionaries will confess any breach of discipline, will endure any imputation of cowardice, will suffer any ban of infamy, will brave any form of punishment, to escape these mingled terrors,the seal, which it was death to touch, is shivered, and He, who was dead, is alive again for evermore, emerges serenely, rises triumphantly, with power as meek, with influence as resistless, with presence as diffusive, as the looking forth of that Dawn which He now prevented, which He has perpetually signalised, and which has been commemorated by his disciples since,—in unbroken succession, in unwearying faith,-nearly a hundred thousand times! The most ordinary sense of right, found often in the rudest. breast, induces us, on even common occasions, to rejoice in the vindication of innocence and the success of virtue. We have witnessed their reproaches, marked their struggles, sympathised with their tears. Hence is it that we so much delight in the descriptions which represent the difficulties, the indignities, the repulses, which true worth too oft endures,-the clouds which obscure, the persecutions which harass, it,—but which wind up all with a climax and catastrophe of poetic justice. The triumph, though slow, is ultimately complete. Excellence is cleared. Goodness is crowned. Opposition is defeated. Hostility is crushed. And now there glows to the eye, there breaks on the ear, of the Christian, the reality of these lofty sentiments, the celebration of these righteous acts. He, whom men despised and the nation abhorred,-who came out of Galilee, who was branded Samaritan, who was called Beelzebub,-who was hurried away to the death of the felon and the outcast,-who was nailed to the cross, an engine combining the agony of the rack and the infamy of the gibbet, who died amidst the scoffs of the soldiery and the execrations of the multitude,-his visage marred by violence and defiled by rheum,-as though time had grudged him every moment and earth had spurned his shadow so long as it rested on it, on whom contumely heaped its foulest and torture wreaked its worst,-Jesus has vanquished all that calumny could forge or malice could inflict. He has not only escaped from that which man could do unto him; his foot is now on the neck of his spiritual foes. He has paused, lest there should be any demand of justice which he had not answered: he has lingered, lest there should be another adversary whom he had not overHe has gazed around in vain. None such were to be found. No demand whispered: no adversary durst renew the contest. The Cross could strike no keener pang,-He had endured it. Shame could wring out no darker ignominy,- He had despised it. And now His glories gather around him! The chariot of his ascension waits! The clouds are the dust of his feet! He flies on the wings of the wind! The heavens receive him! He is crowned with the diadem, he is installed on the throne, of the universe!-How wonderful is this transformation ! He no more is rejected and set at nought: the principalities and powers in the heavenly places bend to him and worship him. He no more sinks down in weakness and death-like sorrow: he holds up the pillars of heaven. He no more is despised of man and come. |