were extravagantly demanding, they faw him crucified in weakness, they could not admit the thought that this was that illuftrious character of an univerfal king. They were fo dazzled with worldly glory, and fo infenfible of their fpiritual wants, that they had no notions of a fpiritual Saviour, and a kingdom of grace; nor could they see how fuch prophecies were accomplished in one that only profeffed to deliver from the flavery of fin and Satan, and the wrath to come. Hence they ftumbled at the cross, as an obftacle which they could not get over. When Christ called Lazarus from the dead, he had crowds of followers, who attended his triumphant proceffion inte Jerufalem as a mighty conqueror: and when he had fed fo many thoufands with a few loaves, they were about forcibly to make him king; for they knew that one who could raise his foldiers to life after they had been killed, and support an army with fo little provifions, could eafily conquer the world, and refcue them from the power of the Romans. But when they faw him feized by his enemies without making refiftance, or working a miracle for his own defence, they immediately abandoned him; and the hofannas of the multitude were turned into another kind of cry, Crucify him, crucify him. And when they faw him hanging helpless and dying upon the cross, it was demonftration to them that he was an impoftor. It was this that rendered the preaching of Chrift by his apoftles fo unpopular among the Jews: It feemed to them like a panegyric upon an infamous malefactor: and they thought it an infult to their nation to have fuch a one propofed to them as their Meffiah. Thus Chrift crucified was to the Jews a ftumbling-block.

As to the Greeks, who were a learned philofophical people, it feemed to them the wildeft folly to worThip one as a God who had been crucified as a malefactor; and to truft in one for falvation who had not faved himself. Their Jupiter had his thunder, and according to their tradition, had crufhed the for

midable

midable rebellion of the giants againft heaven: their Bacchus had avenged himself upon the defpifers of his worship; and the whole rabble of their deities had. done fome god-like exploit, if the fables of their poets were true: and would they abandon fuch gods, and receive in their ftead a defpifed Nazarene, who had been executed as the vileft criminal by his own nation? Would they give up all their boafted wisdom and learning, and become the humbleft difciples of the crofs, and receive for their teachers a company of illiterate fishermen, and a tent-maker from the defpifed nation of the Jews, whom they held in the utmost contempt for their ignorance, bigotry, and fuperftition? No, the pride of their understandings could: not bear fuch a mortification. If their curiofity led them to be St. Paul's hearers, they expected to be entertained with a flourish of words, and fine philofophic reafoning; and when they found themfelves difappointed, they pronounced him a babbler (Acts xvii. 18.) and his preaching foolishness.-Corinth, to which this epiftle was fent by St. Paul, was a noted city among the Greeks; and therefore, what he fays upon this head was peculiarly pertinent and well applied.

The prejudices of the Jews and Greeks in this refpect outlived the apoftolic age, as we learn from the writings of the primitive fathers of the chriftian church, who lived among them, and were converfant with them. Trypho the Jew, in a dialogue with Juftin Martyr, about an hundred years after St. Paul wrote this epiftle, charges it upon the chriftians as the greateft abfurdity and impiety, that they placed their hopes in a crucified man. Juftin, after long reasoning, conftrains him at length to make fundry conceffions, as, that the prophecies which he had mentioned did really refer to the Meffiah; and that, according to these prophecies, the Meffiah was to fuffer. But (fays the Jew) that Chrift fhould be fo ignominiously crucified; that he should die a death which the law

pronounces

I

*

pronounces accurfed, this we cannot but doubt; this yet find a very a very hard thing to believe: and therefore if you have any further evidence upon this head, would willingly hear it.' Here you fee the cross was a ftumbling block, which the Jews could not get over in a hundred years; nay, they have not got over it to this day. Lactantius, about three hundred years after Chrift's birth, observes, that the fufferings of Chrift were wont to be caft upon chriftians as a reproach: it was thought a strange and scandalous thing that they should worship a man; a man that has been crucified, and put to the most infamous and tormenting death by men." An heathen, in Minutius Fœlix, is introduced as faying, He who reprefents a man punifhed for his crimes with the fevereft punishment, and the favage wood of the crofs, as the object of their worship, and a ceremony of their religion, afcribes a very proper altar to fuch abandoned and wicked creatures, that they may worship that which they deferve to hang upon.' And refering to the many barbarous perfecutions they then groaned under, he jeers them; See here,' fays he, are threatenings for you, punishments, torture and croffes, not to be adored, but endured.' ‡ • The calumniating Greeks,' fays Athanafius, ridicule us, and fet up a broad laugh at us, because we regard nothing fo much as the crofs of Chrift.'

Thus, you fee, the doctrine of the cross was, of all other things, the most unpopular among Jews and Gentiles, and the moft difagreeable to their tafte. A man could not expect to fhine, or cut a figure as a

man

Paffionem quæ velut opprobrium nobis objectari folet: quod & hominem, & ab hominibus infigni fupplicio affectum & excruciatum colamus De ver. Sap. L. IV. c. 16.

+ Qui hominem fummo fupplicio pro facinore punitum, & crucis ligna feralia corum Ceremonias fabulatur, congruentia perditis fceleratifque tribuit altaria, ut id colant quod merenP. 9.

tur.

Ecce vobis minac, fupplicia, tormenta, etiam non adorandae, fed fubeundae cruces. P. 11.

man of fenfe and learning, by making this the subject of his difcourfes. But will Paul give it up, and difplay his talents upon fome more acceptable theme? This, as a fine fcholar, he was very capable of; but he abhors the thought.

Let the Jews and Greeks defire what they please; we,' fays he, will not humour them, nor gratify their tafte: however they take it, we will preach Christ crucified; though to the Jews he fhould prove a ftumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishnefs.' And there are fome that relish this humble doctrine. To them that believe, both Jews and Greeks, whether learned or unlearned, whether educated in the Jewish or Pagan religion, however different their prejudices, or their natural taftes, to all that believe, notwithftanding these differences, Chrift, that is, Chrift crucified, is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The wifdom and power of God are not the only perfections that shine in this method of falvation by the crofs; but the apoftle particularly mentions these, as directly anfwering to the refpective demands of Jews and Greeks. If the Jew defires the fign of power in working miracles, the believer fees in Chrift crucified a power fuperior to all the powers of miracles. If the Greek seeks after wisdom, here, in a crucified Christ, the wisdom of God fhines in the highest perfection. Whatever fign or wifdom the Jew or Greek defires and feeks after, the believer finds more than an equivalent in the crofs. This is the greatest miracle of power, the greatest mystery of wisdom in all the world.

The prejudices of the Jews and Gentiles were not only confined to the early ages of Chriftianity; the fame depraved tafte, the fame contempt of the humble doctrines of the crofs may be found among us, though profeffed Chriftians: fome resemble the Jews, who were perpetually demanding figns: they affect vifions and impulfes, and all the reveries of enthufiafm, inftead of the preaching of Chrift crucified. Others,

VOL. II.

like the Greeks, through an affectation of florid harangues, moral difcourfes, and a parade of learning and philofophy, nauseate this fort of preaching, and count it foolishnefs. It is therefore high time for the minifters of the gofpel to ftand up as advocates for the cross, and with a pious obftinacy to adhere to this fubject, whatever contempt and ridicule it may expose them to. For my part, I know not what I have to do, as a minifter of the gofpel, but to preach Christ crucified. I would make him the fubftance, the center, the end of all my miniftrations. And if we, or an angel from heaven, preach unto you any other gofpel— you know his doom-let him be accurfed. Gal. i. 9.

We are to confider the apoftles as fent out into the world to reform and fave the corrupt and perifhing fons of men, and the preaching of Chrift crucified as the mean they used for this important end. This is the formal view the apoftle had of preaching Chrift in this place, viz. as a mean found out by the wifdom of God to fave them that believe, after that all the wifdom of the world had tried in vain to find out a method for this end. This is evident from ver. 21. After that the world by all its wisdom knew not God, it pleafed God, by the foolishness of preaching; that is, by the preaching a crucified Saviour, which the world counts foolishness, to fave them that believe. This is the excellency of this preaching, this is the reason why the apoftle could not be prevailed upon by any motive to defert it, that it is the only mean of salvation and it is in this view I now intend to confider it. And if your everlasting falvation be of any importance to you, certainly this subject demands your moft ferious attention.

I have been the longer in explaining the context, because it is fo clofely connected with the fubject I have in view, and reflects light upon it. And I fhall only add, that preaching Chrift crucified is the fame thing as preaching falvation through the fufferings of Christ. His fufferings were of long continuance, even

from