and efficacy of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. If those who hold justification by works, hold also the necessity of Christ's satisfaction, and that that is the only meritorious cause of our justification, then by their doctrine of justification by works they can mean no more than that christians are justified on occasion of good works, and that they cannot and will not be justified but in consequence of repentance, and faith and such other good works as they may have had opportunity to perform, or as may be necessarily implied in regeneration and its fruits. But this is nothing inconsistent with the doctrine of justification by faith alone or by the the sole merit of Jesus Christ.

7. Besides these inferences and remarks, I might easily pass to several other and practical improvements of this subject. But time forbids. I would only add that we may see what a sure and glorious ground of hope and comfort the doctrine of the text affords to all true believers. It is most safe, most gracious, and fully and forever sufficient for all their wants. What a ground too for their gratitude for the Savior's grace! And by what solemn and tender obligation are all bound to accept it, and to live answerably to it! And if they do not, how inexcusable will they be, to their own consciences and to God! How base their ingratitude; how vile their abuse of mercy, and of the love and merit of Jesus Christ; and how justly will they deserve to be rejected of him when he shall come in the clouds of heaven, and with thousands and tens of thousands of angels to the judgment ! If they reject him and his offered grace now, then they will be rejected of him, and his indignation and fierce wrath will be upon them forever!

If then, my hearers, you would avoid this terrible doom, accept the offered grace of Christ without delay. "Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little." To seek him you have every encouragement, for Christ himself hath said, "Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon." Confess him before men, and he will confess and acknowledge you before the assembled universe. Receive him, and he will give you "power to become the sons of God," and to be made "kings and priests unto him," and to reign with him in glory. Receive him as your righteousness, and you shall "shine as the brightness of the firmament and as stars forever and ever!"

SERMON XVII.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED.*

1 COR. 1: 23.—But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.

THE Jews and Greeks were alike opposed to the gospel. This opposition proceeded from the same general principle, though from different pretences. The real reason of it was the depravity of their own hearts. Indeed, this always was the reason of all the opposition which has ever been made to the gospel; though it may veil itself under various pretences, as in the case of the Jews and Greeks. The Jews required a sign. They had formerly been used to miracles, and the prophets had confirmed their missions by miraculous signs. They therefore justly expected them from the Messiah. Jesus our Lord had indeed wrought many miracles, more and greater than the prophets, and sufficient and fitted to convince any who were candid. And yet they were not convinced. Nor would they have been had he, in compliance with their demands, wrought many more and greater. The same prejudice and alienation of heart from Christ and the gospel, which had hitherto shut out the light effectually, would still have produced the same effect.

The Greeks as a nation were of a different character. They sought after wisdom; were bent on the study of philosophy, and pretended that the gospel was not a system of true wisdom. It was not agreeable to their philosophy; and as it contradicted and condemned their depravity of heart and life, they were blinded to it, and it appeared to them foolishness.

Just so it is in modern times. The same objections are still made to the gospel, and they proceed from the same causes. Yet this same gospel which was to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, and which is both a stumblingblock and foolishness to modern objectors, was preached by Christ and his apostles, and is to them that believe, the power and wisdom of God.

* Preached at the ordination of Rev. Mr. Cowles, 1793.

I propose from the words of our text to inquire, 1. What it is to preach Christ crucified, and 2. In what respects the doctrine of Christ crucified, is to many a stumbling and foolishness.

I. What is it to preach Christ crucified? It is far more than to set forth the mere historical fact that such a person as Christ once lived on the earth. It is, I conceive, to preach the gospel in general; and in particular to preach the fact of Christ's crucifixon and death; the design of his death, and the necessity and reasons for it.

ners.

1. To preach Christ crucified is to preach the gospel in general. This is doubtless the meaning of our text. Christ crucified is the sum and substance of the gospel. To preach Christ crucified is to preach that Christ is the Savior and the only Savior of sinIt is to preach our need of him and of an interest in him; his sufficiency in power, wisdom, merit and interest with the Father to procure our acceptance and salvation; his goodness and readiness in a proper way to save us however sinful, and to save us freely, "without money and without price." It is at the same time to preach up the duties of Christianity and the necessity of them to the christian character and to salvation. For Christ is not the minister of sin, but of righteousness; and the gospel as positively requires personal holiness as the law; nor is the obligation of the law abated, or at all abolished by the gospel, but is confirmed and established. The gospel does not indeed require obedience as the ground of our justification; yet it absolutely requires it as the occasion of it, and as our duty.

2. To preach Christ crucified, is to preach the death of Christ on the cross, or to preach a suffering Savior. It is indeed contrary to the ideas which we should have entertained, that Christ the Son of God would come into the world to suffer and die by the hands of wicked men. But God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. And in his infinite wisdom he has seen fit to put his own Son to grief, and to cause him to suffer for our sake. And in preaching the gospel these his sufferings must be made known, and the reasons of them.

3. To preach Christ crucified is to preach the design and end of his death. It is to preach not only the more remote end, the salvation of his people, but the more immediate end of atoning for their sins. By atonement is to be understood something done or suffered, which for the purposes of supporting the honor and dignity of the divine law and government, shall be equivalent to the punishment of the sinner according to law. Therefore the atonement made by Christ implies his substitution in the stead of the sinner who is to be saved by him; or that he suffered in the

sinner's stead, which as effectually tended to discourage transgression and excite to obedience, as the punishment of the transgressor himself according to the letter of the law would have done. That Christ did suffer as a substitute appears plain from the scriptures.

(1) As he is abundantly said to die as a sacrifice for us, and a sacrifice for sin. Eph. 5: 2, "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." Heb. 7: 27, "Who needeth not, as those high priests, daily to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people. For this he did once when he offered up himself." Chap. 9: 22, " And without shedding of blood is no remission." Now as the sacrifices under the Mosaic dispensation were offered to make atonement for the sins of the people, and were slain in the stead of those who offered them; so in that Christ is said to die a sacrifice for us, it is implied that he died as a substitute for the sins of his people.

That the ancient sacrifices were offered under the Mosaic dispensation by way of atonement for sin, is manifest, as by other texts, so by Lev. 1: 2—5. Here we are told that the man who brought the sacrifice, was to lay his hand on the head of the beast offered, and it should be accepted for him, to make atonement for him. And with regard to the scape-goat, the priest, in behalf of the whole people, was to lay his hands on the head of the goat, and to confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel. This transaction plainly implied, that those sacrifices were the substitutes of those who offered them, and that when the beast was killed, the suffering and death which the former deserved, were transferred to the latter, and thus an atonement was made, and the substitute was accepted instead of the transgressor.

Therefore when Christ is said to be sacrificed for us, it must mean that he was substituted and died in our stead, to make atonement for us really, as the ancient sacrifices did typically. It is expressly declared, that it was the blood of those ancient sacrifices which made the atonement, so far as they did make atonement. Lev. 17: 11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul." Therefore we are said to be redeemed by "the blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." And in Heb. 9: 8-14, it is said that "Christ by one offering of himself as a sacrifice for sins, hath perfected" or perfectly justified his people; and elsewhere he is called "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Now if we consider Christ as the substitute of sinners, as obeying in their stead and thus making atonement, all this is plain and intelligible. But if we deny this to be the design of Christ's death, how can this representation of it be at all understood? I know it is said that "Christ in his death is represented as a sacrifice, because the great object of his death was the establishment of that religion by which the world is to be reformed, and in consequence of which the divine being is rendered propitious to men; and that the death of Christ is compared to a sacrifice, because he gave his life in the cause of virtue and of God; and more especially to a sacrifice for sin, because his death and resurrection were necessary to the confirmation of that gospel by which sinners are brought to repentance, and thereby reconciled to God." (Priestly's Familiar Illustrations, pp. 48-50.) But was this the object of the ancient sacrifices? Was the lamb literally slain from the foundation of the world, slain to confirm, and give evidence of the divine original of some form of religion? The sacrifice of the lamb was indeed a rite of religion, but what proof was it that the religion of which it was a rite was instituted by God? And how (on this plan) did the death of Christ establish, prove or confirm the christian religion, in any other sense than the deaths of the apostles confirmed it on the supposition, that he was a mere man, as is holden by those who deny his atonement, or than the deaths of prophets under the Old Testament confirmed the religion instituted by Moses? Christ did indeed die a martyr to his own doctrine; and so did both the apostles and ancient prophets. But are they ever said to die a sacrifice for us, and to redeem and save us? Or are they called the Saviors, the Redeemers of mankind? And are they said to have come to seek and to save that which was lost? Yet if Christ was a Savior and Redeemer in no other sense than that he preached repentance and a religion which happily tended to reform mankind and has in fact reformed them; why may not the apostles and prophets as properly be called saviors and redeemers as he?

As to Christ's resurrection, this was indeed a confirmation of the gospel as it was a miraculous and divine attestation in favor of Christ and his religion. But so was the resurrection of Dorcas a miraculous and divine attestation in favor of Peter and the religion which he preached; and the resurrection of Eutychus was a miraculous and divine attestation in favor of Paul and of the religion which he preached. But neither Dorcas nor Eutychus, neither Peter nor Paul, is said to be the savior or redeemer of sinners.

(2) Christ is said to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John