the purity and blessedness of the heavenly world, by revealing to the soul its own greatness, and by persuasion, by entreaty, by appeals to the best sentiments of human nature, by speaking from a heart convinced of immortality; let him labor, by these methods, to touch and to soften his hearers, to draw them to God and duty, to awaken gratitude and love, a sublime hope and a generous desire of exalted goodness. And let him also labor, by solemn warning, by teaching men their responsibility, by setting before sinners the aggravations of their guilt, by showing them the ruin and immediate wretchedness wrought by moral evil in the soul, and by pointing them to approaching death, and the retributions of the future world; let him labor, by these means, to reach the consciences of those whom higher motives will not quicken, to break the slumbers of the worldly, to cut off every false hope, and to persuade the sinner by a salutary terror to return to God, and to seek with a new earnestness, virtue, glory, and eternal life.

NOTE

on the First Head of the preceding Discourse.

THE error, which I have opposed on the subject of preaching Christ,' may be traced in a great measure to what appears to me a wrong interpretation of the two first chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. In these chapters, Paul says, that he 'determined to know nothing among the Corinthians save Jesus Christ and him crucified,' and speaks once and again of preaching Christ crucified,' &c. It has been supposed, that the

apostle here intended to select the particular point on which preaching should chiefly turn, and that we have his authority for censuring a discourse which does not relate immediately to the character of Christ, and especially to his sufferings on the cross. But I think that a little attention to the circumstances of the apostle and of the Corinthians will show us, that Paul referred to the religion of Jesus generally, as the subject of his preaching, and not to a very limited part of it.

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Corinth, being the most commercial city of Greece, was inhabited by Jews as well as Greeks. These Jews, as Paul tells us, 'wanted a sign,' just as the Pharisees in the time of Christ demanded a sign from heaven.' That is, they wanted a Messiah who should be marked out to them by a visible descent from heaven, or by some glorious appearance from heaven, or by some outward majesty which should be a pledge of his breaking the Roman yoke, and raising Judea to the empire of the world. They wanted a splendid and temporal Messiah. The Greeks on the other hand, who were a speculative people, wanted wisdom, or a system of philosophy, and could hear nothing patiently but the subtle disputations and studied harangues with which they were amused by those who pretended to wisdom. Such was the state of Corinth, when Paul entered it. Had he brought with him an account of a triumphant Messiah, or an acute philosopher, he would have been received with eagerness. But none were desirous to hear the simple religion of Jesus of Nazareth, who proved his mission, not by subtilties of eloquence, but by miracles evincing the power of God, and who died at last on the ignominious cross. Paul, however, in opposition to Jew and Greek, determined to know nothing of a worldly Messiah, nothing of any old

or new scheme of philosophy; but to know and to preach Jesus Christ, and to exhibit him in a light which Judaism and philosophy would alike abhor, as crucified for the recovery of men from error, sin, and condemnation. In other words, he resolved to preach the religion of Jesus, in its greatest simplicity, without softening its most offensive feature, the cross of its author, or without borrowing anything from Moses or any Gentile philosopher to give currency to his doctrines. This is the amount of what Paul teaches in these chapters.

We must not imagine, when we read these chapters, that Corinth was a city of professing Christians; that among these Christians a difference of opinion had arisen as to the proper subjects of christian preaching, and that Paul intended to specify the topic on which ministers should chiefly or exclusively insist. This, I fear, is the common impression under which this portion of scripture is read; but this is altogether erroneous. No controversy of this kind existed; and Paul, in these chapters, had not the most distant idea of recommending one part of the gospel in preference to others, but intended to recommend the whole gospel, the whole religion of Jesus Christ, in distinction from Judaism and Gentile philosophy. The dangers of the Corinthian Christians required that he should employ every effort to secure their fidelity to the simple gospel of Jesus. Having been educated in the Jewish or Heathen religions; living in the midst of Jews and Heathens; hearing perpetually, from one class, that the Messiah was to be a triumphant prince, and that without submission to the law of Moses no one could partake his blessings; and hearing from the other perpetual praises of this and another philosopher, and perpetual derision of the gospel, because in its doctrines and style it bore no resem

blance to the refinements and rhetoric of their most celebrated sages; the Corinthian Christians, in these trying circumstances, were strongly tempted to assimilate the gospel to the prevalent religions, to blend with it foreign doctrines, to keep the humiliation of its author out of sight, and to teach it as a system of philosophy resting on subtle reasoning rather than on miracles and the authority of God. To save them from this danger, a danger which at present we can hardly estimate, the apostle reminded them, that when he came to them he came not with excellency of speech and with enticing words of man's wisdom,' but in demonstration of the Spirit and of miraculous powers; that he did not comply with the demands of Greek or Jew; that he preached a crucified Messiah, and no other teacher or deliverer; and that he always insisted, that the religion of Jesus, unaided by Judaism or philosophy, was able to make men wise to salvation. He also reminded them, that this preaching, however branded as foolishness, had proved divinely powerful, and had saved them from that ignorance of God, from which human wisdom had been unable to deliver them. These remarks, I hope, will assist common readers in understanding the chapters under consideration.

We are too apt, in reading the New Testament and particularly the Epistles, to forget, that the gospel was a new religion, and that the apostles were called to preach Jesus to those who perhaps had never before heard his name, and whose prejudices and passions prepared them to contemn and reject his claims. In these circumstances, they had to begin at the very foundation, to prove to the unbelieving world that Jesus was the Messiah, or sent from God to instruct and save mankind. This is often called 'preaching Christ,' especially in the

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Acts. When converts were made, the work of the apostles was not ended. These converts wished to bring with them a part of their old religion into the church; and some of the Jews even insisted that obedience to Moses was essential to salvation. These errors the apostles resolutely opposed, and having previously established the Messiahship of Jesus, they next proceeded to establish the sufficiency and perfection of his religion, to show that faith in him, or reception of his gospel was all that was required to salvation. This is sometimes called preaching Christ.'-These difficulties, which called the apostles to so much anxiety and toil, are now in a great measure removed. Christian ministers, at the present day, are not often called to preach Christ in opposition to the infidel, and never in opposition to the weak convert who would incorporate Judaism or Gentile philosophy with Christianity. The great foundation, on which the apostles spent so much strength, is now firmly laid. Our hearers generally acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, sent by God to be the light of the world, and able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him.' We are therefore seldom called to preach Christ in the senses which have just been considered, and our preaching must of course differ in a measure from that of the apostles. But there is another sense of preaching Christ, involved in both the preceding, in which our work precisely accords with theirs. Like them, we are to unfold to those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord, all the truths, motives, and precepts which he has left to guide and quicken men to excellence, and to prepare them for a happy immortality.