would be destroyed. On the other, there could not be a full disclosure of the true feelings of the unrenewed heart. Because, as all would be evident as the noon-day sun, there would remain no choice in the matter of embracing the truth—no means of evincing whether its reception were cordial or compulsory.

In this respect; there is displayed a matchless skill, as well as a gracious condescension, in adapting revelation to the actual character and condition of our race. While sufficient light is afforded to guide the sincere inquirer, there is an obscurity to perplex and offend the proud and self-confident. While the truth is accompanied by evidence abundantly satisfactory to every mind open to conviction, enough of mystery remains, to form an impassable barrier to those who are inclined to disbelieve the testimony of God. While to the eye of faith there appears a glorious system of wisdom and mercy, depraved reason and prejudice may discover little else than an assemblage of inconsistencies and absurdities.

It is not without design, then, that the great facts of revelation are made liable to misrepresentation; that its essential principles are arrayed against the pride of human wisdom; and that its blessed institutions are so obnoxious to abuse and opposition. Such a constitution of things is evidently intended to furnish a decisive criterion of human character—to exhibit, in striking contrast, the humble votaries of faith, who reverently bow to the authority of Scripture; and the adherents of a haughty, self-confident rationality, who will receive the testimony of God himself, no farther than it accords with their opinions and prejudices—and thus to elicit a fair and full manifestation of every man's real disposition and feelings.

Such, uniformly, has been the effect of the Bible, wherever its sacred contents have been made known. To all who have received it with penitence, humility, and confidence, as the infallible word of God, it has proved their pleasure and delight—their fountain of consolation—their guide to peace: while the self-righteous and unbelieving have transformed it into a subject of perplexity and disputation—a cause of deeper guilt and more aggravated ruin. The Gospel has appeared transcendently beautiful and glorious to all who have been savingly enlightened by the Holy Spirit—while, to the impenitent and skeptical, it seems obscure, irrational, and incomprehensible. The former rejoice in the scriptures, just as they are, and willingly yield to the obedience of faith: the latter are ever anxious to lower the standard of divine truth to the level of their views of fitness, and to mould its materials into a form suited to their unholy inclinations.

On these principles it is easy to perceive the real nature and causes of the insidious warfare, which is maintained, in various forms, against the essential doctrines of the Gospel. It is just an effusion of the malignity of the unsanctified heart. Its prevalence is an exact fulfilment of prophecy; and therefore an irrefragable proof of the truth and divine authority of that system which it is labouring to destroy. The emphatic declaration of the apostle, in the text, strikingly describes the state of feeling which now actually prevails, among many who enjoy all the external privileges of the Christian dispensation—The preaching of the cross is, to them that perish, foolishness.

In illustration of this passage, it will be attempted, to explain the import of the phrase, the preaching of the cross—to enumerate some of the instances and causes of such preaching being accounted foolishness—and to describe the fearful state and prospects of those who hold it in such low estimation.

The preaching of the cross is a plain and full announcement of all the essential truths of that system which provides pardon and salvation for the lost and guilty. The cross is the symbol of that amazing expedient of infinite wisdom and mercy, by which a treaty of reconciliation is offered to convicted traitors against Jehovah's government. Its exhibition therefore must require a developement of the principles, and a defence of the doctrines, peculiar to this gracious dispensation.

The grand fact, which constitutes the very essence and glory of the Gospel, and which it is the leading object of the Christian ministry to announce; is, that He, who took upon himself the form of a servant, and offered up the sacrifice of Calvary, is God over all, blessed for ever. This gives to the cross all its glory and efficacy. It is on the supreme Deity of Christ—on the expiation made for sin by the Maker and Sovereign of worlds—that the whole fabric of evangelical truth rests. On any other supposition, the sacrifice of the cross was a very ordinary affair. If the Saviour of sinners be not God—if he be a created being, of whatever grade,—where is the mystery of Godliness?—Where those unfathomable depths of divine love, into which the angels desire to look? If Christ be only a servant of God, however exalted, what was there, in his appearance on our world, to constitute a new era in heaven, and to fill its inhabitants with astonishment and ecstasy? Did the heavenly host descend in rapture, and cause the mountains of Judea to reecho with their acclamations, because a dependent creature had consented to do his Maker's will? Whence the ascription of glory to God in the highest, and why do the courts above resound with a new song of praise to God for his redeeming mercy, if this redemption was effected by the labours and sufferings of one inferior to the Deity? Was such a dispensation as that of Moses, designed simply to prepare the way for a messenger of God to declare his will, and to seal the testimony with his blood, as many good men have done, both before and since? Why did patriarchs and prophets foretell his coming, and celebrate his praises?—Why did the continual offering of divinely appointed sacrifices, for many centuries, typify his sufferings?—And why did nature shudder, and shroud herself in darkness, at the consummation of those sufferings? All these things are utterly inexplicable, on the supposition that Christ is a created dependent being.

But view him as God manifest in the flesh—view him as voluntarily laying aside his glory, and descending from the throne of infinite majesty, to assume the nature, and expiate the guilt of a ruined race;—and we are struck with the appropriateness of all the attending circumstances. The splendid ceremonials of the Jewish ritual, and the raptured songs of prophets and of angels were well employed to prepare the way for the visible manifestation of Deity among men. The annunciation of the divine nature of the Redeemer must, therefore, be an essential part of the preaching of the cross.

Equally indispensable is a decided testimony to that perfect atonement for sin, which was made by this great offering. Here is the only foundation of human hope. This was the grand object accomplished by the Saviour's sufferings. Thus was completely solved the mysterious problem, which all created intelligences had deemed inexplicable—how sin could be remitted, without infringing the rights and tarnishing the honour of the divine government—and how the guilty could be rescued from wrath, without a forfeiture of the divine veracity. Never indeed was the divine law so completely vindicated, or the claims of justice so awfully asserted, as when the Lawgiver offered himself as a ransom. And no other possible manifestation of the malignity and atrocity of sin, of the divine abhorrence of all iniquity, and, at the same time, of the exhaustless treasures of redeeming mercy, could equal that which was witnessed on Calvary. As, therefore, Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so is the cross to be held up now, by its heralds, to a perishing world. Its atoning sacrifice is to be