_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