“For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” 1 Cor. 2nd: C.[chapter] 2nd v.[verse] (1 Cor. 2:2)

1.106H.86P. [*Sabbath at 11 80807 90CM*] 2.592H.207P. [*1.Cor. 2:6:2 v. 89 JM*] 3.548N.32P. [*348 CM*] For I determined to not know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. The city of Corinth in which was situated the Church to which these two epistles were addressed, was celebrated among the Ancients for its great wealth, refinement, and luxury. We have indeed little ground to believe that there was very much of Literary & Scientific refinement among the inhabitants; and although it was the native place of Periander, who holds high rank among the seven sages of Greece, yet it would seem from the character he bears in history, the he was more distinguished for that wisdom which consisted in being able to govern men than for his attainments in any other department of knowledge. And then we have no records [come] handed down to us which convey the impression that Corinth was the time the Apostle wrote, the seat of the Muses. [???ment] in a certain sense did indeed [certainly] characterize the inhabitants. But it was the refinement consequent upon the possession of great wealth. Statuary, Painting, [and] Sculpture, Architecture & Music [and voluptuous & sensual] [enjoyments] were cultivated to a very high degree. And it was true that from the pre-eminent advantage of its situation [standing up] reposing in queenly magnificence upon the celebrated Isthmus of the same name, and by this position commanding the trade of both the Ionian & AEgean seas, this City held as it were the keys of the Peloponnesus, and thus became & continued to be the seat of opulence and the arts above enumerated while the rest of Greece was sunk in comparative obscurity & Barbarism. The trail [of] however which of all others gave character to the people of Corinth was their sensuality. Insomuch that the proverbial term for a person of dissolute habits was a Corinthian. Since we have the authority of history for the statement that one a neighboring hill (the Acrocorinthus) was erected a magnificent temple of of Venus, whose shrine was attended by no less than 1000 female slaves, dedicated to her service a as courtezans. These Priestesses of Venus were but so many instruments to increase the wealth & luxury of the City. These remarks seemed necessary to introduce the language of the text & to account for the adoption of such a mode of preaching as was [adopted] used by the Apostle. For it cannot but be apparent to every person who has attended that preaching of any other description would never have had the effect of convincing of sin and converting from sin a people so entirely sensual, so utterly devoted to their lusts as the inhabitants of Corinth. [?] the historian of the Aets of the Apostles informed us that Paul continued in Corinth a year and a six months, and collected a large and flourishing Church. Suppose for a moment Paul instead of using the simple style he did use, in his presentation of Truth, had come to the Corinthians and had adopted the arts of [Rhetoric] oratory, the flowers of Rhetoric, the ornaments of Classic lore, the brilliant illustrations of their finest Poets, the dreamy speculations of the Platonic Philosophy and with soft and flattering words [and] had offered eternal Life to them with all this drapery thrown around the Truth, how many would have been converted? Not one! It would have been like the lulling sound of enchanting music, sinking them more profoundly into the slumber of death! But Paul came on no such errand, preached in no such style. He tells us how he came, and what was the style of his preaching. But I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God, and why not? For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Xr, [Christ] & him crucified. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of Power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the Power of God. One might almost imagine from the earnestness of the Apostle on this subject, that he had been arguing this point with some Corinthian who had subjected to his plain unvarnished style of preaching and who had been [?oring] to persuade him to present his truths in more polished & popular phrase & style; who would wonder that Paul, the learned pupil of Gamaliel, who was familiar with the literature & the Science of the Greeks & Romans, who could on occasion bring to bear upon his objects the sentiments of their own Poets, and who had the power to adorn his speech with all the beauties of Rhetorical art, shd. content himself with so humble & unpretending a style, hope to recommend himself or his cause to these refined [and] polished Corinthians by preaching only Xr & him crucified. Yes said Paul I am aware of the estimate placed by you upon myself I know that you have given it as your opinion that my bodily presence is weak and my speech contemptible. I know that this Gospel is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. I know all that! But then this is not my concern. I am commissioned not to please you by the studied ornaments of Grecian Eloquence not to preach myself but Xr Jesus the Lord, and myself you servant for Jesus sake. And knowing that The wisdom of man is foolishness with God I prefer to adopt this plan, & since it has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. I am well assured that there is no other mode of preaching which can be supposed effectual save the simple presentation of the Truth, & as my object is the salvation of your souls, therefore I determined to know anything among you save Christ Jesus, and him crucified. [?] great Truth which I conceive to be embodied in this language of Paul, is this: that the atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world is the Grand Central Truth of the Gospel, and the only one effective in mans salvation. Around it others may cluster like the satellites around their primary & luminous Centre, but there is but one primary. This Cross of Christ is the Great Sun of the Christian system and around it you must cause all the minor Planets truth, which belong to the Gospel to revolve in grand harmony like the music of the spheres, & from this they must derive all the Light which they reflect upon the world. Extinguish then if it be possible the light which beams in heavenly radiance from the Cross on Calvary and there settles down upon the soul upon the wold a horror of pitchy gloom even the blackness of darkness [?] ever. Intercept its [Light] beams by the interposition of the opaque medium of Human Philosophy & the soul will be frozen into torpor, its genial & life giving energies being withdrawn. No other System of Truth divised by man or angel has the Light in it to disperse the darkness of the human soul in its native ignorance & wretchedness. No other has the inherent warmth to enknidle within the soul dead in trespassed and in sins the glow of Life eternal and to quicken it into energetic action. And this is not a bare theoretic truth of scripture, but one borne out by the history of the world, and in the experience of mankind. There has never been presented to my mind in all my reading or observation a more striking illustration of this truth than the [?] of the missionary efforts of the Moravians among the savages of Greenland. The position has been assumed by the opponents of the cause of missious that man in a state of ignorance and barbarism is only to be gained over to the truth by first instructing him in the arts of civilization; in other words You must civilize before you can Christianize a barbarous community, and to bring this matter into connection with our text You must know everything else first when you go among the heathen to convert them and then you may know Xt Jesus and him crucified. But the facts of history are that for many years the Moravian Missionaries had labored to train the natives to habits of industry, and to instruct them in the first and simplest truths of the religion studiously withholding from them the deeper mysteries of the Xtian faith, but no sensible effect followed. One day however while one of the missionaries was engaged in making a fair copy of a translation of one of the Gospels, a crowd of natives gathered around him curious to know the contents of the book. He read to them the history of our Saviors sufferings and death. How was that? said one of the savages, stepping up to the table at which the missionary was sitting, his voice trembling with emotion as he spoke, How was that? Tell me that once more; for I too would fain be saved! These words the like of which this missionary had never heard before from any Greenlander, pierced his very soul, and affected him so much that [?] tears in his eyes, he related to them the whole history of the sufferings of Christ and the counsel of God for our salvation. The Greenlander who put the question was the first convert to the truth; and the mode of his conversion was so instructive, that ever after are the first office of the Moravian Missionary was to proclaim the death of Jesus as the great expiration of human guilt, & the only ground, of the sinners hope for eternity. This incident so simple happening so naturally served to recall to the minds of these Missionaries the grand truth which they had never realized, that if you would convert the soul, it must be by doing as did Paul when he came among the Corinthians determine not to know any thing save Jesus Christ & him crucified. We may find, upon consideration, abundant reason for this determination of Paul. And that this is the true and only effectual subject to present to the world for its salvation will appear manifest if we consider, generally that in Christ Jesus and Him crucified [?] & there alone, we behold the bright illustration of those truths essential to the known by the sinner before we can be saved. There are certain great truths involved in the relations which subsist between God and the sinner without the knowledge of which he never can be saved. And I repeat that in all the universe of God there is no other repository of these truths save in the doctrine of Xr & Him crucified. The first of these truths is that he is a sinner. I know that men [?pposed] to know this from other sources that there is an everabiding theory which almost every man has within him, that all men are sinners. And yet while men admit the truth most readily it is with the cold assent of the understanding alone while the heart retains no suitable impression of [the] lawful solemnity. [of this truth] Like the impression produced upon the [mind] memory of the appearance of the strangers face we may as its linemanets are reflected upon our view by the evanescent light & when absent the impression is lost but when these features are caught by the art of the Daguerreian & upon the tablet prepared written in the glowing light of the Sun, there it abides permanent rich glowing perfect. So of the theory of universal depravity: Men see it reflected from a thousand sources through the medium of the understanding and the judgment, but we easily forget it & the truth of it is never daguerreotyped in deep and permanent impressiveness until the blaze of Gospel power is [?brated] upon it as it beams in heavenly radiance from Calvarys awful brow. And this will appear manifest when we consider that in the cross of Christ in other words in Xr Jesus and Him crucified, we behold most affectingly displayed the evil & bitter nature of Sin. We behold a pure & innocent. Being in testimony of whose purity & innocence we have the declaration of Heaven, Earth & Hell united made to suffer the vengeance of a violated Law. Now you might be affected to some extent with pity & even with indignation to behold a man whose Xter was upright so far as you knew, subjected to unmerited punishment. But the uncertainty which ever attaches to human affairs the limited knowledge we possess of the heart and the possibility that after all we may be deceived in the man would combine to preclude the formation of a judgment of the evil of Sin, even from the unjust [?merited] punishment of the best of mere human beings. The death of such an one would not of itself convince us that sin was a great evil. But Come my fellow Sinner! gaze with me upon you bleeding scene and tell me who the sufferer is? Hark! as we pass around the agitated mountain and listen to the sullen mumbling of the quaking Earth, and feel our way through the palpable darkness which envelopes the scene, we hear the voice of the Centurion as he exclaims Truly this was the Son of God! This is He in whose favor the voice from the overshadowing cloud issued forth This is my beloved Son xc This is he of whom the men sent to apprehend him said never man shake xc This is he of whom Pilate after examination said I find no fault in him! This is he of whom the traitor Judas said I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. This he of the Devils said I know thee who thou art the Holy [?] God. And thus by the testimony of friends & foes, God, men, [?], Devils, Heaven, Earth, [and] Hell, this individual whom we now behold suffering pierced, forsaken by God & man, bleeding, dying in agony unsufferable is shown to have been holy, harmless, undefiled [and] separate from sinners. Whence is all this? Oh it was because of the exceeding sinfulness of Sin so enormous was the guilt incurred by the human race that its deep stains could never be washed away save in the blood of the immaculate son of God. The blood of man was too impure too corrupt to purify and cleanse. And the requisite purification and washing away of its foul filthiness could never be attained until God the Eternal Father sent His only & well beloved Son, the darling of Heaven to lay down his Life, to pour out his soul unto death, to shed his own Blood upon the Cross. And it is readily to be seen here then that in Christ & Him crucified [???e] the most affecting display of the exceeding sinfulness of Sin. There is no power in human logic, there is no attractive persuasiveness in human Rhetoric there is no energy in human Eloquence there is no convictive virtue in all the measures devised by the wit of man, which will ever impress so deeply upon the sinners heart & conscience the awful truth of sins hatefulness & bitterness and of his own personal guilt and ill desert in the sight of God, until holds Xr Jesus visibly set forth he beholds his heart with sins deep stain impressed. [and reflecting] He sees one hanging on the tree in agonies and blood who fixed his languid eyes on him, as near the cross he stands and never to his latest breath can charge him with his death tho not a word he spoke! His Conscience feels and owns the guilt & plunges him in despair. He sees his sins had spilt His blood & helped to nail him there. And he gathers from this view a more truthful & affecting [impress?] the awful deformity & heinousness of sin than he could derive from all other sources in the Universe of God. But I remark another truth essential to salvation which is learned no where else save from a contemplation of Christ Jesus & Him crucified is 2d That as a sinner he is condemned to everlasting death. There are certain characteristic features in the essential nature of sin of which men are apt to lose sight. But a due consideration of the subject will serve to array them before we and to furnish us with a more correct judgment in regard not only its heinousness, but to its true desert.[But] Accordingly a man contemplate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in all of its awful particulars let him look upon the character of the sufferer & His nature & attribute and the terrible infliction of wrath he endured, & it is inevitable that he will arrive at the conclusion that sin [?] evil of infinite magnitude and [?] an infinite punishment. We behold an infinite Being enduring the agonies of an ignominious death, & by a law of our own nature we are obliged to conclude that a penalty so great must be the consequence of a proportionate violation. For under the Govt. of a God of Justice the penalty must correspond with the crime. Accordingly when we institute an inquiry into the nature of that for which Christ suffered, we learn that it was for Sin & what is Sin? It is an infinite evil. How to? Because it violates an infinite Law. How is it shown that the Law is infinite? Because as it is but a transcript of the Divine mind and all that emanates from that mind must of necessity be like itself & partake of all its attributes of infinity & perfection. God is a spirit infinite, eternal & unchangeable in His Being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice, Goodness & Faith so is His Law, precisely to eternally unchangeably so. Well now this is the Law which man has broken & trampled under his feet. The next step in the reasoning respect the penalty to be inflicted. Every man can see at a mere glance that Justice requires an infinite penalty. Of course it must fall primarily [and] substantially upon man. But now come fallen race of man (1,000 of [ra?s] & 10,000 of rulers) or crowd into one who the millions who have peopled the Earth since the violation took place, the millions who now dwell upon the surface of the Earth, and the millions who are to come after us and rear up Heaven high. The funeral pile and let it smoke with the incense of this mighty holocaust as a sacrifice for sin, and still the inexorable Law would clamor for satisfaction, and atonement could never thus be made. For man, yea! all men are but finite beings and the sacrifice of all their finite lives would never meet the demands of an infinite Law . But when I behold Xr.Jesus & him crucified & learn that he died for Sin & when I see that Justice is appeased and God is pacified. And because no other but a Being Infinite in His nature could atone. I learn [?] lesson which is essential to my salvation that the sinner must have been exposed to everlasting Death; since an infinite Being above could atone. Of however, the contemplation of Xt Jesus and Him crucified taught us nothing further nothing more than the two truths 1. that we are sinners, [and] that as such, we are exposed to everlasting death, it would be productive of so deep [and] terrible a state of despair as would deter us, not only from looking at the subject, but from preaching it. Better for us not to know our misery if we are to be left in despair of relief Better that we shd. die in our sins & sink to our woes without previous knowledge of a hopeless destiny! But blessed be God we learn another great truth by contemplating Xt. & Him crucified and that is 3d That the sinner be saved from the penalty of the Law. It is a grand principle in all right Government that no Law is of force without a penalty annexed to its infraction but is a dead letter upon the statute Book. Accordingly the Divine Law Gives having [annex?] penalty of the violation of His Law, Eternal death and man having incurred that penalty must bear the curse denounced. Let us bear in mind also that the character of God is composed of a number of Perfections or Attributes not one of which can be shaped from the grand, harmonious Combination. He is wise, Powerful, True, Just and Merciful. Now if we could conceive that God, after the manner of some weak earthly Ruler, shd be so overcome by His abounding Pity as to permit man to violate His Law with perfect impunity, and remit the penalty annexed to His Law, we would greatly dishonor Him by prostrating His Justice & debasing the Supremacy of His moral Govt. And hence the Rule of this all wise Being would be set aside, and His Authority despised, & instead of bringing a blessing it would only inflict the direst curse upon man and throw the whole machinery of His [?] now so harmonious into the wildest disorder & anarchy and Earth would be but a Pandemonium. On the other hand had Gods Justice wreaked its [just] merited vengeance upon man for the violation of Gods Law. While His Govt would have been upheld and his truth vindicated, as far as this matter could do it, yet the whole Race with out a single exception would have been whelmed with everlasting death. But while Gods Justice drew her sword His mercy laid Her gentle restraints upon the indignant attribute and in soft persuasive accent entreated a suspension of the descending blows. How said Justice would you have me then insulted with impunity? Has it not been declared that the soul that sinneth it shall die? And must I, said Gods truth, compromise my own declarations thus & suffer man to live after having sinned? But mercy pleaded still for man & guaranteeing that if he could be spared, she with the aid of Gods infinite Wisdom would devise a way whereby His Justice could be preserved His truth maintained and His Govt honored, His Law magnified and man be saved all without any injury to either Party considered, [Accordingly] therefore, in the Councils of inconceivably remote Eternity the Wisdom & the Love of God devised the Plan and Justice approved it & Truth sanctioned it whereby man can be saved. And in the fullness of Time Gods eternal and co-equal Son came forth and voluntarily subjected himself to the authority of that Law, & by a Life of sinless obedience to every [ti??e] of its requirements kept it perfectly and honored it, & then by His death infinitely precious on account of the union of Divinity with Humanity, made the requisite atonement which was perfectly satisfactory. When therefore we know that a vain search would be made among the infinitely varied Departments of Gods Universe for a suitable & adequate sacrifice to atone, and that thus is was shown conclusively that there is no other name given under Heaven or among men where by we must be saved save the name of Jesus Xt this fact emphatically declares that man as a sinner, exposed to eternal Death may be saved by Xt Jesus & Him crucified. Where else could this rich and glorious truth be held forth save in the Cross? Nature from her 1000 radiant points can show nothing of God but his Power, Wisdom, Justice, and General Benevolence. Philosophy & human learning could only reason our deductions the probability that God would punish Conscience then might supplement by awakened anxiety the deficiencies of Reason & add certainty to Probability but in all the vast Realms of God; infinite Rule, His Gracious Design of mercy Pardon & forgiveness could only be proclaimed from the summit of bleeding Calvary whereon I behold Xt Jesus and Him crucified. Thus while His death our sins display. In all their blackest hue, such is the mystery of Grace, it seals over, [?] too! Who can wonder then that Paul should make the Cross of Xr, the great subject of his preaching? That he shd exclaim to the Romans I am not ashamed of the Gospel tc to the Corinthians: We preach Xt. crucified To the Philippians: We rejoice in Xt Jesus having no confidence in the flesh To the Galatians: God forbid that I shd glory save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Xr. and who can fail to see the reason now why Paul so emphatically declares that he determined not to know anything among the Corinthians save Xt Jesus and Him crucified. The three great truths which I have shown to be held forth in the cross 1st that man is a sinner & 2d as a sinner justly exposed to eternal Death & 3d that there is a plan of salvation for him whereby he may escape the wrath of God constitute beyond all controversy ample [?] for Pauls determination. It is enough surely to give to this great doctrine the prominent place in all our ministrations, to know that here alone [are] is taught the nature and consequences of the disease which has fastened itself upon the soul of man, and here alone is found the infallible remedy for that disease. [*Turn two leaves*] 1. I wish to remark by of application of this subject, that we have reason to fear there are few modern ministers of the Gospel who carry out the determination of Paul. We indulge the fear from the vast ignorance which characterizes the mass of Professing Xtians. These are times when there seems to be great disposition to rush into the Ch. On the one hand and on the other we receive intelligence of what we are called revivals when numbers are added to the ranks of the Ch. It is ostensibly good news. But we look for the grapes in aftertimes and alas! We find wild grapes. We seek for the fruits of the Spirit and we too often find the works of the flesh. We reasonably expect of these loud Professors a Knowledge of the Plan of Grace and alas! We find that they have never turned their thoughts to the subject; they only feel and know that they have got something that they call religion and which in many instances amounts to no more than a sounding brass and a twinkling cymbal. And why is this? It is because the ministers of the Gospel do not preach Xr & Him crucified but they glorify sect & party & denounce all who differ from them & instead of explaining the Plan of salvation how God can be just & justify the sinner that believeth & inviting the sinner to reconciled to God on the terms of the Gospel they place before the inventions of man instead of the means of Grace. Instead of bringing him to the Cross they have substituted a set of measures, unknown to the Church of a former and a better day and utterly unauthorized by the Word of God. This is the Church filled with spurious professors who not only add nothing to its effective strength but are source of shame & reproach to her, because the glorious doctrine of Xt & Him crucified is kept so much out of view. Among the most striking illustrations of the Power of Xt & Him crucified ever recorded is to be found in the Life & Xter of Thomas Chalmers. There was a period in his history when he entertained but a feeble impression of the power of the Cross. With a mind of gigantic powers and a [heart] spirit of boundless ambition he entered the ministry to the Gospel with his heart a stranger to the Grace of God. Devoted to science he accepted a Professorship in addition to the Pastoral [?] of a City Church devoting 5 days of the week to the Professorship lecturing eloquently and thus gaining a reputation daily that was unequalled by that of his age, and then devoting the remaining 2 days to his pastoral duties, maintaining too in the presence of the venerable Assembly of the Scotch Ch. that this was as much as ought to be expected of any man. But Chalmers had never felt the Power of the Cross then. And when he did find himself under its influence and felt himself a sinner & condemned & saved by Xt. never was there one who felt in the deep recesses of his soul, and showed in the ceaseless exertion of all his energies of body & soul, a truer & higher appreciation of the Power of the Gospel than did his world renowned Scotch Preacher. Men in ordinary times forget the importance of this doctrine but in times of danger & trial it is felt & acknowledged a few years ago The ocean steamer The Great Western was caught in a storm in her passage across the Atlantic. Her proud masts & gallant rigging were torn & shattered and such was the violence of the storm that she was reduced to a mere floating hulk upon the boiling deep, and on one long dark dreary night of pitiless & ceaseless storm, all hope was given up by the crew & passengers. But God in his mercy rebuked the winds & the waves & no lives were lost. On board that ship were a number of ministers of the Gospel among them the venerable Lyman Beecher. After the storm had ceased, by general consensus there was held a meeting of all on board to unite in prayer and Thanksgiving for their miraculous deliverance. And these ministers were requested to address the company by way of improvement of the occasion. I remember well the substance of Dr. Bs remarks. He recounted in his graphic style their dangers & the feeling he indulged in view of an immediate