I. By Christ crucified +we have reconciliation with God,+
remission of sins, and acceptance to eternal life.
+II. We have the peace of God,+ peace with men, with ourselves,
with the creatures.
+III. We recover the right and title which we had in creation+ to all
the creatures and blessings of God.
+IV. All afflictions cease to be curses and punishments+ and become
either trials or corrections.
+V. Those who can truly glory in the cross are dead to the world
and the world to them.+
VI. We are taught +to carry ourselves in the world as crucified and
dead men,+ not to love, but to renounce and forsake
it.--_Perkins._
_Glorying in the Cross of Christ._
+I. We glory in the doctrine of the cross--the justification of
guilty men through a propitiatory sacrifice--because of its
antiquity.+--It was taught by patriarchs and prophets, the law of
sacrifice was its grand hieroglyphical record, the first sacrifices
were its types, the first awakened sinner with his load of guilt fell
upon this rock and was supported, and by the sacrifice of Christ
shall the last sinner saved be raised to glory.
+II. Because it forms an important part of the revelation of the New
Testament.+
+III. As affording the only sure ground of confidence to a penitent
sinner.+
+IV. Because of its moral effects.+--Not only in the superstitions
and idolatries it has destroyed, the barbarous nations it has
civilised, the cruel customs it has abrogated, and the kindly
influence it has shed upon the laws and manners of nations; but in
its moral effect on individuals, producing the most ardent love to
God and kindling benevolence towards all--_Richard Watson._
_The True Glory of the Christian._
+I. The disposition of mind denoted by the expressions--"The world is
crucified unto me; I am crucified to the world."+--1. The nature of
it--a total rupture with the world. 2. The gradations of which it
admits. Deadness to avarice and pride--in respect to exertion and
actual progress--in respect of hope and fervour. 3. The difficulty,
the bitterness, of making a sacrifice so painful.
+II. In such a disposition true glory consists.+--Comparison between
the hero of this world and the Christian hero. The hero derives his
glory from the greatness of the master he serves, from the dignity of
the persons who have preceded him in the same honourable career, from
the brilliancy of his achievements, from the acclamations his
exploits excite. How much more the Christian hero!
+III. The cross of Christ alone can inspire us with these
sentiments.+--If we consider it in relation to the atrocious guilt of
those who despise it, in relation to the proofs there displayed of
Christ's love, in the proofs it supplies of the doctrine of Christ,
and in relation to the glory that shall follow.--_Saurin._
_The Cross a Burden or a Glory._
+I. There is the constant ordinary discipline of human life.+--Life
when it is earnest contains more or less of suffering. There is a
battle of good and evil, and these special miseries are the bruises
of the blows that fill the air, sometimes seeming to fall at random
and perplexing our reason, because we cannot rise to such height of
vision as to take in the whole field at once.
+II. There is the wretchedness of feeling self-condemned.+--Law alone
is a cross. Man needs another cross--not Simon's, but Paul's. He took
it up, and it grew light in his hands. He welcomed it, and it glowed
with lustre, as if it were framed of the sunbeams of heaven.
+III. The same spiritual contrast, the same principle of difference
between compulsory and voluntary service, opens to us two
interpretations of the suffering of the Saviour Himself.+--Neither
the cross of Simon nor the cross of Paul was both literally and
actually the cross of Christ. Its charm was that it was chosen. Its
power was that it was free. The cross becomes glorious when the Son
of God takes it up; there is goodness enough in Him to exalt it. It
was the symbol of that sacrifice where self was for ever crucified
for love.--_F. D. Huntington._
_The Cross--_
+I. The sinner's refuge.+
+II. The sinner's remedy.+
+III. The sinner's life.+
_The Glory of the Cross._
+I. The cross was the emblem of death.+
+II. Christ was not only a dead Saviour, but a condemned Saviour.+
+III. A disgraced Saviour,+ because the cross was a disgraceful kind
of punishment.
+IV. Paul gloried in the cross because it is an exhibition of the
righteousness of God.+
+V. Because it proclaims His love.+
+VI. The contemplation of Christ's cross helps us to conquer the
world.+--_Newman Hall._
_Glorying in the Cross._
+I. The subjects in which the apostle gloried.+--1. He might have
gloried in his distinguished ancestry. 2. In his polished education.
3. In the morality of his former life. 4. In his extraordinary call
to the apostleship. 5. In his high ecclesiastical position. 6. He did
not glory in the literal cross. 7. Nor in the metaphorical cross.
8. But in the metonymical cross (1 Cor. i. 17; Col. i. 20).
+II. The characteristics of the apostle's glorying.+--1. His glorying
was not merely verbal, but practical. 2. Not sectarian, but Christian
and catholic. 3. Not temporary, but permanent.
+III. The reasons of the apostle's glorying.+--1. Here he saw a
grander display of the Divine character and perfections than
elsewhere. 2. This was the scene of the most glorious victory ever
witnessed. 3. It was the centre of all God's dispensations. 4. The
cross was the most powerful incentive to true morality. 5. Hence
flowed all the blessings of the Gospel economy. 6. Here was made an
atonement equal to the needs of our fallen world.
+Lessons.+--1. _Let us here see the purity of the moral law and the
heinousness of sin._ 2. _Let the sinner come to the cross for pardon,
purity, peace, and joy._--_W. Antliff._
_Glorying in the Cross._
+I. Paul's enthusiasm as expressed in the exclamation of the text.+
+II. One main source of his zeal lay in the subject of his
enthusiasm.+--1. The cross is a fit subject for glory as symbolising
_an infinite, boundless truth._ 2. Because it is _an eternal fact._
3. Because it is _the ground of man's justification and the symbol of
his redemption._
+III. Look at the result--crucifixion to the world.+--The true
solution of the Christian's relationship to the world lies in the
fact that it is a separation not in space but in
spirit.--_J. Hutchinson, in "Scottish Pulpit."_