The Attraction of the Cross

Next Part The Attraction of the Cross 2

(The impression produced by the delivery of this sermon first attracted public attention to the author. Of all his printed sermons, it remains the one most well known.)

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me—this he said signifying what kind of death he would die." John 12:32, 33

"We preach Christ crucified!" 1 Corinthians 1:23

"For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power." (1 Corinthians 2:2-4)

If the perfection of wisdom consists in seeking the noblest ends by the fittest means, then does the cause of missions appear before the world, invested with the glory, and preferring the claims, of the wisest scheme for man's activity which has ever been devised. Of the benevolence and sublimity of our object, there can exist no doubt; and the only question which can arise about the rationality of our scheme, must relate to the adequacy of our means. We are not infrequently told that all attempts to convert pagan nations to Christianity, not supported by the aid of miracles, must prove entirely ineffectual, or be followed with very inconsiderable success. That miracles were necessary at the introduction of Christianity, as the witnesses of its heavenly origin and descent, is obvious; they formed the visible signatures of the divine hand to the testimony of the Son of God and his apostles; but to argue for their repetition through succeeding ages, in every country which the gospel approaches for the first time, is to contend that a deed, however well attested, cannot be admitted as valid unless the witnesses who originally signed it live forever to verify their signature.

This objection, however, is best answered by an appeal to facts. However difficult it may be to ascertain with precision the exact time when the testimony of miracles ceased, nothing is more certain than that these witnesses had finished their evidence long before the conversion of the northern and western parts of Europe; and the demand of supernatural interposition, as necessary to the propagation of Christianity, is urged with an ill grace by a Protestant, when it is remembered that there is not a single Protestant country which did not receive the gospel unaccompanied with signs and wonders; and with still greater inconsistency is it made by an Englishman, when it is considered that this happy country, the glory of Christendom, the joy of the whole earth, and the evangelist of the world, was recovered from the thraldom of Saxon idolatry without one miraculous operation.

What, then, are the means with which we set out on this high and holy enterprise of converting the world? I answer, the doctrine of the cross—for, says Christ, "If I be lifted up," or "when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me."

In these words our Lord announces the nature of his approaching death—he was about to be lifted up, or crucified; he predicts the consequences with which his crucifixion would be followed; all men would be gathered to him; he specifies the means, and the manner of their conversion—they would be drawn, or attracted by an exhibition of his death. In other words, the text presents us with the great object of missionary zeal, the grand instrument of missionary exertion, and the final consummation of missionary success.

It will be instantly perceived that I have not sought after novelty of subject, and it will soon be discovered that I have not attained ingenuity or profundity of discussion. The state of my mind and feelings since I received the application of the directors, would alone have precluded these. Their request for my services on this occasion found me at the tomb of all that was dearest to me on earth, a situation not very favorable for penetrating into the depth of any other subject than my own irreparable loss. One thing which induced me to comply with their solicitation, was a hope that my mind would be drawn away in some degree from the heart-withering recollection of departed bliss—nor has that hope been altogether disappointed; for the subject of my sermon has often presented such visions of spiritual glory as have made the tear forget to fall, and hushed the sorrows of a bursting heart, and taught the preacher that while the missionary cause goes as the messenger of mercy to pagan realms abroad, it is one of the best comforters in the house of mourning at home.

I. The text presents us with the great OBJECT of missionary zeal, "To bring men to Christ."

There are at the present moment more than six hundred million people in the appalling situation of the men whom the apostle describes as "without Christ in the world;" and the question is, with what feelings and what purposes a Christian should survey this vast and wretched portion of the family of man. To ascertain this, you have only to contemplate the scene which at your last anniversary was brought before you with such force of reason, pathos, and eloquence. Behold Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendor which blazed upon his view, as he rolled his eye round the enchanting panorama which encircled the hill of Mars. Around him, as he stood upon the summit of the rock, beneath the canopy of heaven, was spread a glorious prospect of mountains, islands, sea, and sky. Within view was the gulf of Salamis, and on the horizon the plain of Marathon, where the conquests of the old Greek heroes had saved not their country only, but the mental liberty and energy of man. Above him towered the Acropolis, crowned with the pride of Grecian architecture. There, in the zenith of their splendor and the perfection of their beauty, stood those peerless temples, the very fragments of which are viewed by modern travelers with an idolatry almost equal to that which reared them. Stretched along the plain below him, and reclining her head on the slope of the neighboring hills, was Athens, mother of the arts and the sciences, with her noble offspring sporting by her side. The Porch, the Lyceumn, and the Grove, with the statues of their departed sages, and the forms of their living disciples, were all presented to the apostle's eye.

Who of us possessing the slightest pretensions to knowledge or taste, can even fancy himself gazing upon this sublime and captivating scenery without a momentary rapture? Yet there did this accomplished scholar stand as insensible to all the grandeur, as if nothing was before him but the treeless, turfless desert. Absorbed in the holy abstraction of his mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations, but on the contrary was pierced with the most poignant distress—and what was the cause? Because "he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." To him it presented nothing but a magnificent mausoleum, decorated, it is true, with the richest productions of the sculptor and the architect, but still where the souls of men lay dead in trespasses and sins; while the dim light of philosophy which still glimmered in the schools, appeared but as the lamp of the sepulcher, shedding its pale and sickly ray around gorgeous chambers of death. What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonor done by idolatry to God? What must have been his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind? What must have been his abhorrence of human impiety? What must have been his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the guilt which raised them and the misery which endured amidst them.

Yet how many professedly Christian travelers and divines, while occupying the same spot, though they saw not a thousandth part of what the apostle saw, have had their minds so engrossed by the scene, as not to feel one sentiment of pity for the Pagans of old, or the Muhammadans who now dwell amidst the venerable ruins. But we being of one mind with Paul, and looking upon the souls of mankind in the light which his inspired writings have thrown upon their destiny, have imbibed his temper, and feel our spirits grieved within us, over the multitudes that are given to idolatry. We cannot help thinking that men without Christ are in the very depths of misery, though they may stand in other respects upon the summit of civilization, literature, and science; and for such an opinion we can plead the authority of the apostle, who, as we have seen, bewailed a city of philosophers with more intense and piercing grief than any of us ever did a horde of idolatrous savages.

Here, then, is the object of our zeal—to bring to Christ those who are afar off. "To turn men from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven." To induce them, by the power of persuasion, in humble dependence upon the blessing of God, to renounce all their systems of error for the revelation of Christ as our divine Prophet; to abandon their rites, sacrifices, and penances, for his one oblation as our great High Priest; and to forsake their wicked customs and immoral habits, for obedience to his laws as King in Zion.

In fact, to accomplish in the happy experience of the heathen, the descriptions which the pen of prophecy has given of the Messiah and his kingdom; to achieve the victory announced in the mystic terms of the first promise, and bruise the head of the serpent; to circulate the blessing of Abraham's seed through all the families of the earth; to bring the gatherings of the peoples unto Shiloh, as the way, the truth, and the life; to cause that bright star to rise upon the benighted parts of the world, the beam of which so confounded the eye of the hireling prophet, that his tongue forgot to curse the armies of Israel; to scatter the fruits of Isaiah's rod, and diffuse the fragrance of Jeremiah's branch, over all the famishing and fainting children of the fall; to open new channels through which the cleansing streams of Zechariah's fountain, and the vivifying waters of Ezekiel's river, may flow; to prepare for the coming of Haggai's desire of all nations, and to bring forth the people sitting in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death, to feel the enlivening beams of the moral sun, the dawn of which Malachi foresaw, and to catch the healing virtues which he shakes from the golden plumage of his wings.

Now, such an object associates our cause, first, with the design of the Son of God in redemption. The object of the Redeemer's visit to our world was not to teach men the arts and the sciences, not to instruct them in letters, not to introduce the reign of philosophy, not to break the yoke of civil tyranny, nor to promulgate the best theory of human government. As valuable as are these objects to the present interests of mankind, they are infinitely too low to be the end of the incarnation and death of the Son of God. For such purposes he would not have deigned to approach the horizon of our globe. No, my brethren, the one object of the humiliation of the Son of God was the salvation of the human soul; and what must be the value of the salvation which was worthy of that humiliation?

When Jesus Christ departed the throne of his glory, it was to avert the curse which threatened to sink a guilty world to perdition, to roll back the torrent of damnation, and pour through its deserted channels the streams of salvation; to rescue innumerable millions of immortal spirits from the consequences of the fall, and lift them by the power of his grace from the borders of the flaming pit—to the heavens of the great God. This was the favorite object on which his mind reposed from eternity, which he seemed in haste to disclose, as soon as the apostasy of man presented an opportunity; which he loved to announce to the world by the messages of the prophets, and to exhibit in shadow, by the sacrifices of the priests, for four thousand years before its accomplishment. In seeking to save the souls of the heathen by bringing them to Christ, we raise ourselves into the dignity of a partnership with the Son of God in these mighty designs of his; we enter into the fellowship of that cross which is destined to occupy eternity with the development of its wonders, and to fill the universe with the brightness of its glory.

Such an object associates our cause with the ultimate end of all Providential arrangements. Providence is the direction of all human events with immediate reference to the kingdom of Christ. The government of the world has ever had for its object, the accomplishment of the mediatorial scheme. From the fall, Providence devoted itself to redemption, and directed all its energies and resources to prepare for the crucifixion. Separate from this, it has no interests to establish in all its sphere of operation. Hence the language of our Lord, "You have given him power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life, to as many as you have given him;" and hence the echo of the same truth in the writings of his apostle, "He has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to his church."

All human events, the revolutions of empires, the change of dynasties, the succession of monarchies, the results of war, the councils of cabinets, the debates of senates, the progress of discovery, the course of invention—in their immediate influence and remote effects, are all parts of that great plan which has for its object to bring men to Christ. This is the center where all these lines converge. The world is given to Jesus, and he is incessantly employed in bringing it to himself.

The Babylonish, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman conqueror, each at his own proper period, and in his own proper place, entered upon the stage, and though "he did not think so, neither did his heart mean it," ministered to the designs of God in redemption. Little did Julius Caesar imagine, when the white cliffs of Britain, glittering in the sun, excited his ambition and drew him across the Channel, for what purpose he disembarked his legions on our coast; but we know that it was to open a door through which the Gospel might enter our beloved country. Little did the spirit of commercial enterprise imagine, when urged only by the love of mammon, it fixed its establishments near the mouth of the Hoogley, or on the banks of the Ganges, that it was sent there as the forerunner of Christian missionaries. Little does the genius of war imagine, when impelling its mad votaries to new contests, that Christianity is following at a distance, in the rear of its victorious armies, to plant her stations on the fields of their encampment, to bear away the best of the spoils, and assume the dominion which other potentates have lost. Little did Columbus imagine, when with his heart big with his mighty projects, he walked in silence on the shores of of the new world, and watched the star of evening go down the western sky, who it was that dictated the purpose to explore the region which she went nightly to visit on the other side of the Atlantic.

We live at a time when all these events are clearly seen to connect themselves with the grand purpose of Jehovah, "to bring all men to Christ." And the people of future generations will as clearly discern the same relation in the circumstances of our day. Behold, then, the position occupied by the friends of missions. We are following in the rear of Providence, pursuing the very line of its march, moving when and where it moves, like the children of Israel in obedience to the cloudy pillar, availing ourselves of all the advantages it throws in our way, and embracing in our plans every favorable occurrence which we perceive in the universal history of the globe.

Such an object associates our cause with the best interests of the human race. If by the blessing of God upon our labors, we succeed in drawing men away from their idolatry to Christ, we save their immortal souls from death, and provide them with a blissful and glorious eternity. There are not lacking those who would restrict our benevolence to the 'temporal interests' of mankind. Civilize the savage, say they, cultivate his intellect, teach him to farm the ground, and deliver him from the galling fetters of slavery—but leave alone his religion. Yes, such an admonition is in character with the man who, having himself no part in Christ, would gladly find himself countenanced in the dreadful deficiency by the universal suffrages of a world of atheists or idolaters. Such a scantling philanthropy, if that indeed may be called philanthropy which proposes to leave men without God, and Christ, and hope—may satisfy the abject creeping spirit of infidelity, which, beyond the visible heavens, sees nothing to expect or fear. But it will not do for the lofty benevolence of Christianity, which soars upon the wing of faith until she beholds the unseen world, adapts the plan of her operation to the scale of eternity, and pursues it with an energy inspired by a view of heaven on the one hand, and of hell on the other.

Suppose, that out of compliment to the mockers of missionary zeal, we relinquished its highest, and indeed its identifying object, and confined our efforts exclusively to civilization, sending the plough and the loom instead of the cross, and that upon this reduced scale of operation we were as successful as could be desired, until we had raised the man of the woods into the man of the city, and elevated the savage into the sage. What, I ask, should we effect, viewing man, as with the New Testament in our hands we must view him, in the whole range of his existence? We may pour the light of science on his path, and strew it with the flowers of literature, but if we leave him to the dominion of his vices, it is still the path to perdition.

We may teach him to fare sumptuously every day; but alas, this, in his case, is only like offering food to the wretch who is on his way to the place of execution. We may strip off his sheep-skin dress, and clothe him with purple and fine linen—but it is only to aid him, like Dives, to live in luxury, on the way to the torments of the damned. We may raise the sculptured monument over his bones, in place of the earthly hillock in the wilderness, but though his ashes repose in grandeur, the worm that never dies will forever devour his soul, amidst the flames that can never be extinguished.

In the civilization of he heathen, we confer a blessing which is valuable while it lasts; but it is a blessing which the soul drops as she steps across the confines of the unseen world, and then passes on to wander through eternity, "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But let us aim first to save the soul, by bringing it under the influence of Christianity, and then as we advance to the end of our exertions we shall not fail to scatter along the path of our benevolence all the seeds of civilization and social order.

It is a mere assumption destitute of all proof, that such tribes as those of South Africa, and the inhabitants of the South-Sea Islands, could be civilized without the aid of religion—but it is not an assumption, for experience proves the fact, that in their savage state they are capable of receiving the gospel. And who needs to be informed that the principles of true religion contain the seed of all that is polished, as well as all that is excellent, in human nature. Religion is strictly and essentially a civilizing process. By faith, the mind is raised above the debasing tyranny of sensible objects, and sensual gratifications; by hope, the influence of present and pressing impulse is controlled by the prospect of future benefits; love establishes a law of kindness in the bosom, by which the irascible passions are subdued. And thus the elements of barbarism are expelled whenever the soul is brought into union with Christ. Industry is enjoined by the weight of a heavenly authority, and enforced by motives of eternal importance, while the intellect sublimated and quickened by its communion with immaterial objects, is prepared to start in the career of endless improvement.

If, then, you would convert the wilderness into a garden, let the first tree you plant in it be the tree of life, and you shall not long see it skirted by the nettle and the briar, much less like the poison tree of Java, shall it stand the center of a circle of death. But you shall behold it dropping its fruit for the life of the world, and shedding its leaves for the healing of the nations, while civilization shall, with feeble and tender arms, clasp its trunk, and be raised by its support into notice and strength.

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