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4. I fhall now conclude, by improving this fubject for the purpose of self-examination. And furely no serious hearer will be backward to bring himfelf to the trial. My beloved hearers I fpeak to all of every rank, high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, who profess to bear the name of Chriftians: Are you, or are you not, crucified to the world, and the world to you? All real believers are fo. If you are not, your riches or your poverty, your honor or your shame, your regular behavior, or even your zeal for public duties, will avail you nothing in the day of Chrift's appearance. I am fenfible, that the decision of the queftion, Whether you are, or are not, crucified to the world? may often be attended with no little difficulty. I will therefore, as far as I am able, endeavor to assist you in the trial. For which purpose, I beg your attention to the following obfervations.

1. You are crucified to the world, if you do not habitually allow your thoughts to dwell upon it, and your defires to run out after it. The cross was an abhorred object, which no body could look upon with delight. Worldlinefs is often as much discovered by our defires after what we have not, as by the ufe or employment of what we have. There are many whofe great delight feems to arise from the fond expectations they entertain of worldły happinefs to come: nay, there are many who are fo flothful as not to pursue the world, and yet feed themselves with the very imagination of it. Their thoughts, and even their language, conftantly runs upon idle fancies, and romantic fuppofitions of the happiness they fhould enjoy, were they in fuch or fuch a state. Now, my brethren, he that is crucified to the world will make confcience of restraining these irregular defires; and, from a deep conviction of the vanity of the world, will find little pleafure in the contemplation of it.

2. Your begin crucified to the world will appear in the moderation of your delight and complacency in what you poffefs of it. You will not, if I may fpeak fo, give yourselves up to it, but will always qualify the enjoyment of it by a reflection upon its van ty in itfelf, and its fhort duration as to any connection we shall have with it. We

are ready to pity, the weaknefs of children, when we fee them apply themselves with fo much eagerness to trifles, and fo greatly delighted with their amufements and enjoyments. A parent, looking on them when hotly engaged at play, will be at once pleased to see them happy, and at the fame time filled with a tender commiferation of their want of reflection. Something of the fame view one crucified to the world has of all earthly enjoyments. Many a grown person will finile at the play of children, while he himself is perhaps as eagerly engaged in the fchemes of ambition, in political struggles, and contefts for power; which are often as great trifles as the play-things of children, only that they are the play-things of men.

3. You are crucified to the world if you have low hopes and expectations from it. It is hope that ftirs us up chiefly to action in all our purfuits. And fo long as we en tertain high thoughts of what the world will afford us in fome after-season, we are not crucified to it. There is a common proverbial faying, "If it were not for hope, the "heart would break :" juft fo, when our hopes from the world are deftroyed, the heart of the old man is broken. We are exceeding ready to think, that were fuch or fuch a difficulty or uneafinefs removed, could we obtain fuch or such an advantage in view, we would be happy. But there is always a deception at bottom. We vainly think, that happiness arifes from the creature; but he that is crucified to the world judges, by past experience, that it hath little comfort to give; and therefore he will place but little dependence upon it.

4. He is crucified to the world who hath truly fubdued all invidious difpofitions towards the poffeffion of it. There are many who feem to have little comfort from their own enjoyments; but there is reafon to fear, that it arifes not fo much from felf-denial, as from difcontent. The world may be faid to be crucified to them, but they are not crucified to the world. It is by this that worldlinefs expreffes itfelf chiefly in the lower ranks of life. Thofe who are obliged to live moderately and hardly, from mere penury, often fhew, by their carriage and language, that they have as much fenfuality in their hearts, as thofe who in VOL. I. 4 B

dulge their irregular defires to the greateft excefs. But he that is crucified to the world, not only fees all its pomp and fplendor in others without repining, but will often beftow a thought of compaffion upon the great, for the enfnaring circumstances in which they are placed with regard to their fouls. And furely they are of all others most to be pitied. May the Lord, in mercy, convince them of their danger; and, in the mean time, preferve his own people from being led aftray by their influence and example.

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GALATIANS vi. 14. laft claufe.

By whom the world is Crucified to me, and I unto, the World.

NOW proceed to the fecond thing propofed, which was,

To fhow the influence of the crofs of Chrift in crucifying the world. This, my brethren, deferves your most ferious attention, as pointing you to the great and vital principle of the Christian's fanctification, the true and only fource of spiritual comfort and peace. The cross of Chrift is always confidered in the apoftolic writings as an object of the highest dignity and merit; and the believer is there taught to speak of it in expreffions of the warmest attachment and regard. Witnefs the words of the text itfelf, in the preceding claufe: "God forbid that I should "glory fave in the cross of our Lord Jefus Chrift." We may perhaps be easily induced, in a time of external quietnefs and peace, to adopt this fentiment as an opinion, or to use it as a form; but happy, and only happy, those in whom it dwells as an ever present truth, and operates as a daily governing principle!

Taking the fubject in great latitude, I might observe, that the cross of Chrift being the price paid for the bleff ings of falvation in general, every illuminating discovery in the mind, and every gracious affection in the heart,

which are the work of the divine Spirit, may be justly a. fcribed to it. But I propose, at this time, to confider it fingly as an object of faith, and to fhew how the firm perfuafion and frequent recollection of this great truth tends to crucify the world to us, and us to the world; the rather, that we find elsewhere our victory over the world afcribed to faith, and this faith particularly terminating on the Son of God: 1 John v. 4, 5. "For whatfoever is born of God, "overcometh the world; and this is the victory that "overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that "overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jefus "is the Son of God?" For the further illuftration of this fubject, then, let us obferve,

1. That the crofs of Chrift crucifies the world, as it gives us an immediate and ftriking view of the mortality of our nature, as well as the original and general caufe of this mortality. The vanity of created things is in nothing more manifeft, than in their precarious nature, particuJarly our own tendency to the duft, by which all earthly relations fhall be fpeedily and entirely diffolved. In this view, indeed, you may fay, that the death of any other perfon, fickness, and all its attending fymptoms, or a funeral, with its mournful folemnities, tends to crucify the world: and most certainly they do. But there is fomething still more in the cross of Chrift. There we see, noţ only the death of our nature, but the death of the Son of God in our room. There we are carried back to a view of the great caufe of the universal reign of the king of terrors, fin. Sin first brought death into the world; and this made it neceffary that Chrift "fhould tafte of death "for every man," that we might be reftored to fpiritual life. Mortality, therefore, is written in the most legible characters on the cross of Chrift. Nay, the curfe of creation itfelf is written upon the cross of Chrift, We cannot look upon it, therefore, in a ferious manner, without being deeply affected with the doom which we ourfelves have ftill to undergo: "Duft thou art, and to duft thou fhalt "return." It is impoffible to avoid knowing that we must die; but those only difcover the moment of this truth, who fce its procuring caufe. Thofe only have juft and abiding

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