just ideas of this reciprocal crucifixion, we must comprehend, 1. The nature of it. 2. The degrees. 3. The bitterness.

1. The nature of it. The world is crucified unto me: I am crucified unto the world: this is a figurative mode of expression importing a total rupture with the world. Distinguish two different senses in which the term world may be taken: the world of nature, and the world of cupidity. By the world of nature, we understand that vast assemblage of beings which the almighty arm of Jehovah has formed, but these considered as they are in themselves. By the world of cupidity, we understand those self-same beings, considered so far as, by our abuse of them, they seduce us from the obedience which we owe to the Creator. Of the natural world it is said, Gen. i. 3. God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. And St. Paul says, 1 Tim. iv. 4. that every creature of God is good.. .. if it be received with thanksgiving. The Christian does not break with the world in this first sense of the word.

On the contrary, he makes it the object of his frequent meditation he discovers in it the perfections of the great Being who created it: The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handy work, Psa. xix. 1. Nay more, he makes it the object of his hope: For the promise, I quote the words of St. Paul, in chap. iv. 13. of his Epistle to the Romans, for the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was made unto Abraham And all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, 1 Cor. iii. 22.

It is of the world of cupidity, therefore, that our apostle speaks, in the words which I am attempting to explain: that world of which it is said,

The world passeth away, and the lust thereof. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, 1 Jo. ii. 17, 15. The friendship of the world is enmity with, or as it might have been rendered, is hatred to God. This is the world which is crucified to the Christian; the Christian is crucified to this world. The apostle, in expressing himself thus strongly, refines upon a form of speech which frequently occurs in scripture : that of dying to an object. To die to an object, is, in the style of the sacred authors, to have no further intercourse with that object. In this sense, our apostle says, in chap. ii. of this Epistle, ver. 19. I through the law am dead to the law in other words, the genius of severity which predominates in the Mosaic economy, lays me under the necessity of entirely renouncing it, that I might live unto God; the meaning of which evidently is this, that I might have undivided recourse to a dispensation which presents the deity as more accessible to me. In like manner, to die to the world of cupidity, or, what amounts to the same thing, to die unto sin, is, to renounce sin: how shall we who are dead to sin, live any longer therein? likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin; but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. vi. 2. 11. I am still quoting the words of St. Paul.

But as if a violent death were more really dying, than death in a milder form, Scripture, in order to mark more decidedly the sincerity of the renunciation of the world, which is ascribed to the Christian, is not satisfied with representing him as dead, but holds him up as crucified to the world of cupidity: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, Rom. vi. 6. They who are in Christ have crucified the flesh, with its lusts: and in the

text, the world is crucified unto me, and I am crucified unto the world: that is, illicit cupidity exists no longer with respect to me, and I subsist no longer with respect to it.

2. There is, however, a certain degree of ambiguity in these ideas of deadness to the world, of crucifixion to the world, of a total rupture with the world. For this reason it is that we said, that in order to have just ideas of this disposition of mind, it is not sufficient to comprehend the nature of it, but that we should also understand the gradations of which it admits. If, in order worthily to sustain the Christian character, an absolute renunciation of the world, in the literal sense of the words, were indispensably necessary, where is the person, alas! who durst pretend to assume that name? Would it be a Noah? Would it be an Abraham? Would it be a Moses? Would it be a David? Would it be a Peter? Would it be a Paul? Would it be one of you, Christians of our own days? who seem to have carried piety to its highest degree of fervor, and who shine as lights in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, Phil. ii. 15.

Where, then, are those saints to be found, in whom an ill-smothered cupidity emits no sparks? That female is an example of what is called virtue, by way of eminence, in her sex; and which, according to the ideas of the age in which we live, seems to constitute the whole of virtue, as far as she is concerned; but, impregnable to all the assaults that can be made upon her chastity, she succombs under the slightest temptation that attacks her on the side of avarice, and she loses all self-government, the moment you recommend to her to take care that her charities be in something like proportion to her opulence.

That man is a pattern of reflective retirement, and modest silence; but, unshaken by the rudest attacks made upon his spirit of reserve, he yields to the slightest solicitations of pride; he decks himself out with the names and titles of his ancestors, he admires himself in the poorest effusions of his brain. How easy would it be to multiply examples of this sort!

But if it be impossible to say, taking the expression in the strictness of interpretation, that the Christian has broken off all commerce with the world, that he is dead to the world, that the world is crucified unto him, and that he is crucified unto the world; he possesses this disposition of mind, nevertheless, in various respects, and to a certain degree. He is crucified unto the world, he is so in respect of intention, he has that sincere will to pull down every strong hold, ever thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God: it is an expression of St. Paul, 2 Cor. x., 4, 5. Hence such protestations as these: O Lord! thou hast searched me, and known me, Psa. cxxxix. 1. Lord! thou knowest that I love thee, Jo. xxi. 17. Hence the bitterness of regret on account of remaining imperfection: O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Rom. vii. 24. Hence those prayers for the communication of fresh supplies of heavenly aid: Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wonderous things out of thy law, Psa. cxix. 18. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God: Thy spirit is good, lead me into the land of uprightness, Psa. cxliii. 10.

He is crucified unto the world. He is so in respect of exertion and actual progress. Hence those unremitting conflicts with the remains of indwelling corruption: I keep under my body, and

bring it into subjection, 1 Cor. ix. 27. Hence those advances in the Christian course: Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after.... This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, Phil. iii. 12, 13, 14.

He is crucified unto the world. He is so in respect to hope and fervor. Hence those sighings after the dissolution of the body, which forms, as it were, a wall of separation between God and us. Hence those ardent breathings after a dispensation, an economy of things, in which we shall be able to give an unrestrained effusion to the love of order, and be completely united to Jesus Christ. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life,. knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord : and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord, 2 Cor. v. 4, 6, 8.

3. But the Holy Spirit, in representing to us our renunciation of the world, under the idea of a death, of a crucifixion, intended to mark not only the nature, and the digress of the disposition of mind which these expressions denote; but likewise to indicate the difficulty, the bitterness of making such a sacrifice.

In very rare instances do men die without suffering. Death, in the mildest form, is usually preceded by violent symptoms, which some have denominated the harbingers of death. These harbingers of death, are mortal swoonings, feverish