1. What the cross of Christ is. A figurative speech, but truly the Divine power that mortifies the world.--2. It is so called by the apostle Paul to the Corinthians.--3. Where it is the cross appears, and must be borne? Within; where the lusts are, there they must be crucified.--4. Experience teaches every one this; to be sure Christ asserts it, from within comes murder, &c., and that is the house where the strong man must be bound.--5. How is the cross to be borne? The way is spiritual, a denial of self, of the pleasure of sin; to please God, and obey his will as manifested to the soul by the light He gives it.--6. This shows the difficulty, yet the necessity of the cross.
The daily cross being then, and still, O Christendom! the way to glory, that the succeeding matter, which wholly relates to the doctrine of it, may come with most evidence and advantage upon thy conscience it is most seriously to be considered by thee,--
Secondly, Where the cross of Christ is to be taken up?
Thirdly, How, and after what manner it is to be borne?
Fourthly, What is the great work and business of the cross? In which, the sins it crucifies, with the mischiefs that attend them, will be at large expressed.
Fifthly and lastly, I shall add many testimonies from living and dying persons of great reputation, either for their quality, learning, or piety, as a general confirmation of the whole tract.
To the first, What is the cross of Christ?
I. The cross of Christ is a figurative speech, borrowed from the outward tree, or wooden cross, on which Christ submitted to the will of God, suffering death at the hands of evil men. So that the cross mystical is that Divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, and gives a contradiction to their corrupt affections, and that constantly opposeth itself to the inordinate and fleshly appetite of their minds, and so may be justly termed the instrument of man's wholly dying to the world, and being made conformable to the will of God. For nothing else can mortify sin, or make it easy for us to submit to the Divine will in things otherwise very contrary to their own.
II. The preaching of the cross, therefore, in primitive times was fitly called by Paul, that famous and skilful apostle in spiritual things, "the power of God," though to them that perish, then, as now, "foolishness." That is, to those that were truly weary and heavy laden, and needed a deliverer, to whom sin was burdensome and odious, the preaching of the cross, by which sin was to be mortified, was, as to them, the power of God, or a preaching of the Divine power by which they were made disciples of Christ and children of God; and it wrought so powerfully upon them that no proud nor licentious mockers could put them out of love with it. But to those that walked in the broad way, in the full latitude of their lusts, and dedicated their time and care to the pleasure of their corrupt appetites, to whom all yoke and bridle were and are intolerable, the preaching of the cross was and is foolishness.