“ Adhering to this banner, you may boldly and triumphantly say, O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory? When that great tremendous day shall come, which puts an end to time and terrestrial things; when that awful, that majestic, voice is heard, which commands all the race of Adam to appear at the bar; then, my dear brethren in Christ, then also shall you glory in the cross. When others, in an agony of terror, call upon rocks to fall on them and mountains to overwhelm them ”

“ As christians, we have, in the cross of Christ, the richest provision for our own spiritual wants. This is a foundation of the sublimest hope, and a fountain of the most exuberant joy: this affords matter of the deepest humility, and yields fuel for the most flaming love. Faith in our crucified Jesus is an ever-active principle of the most chearful and exact obedience is an ample and inexhaustible magazine, from we may fetch arms to counquer, absolutely conquer the allurements of the world, the solicitations of the 18th, and the temptations of the devil. ”

“ Can I conclude, without adding a word of admonition to the wicked; those, I mean, who are enemies to the cross of Christ; who mind earthly things, but neither hunget nor thirst after righteousness. My soul remembers the wormwood and the gall of such a state, and cannot but tenderly pity these unhappy people. Alas! my friends, what have you to glory in? The devil and his angels expect ere long to glory in your destruction. Those malignant fiends are eyeing you as their prey, and are impatient to begin your torment. ”

“ They also must awake, must arise; must appear at the bar, and meet the Judge, a Judge before whom the pillars of heaven tremble, and the earth melt away; a Judge once long-suffering and very compassionate, but now unalterably determined, to teach stubborn offenders what it is to provoke the Oninipotent Godhead, what it is to trample in the blood of his Son, and offer despite to all the gracious overtures of his holy Spirit, to whom be glory, honour, and immortal praise, now, and for evermore. ”

“ Here truth, more unshaken than a rock, takes her immoveable stand: and mercy, tenderer than the mother's tears, yearns with bowels of everlasting pity. In a word, the cross of Christ is a conspicuous theatre, on which all the divine perfections unite, and harmonize, and shire forth with transcendent lustre. ”

“ Yer all this righteousness he accounted dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord . Be this your pattern. Write emptiness upon your own duties, emptiness upon your own works; and you shall be filled with all the fulness of God your Saviour. Every other cause of glorying, will be like the morning cloud, or the early dew, which passeth away; but this cause of glorying will stand fast for evermore, as the moon, and as the faithful witness in heaven. ”

“ Another benefit is holiness; or, if you please, the true, the Christian morality, Let none think, the believer in Jesus disparages true morality. True morality is the image of the blessed God: It is most charmingly delineated throughout the whole Bible: It is the beginning of heaven in the human soul; and its proper origin is from the cross of our divine Master. For, thro' the merits of his death, sinners are made partakers of the holy Spirit ”

“ Having therefore such an high priest; having in this cross unsearchable riches; who shall make our glorying void? What shall hinder us from rejoicing and saying, Blessed be God for the opening beauties of spring! Blessed be God for the expected fruits of autumn! Blessed be God for ten thousand thousand gifts of his indulgent providence! but above all, blessed be God for the cross of Christ.
As ministers of the gospel, we are not left to set before our hearers a system of refined heathenism ”

“ A privilege of such superlative excellency, that it was celebrated in the hymns of angels. When the heavenly host offered a song, this was the subject of their harmonious joy: Glory be to God in the highest, and or earth peace, good will towards men. “By the birth of this wonderful Child, and the death he shall sustain, peace is made between heaven and earth: and not peace only, but a divine friendship commences. God regards the poor apostate race of men, not only without indignation, but with complacency and delight. ”

“ Let me caution the self-righteous; those who more frequently think of their own piety than of Christ's obedience; are more apt to cry out, with the Pharisee, I am no extortioner; no adulterer; than to confess with the Publican, God be merciful to me a sinner. ”

“ Here enemies, sworn enemies, dwell together in unity. They drop every imbittered thought, and forget that they once were foes. Perhaps, their crumbling bones mix, as they moulder, and those who, while they lived, stood aloof in irreconcilable variance, here fall into mutual embraces, and even incorporate with each other in the grave. ”

“ However you may appear in your own fight before the adorable Majesty of the everlasting God, before the consumate perfection of his holy law, you are less than nothing, you are worse than nothing: you are indeed; you are deficiency and sin. Renounce, therefore, renounce all dependence on self. Trust no longer in a refuge of lies ”

“ Under the pressure of tribulations, lift up your heads, and glory in the cross: because the Captain of your salvation, was made perfect through sufferings. If you suffer with him, you shall also reign with him, and the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the happiness which Christ hath purchased with his agonies, and will quickly bestow on his people, when death approaches, death that cuts off the spirit of princes, and is terrible among the kings of the earth, do you still glory in the cross. ”

“ For thus it is written, That through death, be might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage. The devil is said to have the power of death; because, by tempting too successfully our first parents, he brought death into the world; because, by tempting their posterity to sin, and too often prevailing, he arrays death in horror; he arms death with its sting. ”

“ The God that made them, has no mercy on them: The Prince of Peace, the Fountain of Felicity, rejects them with abhorrence, he consigns them over to chains of darkness, and receptacles of despair, against the severer doon, and more public infamy of the great day: Then all the phials of wrath will be eruptied upon these wretched creatures: The law they have violated, and the gospel they have flighted, the power they have defied, and the goodness they have abused: will all get themselves honour in their examplary destruction. ”

“ Tho' you cannot controul the laws of nature; though you cannot see into the secrets of futurity, you have the same cause of glorying with the very chief of the apostles, a cause of glorying, which that holy man of God esteemed far above all such miraculous abilities. You have the cross of Christ for your study, as men ”

“ Resurrection, will be no privilege to them, but immortality itself their everlasting curse—Would they not bless the grave, that land! where all things are forgotten, and wish to be eternally hid in its deepest gloom ”

“ Why then, said my working thoughts, Oh, why should we raise such a mighty stir about superiority and precedence, when the next remove will reduce us all to a state of equal meanness! why should we exalt ourselves, or debase others, since we must all one day be upon a common level, and blended together in the same undistinguished dust? ”

“ Oh that we might learn from these friendly ashes, not to perpetuate the memory of injuries; not to soment the fever of resentment, nor cherish the turbulence of passion; that there may be as little animosity and disagreement in the land of the living, as there is in the congregation of the dead! Here the man of business forgets all his favourite schemes, and discontinues the pursuit of gain. ”

“ And is it poslible for any human heart to contemplate the cross of so divine a Being, and not to glory? is it possible to say, Angels, he rules over you; but he died, he died on a cross for meː and not exult in such transporting beneficence?———This will be more evident, if we examine,
III. What reason the apostle had to glory in the cross of Christ. The cross, though in itself an ignominious tree; yet, being the cross of Christ, is infinitely ennobled. It becomes the tree of life; it bears the divine fruit; its clusters are all spiritual and heavenly blessings. ”

“ How did they stand shuddering upon the tremenduous precipice; excessively afraid to die, yet utterly unable to live! O what pale reviews what sparkling prospects conspire to augment their sorrows; they look backward, and behold a most melancholy scene! ”

“ Finding no other way of possible relief, they are constrained to apply unto the Almighty. With trembling lips and faultering tongue, they cry unto that sovereign, Being, who kills and makes alive-But why, O why have they deferred their addresses to heaven so long! ”

“ Among these confused relicks of humanity, there are without doubt, persons of contrary interests and contradicting sentiments, but death like an able days-man, has laid his hand on the contending parties, and brought all their differences to an amicable conclusion. ”

“ But alas, all their tribulations, are only the beginning of sorrows; one small drop of that cup of trembling, which is mingled for their future portion.———No fooner has the last pang dislodged the reluctant soul: but they are hurried into the presence of an injured angry God: not under the conducting care of beneficent angels, but exposed to the insults of cursed spirits who lately tempted them, now upbraiding them, and will for ever torment them.———Who can conceive their confusion and distress; when they stand guilty and inexcusable, before their incensed Creator? ”

“ Would we comfort the distressed we may point them to an atonement, whose merits are infinite, and able to save to the very uttermost we may lead them to a righteousness whose efficacy is unbounded, and sufficient to justify the ungodly. ”

“ None entertained fond and eager expectation of being honourably greeted in their darksome cells. The man of years and experience reputed as an oracle in his generation, was content to lie down at the foot of a babe. ”

“ They roll around their affrightened eyes on attending friends. And, if accomplices in debauchery, it sharpens their anguish, to consider the further aggravation of their guilt, that they have not sinned alone, but drawn others into the same snare. ”

“ In this house appointed for all living, the servant was equally accomodated, and lodged in the same story with his master. The poor indigent lay as softly, and slept as soundly, as the most oppulent professor ”