The crucifying of the world by the cross of Christ with a preface to the nobles, gentlemen, and all the rich, directing them how they may be richer / by Richard Baxter.

SECT. I.

EVER since mankind had a being upon earth, the malicious apostate spirits have been their enemies: If it was the will of our Creator that we should be Militaries in our Innocency, and keep our standing, and attain our Confir∣mation and Glory by a Victory, or else come short of it if we lost the day: No wonder then that our lapsed condition must be militant, and that by conquest we must obtain the Crown. But there is a great deal of difference between these combats. In our first state we were the sole Combatants against the Enemy our selves, and we fought in

that sufficient strength of our own which was then given us, and by our wilfull yielding we were overcome. But since our fall we fight under the banner of another, who having first conquered for us, will afterward conquer in us and by us. All the great transactions and bus••es of the world, which our Fathers have reported to us, which have filled all the Histories of ages, and which our eyes have seen, or our ears have heard of, are nothing but the various actions and successes of this great war, and all the persons in the world are the souldiers of these two Armies, whereof the Lord of Life, and the Prince of Darkness are the Generals: The whole Inhabited world is the field. The great on-set of the Enemy was made upon the person of our Lord himself. And as oft as he was assaulted or did assault, so oft did he overcome. In the wilderness he had that first appointed confl••ct with Satan himself hand to hand: Through his whole life after, he was assaulted by the inferiour sort of enemies: And a leader in his own Army; even Peter himself is once seduced to be∣come a Satan, Mat. 16. 22. and a Traytor Iudas is the means of his apprehension, and then the blinded Jews and Rulers of his Crucifixion, and there had he the last and greatest Conflict; in which when he seemed conquered he did overcome, and so his personall war was finished. When the Captain of our salva∣tion was thus made perfect through sufferings, Heb. 2. 10. that he might bring many sons to glory, his next work was to form his Army; which he did, by giving first Commission to his Officers, and appointing them to gather the common souldiers, and to fill his bands. No sooner did they set themselves upon the work, but Satan sendeth forth his bands against them: Persecutors assault them openly: and Hereticks are Traytors in their own Societies, and make mutinies among the souldiers of Christ, and do them more mischief by perfidiousness, then the rest could do by open hostility. The first sort of them took advantage, 1. By the reputati∣on of Moses Law, and the zeal of the blinded Jews for its defence. And 2. from the dangers, sufferings and fleshly tenderness of ma∣ny professors of the Christian faith, which made them too ready to listen to any Doctrine that promised them peace and safety in the world; and as they were themselves a Carnall Generation, that looked after worldly glory and felicity, and could not bear persecution for Christ, and so were enemies to his Cross, while

they profest themselves to be his Disciples, so would they have perswaded the Churches to be of th••••••••me mind, and to take the same course as they; that so they might not be noted for carnall and cowardly professors themselves, while they brought others to believe the justness of their way; but rather might have matter of glorying in their followers, instead of being either sufferers with the true Christians, or rejected by them whose profession they had undertaken.

These were the persons that Paul had here to deal with, against whom having opposed many arguments through the Epistle, in the words of my Text he opposeth his own Resolution, [God forbid that I should glory, &c.—]

The words contain Pauls renouncing the carnal disposition and practise of the false Apostles, and his professed Resolution of the contrary. Where you have, 1. The terms of Detestation and Renunciation [God forbid] or, [be it far from me.] 2. The thing•• Detested and Renounced, viz. To glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ. His own positive profession containeth, 1. His Resolution to Glory in the Cross of Christ. 2. The effects of the Cross of Christ upon his soul; which being contrary to the disposition, and doctrine, and endeavour of the false Teachers, is added as a Reason of his abhorring their waies, and as the ground and principle of his contrary course. [Here∣by the world was crucified to him, and he to the world.]

The difficulties in the words being not great, I shall take leave to be the briefer in their explication. The verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth not only externall bo••sting, but first internall confidence and ac∣quiescence. By [the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ] we are to understand both his Cross as suffered by him, and as considered by us, and as imitated by us, or the Cross we suffer in conformity to him: For I see no reason to take it in a more restrained sense.

By [the world] is meant, the whole inferiour Creation, or all that is objected to our sense, or is the bait or provision for the flesh, or by the tempter is put in competition with God: both the things and the men of the world.

To have [the world crucified to him] doth signifie, 1. That it is killed and so disabled from doing him any deadly harm, or from being able to steal away his affections, as it doth they that

are unsanctified. 2. That he esteemeth it but as a dead and con∣temptible thing. So that this phrase expresseth both its disabling, and his positive contempt of it.

The other phrase that Paul was [crucified to the world] doth signifie on the other side, 1. That his estimation and affections were as dead to it; that is, he had no more esteem of it, or love to it; nor did he further mind or regard it, (so far as he was sanctified) then a dead man would do. 2. It signifieth that he was also contemned by worldly men, and lookt on as his Cruci∣fied Lord was, whom he preached.

This is said to be done [by Christ] or [by his Cross:] For the relative may relate to either antecedent. But I should rather refer it to the later, though in sense the difference is small▪ because the one is implyed in the other.

The further explication of the Nature of this Crucifixion, and the influence that Christ and his Cross have thereinto, and how they are the Causes of it, must be further spoke to in the handling of the Doctrines, which are as followeth.