754 THE SUBSTANCE OF THQ GOSPEL.' as they could, out of-his mere mercy ; the Jews couldnever have been so much shocked or offended at it, for they believed as this much lung before St. Paul ever preached : Nor could the learned Greeks have counted that doctrine folly which the wisest of their philosophers seemed to understand and teach. This sort of gospel would have been so little different fromwhat the light of nature might lead them probably to expect and hope for, that surely they would not have endeavoured to expose it and ridicule it, but rather they would have fallen in with St. Paul's:, sermons, as being agreeable to many of their' sentiments. That gospel therefore, which both the Jews and the Greeks were so much offended with, that they reproached it as' madness and folly, must be something strange to their ears, and exceedingly diffe, rent from their own opinions. V. I may add also at least, that if St. Paul had meant no more, by the gospel of Christ, than this, that God was willing to be reconciled to mankind, if they would repent of their sins, and be sorry for them, and lived as well as they could for time to come, there had been very little reason for him to speak of his courage in preaching it so often as he does, and that with such an emphasis ; Rom. i. 16. 1 am not ashamedof the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation ; and he repeats it again ; 2 Tim. i. 12. and encourages young Timothy to preach the saine gospel with boldness, and be not ashamed of Christ, nor his ministers. He counts it a great thing, that he could glory in the cross of Christ, Gal vi. 14. and in his doctrine of Christ cru- cified, and is resolved to spread the savour of it roundthe world. I am not ashamedof this gospel, I am ready to preach it among the Jews or the barbarians, or in the city of Rome itself ; Rom. i. 15. Now if he had preached nothing but the Socinian gospel, there was nothing in it that would have exposed him to much shame and reproach for the hopes."of forgiveness, upon mere re- pentance; and the enforcement of duties of natural religion, with a little illustration and advance upon them, was much like the gospel or doctrine of the wisest of the heathen philosophers, that he had almost been esteemed one of those wise men, and rather treated with honour amongst themat Athens, and in other gentile cities, and not been reproachedas a setter forth ofstrange Gods, and called a babbler for his preaching of such sort of doctrines ; Acts. xvii. 18. But when the'apostlepreaches the Son of God in the likeness of man, that came down from heaven, not to set up a throne in the world, and rule personally over the nations, but tobe expos- ed to shame and pain, to be nailed to a cross, and have a crown of thorns put upon him, and endure all these sufferings for the sins of mankind : When teils the heathen world of a man that was hanged upon a tree at Jerusalem, and assures them, that his
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