SERMON I.

FOR ASH-WEDNESDAY.

BY ARCHBISHOP SECKER.

[THOMAS SECKER was born in the year 1693. He was made Bishop of Bristol in 1735, was translated to Oxford 1737, raised to the See of Canterbury in 1758" and died in 1768.]

SERMON I

GAL. v. 24

And they, that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts

THIS expression, 'crucifying the flesh,' may probably seem to most, when they first hear it, or attend to i, a very strange one; as, no doubt, numbers of others in Scripture do. But a little consideration will show, that there is no cause to censure them, or be offended at them. For amidst the multiplicity of languages that are in the world and the various nations, tempers, and circumstances of the people who are bred up to use them, it is unavoidable, but there will be in each many ways of speaking, which though easy and familiar by custom to one part of mankind, must yet, to the rest, appear harsh and unaccountable. This is the case even of neighbouring countries in our own times: much more then must it be expected in those tongues, of which the vulgar use hath long since failed, and which formerly expressed the sentiments of distant nations, inspired both by the age and climate they lived in, with a different turn of thought and style.

Hence proceeds the surprising warmth and boldness of figure, the abrupt transitions, the sudden lofty flights of the eastern writers and speakers, utterly contrary to the cool and regular genius of the European languages. And amongst the former, the compositions of the Jews must of course have a peculiar tincture and propriety of their own: not only because they were prohibited, for good reasons, all needless commerce with other lands; but chiefly because divine Revelation delivered to them such doctrines and precepts, and consequently such terms, as the heathen had not; which must likewise greatly increase in number by frequent references to their own articles of faith, observances, and sacred books. When Christianity was published to the world, here was again a new set of discoveries and ideas, added to the preceding; which being first communicated in Hebrew, were thence transfused into Greek, by the apostles addressing themselves to the Gentiles. Thus was the style of the New Testament produced: which being as literally translated, and closely imitated, as it well could, (for the nature of the thing required strictness,) the same forms of speech have been derived down into the modern tongues of Christian countries. And so it hath come to pass by a kind of necessity, that, in discourses on religion, words, meanings, constructions, images, occur, extremely remote from the common idiom of the language on other occasions. And these, weak persons are apt to mistake, artful disputants to pervert, and unlearned or unfair affecters of wit and free thought to ridicule; though originally they were of plain signification, and are still, when understood, full of good sense and beauty.

.

Thus crucifying,' or as the apostle elsewhere puts it, 'mortifying' the flesh,' is a phrase far out of the road of our daily conversation, and of our reading on subjects of business and entertainment: from whence it easily happens that the superstitious misapprehend, and the profane despise it; though indeed it denotes a reasonable, a necessary duty, and describes that duty, not only in a strong, but elegant manner. To show these things clearly, I

shall,

I. Explain to you the rise and general intention of this way of speaking:

II. Specify more distinctly the nature of the duty designed to be taught by it:

III. Show you how strictly our belonging to Christ obliges us to practise that doctrine.

I. I shall explain to you the rise and general intention of this way of speaking in Scripture.

Now the words, flesh and spirit, though employed by the writers of the New Testament in different senses, according to the subject of which they treat, are yet commonly expressions of the moral state and character of man; the dispositions of his heart towards piety or sin. Spirit is the principle of reason and religion; flesh, of appetite and passion. Every one feels in himself both right and wrong inclinations. The former our conscience approves. And therefore pursuing them would on that account alone be properly called, 'walking after the Spirit,' that inward man, which naturally delighteth in the law of God.' But a much stronger ground for it is, that the Divine Spirit hath not