conceived it, with all the deep foundations of
implication and presupposition on which it rests, and with all the,
as yet, undiscovered range of conclusions to which it may lead.
Remember that the Cross of Christ is the key to the universe, and
sends its influence into every region of human thought.

II. What Paul thought the Gospel was.

'The power of God unto salvation.' There was in the background of the
Apostle's mind a kind of tacit reference to the antithetical power
that he was going up to meet, the power of Rome, and we may trace
that in the words of my text. Rome, as I have said, was the
embodiment of physical force, with no great faith in ideas. And over
against this carnal might Paul lifts the undissembled weakness of the
Cross, and declares that it is stronger than man, 'the power of God
unto salvation.' Rome is high in force; Athens is higher; the Cross
is highest of all, and it comes shrouded in weakness having a poor
Man hanging dying there. That is a strange embodiment of divine
power. Yes, and because so strange, it is so touching, and so
conquering. The power that is draped in weakness is power indeed.
Though Rome's power did make for righteousness sometimes, yet its
stream of tendency was on the whole a power to destruction and
grasped the nations of the earth as some rude hand might do rich
clusters of grapes and squeeze them into a formless mass. The tramp
of the legionary meant death, and it was true in many respects of
them what was afterwards said of later invaders of Europe, that where
their horses' hoofs had once stamped no grass ever grew. Over against
this terrific engine of destruction Paul lifts up the meek forces of
love which have for their sole object the salvation of man.

Then we come to another of the keywords about which it is very
needful that people should have deeper and wider notions than they
often seem to cherish. What is salvation? Negatively, the removal and
sweeping away of all evil, physical and moral, as the schools speak.
Positively, the inclusion of all good for every part of the composite
nature of a man which the man can receive and which God can bestow.
And that is the task that the Gospel sets to itself. Now, I need not
remind you how, for the execution of such a purpose, it is plain that
something else than man's power is absolutely essential. It is only
God who can alter my relation to His government. It is only God who
can trammel up the inward consequences of