I might add also, that St. Paul intends and means more than he expresses by a very usual figure of speech: I am not ashamed of it, that is, I glory in it, I make my boast of it. If there be any doctrine worth boasting of, it is the gospel of Christ. If I have any profession to glory in, it is that I am a christian. Once I was a pharisee, and I counted it my gain and my honour; Phil. iii. 7, 8. _But what things were gain to me, these I counted loss for Christ; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord._ I glory in being a minister of the gospel; it is the highest honour God could have put upon me, who am less than the least of all saints. _To me is this grace given to preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ_; Eph. iii. 8. I glory in it to that degree, that I am dead to all things else. _God forbid I should glory in any thing save in the cross of our Lord Jesus, whereby the world is crucified to me, and I to the world_; Gal. vi. 14. I glory in my sufferings: and, my friends, if ye understood the value of these things, they are your glory too. _If I am offered up a sacrifice for the service of your faith; I joy and rejoice together with all_; Phill. ii. 17. O! that you would but rejoice together with me in it. Thus I have shewed you that all these things are implied in St. Paul’s not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and I have proved it to you from other parts of his epistles. The third general head I proposed to speak to, was this; What is there in this gospel that may be supposed to expose any man to shame! And this question is very needful; for if there were nothing in it that men might take occasion to throw their scandals and reproaches at, it had been no great matter for St. Paul to have cried out, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. To this I answer in general, this was a gospel that contradicted the rooted prejudices of the Jews, and was severely reproached by those that professed great knowledge in their law; it was also a new and strange thing to the Gentiles. _A crucified Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks_; 1 Cor. i. 23. There was something in the faith, and practice, and worship of the gospel so contrary to the course of their education in the world, so opposite to their carnal inclinations, and to the customs and fashions of their country, that a man might well be afraid and ashamed to profess it, when they lift their tongues, and their hands, and their swords against it, and the chief of them _crucified the Lord of glory_, and put the preachers of it to death.