ology, still less a morality,
not a declaration of principles, but a history of fact, things that were
done on this earth of ours, and that the Apostle's Creed which is
worked into the service of the Anglican Church is far nearer the
primitive conception of the Gospel than are any of the more elaborate
and doctrinal ones which have followed. For we have to begin with the
facts that Christ lived, died, was buried, rose again from the dead ...
ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. Whatever
else the Gospel is, that is the kernel and the basis of it all. Out of
these facts will come all manner of doctrines, philosophies of religion,
theologies, revelations about God and man. Out of them will come all
ethics, the teaching of duty, the exhibition of a pattern of conduct,
inspiration to follow the model that is set before us. Out of them will
come, as I believe, guidance and light for social and economical and
political questions and difficulties. But what we have to lay hold of,
and what we preachers have to proclaim, is the story of the life, and
eminently the story of the death.

Why does Peter put in the very centre here 'the sufferings of Christ'?
That suggests another thought, that amongst these facts which, taken
together, make the Gospel, the vital part, the central and the
indispensable part, is the story of the Cross. Now what Christ said, not
what Christ did, not what Christ was, beautiful and helpful as all that
is, but to begin with what Christ bore, is the fact that makes the life
of the Gospel. And just as He is the centre of humanity, so the Cross is
the centre of His work. Why is that? Because the deepest need of all of
us is the need to have our sins dealt with, both as guilt and as power,
and because nothing else in the whole story of Christ's manifestation
deals with men's sins as the fact of His death on the Cross does,
therefore the sacrifice and sufferings are the heart of the Gospel.

And so, brethren, we have to mark that the presentation of Christian
truth which slurs over that fact of the Sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus
Christ, has parted with the vital power which makes the story into a
gospel. It is no gospel to tell a man that Jesus Christ died, unless you
go on to say He 'died for our sins according to the Scriptures.' And it
is no gospel to talk about the beauty of His life, and the perfectness
of His example, and the sweetness of His nature, and the depth, the
wisdom, an