JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. PHILADELPHIA: CLAXTON, REMSEN, & HAFFELFINGER, 819 AND 821 MARKET STREET. PREFACE. IN the Churches, especially of America, a flood-tide of ritualism now threatens to overwhelm the gospel, such as in the fourth century deluged the primitive Churches with relics of martyrs, monkish legends, lying wonders, pagan customs, and "the invention of the cross." The eye is taken with a curious pantomime, carried on by various actors. Any parade with banners and sweet voices through the streets, or into the churches, is sure to attract a crowd. Excited by the mysterious movement, the rising generation are fired to see, to fall in, and to form a part of the brave show, dressed in colours, or white robes, with banners and standard-bearers for the admiration of the beholders. sign and image of the cross is now, as of old, in the forefront of the pagan assault upon the simplicity of the faith of God in Christ. Therefore it is timely to present to the public a history, showing the pagan origin of the image, with its entrance among Christians, and its final adoption in the Church Catholic and Universal. The Not a few of my young readers have seen the account of Constantine's vision of the cross, illustrated with the image, and signed, IN HOC VINCES. All such will feel the indignation of the author, when, in riper years, he saw and learned that this image is a bold forgery, a pagan counterfeit of the emblem on Constantine's banner, if that may be called a counterfeit which, without the least likeness of a single feature, takes the name, and the place, and the office of another. The monogram of Christ was the sign on the banner of Constantine and of his imperial successors, which the image now pretends to occupy. The image supplanted the monogram after the dissolution of the Roman empire, A.D. 476. The monogram now is no longer seen, but obscurely; while the image reigns supreme on spire and pulpit, on book and person, from the palace to the hamlet, and from the holy places to the places of public amusement. This sign of idolatry and of ancient barbarism is elevated in honour, and is worn for admiration, by a Catholic multitude, thinking that, with the apostle, they glory "in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. vi. 14). Yet not for crucifying self to the world do both young and old ornament their person with the glitter of an image. The cross of Christ is death to the glory of this world, but living unto God in view of the glory to come. To show valour for the image is easy, while the image-bearers may be very cowards in the camp of Israel. Let no one imagine for a moment that this work aims a blow at the cross of Christ. On the contrary, it sets forth Christ's suffering for others' guilt, now veiled and hid by the image. It vindicates the power of the cross of Christ unto eternal life, now foiled by the image. It exalts the glory of the cross and its innocent Sufferer, now debased by the image; and it aims to magnify the riches of the grace of Christ's cross, now turned to vanity by the image. The cross of Christ can neither be seen, nor handled, nor loved; it is the patiently borne agony of body and soul here, in view of the joy promised hereafter. Its undying love and inexpressible glory in the Lord are now stifled by the mistaken reverence and love of the image, which, like all images, is called and taken for the invisible reality it pretends to represent. Our sole object is to put away the images, in order that the death of Christ to this world, and His coming again in glory, may appear. The gracious Lord bless the effort to all who love His name and patiently wait for Christ's appearing; who answered the high priest, in presence of the Sanhedrim, "Thou hast said (I am the Christ): nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matt. xxvi. 64). |