that fastened Him to the tree, and to the crown of thorns which covered His head (Mosh., c. xiii., p. 2, ch. iv.) And now, in this nineteenth century, they label a most conspicuous spear on the wall of St Peter's in Rome, in large letters, "The lance of Longinus," which pierced the Redeemer's side. And again, "Part of the cross which the Empress Helena brought to this city" (Burgon's Letters, p. 127). It is curious that, according to the label, the lance was a present from the Mohammedan to the Pope.

It is easy to be disgusted with this madness, and then for some with eyes open to walk straight into it. We have received our Scriptures, ministry, and holy ordinances, down through these very corruptions. It was our Church in which this growth of evil occurred. The grace of God alone makes us to differ from the lawful heirs of these abominations, with the cup of which the Roman Church is intoxicated. While praising God for our rescue, let us not reproach our brethren in bondage to Pharaoh, but pray for them, that they may be delivered from idolatry and slavery to the father of all liars. Yet we should mark how rapidly the process, unfolded in the history of the ancient Church, is now repeating itself in Protestant America. First, the cross comes in the monogram, or enclosed in a circle, or inserted in the initials IHS, or in some other mystery, foliated and disguised from ordinary eyes. Next, all fashioned in gilt, in gems, marble, or wax wreathed with laurel. Then, comes "the glory cross," with flowers, sacred music, and pompous procession, through the congregation to the holy table. It only remains for the image to be furnished with a human figure, which, in the present course of things, is sure to come, as the sparks to fly upwards; after which, it will be kissed and worshipped.

The tau sign of the cross began to appear among the symbols of the Roman Church in the pontificate of Dama

sus, whose bloody strife with Ursinus for the episcopate makes his reign famous, A.D. 367 to 385. It was nearly three centuries later before the public heart became so hardened as to allow an image of our Saviour suspended on the cross. The Council of Trullo, A.D. 692, in canon 82, first decreed, "That Christ, represented at the cross by a lamb, should, for the future, be imaged under His human form" (Rock's Hierurg., 356).

The

The image of the cross of death, and of Tammuz, now leads the column of symbolism and of idolatry, in the name of Christ, just as it did 1500 years ago. In its origin, the image was never a sign of Christ nor of His cross, but was a heathen image of sensual worship. Now, "the cross" has become transferred from the sign of God to the sign of Tammuz,-from Christ to Antichrist,-from selfdenial to sensuality, from the renunciation to the acquisition of the world,-from "Thy-kingdom come in earth," to "Thy kingdom be extended on earth." In both cases, the original names remain-the cross, and the Christ, and the kingdom-but their spirit is utterly changed. X (ki) has become T (tau) for the sign; and the churches that were "looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ," have a long time been looking toward the Vicar who assumes to reign over the kingdom of this world infallible in Christ's stead. Churches they were and churches they are, but, like the cross X changed into T, thoroughly changed in form of worship and character of life; so this kingdom of the Pope to that which is to come, is as the mock sun to the bright orb of day. It has true light, but is shapeless in form and murky. While, the cross was the initial letter of Christ, the coming of the Lord in His glory was the hope of the persecuted Christians; but, afterward, the sign and the hope gradually turned from Christ and self-sacrifice to self-enjoyment in the empire of this world.

CHANGE OF THE SIGN.

Three things visibly conspired to work this change of the sign of Christ:

I. The forged testimony of Barnabas and of Nicodemus. II. The natural disposition of the Pagans in adopting their Emperor's new religion, to keep the old symbols, forms, and festivals, under new names. The ignorant, who were accustomed to worship Ashtoreth, or Astarté, by the symbol of Tammuz, learned readily by the same sign to worship after their manner the crucified Christ.

III. Three trumpet-tongued wonders of the middle of the fourth century: First, Helena's finding the wood of our Saviour's cross. Second, The multiplication of that wood in all lands. Third, The vision of the monogram, called the cross, said to have been seen in heaven at midday above the brightness of the sun, by Constantine and his whole army! The nations of the Empire believed these things all the more, seeing the monogram supplant the eagles on the imperial banner. Neither then nor now do they discern changes of the substance, if they keep the name. Rome, under the empire, retained her republican name and obeyed her emperors. So Christendom disregarded the obvious fact that the monogram which Constantine adopted for his banner and the wooden thing reverenced, loved, and even worshipped in the name of the cross, bear no sort of resemblance one to the other. Still, all have been content to regard them as the same in form and name-the pagan cross. With this sign, the nations were familiar, and they believed the wonders told of its invention, its royal vision, its holy multiplication, and its miraculous powers. Thus, the pagan sign of the cross possessed their imagination, and the sign of the monogram almost disappeared.

All the authors of the fourth and fifth centuries agree with Baronius and Gibbon that Constantine adopted the monogram for his banner; and the imperial medals, coins, and labarum show the indisputable form of the monogram, which can neither be hid nor counterfeited; while De Rossi, Perret, and the present Pope Pius IX. and the French Government, produce from the monuments and catacombs of Rome abundant proof that, whatever the name may be, the true sign in the primitive Church was X for Christ, and not for the evil tree. The common sign, therefore, and image of the cross is neither primitive nor honourable, nor can it be acceptable to God in His house. It is a pretender to the name and place of the true monogram of Christ, concealed in the primitive ages under the form common in the catacombs and the ancient Christian monuments, and adopted by the Emperor Constantine to adorn his banner and his arms, with the purpose of binding the brave and increasing body of Christians to the furtherance and support of his ambitious designs.

IS THIS GLORYING IN THE IMAGE OF THE WOOD PLEASING

TO GOD?

Could our blessed Lord himself be pleased with the evil tree? Could He make an idol of the wood on which He was nailed, then lifted up, and left to drink the vinegar and the gall in death? Can it be pleasing in His sight for His citizens to make an ornament of the image of that wood on which He was lifted up, amid the scoffs and jeers of the chief priests and rulers of His chosen people? Can it be pleasing to the blessed Jesus to behold His disciples glorying in the image of that instrument of capital punishment on which He patiently and innocently suffered, despising the shame? It was a shame, else how did the innocent

Sufferer despise the shame? It was an infamous, a burning shame. Why should a rational man make an image of the instrument of it? Reverence and love the image! Lift it up and make an ornament of it! Bow down before it, and kiss the thing with his lips! It is monstrous. Were the crown of thorns taken from the Saviour's wounded head, or the rod with which they smote the Judge of Israel on the cheek, or the nails which fastened His hands and His feet to the tree, really brought to our view, they would, with the spear which pierced His side, be objects of abhorrence to every loving heart. We hear of "Israel's judicial blindness." What else is this which leads Christendom to boast of the instrument on which "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many?" (Heb. ix. 28). That it is most unnatural will plainly appear when we bring the case home to our own heart. Suppose we take up reverently in honour, and glory in, and even kiss a weapon which, in cruel hands, had, without the slightest provocation, slain our best friend and benefactor-our elder brother-and brought him to an untimely, shameful, and agonising death! No mortal in his senses is capable of such perverseness, while yet many, deluded by the image of the+ daily guilty of it. Neither can it be conceived that such. honour to the evil instrument would be agreeable to our departed brother, could his immortal spirit look on it. Would he not rather, in a burst of indignation, exclaim, in the language of Christ, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets" (Matt. xxiii. 29).

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