Christian cross

“ The cross of Christ is the ground of our triumph. How should it be otherwise? It answers every salutary purpose. It removes every evil, and insures every good. The Christian has not only hope towards God, but joy and consolation; joy, which rises at times, to a holy triumph. But on what is it founded! The apostle furnishes us with an answer, "We joy God through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom we have now received the atonement." ”

“ And is it poslible for any human heart to contemplate the cross of so divine a Being, and not to glory? is it possible to say, Angels, he rules over you; but he died, he died on a cross for meː and not exult in such transporting beneficence?———This will be more evident, if we examine,
III. What reason the apostle had to glory in the cross of Christ. The cross, though in itself an ignominious tree; yet, being the cross of Christ, is infinitely ennobled. It becomes the tree of life; it bears the divine fruit; its clusters are all spiritual and heavenly blessings. ”

“ However, therefore, the cross might be to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; God forbid that we should glory in any thing else! Let this be the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, of all our public ministrations. Let us leave a favour of this knowledge, which is far better than precious ointment, in every private company. Let it appear, from all our conversation, that the affections of our heart, and the labours of our life, are devoted, wholly devoted, to our adored Redeemer's cross. ”

“ Nor without embracing the cross at least in heart and affection, can any one belong to the religion of Christ. Upon entering life we are marked with the cross; through the various vicissitudes thereof our every step is encountered by it—go whithersoever thou wilt and thou shalt find it impossible to escape the cross—and it accompanies us even unto death and the grave. For a Christian dieth pressing the cross to his lips; and the cross is engraven upon his tomb that it may bear witness of his faith and hope. ”

“ Adhering to this banner, you may boldly and triumphantly say, O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory? When that great tremendous day shall come, which puts an end to time and terrestrial things; when that awful, that majestic, voice is heard, which commands all the race of Adam to appear at the bar; then, my dear brethren in Christ, then also shall you glory in the cross. When others, in an agony of terror, call upon rocks to fall on them and mountains to overwhelm them ”

“ For if the unfortunate fact that we have in our zeal almost manufactured evidence in favour of the theory that our cross or crosses had its or their origin in the shape of the instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed proves anything at all, it proves the need for a work which, like the present one, sets in array the evidence available regarding both the pre-Christian cross and the adoption in later times of a similar symbol as that of the catholic faith. ”

“ The Romanist hangs the cross on his bosom; the true Christian carries the cross in his heart; and a cross inside the heart is one of the sweetest cures for a cross on the back. If you have a cross in your heart—Christ crucified in you, the hope of glory—the cross of this world's troubles will seem to you light enough, and you will easily be able to sustain it. [93] Christ in the heart, means Christ believed in, Christ beloved, Christ trusted, Christ espoused, Christ communed with, Christ as our daily food, and ourselves as the temple and palace wherein Jesus Christ daily walks. ”

“ Here truth, more unshaken than a rock, takes her immoveable stand: and mercy, tenderer than the mother's tears, yearns with bowels of everlasting pity. In a word, the cross of Christ is a conspicuous theatre, on which all the divine perfections unite, and harmonize, and shire forth with transcendent lustre. ”

“ These painfully obvious inventions cannot but incline broad-minded Christians to the belief that our Church went to great lengths in order to induce people to believe that the cross was essentially a Christian symbol ”

“ The cross that Jesus carried for us he carried for 33 long years--working out each problem of life, and finally overcoming death, in order to show us the way to eternal life, then bidding us take up the cross--not the wooden crucifix--the cross of daily overcoming error with truth; and thus to follow him.
"When you are asked anything about Christian Science, and your own healing, if you are able, answer any questions quietly and courteously, but never obtrude the subject on anyone; or bring it forward voluntarily. Live Christian Science, dear Carol, not talk it. ”

“ As christians, we have, in the cross of Christ, the richest provision for our own spiritual wants. This is a foundation of the sublimest hope, and a fountain of the most exuberant joy: this affords matter of the deepest humility, and yields fuel for the most flaming love. Faith in our crucified Jesus is an ever-active principle of the most chearful and exact obedience is an ample and inexhaustible magazine, from we may fetch arms to counquer, absolutely conquer the allurements of the world, the solicitations of the 18th, and the temptations of the devil. ”

“ The cross and the Bible—these are the means by which the world is to be overcome, these are the instruments through which the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost work, and with these the Christian and the Church are sufficiently armed for any conflict or adversary. ”

“ Having therefore such an high priest; having in this cross unsearchable riches; who shall make our glorying void? What shall hinder us from rejoicing and saying, Blessed be God for the opening beauties of spring! Blessed be God for the expected fruits of autumn! Blessed be God for ten thousand thousand gifts of his indulgent providence! but above all, blessed be God for the cross of Christ.
As ministers of the gospel, we are not left to set before our hearers a system of refined heathenism ”

“ There is always the shadow of the cross resting upon the Christian's path. Is that a reason why you should avoid or not undertake the duty? Have you made up your mind that you will follow your Master everywhere else, save when he ascends the path that leads to the cross? Is that your religion? The sooner you change it, the better. The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is the religion of the cross, and unless we take up our cross, we can never follow Him.—W. Hay Aitken. [63] ”

“ The employment of the cross as the Christian symbol has been so manifold in its variety and application, and the different forms to which the figure has been adapted and elaborated are so complex, that it is only possible to deal with the outline of the subject. ”

“ The symbol of Phallic worship, the cross, has become the emblem of Christianity. I quote again from our English authoress: “We find the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, Japan, always as the sign of life-giving power; it was worn as an amulet by girls and women, and seems to have been specially worn by the women attached to the temples [sacred prostitutes] , as a symbol of what was, to them, a religious calling. The cross is, in fact, nothing but the refined phallus, and in the Christian religion is a significant emblem of its Pagan origin ”

“ To such heavenly-mindedness, my dear brethren, we all are called; and without something of this spirit, whatever our professions and formalities, we do but belie the name of Christian. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth, on the right hand of God; set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." ”

“ Though it is a matter of very considerable importance, we Christians for some reason or other ignore the fact that long before our era commenced philosophers thus conceived the figure of the cross to be the symbol of the Logos of God. ”

“ The adoration of the cross by the Romans is spoken of by the Christian Father Minucius Felix, when denying the charge of idolatry which was made against his sect.
"As for the adoration of cross," (says he to the Romans) , "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful. ”

“ It is evidently probable that this was the real reason why the figure of the cross originally came to be adopted as the Symbol of Life. But, of course, whatever the original reason, as time rolled on other reasons for the veneration of the cross were pointed out; nothing being more natural than that primitive Man should, or more certain than that he did, find pleasure in connecting with other objects of his regard than Life itself, that which as the Symbol of Life was pre-eminently a symbol of good omen. ”

“ Pursuing these matters for himself, the author eventually found that even before our era the cross was venerated by many as the symbol of Life; though our works of reference seldom mention this fact, and never do it justice. ”

“ The death of Christ on a cross necessarily conferred a new significance on the figure, which had hitherto been associated with a conception of religion not merely non-Christian, but in its essence often directly opposed to it. The Christians of early times were wont to trace, in things around them, hidden prophetical allusions to the truth of their faith, and such a testimony they seem to have readily recognized in the use of the cross as a religious emblem by those whose employment of it betokened a belief most repugnant to their own. ”

“ Every Christian has to endure trials of this kind; the promise is sure, 'He giveth power to the faint.' 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.' In times of trouble, when everything seemed to be going against me, I have yet found the cross of Jesus a sure refuge. ”

“ And a good illustration of the fact in question still exists in the Caroccio crucifix of Milan; in which relic we see, under the usual inscription, an androgynous Christ upon a cross, with a man's head but half the body of female form, and with, instead of a cloth or fig-leaf, the phallic crux ansata, or Egyptian cross or symbol of Life, placed sideways, and as if the oval represented the female organ of reproduction, and the tau or incomplete cross that of the other sex. ”

“ The Christian reader may here perceive and firmly conclude that the cross is also the ensign of those who serve and follow Jesus Christ, the captain of the faith; and that, on the contrary, those who afflict others with crosses and sufferings, do not belong to this captain, but are under another leader. For the true Christians have never persecuted the innocent, but were always persecuted themselves ”

“ It therefore seems tolerably clear (1) that the sacred writings forming the New Testament, to the statements of which—as translated for us—we bow down in reverence, do not tell us that Jesus was affixed to a cross-shaped instrument of execution; (2) that the balance of evidence is against the truth of our statements to the effect that the instrument in question was cross-shaped, and our sacred symbol originally a representation of the same; and (3) that we Christians have in bygone days acted, and, alas! still act, anything but ingenuously in regard to the symbol of the cross. ”

“ Tho' you cannot controul the laws of nature; though you cannot see into the secrets of futurity, you have the same cause of glorying with the very chief of the apostles, a cause of glorying, which that holy man of God esteemed far above all such miraculous abilities. You have the cross of Christ for your study, as men ”

“ For though we describe ours as a co-equal Trinity, no such identity with either God the Father or God the Son is affirmed of God the Holy Ghost, and it is remarkable that in our ancient illustrations of the Three Persons, both the First and the Second are represented as holding the so-called globe and Cross, while the Third, even where depicted as of human shape like the other two, is not. ”

“ That the symbol of the cross was widely venerated in Europe long before our era, is well known to archæologists. Of Britain in those days we know next to nothing, history being almost silent upon the subject and relics conspicuous by their absence. ”

“ Under the pressure of tribulations, lift up your heads, and glory in the cross: because the Captain of your salvation, was made perfect through sufferings. If you suffer with him, you shall also reign with him, and the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the happiness which Christ hath purchased with his agonies, and will quickly bestow on his people, when death approaches, death that cuts off the spirit of princes, and is terrible among the kings of the earth, do you still glory in the cross. ”

“ And it was the wonder whether there was or was not some association between the facts that the New Testament writers give no explanation whatever of the origin of baptism as an initiatory rite, that this non-Mosaic initiatory rite was in use among Sun-God worshippers long before our era, and that the Fathers admitted that the followers of the Persian conception of the Sun-God marked their initiates upon the forehead like the followers of the Christ, which finally induced the author to start a systematic enquiry into the history of the cross as a symbol. ”