Yet it is but one family. There is a family likeness among all its many members ; and a family name by which they are known. They have many things in common ; nay, there are few things which are not common to all. They are all of earth. It is their native clime. They are all sprinkled with the same blood, and be- gotten again by the same Spirit. They all sing one song, use one language, rejoice in one hope, and are heirs of one inheritance. This oneness of feature and feeling and habit, throughout so many ages and amid so many diverse nations, marks them out as a peculiar people, and reveals their relationship to him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day and for ever."
But they have one mark more peculiar than
34 THE FAMILY BADGE.
any of these. It is truly a family-badge. They are all cross-bearers. This is the unfailing token by which each member may be recog- nized. They all bear a cross. Nor do they hide it as if ashamed of it. They make it their boast. " God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world." Sometimes it is lighter, and sometimes it is heavier ; sometimes it has more of shame and suffering, and some- times less, but still it is upon them. They carry it with them wherever they go. And it is always a cross : not merely so in name, but in reality ; a token of reproach and sorrow. Sometimes they are represented as carrying it; and sometimes as being nailed to it ; but it is still the cross.
They took it up when first they believed in Jesus and owned him as their all. Then it was that they forsook the world's tents and went without the gate, bearing the reproach of the crucified One. He whom they follow both bare the cross and was nailed to it, and why should they shrink from the like endur- ance? Shall they be ashamed of him ? Shall they not rather count it honorable to follow
THE FAMILY BADGE. 35
where he has led the way, and to bear for him some faint resemblance of what he bore foi them? Shall any thing in the world be esteemed more precious, more honorable, than the cross of their beloved Lord 'I The world derides and despises it, but it is the cross of Jesus ; and that is ALL to them. As a saint of other days, a cross-bearer of the olden time, has said, " O blessed cross of Christ, there is no wood like thine."
Besides, this was the Master's will. He has laid on each the command to bear the cross. " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."* "He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me."t The cross, then, is the badge of disci- pleship, and no follower of the Lord can be without it. The two things are inseparable. God has joined them, and man cannot sunder them. No cross, no saint. No cross, no Son. We must carry his cross all our life long ; we must be baptized with his baptism ; we must endure his reproach ; we must glory in being clothed with his shame. The flesh must be
* Luke ix. 23. t Matt. x. 38.
36 THE FAMILY BADGE.
crucified with its affections and lusts : our members must be mortified ; our old man must take the place of shame ; we in whom the flesh still remaineth, though its dominion is broken, must be willing to appear as outcasts and ma- lefactors before the world, as Jesus did when he bore our sins upon the hill of shame. Jesus then with his own hand lays the cross on each one that comes to him, saying, "take this and follow me." Take it and be reproached for me. Take it and endure tribulation for me. Take it and count all tilings but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ thy Lord. Take it and be willing to go even to prison or to death for me, not counting your life dear unto you, that you may follow me to the end, and receive the unfading crown. Learn to endure the cross and to despise the shame.
But farther, we have the Master's example as well as the Master's will concerning this. I do not mean merely that he hung upon the cross. I do not refer simply to the fact of his crucifixion. I mean much more than that. That was but the closing scene of a whole life of crucifixion. He was a cross-bearer from the hour that he was laid in the manger. All hig
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days he bore the cross. His life was but a pilgrimage to Calvary with the cross upon his shoulders. Tradition tells ui that, as he left the Judgment Hall, he was led along th« " dolorous way," to Golgotha. But in truth his whole course on earth was the mournful way. It was all reproach and sorrow from his cradle to his grave. His was a sorrowing life ; and his death was but the summing up of his many sorrows ; the gathering of them all together and pressing them into his cup at once, till the vessel burst, because it could hold no more. And then, for Him, the cross and the shame and the sorrow were at an end for ever. But for us the cross remaineth still.