No cross, no crown, a discourse showing the nature and discipline of the holy cross of Christ..

Front matter

('lass

Book_

184-5

Preface

Reader : — The great business of man's life is to answer the end for which he lives; and that is, to glorify God, and save his own soul. This is the decree of heaven, as old as the world. But so it is, that man mindeth nothing less, than what he should most mind ; and despiseth to inquire into his own being, its original, duty and end; choosing rather to dedicate his days, the steps he should make to blessedness, to gratify the pride, avarice, and luxury of his heart ; as if he had been born for himself, or rather given himself being, and so not subject to the reckoning and judgment of a superior power. To this lamentable pass hath poor man brought himself, by his disobedience to the law of God in his heart, by doing that which he knows he should not do, and leaving undone what he knows he should do. So long as this disease continueth upon man, he will make God his enemy, and himself incapable of the love and salvation, which he hath manifested by his Son, Jesus Christ, to the world.

If, reader, thou art such an one, my counsel to thee is, to retire into thyself, and take a view of the condition of thy soul ; for Christ hath given thee light, with which to do it. Search carefully and thoroughly ; thy life hangs upon it ; thy soul is at stake. 'Tis but

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once to be done ; if thou abusest thyself in it, the loss is irreparable ; the world is not price enough to ransom thee. Wilt thou then, for such a world, overstay the time of thy salvation, and lose thy soul ? Thou hast to do, I grant thee, with great patience ; but that also must have an end: therefore, provoke not God to reject thee. Dost thou know what it is to be rejected ? 'Tis Tophet, 'tis hell, the eternal anguish of the damned. Oh ! reader, as one knowing the terrors of the Lord, I persuade thee to be serious, diligent, and fervent about thy own salvation ! As one knowing the comfort, peace, joy, and pleasure of the ways of righteousness, I exhort and invite thee to embrace the reproofs and convictions of Christ's light and spirit in thine own conscience, and bear the judgment of thy sin. The fire burns but the stubble ; the wind blows only the chaff. Yield thy body, soul, and spirit to Him who maketh all things new ; new heavens and and new earth, new love, new joy, new peace, new works, a new life and conversation. Men are grown corrupt and drossy by sin, and they must be saved through fire, which purgeth it away; therefore the word of God is compared to a fire, and the day of salvation to an oven ; and Christ himself to a refiner of gold, and a purifier of silver.

Come, reader, hearken to me awhile ; I seek thy salvation ; that is my design. A refiner is come near thee ; his grace hath appeared to thee : it shows thee the world's lusts, and teacheth thee to deny them. Receive his leaven, and it will change thee ; his medicine, and it will cure thee : he is as infallible as free ; without money, and with certainty. A touch of his garment did it of old, and will do it still : his

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virtue is the same, it cannot be exhausted ; for in him the fulness dwells. Blessed be God for his sufficiency. He laid help upon him, that he might be mighty to save all that come to God through him : do thou so, and he will change thee : yes, change thy vile body, like unto his glorious body. He is the great philosopher indeed ; the wisdom of God, that turns lead into gold, vile things into things precious : for he maketh saints out of sinners, and almost gods of men. What then must we do, to be witnesses of his power and love ? This is the crown : but where is the cross ? Where is the bitter cup and bloody baptism? Come, reader, be like him. For this transcendant joy, lift up thy head above the world ; then thy salvation will draw nigh indeed.

Christ's cross is Christ's way to Christ's crown. This is the subject of the following discourse ; first written during my confinement in the Tower of London, in the year 1668 ; now reprinted with great enlargement of matter and testimonies ; that thou mayest be won to Christ ; or if won already, brought nearer to him. It is a path, which God in his everlasting kindness guided my feet into, in the flower of my youth, when about two and twenty years of age. He took me by the hand, and led me out of the pleasures, vanities, and hopes of the world. I have tasted of Christ's judgments, and of his mercies, and of the world's frowns and reproaches : I rejoice in my experience, and dedicate it to thy service in Christ. . It is a debt I have long owed, and has been long expected : I have now paid it, and delivered my soul. To my country, and to the world of Christians I leave it : May God, if he please, make it effectual to them all, 1*

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and turn their hearts from that envy, hatred, and bitterness, they have one against another, about worldly things ; sacrificing humanity and charity to ambition and covetousness, for which they fill the earth with trouble and oppression. That receiving the spirit of Christ into their hearts, the fruits of wThich are love, peace, joy, temperance and patience, brotherly kindness and charity, they may, in body, soul, and spirit, make a triple league against the world, the flesh, and the devil, the only common enemies of mankind ; and having conquered them through a life of self-denial, by the power of the cross of Jesus, they may at last attain to the eternal rest and kingdom of God. So desireth, so prayeth,

thy fervent Christian friend,

William Penn.

NO CEOSS, NO CROWN.

Chapter I

1. Of the necessity of the Cross of Christ in general; yet the little regard Christians have to it. 2. The degeneracy of Christendom from purity to lust, and from moderation to excess. 3. That worldly lusts and pleasures are become the care and study of Christians, so that they have advanced upon the impiety of infidels. 4. This defection a second part of the Jewish tragedy, and worse than the first: the scorn Christians have cast on their Saviour. 5. Sin is of one nature all the world over ; sinners are of the same church, the devil's children : profession of religion in wicked men, makes them but the worse. 6. A wolf is not a lamb; a sinner cannot be (whilst such) a saint. 7. The wicked will persecute the good; this false Christians have done to the true, for noncompliance with their superstitions: the strange carnal measures false Christians have taken of Christianity ; the danger of that self-seduction. 8. The sense of that has obliged me to this discourse, for a dissuasive against the world's lusts, and an invitation to take up the daily cross of Christ, as the way left us by him to blessedness. 9. Of the self-condemnation of the wicked ; that religion and worship are comprised in doing the will of God. The advantage good men have upon bad men in the last judgment. 10. A supplication for Christendom, that she may not be rejected in that great assize of the world. She is exhorted to consider what relation she bears to Christ ; if her Saviour, how saved, and from what: what her experience is of that great work. That Christ came to save from sin, and wrath by consequence ; not to save men in sin, but from it, and so the wages of it.

1. Though the knowledge and obedience of the doctrine of the cross of Christ be of infinite moment

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to the souls of men ; being the only door to true Christianity, and the path which the ancients ever trod to blessedness ; yet, with extreme affliction, let me say, it is so little understood, so much neglected, and what is worse, so bitterly contradicted, by the vanity, superstition, and intemperance of professed Christians, that we must either renounce the belief of what the Lord Jesus hath told us, " That whosoever doth not take up his daily cross, and come after him, cannot be his disciple or, admitting it for truth, conclude, that the generality of Christendom do miserably deceive and disappoint themselves in the great business of Christianity, and their own salvation.

2. For, let us be ever so tender and charitable in the survey of those nations that claim an interest in the holy name of Christ, if we will but be just too, we must needs acknowledge, that after all the gracious advantages of light, and obligations to fidelity, which these flatter ages of the world have received, by the coming, life, doctrine, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, with the gifts of his Holy Spirit ; to which add, the writings, labours, and martyrdom of his dear followers in all times ; there seems very little left of Christianity but the name : which being now usurped by the old heathen nature and life, makes the professors of it but true heathens in disguise. For though they worship not the same idols, they worship Christ with the same heart ; and they can never do otherwise, whilst they live in the same lusts. The unmortined Christian and the heathen are of the same religion. For though they have different objects, to which they direct their prayers, adoration in both is but forced and ceremonious, and the deity they truly

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worship is the god of this world, the great lord of lusts : to him they bow with the whole powers of soul and sense. What shall we eat ? What shall we drink ? What shall we wear ? And how shall we pass away our time ? Which way may we gather wealth, increase our power, enlarge our territories, and dignify and perpetuate our names and families in the earth ? This base sensuality is comprised by the beloved apostle John, in these words : " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which are not of the Father, but of the world that lieth in wickedness.

3. It is a mournful reflection, but a truth which will not be denied, that these worldly lusts fill up a great part of the study, care, and conversation of Christendom ! And, what aggravates the misery is, they grow with time. For as the world is older, it is worse. The examples of former lewd ages, and their miserable conclusions, have not deterred, but excited ours ; so that the people of this day seem improvers of the old stock of impiety, and have carried it so much farther than example, that instead of advancing in virtue, upon better times, they are scandalously fallen below the life of heathens. Their high-mindedness, lasciviousness, uncleanness, drunkenness, swearing, lying, envy, backbiting, cruelty, treachery, covetousness, injustice, and oppression, are so common and committed with such invention and excess, that they have stumbled and embittered infidels, and made them scorn that holy religion to which their good example should have won their affections.

4. This miserable defection from primitive times, when the glory of Christianity was the purity of its professors, I cannot but call the second and worst part

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of the Jewish tragedy upon the blessed Saviour of mankind. For the Jews, from the power of ignorance, and their prejudice against the unworldly way of his appearance, would not acknowledge him when he came, but for two or three years persecuted, and finally crucified him in one day. But the false Christians' cruelty lasts longer : they have first, with Judas, professed him, and then, for these many ages, most basely betrayed, persecuted, and crucified him, by a perpetual apostacy in manners from the self-denial and holiness of his doctrine ; their lives giving the lie to their faith. These are they that the author of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us, " crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to open shame." Their defiled hearts, John, in his Revelation styles, the streets of Sodom and Egypt spiritually so called, where he beheld the Lord Jesus crucified, long after he had been ascended. As Christ said of old, a man's enemies are those of his own house ; so Christ's enemies now are chiefly those of his own profession : " they spit upon him, they nail and pierce him, they crown him with thorns, and give him gall and vinegar to drink." Nor is this hard to apprehend ; for they that live in the same evil nature and principle that the Jews did, who crucified him outwardly, must needs crucify him inwardly. They that reject the grace now, in their own hearts, are one in stock and generation with the hard-hearted Jews, who resisted the grace that then appeared in and by Christ.

5. Sin is of one nature all the world over ; for though a liar is not a drunkard, nor a swearer a whoremonger, nor either properly a murderer, yet they are all of a church ; all branches of the one wicked root ; all of kin. They have but one father, the devil, as Christ said to the professing Jews, the visible church of that age. He slighted their pretensions to Abraham and Moses, and plainly told them, he that committed sin, was the servant of sin. They did the devil's works, and therefore were the devil's children. The argument will always hold upon the same reasons, and therefore is good still. " His servants you are," saith Paul, "whom you obey:" and, saith John to the church of old, " Let no man deceive you ; he that committeth sin, is of the devil." Was Judas a better Christian for crying, Hail, master ! and kissing Christ ? By no means. These words were the signal of his treachery ; the token given, by which the bloody Jews should know and take him. He called him Master, but betrayed him. He kissed, but sold him to be killed. This is the upshot of the false Christians' religion. If a man ask them, is Christ your Lord ? they will cry, God forbid else. Yes, he is our Lord. Very well ; but do you keep his commandments ? No, how should we ? How then are you his disciples ? It is impossible, say they ; What ! would you have us keep his commandments ? No man can. What ! is it impossible to do that, without which Christ hath made it impossible to be a Christian ? Is Christ unreasonable ? Does he reap where he has not sown ? require where has not enabled ? Thus it is, that, with Judas, they call him Master, but take part with the evil of the world to betray him ; and kiss and embrace him, as far as a specious profession goes ; and then sell him, to gratify the passion they most indulge. Thus, as God said of old, they make him serve with their sins, and for their sins too.

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" Let no man deceive his own soul ; grapes are not gathered of thorns, nor figs of thistles a wolf is not a sheep, nor is a vulture a dove. Whatever form, people, or church thou art of, it is the truth of God to mankind, that they who have the form of godliness, but by their unmortified lives deny the power thereof, make not the true, but false church : which, though she entitle herself the Lamb's britle, or church of Christ, she is that mystery or mysterious Babylon, fitly called by the Holy Ghost, " the mother of harlots and all abominations because degenerated from Christian chastity and purity, into all the enormities of heathen Babylon ; a sumptuous city of old time, much noted as the seat of the kings of Babylon, and at that time a place of the greatest pride and luxury. As she was then, so mystical Babylon is now, the great enemy of God's people.

7. True it is, they that are born of the flesh hate and persecute them that are born of the spirit, who are the circumcision in heart. They cannot own nor worship God after her inventions, methods, and prescriptions, nor receive for doctrine her vain traditions, any more than they can comply with her corrupt fashions and customs in their conversation. The case being thus, from an apostate she becomes a persecutor. It is not enough that she herself declines from ancient purity ; others must do so too. She will give those no rest, who will not partake with her in that degeneracy, or receive her mark. Are any wiser than she, than mother church ? No, no : nor can any make war with the beast she rides upon ; those worldly powers that protect her, and vow her maintenance against the cries of her dissenters. Apostacy and superstition are

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ever proud and impatient of dissent. All must conform, or perish. Therefore the slain witnesses, and the blood of the souls under the altar, are found within the walls of this mystical Babylon, this great city of false Christians, and are charged upon her by the Holy Ghost, in the Revelation. Nor is it strange that she should slay the servants, who had first crucified theii Lord : but it is strange and barbarous too, that she should kill her husband, and murder her Saviour, titles she seems so fond of, which have been so profitable to her ; and by which she would recommend herself, though without justice. Her children are reduced so entirely under the dominion of darkness, by means of their continued disobedience to the manifestation of the divine light in their souls, that they forget what man once was, or what they should now be ; and know not true and pure Christianity, when they meet it ; though they pride themselves in professing it. Their views about salvation are so carnal and false, they call good evil, and evil good. They make a devil a Christian, and a saint a devil. So that though the unrighteous latitude of their lives be matter of lamentation, as it is of destruction to themselves, yet the false notion, that they may be children of God, while in a state of disobedience to his holy commandments ; and disciples of Jesus, though they revolt from his cross ; and members of his true church, which is without spot or wrinkle, notwithstanding their lives are full of spots and wrinkles ; is, of all other deceptions upon themselves, the most pernicious to their eternal condition. For they are at peace in sin, and under a security in their transgression. Their vain hope silences their convictions, and overlays all tender motions to repent-

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ance : so that their mistake about their duty to God is as mischievous as their rebellion against him.

Thus they walk on precipices, and flatter themselves, till the grave swallows them up, and the judgment of the great God breaks the lethargy, and undeceives their poor wretched souls with the anguish of the wicked, as the reward of their work.

8. This has been, is, and will be the doom of all worldly Christians : an end so dreadful, that if there were nothing of duty to God, or of obligation to men, being a man, and one acquainted with the terrors of the Lord in the way and work of my own salvation, compassion alone were sufficient to excite me to this dissuasive against the world's superstition and lusts, and to invite the professors of Christianity to the knowledge and obedience of the daily cross of Christ, as the alone way, left by him, and appointed us to blessedness. Thus they who now do but usurp the name, may have the thing itself ; and by the power of the cross, to which they are now dead, instead of being dead to the world by it, may be made partakers of the resurrection that is in Christ Jesus, unto newness of life. For they that are truly in Christ, that is, redeemed by and interested in him, are new creatures. They have received a new will, such as does the will of God, not their own. They pray in truth, and do not mock God when they say, " thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." They have new affections, such as are set on things above, and make Christ their eternal treasure: new faith, such as overcomes the snares and temptations of the world's spirit in themselves, or as it appears through others : and lastly, new works, not of superstitious contrivance, or of human

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invention, but the pure fruits of the spirit of Christ working in them, as love, joy, peace, meekness, longsuffering, temperance, brotherly kindness, faith, patience, gentleness, and goodness, against which there is no law. They that have not this spirit of Christ, and walk not in it, the apostle Paul has told us, are none of his ; but the wrath of God, and condemnation of the law, will lie upon them. If " there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," which is Paul's doctrine ; they that wTalk not according to that Holy Spirit, by his doctrine, are not in Christ ; that is, have no interest in him, nor just claim to salvation by him ; and consequently there is condemnation to such.

9. The truth is, the religion of the wicked is a lie : " There is no peace," saith the prophet, " to the wicked." Indeed there can be none, for they are reproved in their own consciences, and condemned in their own hearts, in all their disobedience. Go where they will, rebukes go with them, and oftentimes terrors too : it is an offended God who pricks them, and, by his light, sets their sins in order before them. Sometimes they strive to appease him by their outside devotion and worship, but in vain ; for the true worshipping of God is doing his will, which they transgress. The rest is a false compliment, like him that said he wrould go, and did not. Sometimes they fly to sports and company to drown the reprover's voice, and blunt his arrows, to chase away troubled thoughts, and secure themselves out of the reach of the disquieter of their pleasures : but the Almighty, first or last, is sure to overtake them. There is no flying from his final justice, for those who reject the terms of his mercy.

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Impenitent rebels to his law may then call to the mountains, and run to the eaves of the earth for protection, but in vain. His all-searching eye will penetrate their thickest coverings, and strike up a light in that obscurity, which shall terrify their guiltysouls, and which they shall never be able to extinguish. Indeed their accuser is with them ; they can no more be rid of him, than of themselves ; he is in the midst of them, and will stick close to them. That spirit which bears witness with the spirits of the just, will bear witness against theirs. Nay, their own hearts will abundantly come in against them ; and " if our heart condemn us," says the apostle John, " God is greater, and knows all things:" that is, there is no escaping the judgments of God, whose power is infinite, if a man is not able to escape the condemnation of himself.

At that day, proud and luxurious Christians shall learn, that God is no respecter of persons ; that all sects and names shall be swallowed up in these two kinds, sheep and goats, just and unjust : The very righteous must have a trial for it. Which made a holy man cry out, " If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" If their thoughts, words, and works must stand the test, and come under scrutiny before the impartial Judge of heaven and earth, how then should the ungodly be exempted ? No, we are told by him that cannot lie, many shall then cry, Lord, Lord ; set forth their profession, and recount the works they have done in his name, to make him propitious, and yet be rejected, with this direful sentence: "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not." As if he had

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said, Get you gone, you evil-doers ; though you have professed me, I will not know you : your vain and evil lives have made you unfit for my holy kingdom. Get you hence, and go to the gods whom you have served ; your beloved lusts, which you have worshipped, and the evil world that you have so much coveted and adored: let them save you now, if they can, from the wrath to come upon you, which is the wages of the deeds you have done.

Here is the end of their work who build upon the sand ; the breath of the Judge will blow it down ; and woful will the fall thereof be. Oh it is now, that the righteous have the better of the wicked ! which made an apostate cry in old time, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like unto his." To them the sentence is changed, and the Judge smiles : he casts the eye of love upon his own sheep, and invites them with a " Come, ye blessed of my Father," who through patient continuance in well doing, have long waited for immortality : ye have been the true companions of my tribulations and cross, and with unwearied faithfulness, in obedience to my holy will, have valiantly endured to the end, looking to me, the author of your precious faith, for the recompense of reward, which I have promised to them that love me, and faint not. " 0 enter ye into the joy of your Lord, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

10. 0 Christendom! my soul most fervently prays, that after all thy lofty professions of Christ, and his meek and holy religion, thy unsuitable and unchristlike life may not cast thee at that great assize of the world, and lose thee this great salvation at last. Hear 2*

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me once, I beseech thee : Can Christ be thy Lord, and thou not obey him ? Or, canst thou be his servant, and never serve him ? Be not deceived ; such as thou sowest, shalt thou reap : He is none of thy Saviour, whilst thou rejectest his grace in thy heart, by which he would save thee. Come, what has he saved thee from ? Has he saved thee from thy sinful lusts, thy worldly affections, and vain conversations ? If not, then he is none of thy Saviour. For though he be offered a Saviour for all, yet he is actually a Saviour to those only who are saved by him ; and none are saved by him, who live in those evils by which they are lost from God, and which he came to save them from.

It is from sin that Christ is come to save man, and from death and wrath, as the wages of it. But those who are not saved, that is, delivered by the power of Christ in their souls, from the power that sin has had over them, can never be saved from the death and wrath, which are the certain wages of the sin they live in.

So far as people obtain victory over those evil dispositions and fleshly lusts to which they have been addicted, so far they are truly saved, and are witnesses of the redemption that comes by Jesus Christ. His name shows his work : " And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." " Behold," said John of Christ, "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the. world !" That is, behold him, whom God hath given to enlighten people, and for salvation to as many as receive him, and his light and grace in their hearts, and take up their dailycross, and follow him : such as would rather deny

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themselves the pleasure of fulfilling their lusts, than sin against the knowledge he has given them of his will ; or do that which they know they ought not to do.

Chapter II

1. By this Christendom may see her lapse, how foul it is; and next, the worse for her pretence of Christianity. 2. But there is mercy with God upon repentance, and propitiation in the blood of Jesus. 3. He is the Light of the world, that reproves the darkness, that is, the evil of the world; and he is to be known within. 4. Christendom, like the inn of old, is full of other guests ; she is advised to believe in, receive, and apply to Christ. 5. Of the nature of true faith; it brings power to overcome every appearance of evil. This leads to consider the cross of Christ, which has been so much wanted. 6. The apostolic ministry, and end of it; its blessed effect. ; the character of apostolic times. 7. The glory of the cross, and its triumph over the heathen world. A measure to Christendom, what she is net, and should be. 8. Her declension, and cause of it. 9. The miserable effects that followed. 10. From the consideration of the cause, the cure may be more easily known, viz.: Not faithfully taking up the daily cross; then faithfully taking it daily up, must be the remedy.