I seek thy salvation; that is my plot; thou wilt forgive me. A refiner is come near thee, his grace hath appeared unto thee: it shows thee the world's lusts, and teaches 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: it will do it still: his 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: aye, 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 rests to us, then, that we must do, to be thus 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 enlargements of matter and testimonies, that thou, Reader, mayest be won to Christ; and if won already, brought nearer to Him. It is a path, God, in his everlasting kindness, guided my feet into, in the flower of my youth, when about twenty-two years of age: then 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 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: my God, if He please, make it effectual to them all, 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 which 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 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,
Friendly Reader,
Thy fervent Christian Friend,
William Penn.
NO CROSS, NO CROWN.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
I. 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 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 to 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 non-compliance 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 make 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 over 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 from the wages of it.
I. Though the knowledge and obedience of the doctrine of the cross of Christ be of infinite moment to the souls of men, for that is the only door to true Christianity, and that path 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 to believe what the Lord Jesus hath told us, that whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after him, cannot be his disciple; (Luke, xiv. 27;) or, admitting that for truth, conclude, that the generality of Christendom do miserably deceive and disappoint themselves in the great business of Christianity, and their own salvation.
II. For, let us be never so tender and charitable in the survey of those nations that entitle themselves to any 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 latter 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. So that the unmortified Christian and the heathen are of the same religion. For though they have different objects to which they do direct their prayers, that adoration in both is but forced and ceremonious, and the deity they truly worship is the god of the 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? Which base sensuality is most pathetically expressed and comprised by the beloved Apostle John, in these words: "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," which, says he, "are not of the Father, but of the world, that lieth in wickedness." (1 John, ii. 16.)
III. It is a mournful reflection, but a truth no confidence can be great enough to deny, that these worldly lusts fill up the study, care, and conversation of wretched Christendom! and, which aggravates the misery, they have grown with time. For as the world is older, it is worse; and the examples of former lewd ages, and their miserable conclusions, have not deterred, but excited ours; so that the people of this seem improvers of the old stock of impiety, and have carried it so much further 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 to a degree of scorning that holy religion, to which their good example should have won their affections.
IV. 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 of the Jewish tragedy upon the blessed Saviour of mankind. For the Jews, from the power of ignorance, and the extreme prejudice they were under to 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,