No Cross, No Crown. William Penn

vain; for true worshipping of God is doing his will, which they transgress. The rest is a false compliment, like him that said he would go, and did not. (Matt. xxi. 30.) 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 his final justice, for those that reject the terms of his mercy. Impenitent rebels to his law may then call to the mountains, and run to the caves 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 guilty souls; 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 hearts condemn us," saith the apostle John, "God is greater, and knows all things;" (1 John iii. 20;) 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. It is 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: and the very righteous must have a trial for it; which made that holy man cry out, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Pet. iv. 18.) 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 even cry, Lord, Lord! set forth their profession, and recount the works that 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." (Matt. vii. 23.) As if he had 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 that 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." (Numb. xxiii. 10.) For the sentence is changed, and the Judge smiles; he casts the eye of love upon his own sheep, and invites them with "Come, ye blessed of my Father," (Matt. xxv. 34,) that through patient continuance in well-doing have long waited for immortality; you have been the true companions of my tribulation and cross, and, with unwearied faithfulness, in obedience to my holy will, valiantly endured to the end, looking to me, the Author of your precious faith, for the recompense of reward that I have promised to them that love me, and faint not: O, enter ye into the joy of your Lord, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

      X. O Christendom! my soul most fervently prays, that after all thy lofty profession of Christ, and his meek and holy religion, thy unsuitable and un-Christ-like life may not cast thee at that great assize of the world, and lose thee so great salvation at last. Hear 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." (Gal. vi. 7.) He is none of thy Saviour whilst thou rejectest his grace in thy heart, by which he should 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 to all, yet he is actually a Saviour to those only that are saved by him; and none are saved by him that live in those evils by which they are lost from God, and which he came to save them from.

      It is sin that Christ is come to save man from, and death and wrath, as the wages of it; but those that 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, that are the assured wages of the sin they live in.

      So that look how far people obtain victory over those evil dispositions and fleshly lusts, they have been addicted to, 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 sin." (Matt. i. 21.) "Behold," said John, of Christ, "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." (John, i. 29.) 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 daily cross and follow him; such as rather deny themselves the pleasure of fulfilling their lusts than sin against the knowledge he has given them of his will, or do that they know they ought not to do.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      1. By this Christendom may see her lapse, how foul it is, and next, the worse for her pretence to 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 not, 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.

      I. By all which has been said, O Christendom! and by that better help, if thou wouldst use it, the lamp the Lord has lighted in thee, not utterly extinct, it may evidently appear, first, how great and full thy backsliding has been, who, from the temple of the Lord, art become a cage of unclean birds; and of a house of prayer, a den of thieves, a synagogue of Satan, and the receptacle of every defiled spirit. Next, that under all this manifest defection, thou hast nevertheless valued thy corrupt self upon thy profession of Christianity, and fearfully deluded thyself with the hopes of salvation. The first makes thy disease dangerous, but the last almost incurable.

      II. Yet, because there is mercy with God that he may be feared, and that he takes no delight in the eternal death of poor sinners, no, though backsliders themselves, (Ezek. xviii. 20, 23, 24,) but is willing all should come to the knowledge and obedience of the Truth, and be saved, he hath set forth his Son a propitiation, and given him as a Saviour to take away the sins of the whole world, that those that believe and follow him may feel the righteousness of God in the remission of their sins, and blotting out their transgressions for ever. (Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 77; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ix. 24 to 28; 1 John ii. 1, 2.) Now, behold the remedy! an infallible cure, one of God's appointing; a precious elixir, indeed, that never fails; and that universal medicine which no malady could ever escape.

      III. But thou wilt say, What is Christ? and where is he to be found? and how received and applied, in order to this mighty cure? I tell thee then, first, he is the great spiritual light of the world that enlightens every one that comes into the world; by which he manifests to them their deeds of darkness and wickedness, and reproves them for committing them. Secondly, he is not far away from thee, (Acts, xvii. 27.) as the apostle Paul said of God to the Athenians. "Behold," says Christ himself, "I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." (Rev. iii. 20.) What door can this be but that of the heart of man?

      IV. Thou, like the inn of old, hast been full of guests; thy affections have entertained other lovers; there has been no room for thy Saviour in thy soul. Wherefore salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to