No Cross, No Crown. William Penn
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the obedient only eat the good of this land. (Isaiah, i. 19.) They that do his will, says the blessed Jesus, shall know of my doctrine; (John, vii. 17;) them He will instruct. There is no room for instruction, where lawful self is lord, and not servant. For self cannot receive it; that which should is oppressed by self, fearful, and dare not. O! what will my father or mother say? How will my husband use me? or finally, what will the magistrate do with me? For though I have a most powerful persuasion, and clear conviction upon my soul, of this or that thing, yet considering how unmodish it is, what enemies it has, and how strange and singular I shall seem to them, I hope God will pity my weakness: if I sink, I am but flesh and blood; it may be hereafter He may better enable me; and there is time enough. Thus selfish, fearful man.
But deliberating is ever worst; for the soul loses in parley: the manifestation brings power with it. Never did God convince people, but, upon submission, he empowered them. He requires nothing without giving ability to perform it: that were mocking, not saving men. It is enough for thee to do thy duty, that God shows thee thy duty; provided thou closest with that light and spirit by which he gives thee that knowledge. They that want power, are such as do not receive Christ in his convictions upon the soul, and such will always want it; but such as do, they receive power, like those of old, to become the children of God, through the pure obedience of faith.
XXIII. Wherefore, let me beseech you, by the love and mercy of God, by the life and death of Christ, by the power of his Spirit, and the hope of immortality, that you, whose hearts are established in your temporal comforts, and so lovers of self, more than of these heavenly things, would let the time past suffice: that you would not think it enough to be clear of such impieties, as too many are found in, whilst your inordinate love of lawful things has defiled your enjoyment of them, and drawn your hearts from the fear, love, obedience, and self-denial of a true disciple of Jesus. Turn about then, and hearken to the still voice in thy conscience; it tells thee thy sins, and thy misery in them; it gives a lively discovery of the very vanity of the world, and opens to the soul some prospect of eternity, and the comforts of the just that are at rest. If thou adhere to this, it will divorce thee from sin and self: thou wilt soon find, that the power of its charms exceeds that of wealth, honour, and beauty of the world, and finally will give thee that tranquillity which the storms of time can never shipwreck nor disorder. Here all thy enjoyments are blest, though small, yet great by that presence that is within them.
Even in this world the righteous have the better of it, for they use the world without rebuke, because they do not abuse it. They see and bless the hand that feeds, and clothes, and preserves them. And as by beholding him in all his works, they do not adore them, but him; so the sweetness of his blessings that gives them, is an advantage such have upon those that see him not. Besides, in their increase, they are not lifted up, nor in their adversities are they cast down: and why? Because they are moderated in the one, and comforted in the other, by his divine presence.
In short, heaven is the throne, and the earth but the footstool of that man that hath self under foot. And those that know that station will not easily be moved; such learn to number their days, that they may not be surprised with their dissolution; and to redeem their time, because their days are evil; (Ephes. v. 16;) remembering they are stewards, and must deliver up their accounts to an impartial judge. Therefore not to self but to him they live, and in him die, and are blessed with them that die in the Lord. And thus I conclude my discourse on the right use of lawful self.
CHAPTER V.
1. Of unlawful self; it is two-fold: 1st, in religion; 2nd, in morality.—2. Of those that are most formal, superstitious, and pompous in worship.—3. God's rebuke of carnal apprehensions.—4. Christ drew off his disciples from the Jewish exterior worship, and instituted a more spiritual one.—5. Stephen is full and plain in this matter.—6. Paul refers the temple of God twice to man.—7. Of the cross of these worldly worshippers.—8. Flesh and blood make their cross, therefore cannot be crucified by it.—9. They are yokes without restraint.—10. Of the gaudiness of their cross, and their respect to it.—11. A recluse life no true gospel abnegation.—12. Comparison between Christ's self-denial and theirs: his leads to purity in the world, theirs to voluntary imprisonment, that they might not be tempted of the world. The mischief which that example, if followed, would do to the world. It destroys useful society and honest labour. A lazy life the usual refuge of idleness, poverty, and guilty age.—13. Of Christ's cross in this case. The impossibility that such an external application can remove an internal cause.—14. An exhortation to the men of this belief, not to deceive themselves.
I. I am now come to unlawful self, which, more or less, is the immediate concern of much the greater part of mankind. This unlawful self is two-fold. First, that which relates to religious worship: secondly, that which concerns moral and civil conversation in the world. And they are both of infinite consequence to be considered by us. In which I shall be as brief as I may, with ease to my conscience, and no injury to the matter.
II. That unlawful self in religion that ought to be mortified by the cross of Christ, is man's invention and performance of worship to God as divine, which is not so, either in its institution or performance. In this great error those people have the van of all that attribute to themselves the name of Christians, that are most exterior, pompous, and superstitious in their worship; for they do not only miss exceedingly by a spiritual unpreparedness, in the way of their performing worship to God Almighty, who is an Eternal Spirit; but the worship itself is composed of what is utterly inconsistent with the very form and practice of Christ's doctrine, and the apostolical example. For whereas that was plain and spiritual, this is gaudy and worldly: Christ's most inward and mental, theirs most outward and corporeal: that suited to the nature of God, who is a Spirit, this accommodated to the most carnal part. So that instead of excluding flesh and blood, behold a worship calculated to gratify them: as if the business were not to present God with a worship to please Him, but to make one to please themselves. A worship dressed with such stately buildings and imagery, rich furnitures and garments, rare voices and music, costly lamps, wax candles, and perfumes; and all acted with that most pleasing variety to the external senses that art can invent or cost procure; as if the world were to turn Jew or Egyptian again; or that God was an old man indeed, and Christ a little boy, to be treated with a kind of religious mask: for so they picture him in their temples, and too many in their minds. And the truth is, such a worship may very well suit such an idea of God: for when men can think Him such a one as themselves, it is not to be wondered if they address Him in a way that would be the most pleasing from others to themselves.
III. But what said the Almighty to such a sensual people of old, much upon the like occasion? "Thou thoughtest I was such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thee. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver." But, "to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of God." (Psalm l. 21, 22, 23.) This is the worship acceptable to him, "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." (Mic. vi. 8.) For He that searcheth the heart, and tries the reins of man, and sets his sins in order before him, who is the God of the spirits of all flesh, looks not to the external fabric, but internal frame of the soul, and inclination of the heart. Nor is it to be soberly thought, that He who is clothed with divine honour and majesty; who covers himself with light as with a garment; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the deep; who maketh the clouds his chariot, and walks upon the wings of the wind: who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire: who laid the foundation of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever; can be adequately worshipped by those human inventions, the refuge of an apostate people from the primitive power of religion and spirituality of Christian worship.
IV. Christ drew off his disciples from the glory and worship of the outward temple, and instituted a more inward and spiritual worship, in which He instructed his followers, "Ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," says Christ to the Samaritan woman, "worship the Father; God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John, iv. 21.) As if he had said, for the sake of the weakness of the people, God condescended