No cross, no crown

by William Penn

1. Of pride, the first capital lust; its rise.—2. Its definition and distinction.—3. That an inordinate desire of knowledge in Adam, introduced man's misery.—4. He thereby lost his integrity.—5. Knowledge puffs up.—6. The evil effects of false, and the benefit of true knowledge.—7. Cain's example a proof in the case.—8. The Jews' pride in pretending to be wiser than Moses, God's servant, in setting their post by God's post.—9. The effect of which was the persecution of the true prophets.—10. The divine knowledge of Christ brought peace on earth.—11. Of the blind guides, the priests, and the mischief they have done.—12. The fall of Christians, and the pride they have taken in it, hath exceeded the Jews; under the profession of their new-moulded Christianity, they have murdered the witness of the Lord Jesus.—13. The angels sang peace on earth at the birth of the Lord of meekness and humility: but the pride of the Pharisees withstood and calumniated him.—14. As Adam and the Jews lost themselves by their ambition, so the Christians losing the fear of God, grew creed and worship-makers, with this injunction, Conform or burn.—15. The evil effects of this in Christendom, so called.—16. The way of recovery out of such miserable defection.

I. Having thus discharged my conscience against that part of unlawful self, that fain would be a Christian, a believer, a saint, whilst a plain stranger to the cross of Christ, and the holy exercises of it; and in that briefly discovered what is true worship, and the use and business of the holy cross therein, to render its performance pleasing to Almighty God; I shall now, the same Lord assisting me, more largely prosecute that other part of unlawful self, which fills the study, care, and conversation of the world, presented to us in these three capital lusts, that is to say, pride, avarice, and luxury; from whence all other mischiefs daily flow, as streams from their proper fountains: the mortifying of which makes up the other; and indeed a very great part of the work of the true cross; and though last in place, yet first in experience and duty: which done, it introduces in the room of those evil habits, the blessed effects of that so much needed reformation, to wit, mortification, humility, temperance, love, patience, and heavenly-mindedness, with all other graces of the Spirit, becoming followers of the perfect Jesus, that most heavenly man.

The care and love of all mankind are either directed to God or themselves. Those that love God above all, are ever humbling self to his commands, and only love self in subserviency to him that is Lord of all. But those who are declined from that love to God, are lovers of themselves more than God: for supreme love must centre in one of these two. To that inordinate self-love, the apostle rightly joins proud and high-minded. (2 Tim. iii. 2, 4.) For no sooner had the angels declined their love, duty and reverence to God, than they inordinately loved and valued themselves; which made them exceed their station, and aspire above the order of their creation. This was their pride, and this sad defection their dismal fall; who are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day of God.

II. Pride, that pernicious evil, which begins this chapter, did also begin the misery of mankind: a most mischievous quality; and so commonly known by its motions and sad effects, that every unmortified breast carries its definition in it. However, I will say, in short, that pride is an excess of self-love, joined with an undervaluing of others, and a desire of dominion over them: the most troublesome thing in the world. There are four things by which it hath made itself best known to mankind, the consequences of which have brought a misery equal to its evil. The first is, an inordinate pursuit of knowledge; the second, an ambitious craving and seeking after power; the third, an extreme desire of personal respect and deference: the last excess is that of worldly furniture and ornaments. To the just and true witness of the eternal God, placed in the souls of all people, I appeal as to the truth of these things.

III. To the first, it is plain, that an inordinate desire of knowledge introduced man's misery, and brought an universal lapse from the glory of his primitive state. Adam would needs be wiser than God had made him. It did not serve his turn to know his Creator, and give him that holy homage his being and innocency naturally engaged and excited him too; nor to have an understanding above all the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, joined with a power to rule over all the visible creation of God; but he must be as wise as God too. This unwarrantable search, and as foolish as unjust ambition, made him unworthy of the blessings he received from God. This drives him out of paradise; and instead of being lord of the whole world, Adam becomes the wretchedest vagabond of the earth.

IV. The lamentable consequence of this great defection, has been an exchange of innocency for guilt, and a paradise for a wilderness. But, which is yet worse, in this state Adam and Eve had got another god than the only true and living God: and he that enticed them to all this mischief, furnished them with a vain knowledge, and pernicious wisdom: the skill of lies and equivocations, shifts, evasions, and excuses. They had lost their plainness and sincerity, and from an upright heart, the image in which God had made man, he became a crooked, twining, twisting serpent; the image of that unrighteous spirit, to whose temptations he yielded up, with his obedience, his paradisaical happiness.

V. So that fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience of the love and work of God in his soul, but in a notion of what he once did know and experience: which being not the true and living wisdom that is from above, but a mere picture, it cannot preserve man in purity; but puffs up, makes people proud, high-minded, and impatient of contradiction. This was the state of the apostate Jews before Christ came; and has been the condition of apostate Christians ever since he came: their religion standing, some bodily performances excepted, either in what they once knew of the work of God in themselves, and which they have revolted from; or in an historical belief, and an imaginary conception and paraphrase upon the experiences and prophecies of such holy men and women of God, as in all ages have deserved the style and character of his true children.

VI. As such a knowledge of God cannot be true, so by experience we find, that it ever brings forth the quite contrary fruits to the true wisdom. For as this "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated;" (James, iii. 17;) so the knowledge of degenerated and unmortified men is first impure: for it came by the commission of evil, and is held in an evil and impure conscience in them that disobey God's laws, and that daily do those things which they ought not to do; and for which they stand condemned before God's judgment-seat in the souls of men: the light of whose presence searches the most hidden things of darkness, the most secret thoughts, and concealed inclinations of ungodly men. This is the science, falsely so called: and as it is impure, so it is unpeaceable, cross, and hard to be entreated; froward, perverse, and persecuting; jealous that any should be better than they, and hating and abusing those that are.

VII. It was this pride made Cain a murderer: (Gen. iv. 8:) it is a spiteful quality; full of envy and revenge. What! was not his religion and worship as good as his brother's? He had all the exterior parts of worship; he offered as well as Abel; and the offering of itself might be as good: but it seems the heart that offered it was not. So long ago did God regard the interior worship of the soul. Well, what was the consequence of this difference? Cain's pride stomached it: he could not bear to be outdone by his brother. He grew wrathful, and resolved to vindicate his offering by revenging the refusal of it upon his brother's life: and without any regard to natural affection, or the low and early condition of mankind, he barbarously dyed his hands in his brother's blood.