A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THOMAS THOMPSON. and princes of this nation, which were in his time, with most of the ministers of state in former reigns, as well as many of the bishops; so likewise in the present queen's reign, he was not wanting, as occasion offered and his strength permitted, to solicit the ease of the Lord's people; and having long served the families of some of the great persons in the nation, he had easy access, they knowing that he came not for any worldly advantage to himself; some of them saying, He cometh not for anything we have, for he needeth nothing of that. In all these engagements he kept to and bore the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he was crucified to the world; and his great self-denial was taken notice of and beloved; insomuch, that an eminent Friend and minister of Christ, in one of the former reigns, being then in another nation, having great interest among the men at court and attending 191 there often, meeting with a Friend one day, told him he had been at court, and that of all the men, among Friends, that he ever knew or heard of, he never followed a man that had a sweeter character than Gilbert Latey had at court. It was his practice, in soliciting kings, princes and great men, to keep to the anointing and love of God; and, as that gave utterance, to speak; in which he oftentimes reached and had place in them; and his solicitation was often answered, which made him say, that as Friends feel and keep to this anointing in their solicitations, they may expect a blessing, and therein be made serviceable to the Lord's people; but if, on the contrary, any shall go in these services, in their own will, wit and parts, they may miss the desired end, as some have done; notwithstanding the children of this world are, as of old, wiser in their generation than the children of light. THE END. A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THOMAS THOMPSON, A MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, IN THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. THOMAS THOMPSON, of Skipsea, England, power did livingly attend him: On the 6th was convinced of the truth of God by that day of the seventh month, he was at the faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ, Wil- Monthly Meeting held at Harpham, being the liam Dewsbury, in the eighth month of the last public meeting he was at, where he bore year 1652, and shortly after opened his mouth a plain and powerful testimony to the ancient to declare the name of the Lord and preach truth, labouring to encourage all Friends to be repentance to the people. He was preserved faithful to God, and to be diligent in the serin faithfulness to the truth to the end of his vice of truth, according to their several abilidays, not turning his back from sufferings, ties and endowments, that so an increase of but patiently endured reproach for Christ's the peaceable government of Christ might be sake, and spoiling of goods, with many years witnessed, both in the particular and also in imprisonment. When it pleased the Lord to the general. visit him with the illness whereof he died, He was indeed a laborious man in the work which began on the 26th day of the sixth of the Gospel, having travelled in truth's sermonth, 1704, his heart was filled with the love vice several times through Scotland, and in of God, and he was enabled through his goodness, though very weak in body, to go to several meetings, in which the Lord's heavenly many places in this nation; and, as he said when upon a dying bed, for many years had not omitted any opportunity of being service able. His testimony was plain, but powerful, Another time he said, "The Lord Jesus sound and convincing, and severe against Christ has shed his precious blood for us, and wickedness; but to the young and tender- laid down his life, and became sin for us, that hearted he was very loving and affectionate, we might be made the righteous of God in even as a nurse that cherisheth her children. On the 10th day of the month, in the year abovesaid, being the first-day of the week, several Friends visited him in his chamber, he being then very weak, to whom he declared the loving kindness of God, and of his tender dealings with his soul, from his youth to that day; and that he felt the Lord, who had been the guide of his youth, to be the staff of his old age; exhorting Friends to faithfulness and confidence in God, that they should de pend upon his power and providence for ever. On the 13th day of the month, several Friends being with him, he said that he was content to live or die, as the Lord pleased, in whom he had peace; and that he was in no doubt concerning his salvation, but was satisfied for ever, and could say with Job, the Lord had granted him life and favour, and his visitations still preserved his spirit. The next day, being the 14th, and the day of his departure out of this world, he spake little in the forenoon, being under much bodily weakness and pain at times; but about the second or third hour in the afternoon, in a heavenly manner, he said, "The Lord is my portion, and the lot of mine inheritance for ever, I am not dismayed;" and after a little time, "I have peace with God;" and again, " Since the day that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, as thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren and if thou lovest me, feed my lambs; I have spared no pains, either in body or spirit, neither am I conscious to myself of having omitted any opportunity of being serviceable to truth and Friends; but have gone through what was before me with willingness; and now I feel the love of God, and the returns of peace in my bosom;" which words were spoken in so living a sense of God's heavenly power, that it wonderfully broke and tendered Friends present. him. O this is love indeed." Again, “My heart is filled with the love of God. Oh the excellency! oh the glory! oh how glorious and excellent is the appearance of God! the rays of his glory fill his tabernacle:" and so he sung melodiously, saying, "O praises, praises, high praises, and hallelujah to the King of Sion, who reigns gloriously this day.” To a neighbour that came in to see him, he said, "We must put off these mortal bodies; but for them that fear the Lord there is an immortal one prepared." He continued very cheerful and sensible to the last, and spake very cheerfully to several neighbours who came to see him. About three quarters of an hour before his death, he spake to one that had been under convincement several years, but had not been faithful, exhorting him to repent and be faithful to what God had mani. fested to him, that so he might find mercy; telling him that he would find it a terrible thing to appear before an angry God; and to remember the words of a dying man, and so bid him farewell. Another time he said to Friends, "Ye are my witnesses, that I have not withheld from you the counsel and mind of God, but have laboured to provoke you to faithfulness and diligence in his service, that so ye might receive a crown of glory at the hand of the Lord, which is laid up in store for all the righteous, and my conscience is clear in God's sight." Being filled with the power and love of God, he often praised his holy and glorious name; and about the seventh hour passed away like a lamb, without either sigh or groan, and is at rest in the Lord for evermore. He departed this life in the seventy-third year of his age, the 14th of the seventh month, 1704. A labourer in the Gospel about fifty years. NO CROSS, NO CROWN. A DISCOURSE SHOWING THE NATURE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE HOLY CROSS OF CHRIST: AND THAT THE DENIAL OF SELF, AND DAILY BEARING Of Christ's croSS, IS THE ALONE TO WHICH ARE ADDED, THE LIVING AND DYING TESTIMONIES OF MANY PERSONS OF FAME AND IN TWO PARTS. BY WILLIAM PENN. And Jesus said unto his disciples; If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. Luke iv. 23. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, &c. 2 Tim. iv. 7. THE treatise entitled "No Cross, No Crown," | holy men of ancient time and the precepts of written by William Penn during his imprison- our Lord and his apostles, as set forth in the ment in the Tower, in 1668, has justly been Scriptures of Truth. In consequence of this considered among the best productions of his change he endured much opposition from his pen. His education and rank in life, emi-relations and friends, and was even banished nently qualified him to judge of the emptiness, from his father's house. But neither these vanity and sinfulness of those worldly plea- trials nor his subsequent imprisonment, could sures and compliances which he censures, and shake his constancy nor induce him to shrink against which he produces such conclusive from what he believed to be his religious duty; arguments from the Holy Scriptures. Ad- and that God whom he endeavoured to serve mired and courted for his talents and accom- and honour in the midst of contumely and replishments, beloved for his amiable disposition proach, not only supported him above the fear and engaging manners, with the road to honour of man, and filled his soul with peace and conand preferment open before him, he had all tentment, but restored his place in the esteem the inducements that the world could offer to and affections of his relatives and made him pursue its gratifications. But in the vigour honourable in the eyes of the world for his and freshness of youth, when all before him Christian virtues. His father loved him with was bright and promising, in obedience to the increased tenderness; and with his dying will of his heavenly Father, he voluntarily re-breath bore testimony in favour of the relilinquished his prospects of earthly honour and gious principles which his son had adopted. advantage, renounced the fashions and cus- William Penn was in the twenty-fourth year toms of the age, and lived a serious, self-deny- of his age when he wrote "No Cross, No ing life, in conformity with the example of the Crown." It was not therefore produced by VOL. I.--No. 5. 25 weariness of the world, or that disgust which suade thee to be serious, diligent and fervent arises from satiety. It was the result of a about thy own salvation! As one knowing the calm and deliberate survey of its manners and comfort, peace, joy and pleasure of the ways of righteousness, I exhort and invite thee to customs, viewed with the eye of a sincere and embrace the reproofs and convictions of Christ's devoted Christian. He thought, and felt, and light and spirit in thine own conscience, and wrote, as one sensible of the dignity and noble bear the judgment of thy sin. The fire burns endowments of man, and of his high destiny as but the stubble; the wind blows only the chaff. an immortal being. The solidity of the argu-maketh all things new; new heavens and new Yield thy body, soul and spirit to Him who ment, the depth of Christian experience, the earth, new love, new joy, new peace, new exalted morality and pure religion, with which the work is fraught, commend it to the serious and attentive perusal of all denominations of professors. Reader, PREFACE. EDITORS. 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 Ito 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 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 per 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 a while; 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 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. 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 transcendent joy, lift up thy head above the world; then thy salvation will draw nigh indeed. What 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 ser vice 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, 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 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, NO CROSS, NO CROWN. CHAPTER I. 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 to the souls of men; being the 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 acknow 1. Of the necessity of the Cross of Christ in gene-ledge, that after all the gracious advantages ral; yet the little regard Christians have to it. of light, and obligations to fidelity, which these 2. The degeneracy of Christendom from purity latter ages of the world have received, by the to lust, and from moderation to excess. 3. That coming, life, doctrine, miracles, death, resurworldly lusts and pleasures are become the care rection, and ascension of Christ, with the gifts and study of Christians, so that they have ad- of his Holy Spirit; to which add, the writings, vanced upon the impiety of infidels. 4. This labours and martyrdom of his dear followers defection a second part to the Jewish tragedy, in all times; there seems very little left of and worse than the first: the scorn Christians Christianity but the name: which being now have cast on their Saviour. 5. Sin is of one makes the professors of it but true heathens usurped by the old heathen nature and life, nature all the world over; sinners are of the in disguise. For though they worship not the same church, the devil's children: profession of same idols, they worship Christ with the same religion in wicked men, makes them but the heart: and they can never do otherwise, whilst worse. 6. A wolf is not a lamb, a sinner can- they live in the same lusts. The unmortified not be (whilst such) a saint. 7. The wicked Christian and the heathen are of the same rewill persecute the good; this false Christians ligion. For though they have different objects, have done to the true, for noncompliance with to which they direct their prayers, adoration their superstitions: the strange carnal measures in both is but forced and ceremonious, and the 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 What deity they truly worship is the god of this world, |