the sons of men but stewards to each other's under a profession of the self-denying religion exigencies and relief. Yea, so strictly is it of Jesus, whose life and doctrine are a perenjoined, that on the omission of these things,petual reproach to the most of Christians. we find this dreadful sentence partly to be For he, blessed Man, was humble, but they grounded, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into proud; he forgiving, they revengeful; he everlasting fire," &c. On the contrary, to meek, they fierce; he plain, they gaudy; he visit the sick, see the imprisoned, relieve the abstemious, they luxurious; he chaste, they needy, &c. are such excellent properties in lascivious; he a pilgrim on earth, they citizens Christ's account, that thereupon he will pronounce such blessed, saying, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you," &c. So that the great are not, with the leviathan in the deep, to prey upon the small, much less to make sport of the lives and labours of the lesser ones, to gratify their inordinate senses. of the world: in fine, he was meanly born, poorly attended, and obscurely brought up: he lived despised, and died hated of the men of his own nation. O you pretended followers of this crucified Jesus! examine yourselves, try yourselves; know you not your own selves, if he dwell not, if he rule not, in you, that you are reprobates? be ye not deceived, for God will not be mocked, at last 11. I therefore humbly offer an address to the serious consideration of the civil magis-with forced repentances, such as you sow, trate, That if the money which is expended in such you must reap in God's day. I beseech every parish in such vain fashions, as wearing you, hear me, and remember you were invited of laces, jewels, embroideries, unnecessary and entreated to the salvation of God. As ribbons, trimming, costly furniture and atten- you sow, you reap: if you are enemies to the dance, together with what is commonly con- cross of Christ, and you are so, if you will sumed in taverns, feasts, gaming, &c. could not bear it, but do as you list, and not as you be collected into a public stock, or something ought; if you are uncircumcised in heart and in lieu of this extravagant and fruitless ex-ear, and you are so, if you will not hear and pense, there might be reparation to the broken open to him that knocks at the door within, tenants, work-houses for the able, and alms-and if you resist and quench the spirit in houses for the aged and impotent. Then yourselves, that strives with you to bring you should we have no beggars in the land, the cry of the widow and the orphan would cease, and charitable reliefs might easily be afforded towards the redemption of poor captives, and refreshment of such distressed Protestants as labour under the miseries of persecution in other countries: nay, the exchequer's needs, on just emergencies, might be supplied by such a bank. This sacrifice and service would please the just and merciful God; it would be a noble example of gravity and temperance to foreign states, and an unspeakable benefit to ourselves at home. to God, and that you certainly do, who rebel against its motions, reproofs, and instructions, then " you sow to the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, and of the flesh will you reap the fruits of corruption, woe, anguish, and tribulation, from God the judge of the quick and dead, by Jesus Christ." But if you will daily bear the holy cross of Christ, and sow to the spirit; if you will listen to the light and grace that comes by Jesus, and which he has given to all people for salvation, and square your thoughts, words, and deeds thereby, which leads and teaches the lovers of it to deny all Alas! why should men need persuasion to ungodliness, and the world's lusts, and to live what their own felicity so necessarily leads soberly, righteously, and godly in this present them to? Had those vitiosos of the times but evil world; then may you, with confidence, a sense of heathen Cato's generosity, they look for the "blessed hope, and joyful coming, would rather deny their carnal appetites, than and glorious appearance of the great God, and leave such noble enterprises unattempted. But our Saviour Jesus Christ!" Let it be so, O that they should eat, drink, play, game and you Christians, and escape the wrath to come! sport away their health, estates, and, above why will you die? let the time past suffice: all, their irrevocable precious time, which remember, that No Cross, No Crown. Reshould be dedicated to the Lord, as a neces-deem then the time, for the days are evil, sary introduction to a blessed eternity, and and yours but very few. Therefore gird up than which, did they but know it, no worldly the loins of your minds, be sober, fear, watch, solace could come in competition; I say, that pray, and endure to the end; calling to mind, they should be continually employed about for your encouragement and consolation, that these poor, low things, is to have the heathens all such, as "through patience and well-doing judge them in God's day, as well as Christian wait for immortality, shall reap glory, honour, precepts and examples condemn them. And and eternal life, in the kingdom of the Father; their final doom will prove the more astonish- whose is the kingdom, the power, and the glory ing, in that this vanity and excess are acted for ever." Amen. VOL. I.-No. 7. [END OF PART FIRST.] 35 NO CROSS, NO CROWN, THE SECOND PART. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIVING AND DYING SAYINGS OF MEN EMINENT FOR THEIR GREATNESS, LEARNING, OR VIRTUE, AND OF DIVERS PERIODS OF TIME AND NATIONS OF THE World. ALL CONCURRING IN THIS ONE TESTIMONY, THAT A LIFE OF STRICT VIRTUE, VIZ: TO DO WELL AND BEAR ILL, IS THE WAY TO EVERLASTING HAPPINESS. COLLECTED IN FAVOUR OF THE TRUTH DELIVERED IN THE FIRST Part. BY WILLIAM PENN. responsibility of Christians who are blessed with the pure morality and holy religion of Christ's Gospel. When we read the senti ments of some of the heathen characters given in this work, and observe how far they exceed the morality of too many professed Christians, we cannot but lament that they had not the preeminent advantages of Christi anity to enlighten and adorn their examples, and that those who have them, should so shamefully misuse or neglect them. THE design of William Penn in adducing in how much stronger relief does it place the the examples of the most virtuous heathen in favour of the self-denial and temperance which he was recommending in the work, appears to have been to show that even with the light which shone dimly upon them, some were enabled to see the advantages of such a life as he enforced. The period at which he wrote his work, was one of great licentiousness of manners at court and among the nobility; from whence it soon found its way to the inferior classes of society. His aim seems to be to check the evil at the fountain, and to convince the great of this world by the testimony of men and women of rank and dignity, equal with their own, how much more honourable, useful and happy they would be by pursuing the path of self-denial and virtue. Some might listen to the sentiments of a Socrates, Solon, Alexander, or Plato, on whom the precepts of Paul or Peter would be urged in vain. If men, who were surrounded with the darkness, and vice, and corruption of paganism, that sink of iniquity and degradation, were yet sufficiently enlightened to inculcate such degrees of moral rectitude as we find in some of the following quotations, It is thus to magnify the Gospel and enforce on its professors the solemn obligation of obeying its pure and holy precepts, that the testimony of heathen and Christian examples is adduced-and surely if professing Christendom falls short in her morality, her self-denial, her holiness, after all the unspeakable privi leges bestowed on her, such heathen will rise up in the day of judgment and condemn her: it will be more tolerable for them than for her, for judging from the evidence they here give, if the mighty works which have been done in her, had been done in their day and before their eyes, they had greatly exceeded her in Christian virtues. EDITORS. PREFACE. No CROSS, NO CROWN, should have ended here; but that the power, which examples and authorities have upon the minds of people, above the most reasonable and pressing arguments, inclined me to present my readers with some of those many instances that might be given, in favour of the virtuous life recommended in our discourse. I chose to cast them into three sorts of testimonies, not after the threefold subject of the book, but suitable to the times, qualities, and circumstances of the persons that gave them forth; whose excellencies and stations have transmitted their names with reputation to our own times. The first testimony comes from those called heathens, the second from professed Christians, and the last from retired, aged, and dying men; being their last and serious reflections, to which no ostentation or worldly interest could induce them. Where it will be easy for the considerate reader to observe how much the pride, avarice, and luxury of the world, stood reprehended in the judgments of persons of great credit amongt men; and what that life and conduct was, that in their most retired meditations, when their sight was clearest, and judgment most free and disabused, they thought would give peace here, and lay a foundation for eternal blessedness. CHAPTER XIX. THE TESTIMONIES OF SEVERAL GREAT, LEARNED, AND VIRTUOUS PERSONAGES AMONG THE GENTILES, IN cennius. 43. Alexander Severus. 44. Aurelianus. 45. Julian. 46. Theodosius. III. The lives and doctrines of some of the heathen philosophers among the Greeks and Romans, viz. 47. Thales. 48. Pythagoras. 49. Solon. 50. Chilon. 51. Periander. 52. Bias. 53. Cleobulus. 54. Pittacus. 55. Hippias. 56. The Gymnosophists. 57. The Bamburacii. 58. The Gynæcosmi. 59. Anacharsis. 60. Anaxagoras. 61. Heraclitus. 62. Democritus. 63. Socrates. 64. Plato. 65. Antisthenes. 66. Xenocrates. 67. Bion. 68. Demonax. 69. Diogenes. 70. Crates. 71. Aristotle. 72. Mandanis. 73. Zeno. 74. Quintilian. 75. Seneca. 76. Epictetus. IV. Of virtuous heathen women, viz. 77. Penelope. 78. Hipparchia. 79. Lucretia. 80. Cornelia. 81. Pontia. 82. Arria. 83. Pompeja Plautina. 84. Plotina. 85. Pompeja Paulina. 86. A reproof to voluptuous women of the times. 1. CYRUS, than whom a greater monarch we hardly find in story, is more famous for his virtue, than his power; and indeed it was that which gave him power. God calls him his shepherd. Let us see the principles of his conduct and life. So temperate was he in his youth, that when Astyages urged him to drink wine, he answered, I am afraid lest there should be poison in it; having seen thee reel and sottish after having drunk thereof. So careful was he to keep the Persians from corruption of manners, that he would not suffer them to leave their rude and mountainous country, for one more pleasant and fruitful, lest, through plenty and ease, luxury at last might debase their spirits. So very chaste was he, that having taken a lady of quality, a most beautiful woman, his prisoner, he refused to see her, saying, I have no mind to be a captive to my captive. It seems he shunned even the occaI. Among the Greeks, viz. 1. Of Cyrus. 2. sion of evil. The comptroller of his household Artaxerxes, 3. Agathocles. 4. Philip. 5. asking him one day, what he would please to Alexander. 6. Ptolemy. 7. Xenophanes. 8. have for his dinner? Bread, said he; for I Antigonus. 9. Themistocles. 10. Aristides. intend to encamp nigh the water: a short and 11. Pericles. 12. Phocion. 13. Clitomachus. easy bill of fare. This shows the power he had 14. Epaminondas. 15. Demosthenes. 16. Aga- over his appetite, as well as his soldiers; and sicles. 17. Agesilaus. 18. Agis. 19. Alca- that he was fit to command others, who could 20. Alexandridas. 21. Anaxilas. 22. command himself; according to another saying Ariston. 23. Archidamus. 24. Cleomenes. of his, No man is worthy to command, who is 25. Dersyllidas. 26. Hippodamus. 27. Leoni- not better than those who are to obey. When das. 28. Lysander. 29. Pausanias. 30. Theo- he came to die, he gave this reason of his bepompus, &c. 31. The manner of life and lief of immortality, I cannot, said he, persuade government of the Lacedæmonians in general. myself to think that the soul of man, after 32. Lycurgus their lawgiver. II. Among the having sustained itself in a mortal body, should Romans, viz. 33. Of Cato. 34. Scipio Afri- perish when delivered out of it, for want of it: a saying of perhaps as great weight, as may be advanced against atheism from more enlightened times. menes. canus. 35. Augustus. 36. Tiberius. 37. Vespasian. 38. Trajan. 39. Adrian. 40. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 41. Pertinax. 42. Pes 2. ARTAXERXES MNEMON, being, upon an NO CROSS, NO CROWN, THE SECOND PART. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIVING AND DYING SAYINGS OF MEN EMINENT FOR THEIR GREATNESS, LEARNING, OR VIRTUE, AND OF DIVERS PERIODS OF TIME AND NATIONS OF THE WORLD. ALL CONCURRING IN THIS ONE TESTIMONY, THAT A LIFE OF STRICT VIRTUE, VIZ: TO DO WELL AND BEAR ILL, IS THE WAY TO EVERLASTING HAPPINESS. COLLECTED IN FAVOUR OF THE TRUTH DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PART. BY WILLIAM PENN. responsibility of Christians who are blessed with the pure morality and holy religion of Christ's Gospel. When we read the sentiments of some of the heathen characters given in this work, and observe how far they exceed the morality of too many professed Christians, we cannot but lament that they had not the preeminent advantages of Christi anity to enlighten and adorn their examples, and that those who have them, should so shamefully misuse or neglect them. THE design of William Penn in adducing in how much stronger relief does it place the the examples of the most virtuous heathen in favour of the self-denial and temperance which he was recommending in the work, appears to have been to show that even with the light which shone dimly upon them, some were enabled to see the advantages of such a life as he enforced. The period at which he wrote his work, was one of great licentiousness of manners at court and among the nobility; from whence it soon found its way to the inferior classes of society. His aim seems to be to check the evil at the fountain, and to convince the great of this world by the testimony of men and women of rank and dignity, equal with their own, how much more honourable, useful and happy they would be by pursuing the path of self-denial and virtue. Some might listen to the sentiments of a Socrates, Solon, Alexander, or Plato, on whom the precepts of Paul or Peter would be urged in vain. If men, who were surrounded with the darkness, and vice, and corruption of paganism, that sink of iniquity and degradation, were yet sufficiently enlightened to inculcate such degrees of moral rectitude their eyes, they had greatly exceeded her in as we find in some of the following quotations, Christian virtues. It is thus to magnify the Gospel and enforce on its professors the solemn obligation of obeying its pure and holy precepts, that the testimony of heathen and Christian examples is adduced-and surely if professing Christendom falls short in her morality, her self-denial, her holiness, after all the unspeakable privi leges bestowed on her, such heathen will rise up in the day of judgment and condemn her: it will be more tolerable for them than for her, for judging from the evidence they here give, if the mighty works which have been done in her, had been done in their day and before EDITORS. 1 PREFACE. cennius. 43. Alexander Severus. 44. Aurelianus. 45. Julian. 46. Theodosius. III. The lives and doctrines of some of the heathen philosophers among the Greeks and Romans, viz. 47. Thales. 48. Pythagoras. 49. Solon. 50. Chilon. 51. Periander. 52. Bias. 53. Cleobulus. 54. Pittacus. 55. Hippias. 56. The Gymnosophists. 57. The Bamburacii. 58. The Gynæcosmi. 59. Anacharsis. 60. Anaxagoras. 61. Heraclitus. 62. Democritus. 63. Socrates. 64. Plato. 65. Antisthenes. 66. Xenocrates. 73. 76. 67. Bion. 68. Demonax. 69. Diogenes. 70. No CROSS, NO CROWN, should have ended here; but that the power, which examples and authorities have upon the minds of people, above the most reasonable and pressing arguments, inclined me to present my readers with some of those many instances that might be given, in favour of the virtuous life recommended in our discourse. I chose to cast them into three sorts of testimonies, not after the threefold subject of the book, but suitable to the times, qualities, and circumstances of the persons that gave them forth; whose excellencies and stations have transmitted their names with reputation to our own times. The first testimony comes from those called heathens, the second from professed Christians, and the last from retired, aged, and dying men; being their last and serious reflections, to which no ostentation or worldly interest could induce them. Where it will be easy for the considerate reader to observe how much the pride, avarice, and luxury of the world, stood hended in the judgments of persons of that which gave him power. great credit amongt men; and what that life and his shepherd. Let us see the principles of his conduct was, that in their most retired medita- conduct and life. So temperate was he in his tions, when their sight was clearest, and judg-youth, that when Astyages urged him to drink ment most free and disabused, they thought would give peace here, and lay a foundation for eternal blessedness. CHAPTER XIX. repre THE TESTIMONIES OF SEVERAL GREAT, LEARNED, AND VIRTUOUS PERSONAGES AMONG THE GENTILES, AND PIETY HEREIN RECOMMENDED. 2. 1. CYRUS, than whom a greater monarch we hardly find in story, is more famous for his virtue, than his power; and indeed it was God calls him wine, he answered, I am afraid lest there should be poison in it; having seen thee reel and sottish after having drunk thereof. So careful was he to keep the Persians from corruption of manners, that he would not suffer them to leave their rude and mountainous country, for one more pleasant and fruitful, lest, through plenty and ease, luxury at last might debase their spirits. So very chaste was he, that having taken a lady of quality, a most beautiful woman, his prisoner, he refused to see her, saying, I have no mind to be a captive to my captive. It seems he shunned even the occaasking him one day, what he would please to sion of evil. The comptroller of his household have for his dinner? Bread, said he; for I intend to encamp nigh the water: a short and easy bill of fare. This shows the power he had over his appetite, as well as his soldiers; and that he was fit to command others, who could command himself; according to another saying of his, No man is worthy to command, who is not better than those who are to obey. When he came to die, he gave this reason of his belief of immortality, I cannot, said he, persuade myself to think that the soul of man, after having sustained itself in a mortal body, should perish when delivered out of it, for want of it: be advanced against atheism from more ena saying of perhaps as great weight, as may lightened times. I. Among the Greeks, viz. 1. Of Cyrus. Artaxerxes, 3. Agathocles. 4. Philip. 5. Alexander. 6. Ptolemy. 7. Xenophanes. 8. Antigonus. 9. Themistocles. 10. Aristides. 11. Pericles. 12. Phocion. 13. Clitomachus. 14. Epaminondas. 15. Demosthenes. 16. Agasicles. 17. Agesilaus. 18. Agis. 19. Alcamenes. 20. Alexandridas. 21. Anaxilas. 22. Ariston. 23. Archidamus. 24. Cleomenes. 25. Dersyllidas. 26. Hippodamus. 27. Leonidas. 28. Lysander. 29. Pausanias. 30. Theopompus, &c. 31. The manner of life and government of the Lacedæmonians in general. 32. Lycurgus their lawgiver. II. Among the Romans, viz. 33. Of Cato. 34. Scipio Africanus. 35. Augustus. 36. Tiberius. 37. Vespasian. 38. Trajan. 39. Adrian. 40. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 41. Pertinax. 42. Pes- 2. ARTAXERXES MNEMON, being, upon an |