Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * [Illustration: title page] NO CROSS, NO CROWN: A DISCOURSE, SHEWING THE NATURE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE HOLY CROSS OF CHRIST. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, The Living and Dying Testimonies OF MANY PERSONS OF FAME AND LEARNING, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES, IN FAVOUR OF THIS TREATISE. "And Jesus said unto them all; If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."-- LUKE, ix. 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, 8. IN TWO PARTS. BY WILLIAM PENN. A NEW EDITION, REVISED. LONDON: HARVEY & DARTON, GRACECHURCH STREET. 1842. LONDON: JOSEPH RICKERBY, PRINTER, SHERBOURN LANE. PREFACE. READER, 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 wild and 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. And as long as this disease continueth upon man he will make his God his enemy, and himself incapable of the love and salvation that He hath manifested, by his Son Jesus Christ, to the world.