Few leaders have been as socially and spiritually influential across the globe more than William Penn (1644–1718), the son of a British navy admiral who was “by conviction pro-Anglican and royalist.”[1] His son (William), although raised in high British society and Anglican religious circles, chose a controversially different path—much to his father’s disapproval and inconvenience. William Penn, who converted to Quakerism in 1668, eventually traveled to America to govern the colony that would come to be named after him—“Pennsylvania.”

According to Stern, under this new colonial charter, William Penn “sought to reconcile liberty and authority in his frame of government.”[2] Knox adds, “Penn established this colony with the hope that religious toleration would be maintained without abuse by the government.”[3] Although Penn (self-admittedly) did not succeed as fully as he had hoped with this “Holy Experiment,” he still managed to implement his ideal of governance that, while still strongly hierarchical, protected religious freedoms and “established an electoral legislative system, prohibited taxation without representation, and guaranteed free trade.”[4]

Yet, decades before this famous American colonial enterprise, William Penn found himself in a far darker and more dangerous predicament, having been imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1667 for writing a tract entitled, “The Sandy Foundation Shaken Speaking Against the Doctrine of the Trinity.”[5] While in the Tower, he also composed, “No Cross, No Crown,”[6] as well as several other religious essays. Penn wrote these monographs to defend both his Quaker beliefs and his fellow Quaker family who he saw being unfairly persecuted and abused for their religious convictions. No doubt experiences like these provided the impetus for his Penn’s future colonial goals of governance and toleration.

The first three chapters of “No Cross, No Crown” are especially poignant (especially considering that he wrote them from within his prison cell), with each chapter highlighting important truths about the corruption of Christian culture in Penn’s time (and today), its righteous remedy through true faith and repentance, and the crucial centrality of the theology of the Cross. In many ways, Penn’s work builds upon the case for Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–16), showing how the cross of Christ empowers people through the virtues of the beatitudes (being poor in spirit, hungering for righteousness, embracing peacemaking, being persecution for righteousness’ sake, and so on).

To wit, in these first three chapters alone, readers can clearly see Penn’s zeal for the Lord, his enthusiasm of Quaker tenets of faith, and his desire to encourage others to draw closer to Christ. This is summed up well in chapter three when he writes, “The heart of man is the seat of sin, and where he is defiled, he must be sanctified; and where sin lives, there it must die: it must be crucified.”[7]Aphorisms like this were not always received well by his accusers and jailers, but Penn did not waver in his beliefs.

Janney shares that one of Penn’s servants approached him with the news that:

The bishop was resolved he should either publicly recant or die a prisoner. He [Penn] answered, “All is well: I wish they had told me so before, since the expecting of a release put a stop to some business; thou mayest tell my father, who I know will ask thee, these words: that my prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man; I have no need to fear, God will make amends for all; they are mistaken in me; I value not their threats and resolutions, for they shall know I can weary out their malice and peevishness, and in me shall they behold a resolution above fear; conscience above cruelty, and a baffle put to all their designs by the spirit of patience, the companion of all the tribulated flock of the blessed Jesus, who is the author and finisher of faith that overcomes the world, yea, death and hell too.”[8]

Penn goes into great details and discussions in his treatise, first taking care in chapter one to explain the “Be-Bad-itudes” of Christian culture in England and concluding that “. . . the generality of Christendom do miserably deceive and disappoint themselves in the great business of Christianity, and their own salvation.”[9] Moreover, even the clergy are guilty of wicked, idolatrous anti-Christianity, in Penn’s appraisal. He writes, “There seems very little left of Christianity but the name; which being usurped by the old heathen nature and life, makes the professors of it but true heathens in disguise.”[10] In fact, according to Penn, what existed then was a false, apostate church—“the mother of harlots and all abominations: because [she] degenerated from Christian chastity and purity, into all the enormities of heathen Babylon.”[11] Ultimately, in Penn’s judgment and experiences, “The religion of the wicked is a lie.”[12]

In chapter two, Penn takes a more positive, yet still somber tone as he discusses the spiritual remedy for the aforementioned wickedness. He writes, “Now, behold the remedy! an infallible cure, one of God’s appointing; a precious elixir, indeed, that never fails; and that universal medicine which no malady could ever escape.”[13] He further exhorts his readers to consider his Good News: “So that, if thou truly believest in him, thine ear will be attentive to his voice in thee, and the door of thine heart open to his knocks. Thou wilt yield to the discoveries of his light, and the teachings of his grace will be very dear to thee.”[14]

For Penn, all Christians caught up in the false church in England ought to repent of their ways and quickly:

Turn their minds to the appearance of Christ, the Light and Saviour of the world; who by his light shines in their souls, and thereby gives them a sight of their sins, and discovers every temptation and motion in them unto evil and reproves them when they give way thereunto; that so they might become the children of light and walk in the path of righteousness.[15]

Even more so, they need to remember the testimonies of the early church that was so zealous for the Lord—and without compromise. He writes, “And, while this integrity dwelt with Christians, mighty was the presence, and invincible that power that attended them; it quenched fire, daunted lions, turned the edge of the sword, outfaced instruments of cruelty, convicted judges, and converted executioners.”[16] One is reminded of Bishop Polycarp’s own persecution story, which tells readers, “But the proconsul said: ‘I have wild beasts. I shall throw you to them, if you do not change your mind.’ But he [Polycarp] said: ‘Call them. For repentance from the better to the worse is not permitted us; but it is noble to change from what is evil to what is righteous.’”[17]

Although the shortest, chapter three provides the great “Why” of Penn’s exhortations—the cross of Christ. Through the cross, believers receive full empowerment to free their souls from the slavery and condemnation of sin and can experience newfound reconciliation with their holy and righteous Father in heaven. Penn explains,

So that the cross mystical is that Divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, and gives a contradiction to their corrupt affections, and that constantly opposeth itself to the inordinate and fleshly appetite of their minds, and so may be justly termed the instrument of man’s wholly dying to the world, and being made conformable to the will of God.[18]

The embrace of the cross of Christ is not just a one-and-done affair; rather, it is a constant living out of one’s true faith in Christ as our deliverer and model for love of the Father (and His good ways). He explains, “The way, like the cross, is spiritual: that is an inward submission of the soul to the will of God, as it is manifested by the light of Christ in the consciences of men, though it be contrary to their own inclinations.”[19] It is an “entire resignation,” and one that “continually” watches out to be obedient, to have love and confidence in God, and to personally “die” on the cross with Jesus, daily.[20] Penn ends this chapter with a serious warning to his readers: “O this shows to every one’s experience how hard it is to be a true disciple of Jesus! The way is narrow indeed, and the gate very strait, where not a word, no not a thought must slip the watch, or escape judgment; such circumspection, such caution, such patience, such constancy, such holy fear and trembling.”[21]

In a postmodern world of excess and hedonism, this might seem too harsh or austere a calling to ask of a believer, but for Penn, rotting away in the Tower of London for the “crime” of simply believing whole-heartedly in the Good News rather than merely submitting to artificial and authoritarian man-made rules, it must have been painful but affirming. As Penn concludes in chapter three, “They that cannot endure the cross must never have the crown. To reign, it is necessary first to suffer.”[22] At the deepest level, for Penn, it is all about making a true, life-changing (and life-charging) connection to Jesus that changes everything in the Christian’s life, despite the possible controversies to this approach. All else is dangerous scandal and deception.

Bibliography

The Apostolic Fathers. The Apostolic Fathers (Moody Classics). Ebook: Moody, 2009.

Broner, Edwin, and David Fraser, William Penn’s Published Writings: 1660–1726: An Interpretive Bibliography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986

Janney, Samuel M. The Life of William Penn, Sixth Edition. Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Association, 1882.

Knox, John S. “William Penn’s Holy Experiment.” World History Encyclopedia; https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2001/william-penns-holy-experiment/.

Penn, William. No Cross, No Crown. Ebook: Friends Library Publishing, 2023.

Wildes, Harry Emerson. William Penn. London: Macmillan, 1974.

Endnotes

[1] Harry Emerson Wildes, William Penn (London: Macmillan, 1974), 10.

[2] T. Noel Stern, "William Penn on the Swearing of Oaths: His Ideas in Theory and Practice," Quaker History 2, no. 70 (1981): 85.

[3] John S. Knox, “William Penn’s Holy Experiment,” World History Encyclopedia; https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2001/william-penns-holy-experiment/.

[4] Knox, “William Penn’s Holy Experiment.”

[5] Edwin Broner and David Fraser, William Penn’s Published Writings: 1660–1726: An Interpretive Bibliography (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 96.

[6] William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (Ebook: Friends Library Publishing).

[7] William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (Ebook: Friends Library Publishing, 2023), 32.

[8] Samuel M. Janney. The Life of William Penn, Sixth Edition (Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Association, 1882), 55.

[9] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 9.

[10] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 9–10.

[11] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 13.

[12] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 16.

[13] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 20.

[14] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 22.

[15] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 23.

[16] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 26.

[17] The Apostolic Fathers, The Apostolic Fathers (Moody Classics) (Ebook: Moody, 2009. Kindle Edition), 139.

[18] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 31.

[19] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 33.

[20] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 34.

[21] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 34.

[22] Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 34.