Work record

No Cross, No Crown

William Penn

Also known as: No Cross No Crown

1669 · Renaissance Early Modern · Religious Scripture · English

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Abstract

Written: 1668–1669 (enlarged 1682)
Setting: Restoration England; Tower of London
Author: William Penn
Country: England
Language: English
Genre: Devotional treatise
Form: Prose discourse in two parts
Recommended: Grades 10–12 (Dense seventeenth-century prose with many examples; read in selections.)

Origin. An admiral's son who had become a Quaker was locked in the Tower of London in 1668 for a pamphlet judged blasphemous. During eight months there he wrote this defence of a self-denying faith, later doubling its length.

Thesis. Real religion means crucifying selfish desires every day; formal worship without that inward change is empty.

Targets. He dissects pride in learning, rank and reputation, and the love of fine clothes, rich food and amusements.

Quaker customs. Long chapters explain why Friends kept their hats on before magistrates, addressed everyone as 'thee', and avoided titles and ornaments: these are presented as honesty and humility.

Testimonies. The enlarged second part collects sayings of ancient sages, rulers and Christians who praised moderation or regretted vanity at the end of life.

Edition. The library uses an 1842 London edition. It was chosen in place of Penn's later book of maxims, Some Fruits of Solitude, because no clean transcription of that work was available. The arguments are long and heavily illustrated, so a first reading might focus on the early chapters about the cross and pride and the later ones defending plain speech before magistrates.

Key figures

William Penn: Author, Quaker
George Fox: Quaker founder and Penn's associate

Summary

No Cross, No Crown is a treatise on Christian self-denial written by William Penn in 1668–1669, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and greatly enlarged in 1682. Its title states its theme: there is no crown of eternal life without bearing the daily cross of Christ, understood not as a wooden symbol or ritual but as the inward discipline that puts selfish desires to death. The first part explains what the cross is and how it should be borne. Penn argues that much of contemporary religion had become outward form while hearts remained proud, covetous and worldly. He then examines particular forms of self-love that the cross must crucify, especially pride, which he divides into the desire for knowledge, power and honour, and the love of luxury in dress, food, entertainments and fashions. Much of the book defends Quaker practices that outsiders found strange or rude: refusing to remove the hat or bow to superiors, using 'thee' and 'thou' to individuals instead of the honorific 'you', and rejecting titles and elaborate clothing. Penn presents these as applications of humility and honesty rather than as eccentricities. He insists that true honour is due to God, and that social customs of flattery feed pride. The second part, added in 1682, gathers testimonies from ancient philosophers, statesmen and Christian writers, as well as famous figures facing death, to show that wise people in many ages had valued simplicity and repented of vanity. Penn draws on classical and biblical examples to argue that his teaching is reasonable and not peculiar to Quakers. The book became one of the most widely read Quaker works and helped to define the plain style of the Society of Friends. It also offers insight into the mind of the man who soon afterwards founded Pennsylvania on principles of religious liberty.

Plot or Argument

Part I: The cross and its discipline
What the cross of Christ is and why it is necessary for salvation.
Part I: Pride and luxury
Pride of knowledge, power and honour; luxury in dress, food and pleasures.
Part I: Quaker customs defended
Hat honour, plain speech, titles and plain dress.
Part II: Testimonies
Witness of philosophers, rulers and Christians to the value of self-denial.

Lessons

Inward discipline
Penn argues that religion is a matter of daily self-denial, not outward forms.
- What does Penn mean by the daily cross?
- Can outward simplicity help inward change, or can it become a new kind of pride?
Related across the library
- The Dark Night of the Soul, Lesson: Growth through difficulty
  Growth through difficulty. John argues that times of spiritual dryness can be a sign of growth rather than failure.
- The Roman History, Medical lens
  Ammianus is a rich source for late-Roman ideas of disease and for the deaths of emperors. His digression on pestilence at Amida (XIX.4) summarizes the inherited theory that extremes of heat, cold, moisture and drought, or air corrupted by corpses, cause epidemics, and sorts plagues into pandemic, epidemic and a fast-killing third kind; he cites Homer and Thucydides and says the garrison's sickness lifted after rain. Julian's spear wound to the liver, the physician's attempt to help him and his death by blood los...
- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Selections), Lesson: A historian's judgments on religion invite a reply
  A historian's judgments on religion invite a reply. Gibbon writes of Roman paganism with ironic detachment and argues that Christianity and monasticism weakened the empire's military spirit, while granting that the faith softened the conquerors. Christian scholars answered him from his first volume onward, and Milman's notes in this very edition qualify several of his claims. Reading Gibbon well means hearing his argument in his own words and also listening to the replies.
- Barchester Towers, Lesson: Listen before inferring
  Listen before inferring. Eleanor’s intentions are repeatedly invented by others. Their misreadings show the cost of treating another person as a convenient part of one’s own plan.
- Caesar and Christ, Lesson: When a republic outgrows its constitution
  When a republic outgrows its constitution. Durant presents the fall of the Republic as institutional failure: magistracies designed for a city could not govern a Mediterranean empire, and wealth, slavery and soldiers loyal to generals hollowed out the old virtues. Students can trace how each strongman exploited what the previous one had broken.
Customs and equality
Plain speech and refusal of titles express belief that all people are equal before God.
- Why did using 'thee' to a social superior seem offensive in 1669?
- Are there forms of address today that express or resist hierarchy?
Related across the library
- The Muqaddimah, Lesson: Solidarity builds and luxury dissolves
  Solidarity builds and luxury dissolves. Group feeling gives a hardy people the cohesion to win power; settled rule brings wealth, comfort and reliance on paid troops, which weaken that cohesion until a new group with stronger solidarity takes over. The cycle is presented as a pattern of human nature rather than a moral fable alone.
- I Am Prepared to Die, Lesson: Moral clarity can be disciplined
  Moral clarity can be disciplined. The speech is passionate but controlled. Its force comes from careful explanation as much as from courage.
- Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Lesson: Herd or horde?
  Herd or horde?. Against Trotter's gregarious instinct Freud proposes that group feeling grows from envy turned into a demand for equality: siblings who cannot each have a parent's whole love settle for all having the same. Man, he says, is a horde animal ruled by a chief. The argument is a sharp account of resentment and of the wish to be ruled, but its support in the primal-horde myth is speculative.
- The Black Arrow, Book V, Chapter IV
  I love not mercy, nor yet mercymongers. Gloucester grants, with contempt, Dick's request for Arblaster's life and withdraws his favor.
- The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Lesson: Why a state endures
  Why a state endures. The eastern Roman state lasted more than a thousand years after Constantine. Kaldellis attributes its endurance to working institutions: a tax system, a salaried army, a trained administration, and a people who regarded the state as theirs. Students can test this account against the episodes of collapse and recovery in the book.
Writing in prison
Penn wrote the first version while imprisoned for his religious views.
- How might imprisonment have shaped the book's argument?
- Why did Penn refuse to recant?
Related across the library
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- The Warden, Lesson: Legal right is not moral peace
  Legal right is not moral peace. The lawyers may defend Harding's position, but conscience does not accept legality as sufficient. The novel distinguishes winning a case from living with oneself.
- McCulloch v. Maryland, Lesson: The power to destroy
  The power to destroy. If a state could tax the bank, it could tax the mail, the mint or the courts, and do so to any degree. Marshall concludes that the people of one state cannot, through their legislature, control an institution created by the people of all the states. He carefully preserves ordinary state taxes on property.
- West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Lesson: Changing the question
  Changing the question. Gobitis had asked whether religious objectors deserved an exemption from a valid requirement. Jackson asked a prior question: whether the state could require the salute of anyone at all. By reframing the issue as one of compelled speech, the majority made the case about every citizen's freedom of mind rather than one group's faith.
- The Dark Night of the Soul, Lesson: Growth through difficulty
  Growth through difficulty. John argues that times of spiritual dryness can be a sign of growth rather than failure.
For the Christian reader
Penn wrote this book in the Tower of London, imprisoned for his faith, and later founded Pennsylvania as a colony of religious liberty. His theme is Christ's call to take up the cross daily (Luke 9:23), applied to pride, luxury and empty custom. Students can weigh his Quaker convictions against Scripture while learning from his seriousness about self-denial.
- How does Penn define the daily cross?
- Which of Penn's warnings against pride and luxury still apply today?
Related across the library
- Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lesson: Guerrilla war as an argument from space and time
  Guerrilla war as an argument from space and time. The Wadi Ais chapter argues that irregular forces win by being everywhere and nowhere, by attacking materials rather than men, and by keeping the enemy holding useless ground. It anticipates later doctrines of insurgency and counterinsurgency.
- I Am Prepared to Die, Medical lens
  The speech anticipates decades of imprisonment and the health burdens of political captivity. It matters for the psychology of endurance, state violence, and bodily risk under apartheid.
- The History of the Church, Philip Schaff
  J H Dulles Librarian of Princeton Theological Seminary for their kindness in granting me the privileges of the libraries under their charge and for their unfailing courtesy shown me in many ways To Mr James McDonald of Shelbyville Ky my thanks are due for his translation of the Testimonies for and against Eusebius printed at the close of the Prolegomena and to Mr F E Moore of New Albany Ind for assistance rendered in connection with the preparation of the indexes Arthur Cushman McGiffert Lane Theological Seminar...
- Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Full Text
  to require that all children of proper age attend some school that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare The inevitable practical result of enforcing the act under consideration would be destruction of appellees' primary schools and perhaps all other private primary schools for normal children within the state of Oregon Appellees are...
- Sartor Resartus, Source
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Context

Quakers faced fines and imprisonment under the Restoration laws against Dissent. Penn's conversion embarrassed his father, a leading naval officer close to the royal family.

Composition

Penn wrote the first version during eight months in the Tower of London after his pamphlet The Sandy Foundation Shaken (1668) was judged blasphemous. He enlarged it greatly in 1682; this text is an 1842 London edition.

Reception

The book was reprinted many times in Britain and America and became a classic of Quaker devotion. Penn's later Frame of Government for Pennsylvania (1682) put his convictions about conscience and liberty into law.

Faith / Religion Virtue Ethics Class / Society Stoicism Endurance

Comparisons

The Journal of George Fox
Fox's journal records the practices that Penn defends in theory.
The Imitation of Christ
Thomas à Kempis also calls for self-denial and carrying the cross daily.
The Journal of John Woolman
Woolman lived out Penn's teaching on simplicity in the next century.
The Pilgrim's Progress
Bunyan's Vanity Fair satirizes the worldliness Penn condemns.
The Cost of Discipleship
Bonhoeffer's modern call to costly discipleship echoes Penn's theme.
Areopagitica
Milton's defence of liberty of conscience comes from the same revolutionary era.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“no crown but by the cross, no life eternal but through death”

— William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, Chapter II (William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, new edition, revised (London: Harvey & Darton, 1842), via Project Gutenberg #44895).Quote card

The History of the Church, Lesson: Communities survive by preserving memory
Communities survive by preserving memory. Eusebius builds continuity through lists, documents and martyr stories. History becomes institutional identity.
The History of the Church, Lesson: Archives are arguments
Archives are arguments. The long quotations look documentary, yet selection and arrangement interpret the past. Eusebius shows that citation is never neutral.
The History of the Church, Book 6, Origen traditions
Ascetic discipline and bodily renunciation are framed as scholarly and spiritual seriousness.
The Last Battle, Chapter 16: Farewell to Shadowlands
The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning. Aslan tells the children that the railway accident in England was real and that they will not be sent back.
New Astronomy and The Harmony of the World, Lesson: Eight minutes of arc
Eight minutes of arc. Kepler had a model of Mars that most astronomers would have accepted, but it disagreed with Tycho's observations by about a quarter of the moon's apparent width. Because he trusted the observations, he discarded years of work. The episode shows how respect for accurate evidence can overturn a satisfying theory.

Frequently cited

“Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown.”

— William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, Preface (William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, new edition, revised (London: Harvey & Darton, 1842), via Project Gutenberg #44895).Quote card

New Astronomy and The Harmony of the World, Lesson: Eight minutes of arc
Eight minutes of arc. Kepler had a model of Mars that most astronomers would have accepted, but it disagreed with Tycho's observations by about a quarter of the moon's apparent width. Because he trusted the observations, he discarded years of work. The episode shows how respect for accurate evidence can overturn a satisfying theory.
A Discourse on Political Economy, Lesson: Taxing superfluity, sparing necessity
Taxing superfluity, sparing necessity. Rousseau's tax principles are concrete: consent of the people, proportion to property, no tax on mere necessities, heavy duties on luxuries, and caution about taxes on land and corn that fall on the farmer. He grounds them in an account of how social advantages already favour the rich, and in the conviction that preventing poverty is better than relieving it. His proposals can be compared with those of Smith two decades later.
The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch), Chapter XLVIII.2
And at that hour that Son of Man was named In the presence of the Lord of Spirits, And his name before the Head of Days. The naming of the Son of Man before creation, in the second Similitude.
The Argonautica, Book III, Jason leaves Aeetes' hall
and her soul creeping like a dream flitted in his track as he went. Medea watches Jason go out from the palace after Aeetes has set him his ordeal.
The Old Regime and the Revolution, Preface
they used its ruins as materials for the construction of their new society. Tocqueville's thesis: the revolutionaries kept the sentiments and habits of the old regime and built with them.

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The definition of the cross in the opening chapters.
Penn's analysis of pride.
The defence of plain speech and hat honour.
The testimonies in Part II.

Key terms and names

Self-denial: Refusing one's selfish desires for a higher purpose.
Plain speech: Quaker use of 'thee' and 'thou' and refusal of titles.
Luxury: Penn's term for excess in dress, food and pleasure.
Tower of London: Royal fortress used as a state prison, where Penn wrote the book.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What does Penn say the cross of Christ is?
Comprehension Which three forms of pride does Penn discuss?
Interpretation Why does Penn connect bowing and titles with pride?
Interpretation How does Part II use non-Christian witnesses?
Big Question Is simplicity a virtue in a wealthy society?
Big Question Can refusing a social custom ever be an act of respect rather than rudeness?

Faith Connections

Luke 9:23 (Scripture)
'Let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily', cited by Penn.
James 2:1-4 (Scripture)
Warning against favouring the rich, related to plain speech.
The Imitation of Christ (Great Conversation)
A medieval classic of self-denial that Penn's work parallels.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Eternal life comes only through the daily inward cross of self-denial, which humbles pride, ends luxury and expresses itself in plain, honest living.

Rhetorical device: accumulated testimony. Penn piles up examples and authorities to show that his teaching is reasonable and ancient.

Debate: Resolved: that Penn's plain style was a meaningful protest rather than a mere custom.

Memory Work

no crown but by the cross, no life eternal but through death
Chapter II. The thesis of the book in a single line.

Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown.
Preface. Penn's own compressed summary of the discourse.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain what Penn means by 'no cross, no crown' and evaluate how his teaching applies to Quaker customs.

Comparison with The Imitation of Christ: Compare Penn's teaching on the cross with Thomas à Kempis's.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Write a short essay in Penn's style on a modern form of luxury or vanity, then a reply defending it.
Fiction
Write a letter from Penn in the Tower to his father explaining why he would not recant.
Dialogue
Write a dialogue between Penn and his father, the admiral, about plain speech and hat honour.