Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A Quote From Isaac Penington

I read this the other night in Selections from the Works of Isaac Penington:

The main thing in religion is to receive a principle of life from God, whereby the mind may be changed, and the heart made able to understand the mysteries of his kingdom, and to see and walk in the way of life; and this is the travail of the souls of the righteous, that they may abide, grow up, and walk with the Lord in this principle; and that others also, who breathe after him, may be gathered into, and feel the virtue of the same principle.


I parallels writings of George Fox, such as this one from epistle 33:

Therefore, ye believers in the light, wait in the wisdom, that with it and in it ye may be ordered to the glory of God, that among you nothing may reign, but light, and life, and wisdom, and power, the dread and fear of the Lord be among you, and truth and righteousness reign; which will answer the light of Christ in every man.


Penington has a soft, poetic way of expressing the life in the Spirit, while Fox tends to be more direct. I find both to be helpful.