A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers

by William Penn

And you, young convinced ones, be you entreated and exhorted to a diligent and chaste waiting upon God, in the way of his blessed manifestation and appearance of himself to you. Look not out, but within:

let not another’s liberty be your snare: neither act by imitation, but by sense and feeling of God’s power in yourselves: crush not the tender buddings of it in your souls, nor over-run, in your desires and warmness of affections, the holy and gentle motions of it. Remember it is a still voice that speaks to us in this day, and that it is not to be heard in the noises and hurries of the mind; but is distinctly understood in a retired frame. Jesus loved and chose solitudes, often going to mountains, gardens, and sea sides, to avoid crowds and hurries: to show his disciples it was good to be solitary, and sit loose to the world. Two enemies lie near your states, imagination and liberty; but the plain, practical, living, holy truth, that has convinced you, will preserve you, if you mind it in yourselves, and bring all thoughts, inclinations, and affections, to the test of it, to see if they are wrought in God, or of the enemy, or of your ownselves: so will a true taste, discerning, and judgment, be preserved to you, of what you should do and leave undone. And in your diligence and faithfulness in this way, you will come to inherit substance; and Christ, the eternal wisdom, will fill your treasury. And when you are converted, as well as convinced, then confirm your brethren; and be ready to every good word and work, that the Lord shall call you to: that you may be to his praise, who has chosen you to be partakers, with the saints in light, of a kingdom that cannot be shaken, an inheritance incorruptible in eternal habitations.

And now, as for you that are the children of God’s people, a great concern is upon my spirit for your good and often are my knees bowed to the God of your fathers for you, that you may come to be partakers of the same divine life and power, that have been the

glory of this day: that a generation you may be to God, a holy nation, and a peculiar people, zealous of good works, when all our heads are laid in the dust. O! you young men and women, let it not suffice you, that you are the children of the people of the Lord; you must also be born again, if you will inherit the kingdom of God. Your fathers are but such after the flesh, and could but beget you into the likeness of the first Adam; but you must be begotten into the likeness of the second Adam, by a spiritual generation, or you will not, you cannot, be of his children or offspring. And therefore look carefully about you, O ye children of the children of God; consider your standing, and see what you are in relation to this divine kindred, family, and birth. Have you obeyed the light, and received and walked in the Spirit, which is the incorruptible seed of the word and kingdom of God, of which you must be born again? God is no respecter of persons. The father cannot save or answer for the child, or the child for the father; but in the sin thou sinnest thou shalt die; and in the righteousness thou doest, through Christ Jesus, thou shalt live: for it is the willing and obedient that shall eat the good of the land. Be not deceived, God is mocked. Such as all nations and people sow, such they shall reap at the hand of the just God. And then your many and great privileges, above the children of other people, will add weight in the scale against you, if you choose not the way of the Lord. For you have had line upon line, and precept upon precept, and not only good doctrine but good example; and which is more, you have been turned to, and acquainted with, a principle in yourselves, which others too generally have been ignorant of: and you know you may be as

good as you please, without the fear of frowns and blows, or being turned out of doors, and forsaken of father and mother, for God’s sake and his holy religion; as has been the case of some of your fathers in the day they first entered into this holy path. And if you, after hearing and seeing the wonders that God has wrought in the deliverance and preservation of them, through a sea of troubles, and the manifold temporal, as well as spiritual, blessings that he has filled them with, in the sight of their enemies, should neglect and turn your backs upon so great and near a salvation, you would not only be most ungrateful children to God and them, but must expect that God will call the children of those that knew him not, to take the crown out of your hands, and that your lot will be a dreadful judgment at the hand of the Lord: but, O that it may never be so with any of you! The Lord forbid, saith my soul.

Wherefore, O ye young men and women! look to the rock of your fathers: there is no other God but him, no other light but his, no other grace but his, nor spirit but his, to convince you, quicken, and comfort you; to lead, guide, and preserve you to God’s everlasting kingdom. So will you be possessors as well as professors of the truth, embracing it, not only by education, but judgment and conviction; from a sense begotten in your souls, through the operation of the eternal Spirit and power of God; by which you may come to be the seed of Abraham, through faith, and the circumcision not made with hands; and so heirs of the promise made to the fathers, of an incorruptible crown. That, as I said before, a generation you may be to God, holding up the profession of the blessed truth in the life and

power of it. For formality in religion is nauseous to God and good men; and the more so, where any form or appearance has been new and peculiar, and begun and practised, upon a principle, with an uncommon zeal and strictness. Therefore I say, for you to fall flat and formal, and continue the profession, without that salt and savour by which it is come to obtain a good report among men, is not to answer God’s love, or your parents’ care, or the mind of truth in yourselves, or in those that are without: who, though they will not obey the truth, have sight and sense enough to see if they do that make a profession of it. For where the divine virtue of it is not felt in the soul, and waited for and lived in, imperfections will quickly break out, and show themselves, and detect the unfaithfulness of such persons; and that their insides are not seasoned with the nature of that holy principle which they profess.

Wherefore, dear children, let me entreat you to shut your eyes at the temptations and allurements of this low and perishing world, and not suffer your affections to be captivated by those lusts and vanities that your fathers, for the truth’s sake, long since turned their backs upon: but as you believe it to be the truth, receive it into your hearts, that you may become the children of God: so that it may never be said of you, as the evangelist writes of the Jews in his time, that Christ, the true light, “came to his own, but his own received him not; but to as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the children of God; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;” a most close and comprehensive passage to this occasion. You exactly and peculiarly answer to those professing

Jews, in that you bear the name of God’s people, by being the children, and wearing of the form of God’s people: and he, by his light in you, may be very well said to come to his own, and if you obey it not, but turn your backs upon it, and walk after the vanities of your minds, you will be of those that received him not; which I pray God may never be your case and judgment. But that you may be thoroughly sensible of the many and great obligations you lie under to the Lord for his love, and to your parents for their care: and with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, turn to the Lord, to his gift and Spirit in you; and hear his voice, and obey it, that you may seal to the testimony of your fathers, by the truth and evidence of your own experience: that your children’s children may bless you, and the Lord for you, as those that delivered a faithful example, as well as record of the truth of God unto them. So will the grey hairs of your dear parents, yet alive, go down to the grave with joy, to see you the posterity of truth, as well as theirs: and that not only their nature, but spirit, shall live in you when they are gone.

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