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Isaac Penington
Isaac Penington (1616 – October 8, 1679) was an English preacher and writer whose calling from God within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) profoundly shaped early Quaker theology and practice through preaching and prolific writing across the mid-17th century. Born in London, England, to Isaac Penington, a Puritan merchant and Lord Mayor of London (1642–1643), and Abigail Allen, he was the eldest son in a prominent family. Educated at the Inner Temple (admitted 1634) and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge (matriculated 1637), he was called to the bar in 1639 but abandoned a legal career after a spiritual quest led him to reject formal religion, embracing Quakerism by 1658 following his 1654 marriage to Mary Proude Springett, a widow with similar spiritual leanings. Penington’s calling from God emerged after encountering Quakers like George Fox, prompting him to preach an inward faith rooted in the "light of Christ within," a message he shared through sermons at meetings and writings despite six imprisonments between 1661 and 1670 for refusing oaths and attending banned gatherings. His sermons, delivered with a gentle yet convicted tone, called for a direct experience of God, free from outward forms, influencing Quakers like William Penn, his stepdaughter Gulielma’s husband. A key author, he penned works like The Way of Life and Death (1656) and The Scattered Sheep Sought After (1659), with over 100 titles, many written from prison cells in Aylesbury and Reading. Married to Mary, with whom he had five children—John, Isaac, William, Edward, and Mary—he passed away at age 63 at Goodnestone, Kent, and was buried at Jordans Quaker Burial Ground in Buckinghamshire.
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Isaac Penington preaches to the army, urging them to reflect on their past betrayals of the Lord and the missed opportunities to fulfill His work. He calls for humility, meekness, and a readiness to listen to the Lord in order to avoid being deceived again. Penington warns against the dangers of fleshly reasoning and urges the army to keep simplicity alive, seeking God's guidance to prevent worldly wisdom from taking over. He encourages them to stay upright and faithful to the Lord's purposes, carrying out His will without deviation.
To the Army
TO THE ARMY [no date] FRIENDS, Do ye not see how often ye have been betrayed? The Lord hath done great things for you, and by you, and put great opportunities into your hands: but still they have been lost, his work fallen to the ground, and his name become a reproach over all the earth, through your means. Oh! be abased before the Lord, and lie very low, and consider how justly he may lay you aside from being his instruments, in that great and glorious work he hath to bring to pass. If ye desire to stand, look up to the Lord, to keep your spirits very low, and poor, and meek, and ready to hear. Oh! wait to know what hath betrayed you hitherto! for assuredly that lies in wait to betray you again: and if the Lord mightily preserve you not from it, will make you forget him, and cause you to mind and seek yourselves afresh, so soon as ever your fears are over. Therefore, in the day of your prosperity, the Lord watch over you, and keep you close to the stirrings and honest movings for public good, that have sprung up in your hearts in the days of your adversity; and take heed, lest the subtlety in the wise, fleshly-reasoning part deceive you; but fear the Lord in your reasonings, and beg earnestly of him to keep the simplicity alive in you, that the fleshly wisdom get not mastery over it. For the evil counsellor is near you, even in your own <293> bosoms, and he lies lurking in plausible and fair-seeming reasonings. Therefore keep close to the simplicity, and let your reasonings be servants to it, and not masters over it. Ah! remember how often ye have started aside like a warped bow: become now at length upright to the Lord, carrying faithfully to the mark those his arrows which he is shooting at the regions of Babylon. This is from one who waits for what the Lord will effect, and hopes at length to see an instrument in his hand wherein his soul will delight. ISAAC PENINGTON THE YOUNGER
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Isaac Penington (1616 – October 8, 1679) was an English preacher and writer whose calling from God within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) profoundly shaped early Quaker theology and practice through preaching and prolific writing across the mid-17th century. Born in London, England, to Isaac Penington, a Puritan merchant and Lord Mayor of London (1642–1643), and Abigail Allen, he was the eldest son in a prominent family. Educated at the Inner Temple (admitted 1634) and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge (matriculated 1637), he was called to the bar in 1639 but abandoned a legal career after a spiritual quest led him to reject formal religion, embracing Quakerism by 1658 following his 1654 marriage to Mary Proude Springett, a widow with similar spiritual leanings. Penington’s calling from God emerged after encountering Quakers like George Fox, prompting him to preach an inward faith rooted in the "light of Christ within," a message he shared through sermons at meetings and writings despite six imprisonments between 1661 and 1670 for refusing oaths and attending banned gatherings. His sermons, delivered with a gentle yet convicted tone, called for a direct experience of God, free from outward forms, influencing Quakers like William Penn, his stepdaughter Gulielma’s husband. A key author, he penned works like The Way of Life and Death (1656) and The Scattered Sheep Sought After (1659), with over 100 titles, many written from prison cells in Aylesbury and Reading. Married to Mary, with whom he had five children—John, Isaac, William, Edward, and Mary—he passed away at age 63 at Goodnestone, Kent, and was buried at Jordans Quaker Burial Ground in Buckinghamshire.