Selection from William Penn’s “A Tender Visitation in the Love God”

When you come to your meetings, both preachers and people, what do you do? Do you then gather together bodily only, and kindle a fire, compassing yourselves about with the sparks of your own kindling (Isa. 50:11) and so please yourselves, and walk in the light of your own fire, and in the sparks which you have kindled, as those did in the Time of Old, whose portion it was to lye down in sorrow? Or rather, do you sit down in True silence, resting from your own will and workings, and waiting upon the Lord (Lam. 3:25, 26, 28), fixed with your minds in that Light, wherewith Christ has enlightened you, until the Lord breaths life in you, refresheth you, and prepares you, and your spirits and souls  (John 1:9), to make you fit for His service, that you may offer unto Him a pure and spiritual sacrifice?  For that which is born of the Flesh, is Flesh; and he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh, reap corruption. For flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. But he that soweth to the Spirit, shall, of the Spirit, reap life eternal, through Christ who has quickened him (John 3:6, Gal. 6:8, 1 Cor. 15:50).

What have you felt then, my friends, of this work in your hearts? Has Christ there appeared? What has He done for you? Have you bowed down before Him, and received Him in your hearts? Is He formed in you? (Gal. 4:19, 2 Cor. 13:5). Do you Live no more, but does Christ Live in you? For if you know not Christ to be in you, then are you yet reprobates, though you confess him in words, as the apostle said of old.

All you therefore, that hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God’s Kingdom, which is an everlasting blessed kingdom, turn in, my friends, and come to Christ, who stands at the door of your hearts and knocks (Rev. 3. 20). He is the Light of the World, and it concerns all true servants of the Lord, to direct all men to this Light, else have they not a right discerning, nor true sight or taste of the things of God, viz., to turn men from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan, to the power, and Kingdom of God, from the dark inventions, and humane traditions of men, to Christ, the great Light of God, the High Priest, and Holy Prophet, whom all men must hear, and out of whose mouth, the law of the Spirit of Life must be received (Rom. 8:2). By this He judges men in righteousness, and in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). This is the High-Priest of all true Christians, and their chief treasure.

Happy therefore are all those that receive Him in their hearts, those that know him to be their Light, their Guide, their King, their Law-Giver, their Bishop, and their Heavenly Shepherd, who follow Him through all things, and through all persecutions, and sufferings, and that steadfastly love his cross (the power of God) and with all gladness embrace the reproach thereof, who have experienced, that without Christ they can do nothing (John 15:5), and therefore wait for His divine power, strength and wisdom, to govern and guide them. For such can receive no testimony from any preachers, except that testimony which is given from the holy unction, in and through them; because men, without Christ, can do nothing (1 John 2:20), as he has said: For men cannot preach, men cannot pray, men cannot sing as it ought to be; yea, men, without Him, can do nothing to the praise and glory of God. For it is only the Son of God that glorifies the Father through his Children. 

And therefore let Him kindle the fire with the pure coals from His holy altar, and do you not offer to Him in your self-will. No, Jesus did not do His own will, but the will of His Father. So let us not do our own, but His Will (John 6:38, 3:11); He has done nothing but what His Father had made known unto Him, and we must all witness what Christ has declared unto us (1 John 1:3), and what He has wrought in us, or else we should be false witnesses.

“A Tender Visitation in the Love of God,” A Collection of the Works of William Penn, Vol 1, Appendix no 20., 1726.