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“The Day of Small Things”: The Quaker Understanding of Conversion and the Inner Light in the Writings of Isaac Penington the Younger
Abstract
Isaac Penington the Younger (1616-1679) was a prolific first-generation Quaker writer whose tracts provide an intriguing view of the development of Quaker doctrines regarding the inner light and the process of conversion. While always of interest to Quakers, his writings have elicited only sporadic attention on the part of scholars.
While most of Penington’s themes can be found, to a greater or lesser extent, in the writings of such Quakers as George Fox and Robert Barclay, his own particular life experience contributed to an expanded focus on the accessibility of salvation and the degree to which the individual can seek out a connection with the divine. As the son of a prominent Puritan, Alderman Isaac Penington the Elder, who also served briefly as Lord Mayor of London, the younger Penington rejected the world of political power and social status in favor of the more dangerous path of the Quaker. His Cambridge education, problematic relationship with his father, and his association with such London radicals as John Goodwin contributed towards a spirituality that emphasized God’s love, human choice, and the possibility of divine connection and perfection. His own description of his process of conversion provides us with a fresh view of the psychology of conversion. Penington’s tracts, urging the conversion of those around him and providing an apologia for the beliefs of the Friends, are a window on the connections and disputes between Calvinists and Quakers in mid-seventeenth century England.
Isaac Penington the Younger (1616-1679) was a prolific first-generation Quaker writer whose tracts provide an intriguing view of the development of Quaker doctrines regarding the inner light and the process of conversion. While always of interest to Quakers, his writings have elicited only sporadic attention on the part of scholars.
While most of Penington’s themes can be found, to a greater or lesser extent, in the writings of such Quakers as George Fox and Robert Barclay, his own particular life experience contributed to an expanded focus on the accessibility of salvation and the degree to which the individual can seek out a connection with the divine. As the son of a prominent Puritan, Alderman Isaac Penington the Elder, who also served briefly as Lord Mayor of London, the younger Penington rejected the world of political power and social status in favor of the more dangerous path of the Quaker. His Cambridge education, problematic relationship with his father, and his association with such London radicals as John Goodwin contributed towards a spirituality that emphasized God’s love, human choice, and the possibility of divine connection and perfection. His own description of his process of conversion provides us with a fresh view of the psychology of conversion. Penington’s tracts, urging the conversion of those around him and providing an apologia for the beliefs of the Friends, are a window on the connections and disputes between Calvinists and Quakers in mid-seventeenth century England.
211 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2002
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