A Sermon Delivered by WILLIAM PENN, at Devonshire House Meeting, Date unknown.
The United Friend, Vol. 1 No. 1 (3rd month 15th, 1895, Pages
This is the Quaker Homiletics Online Anthology, Section One: The 17th Century.
This is that which did spring up in my soul this morning as I sat here among you. O that all here
present may become living members of Christ Jesus our blessed Head, and live the life they live in
the body by the faith of the Son of God! He that made us knows our frame; He that created us,
and formed and fashioned us after his own image, and gave us powers and faculties to glorify and
serve Him, that we might come to enjoy Him for ever, requires of no man or woman more than
He hath given them power to perform. It concerneth us all therefore, to live in the exercise of that
divine gift and grace, and ability which our Lord Jesus Christ hath distributed and communicated
to every member of his body, that we may come to shine as stars in the firmament of glory. We
should do good in our different powers and capacities. And as every member is by the circulation
of blood made useful and beneficial in the natural body, so the Divine life and blood of the Son of
God circulates through his whole mystical body, and reaches life to every living member. Here is
no obstruction through unfaithfulness or inordinate love of the world, or [through] any
temptations from without us or corruption from within us. Here is a free channel--here is an open
passage for life and quickening influences from Christ our glorious Head to all his members.
There is in Christ (in whom the fulness of God dwells bodily)a river whose streams make glad the
city of God-a fountain to supply and refresh the whole generation of the righteous, that desire to
be found in Him, (as the apostle speaks,) not having their own righteousness, but clothed with the
robe of His righteousness, which is the garment Of salvation.
Therefore, wait this day, my dear friends, to have your hearts filled with the love and life of the
Son of God, that you may appear with joy at His tribunal, where all mankind must appear, and
everyone give an account of what he hath done in the body, whether it be good or evil in the sight
of God. Let every one of you be careful to live according to what you know, and improve the
talents that God hath given you, and you shall find that in keeping His commandments there is
great reward, and that God is good to Israel, to them that are of a clean heart. "Had not the Lord
been on our side," may Israel say; "Had not the Lord been on our side when men rose up against
us," may we say, they had swallowed us up, and the temptation of the devil would have prevailed
over us, and we had fallen long ago. It is not we that have stood firm in times of trial and trouble,
but it is the Lord that hath stood by us, and made us stand; and the love of God to his people now
is as great as ever it was; his arm is not shortened .that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it
cannot hear. Therefore travel on, and faint not, and you shall come with joy to the end of your
journey; and you shall be satisfied with the fatness of God's house, and say with the Psalmist,
"Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be still praising thee." It is the faithful and
sincere that shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, and enter into his everlasting kingdom.
O my friends, live as a people bowed down in the presence of the great and holy God and walk
humbly with him; be humbled under his mighty hand, and you shall be exalted in due time. The
God of heaven hath visited your souls with his divine power and grace, and given a refreshing
sense of his love, that you may perceive and feel a daily renewing of your strength. O wait upon
the Lord for his divine power to enable you to conquer the power of Satan; that you may go on
conquering and to conquer, till you come to the New Jerusalem, the city of God and land of peace
and rest. Beware of idolatry, bow not down to the work of your own hands; that too many are
guilty of who set their hearts and affections on low and earthly things. Let the word of exhortation
of the apostle enter into your hearts, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." Let this be the
cry of your souls, "Lord, preserve and keep me this day, every day, and to the end of my days;
that I may be not only convinced of the truth but really converted to it, and walk in the truth and
persevere therein to the end, that I may be saved." Remember Lot's wife; look not back to
Sodom; walk in the light as children of light, with your faces Sionward, and rejoice in hope of the
glory of God. "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now," saith the apostle, "are ye light in the
Lord."
Walk in the light of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, who was given for a light to light all the
Gentiles and to be the glory of his people Israel. He shall be the desire of all nations; the mighty
Saviour upon whom God hath laid help. Believe in him, cleave to him and follow him, and you
shall be saved both from your sins and the wrath 'to come. "God is light," saith, the apostle John,
"and in him is no darkness at all; if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." We know him
to be the true rock and foundation of God, which standeth sure and will stand sure in stormy and
tempestuous times. Blessed are they that build upon this foundation which God hath laid. Blessed
be God which hath opened your eyes and given you to see this sure foundation, which we must
build all our hopes of salvation upon; and not upon any other foundation whatsoever--not upon
men's arts, and parts, and human acquirements. O the unsearchable riches of Christi that we may,
and are, only to covet and seek after. Then we shall inherit substance indeed, and say of a truth,
"The Lord is good unto his people, he will satisfy them with his loving kindness Which is better
than life, and surround them with his Almighty arm, and be unto them as the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land."
Be not discouraged, notwithstanding the furious and impetuous assaults of your spiritual enemies;
when God is pleased to arise for your help, your enemies shall be scattered. "In the world," saith
our Saviour, "ye shall have trouble, but in me ye shall have peace; be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world." Our Lord Jesus Christ conquered and triumphed over the world, and over
principalities and powers, and death and hell; and we shall overcome through Him that hath loved
us; his grace will be sufficient for us. Let us wait for his salvation; and, in order to it, wait to
know, and then do his mind and will; and so redeem our time and double our diligence, that we
may improve our talents and give up our accounts with joy. And then if we are under doubts and
fears, we may say with David, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted
within me? hope in the Lord, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.'' God is
pleased to exercise his people many times with divers troubles, trials, and afflictions, to wean
them from this world, and from the inordinate love of the pleasures and enjoyments of it, that their
minds may not be drawn away by the things that are seen, which are temporal, from the things
that are not seen, which are eternal. Let us take straight steps towards the glory that shall be
revealed; that, as every day we are a step nearer to the grave, we may be also a step nearer to a
blessed eternity. It was the voice of Moses the man of God, and that which he had in charge from
Heaven concerning the children of Israel in their march towards Canaan, "Say unto the people,
Go forward; there is a good land before you, a land flowing with milk and honey." The Lord was
with them, and wrought great things for them; and he hath also wrought great things for us. Let
us all press, therefore, towards the mark [for the prize] of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,
till we come to that city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and that kingdom
that cannot be shaken, which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Let your prayers and strong cries be to the Lord for his help; for we are not sufficient of ourselves
for any good word or work; it is his almighty arm and power only that can save us from our
spiritual enemies, and enable us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; yea and to
work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And pray let us, with Moses, "choose
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,"
and let us turn our backs upon this world and the glory of it and live so as seeing Him who is
invisible. Let us follow them who through faith and patience have inherited the promises. Suffer
not your hearts to cleave to this world, nor to any pleasure nor enjoyment in it that may be a snare
and temptation to draw your minds and affections from the Giver to the gift. Live a self-denying
life; keep your dominion, you that have it, over that which hath dominion over you; and then you
may say, "Thy kingdom is come, and thy will is done on earth as it is done in heaven." Then the
power of sin shall be subdued in your souls, and the body of sin and death shall be destroyed; and,
as you have had cause to cry out with the apostle, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death?" so each of you will be able to rejoice, and say with him, "I thank
God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, I am made free from the law of sin and death." And, my
friends, when the mountain of the Lord's house shall be set a-top of all the mountains, then shall
you rejoice and praise his holy name.
O that the nations round about might come to the saving knowledge of God' and Jesus Christ,
which is life eternal! Look for the appearance and manifestation of the Son of God in your hearts;
then you will admire and adore the mercy, justice, holiness, patience and long-suffering of God
which will lead you to repentance. Then you will cry out and say, "God is just; God is merciful;
God is holy, and abundant in richness and truth. He hath made us sensible of the riches of his
goodness and truth and of his forbearance, patience and long-suffering. I will bless and praise his
holy, great, and excellent name, and say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none
upon earth whom I desire in comparison to thee. In thy favor is life, and thy loving-kindness is
better than life, and that which I esteem above all things on the face of the earth."
O friends, be you thankful to God for the manifestation of his love and mercy to you! Take heed
of an ungrateful spirit. Many have outlived their youthful greenness, and that tenderness they had
when God first awakened them to consider their ways and to seek after him with their whole
heart. "I remember," saith the Lord, by Jeremiah, "the kindness of thy youth, and the day of thy
espousals."
When there was nothing but darkness in Egypt, there was light in Goshen. "Ye," saith the apostle, "were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord." Let us walk then as children of the light, and hate the works of darkness. We that are made the living witnesses of that power, and wisdom and goodness of God, let us sink down into self-abasement and humility, and we shall feel the living openings of the Spirit of Truth in our hearts and receive with meekness the ingrafted Word in which is light and life, that is able to save our souls; and submit to the authority of God therein, that the word of Christ may dwell richly in us, and become the power of God to our salvation. "Now the God of peace which brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight;" to whom be glory, praise, and thanksgiving, who alone is worthy, who is God over all, blessed for ever and ever. Amen.