“If you would know God and worship and serve God as you should do, you must come to the means he has ordained and given for that purpose. Some seek it in books, some in learned men, but what they look for is in themselves, yet they overlook it. “
William Penn
From time to time I visit Philadelphia to finish some work at the foundation with which I have been associated for ten years. Since the foundation is in the city’s historical district, I stay at the Thomas Bond House, a bed-and-breakfast historic home opposite the City Tavern. Thomas Bond, friend of Benjamin Franklin, was a physician and founder of the Pennsylvania Hospital.
One room in the house is called the William Penn room, and looking out of my window I see William Penn, a small replica of the statue at the pinnacle of Philadelphia’s City Hall.
The Penn replica on a short pillar is the centerpiece of Welcome Park, a small paved area with trees, benches, and wall legends, marking the location of Penn’s slate-roof house near Penn’s Landing where he arrived to construct his new colony of Pennsylvania.
On the south wall is an illustrated story of Penn’s life, describing his being thrown out of Oxford University, his altercations with his admiral father (whose victory over the Dutch was the reason William could request of the king a piece of land in the Americas), joining Friends, being imprisoned in the Tower of London, his friendship with the Indians, and his achievements and travails in Pennsylvania.
I decided I needed to read the story from beginning to end, not just snippets as I had done in the past. An old man was sitting on a bench near where the Quaker part of the story was located, so I was hesitant to go near there, knowing I’d just be asked for small change by a homeless stranger. But I did want to read the whole story. As I came closer, I noticed the man’s full grey beard and what looked like a bed roll on the bench next to him. Sure enough he started talking to me, but what he said was totally unexpected. He pointed to William Penn and said, “He’s not dead. William Penn is alive. And he’ll be visiting you this afternoon.”
Well, William Penn was with me not only then but for a number of days thereafter, as I memorized and pondered the statement at the head of this article.
It is an extraordinary statement enshrining the central Quaker message of the inner light but in a form that seems to me more accessible for people today than George Fox’s oft-quoted statement that when his hopes for enlightenment from the churches or books or preachers had all been dashed, “Then O then I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.'” That classic statement brought solace and light to thousands in Fox’s time and to many since then, but I wonder how much help it is to today’ s skeptical but desperate seeker. Not many people today hear voices speaking to them no matter how open they are to new leadings, and the words “Christ Jesus” rather than attracting people often put them off, reminding them of evangelical preachings and the unsatisfying church services they attended in their childhood.
The import of Penn’s message is the same as that of Fox, for as one turns within and stops thinking that books or other individuals have the sought-for secret, one slowly–or occasionally quite rapidly-becomes aware of guidance, of insights, of light for the next step forward. And as one grows in awareness of the nature of this guidance, the nature of that divine spirit within us, then that inner light reveals itself, with characteristics remarkably like those of the person who lived a mere 80 generations ago, the carpenter’s son, Jesus of Nazareth.
Penn’s advice is so extraordinarily simple. Religion is not complicated. You do not have to be learned or be guided by a great teacher-though that has certainly been a help to some-but all we need is already within us, if only we become conscious of it.
The thought crossed my mind that perhaps almost all religious reformers had in common the message that religion was simpler than what that religion’s official representatives were preaching. The Old Testament prophets inveighed against burnt offerings when sacrificed as a substitute for contrite hearts. The prophet Micah proclaimed that “all that the Lord requires of thee is to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” Even long before the time of the prophets, there is a passage in Deuteronomy (30: 11- 14) that makes the same claim as William Penn, that guidance is available right within ourselves. In one of his last admonitions before Moses sent the Israelites across the Jordan into the promised land, he said to his people
For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off;
It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
And Jesus, in a time when the Pharisees were well on their way to codifying every aspect of daily behavior for the devout believer, proclaimed the simplicity of true religion-to love God and to love thy neighbor as thyself.
Today Fox’s words are not as directly understood as they were by those who heard him in his time. Three hundred years of further Christian history have elapsed, new Christian groups have emerged with their own languages and their own interpretations of such classic Christian terms as Jesus, Christ, sin, salvation, redemption, atonement, and so on. And the Western world has become aware of non-Christian religions as alternative ways by which people can worship and find guidance and solace.
Why, I wonder, is William Penn’s formulation of the Quaker message not better known and more often quoted? It speaks, it seems to me, in language that is remarkably modern and brings the Quaker message vividly to us.
“If you would know God and worship and serve God as you should do, you must come to the means he has ordained and given for that purpose. Some seek it in books, some in learned men, but what they look for is in themselves, yet they overlook it.”
