The Inward Journey of Isaac Penington

Penington’s life and writings reveal the purest, finest, and most genuine mysticism which has appeared in the Society of Friends. He was the first convert to the movement to write with literary taste and scholarly knowledge. Though not so practical as Penn and less systematic than Barclay, two other scholars who were soon to follow him, he is surpassed by none in his excellent, fervent, vivid sense of the Divine Presence within. All else seemed to him an unsubstantial “world of shadows” which served only to obscure the brilliance of the Inward Light.