Isaac Penington and the Authority of George Fox

Isaac Penington and the Authority of George Fox Rosemary Moore Isaac and Mary Penington joined the Quaker movement as it was beginning to change from one ofthe most radical of the British sects to a body primarily concerned with its own internal life and seeking to present itself as sober and respectable. The damping-down of Quaker enthusiasm is noticeable from the middle 1650s, as quaking and other extravagant actions became less common. After the Nayler affair, on the instructions of George Fox, the administration ofthe movement was tightened up. Senior Friends wrote disciplinary documents, attempting to regulate the light in the conscience which was liable to indicate various things to independently -minded Quakers. An embryo county organization that became the basis for the Quarterly Meetings was set up, and the Quaker headquarters moved from Swarthmoor to London. Not all who called themselves Quakers welcomed these developments , and during the later part ofthe seventeenth century British Quakerism experienced serious disputes concerning constitutional structures and discipline, all related to the personality and policies of George Fox. The Peningtons were closely involved with these events, and their extensive records, put together by their son John, provide plenty of material for the historian. While Penington's influence in shaping the course of Quaker history was limited, there is considerable interest in the story of his personal relationship with Fox as it appears in his mainly unpublished correspondence. Isaac Penington (1616-1679) was the eldest son of Sir Isaac Penington, a seriously wealthy merchant, one-time Lord Mayor of London, and a staunch supporter of the revolutionary government of the 1640s. Isaac junior received the education of an eldest son of good family, which was Cambridge University and the law. There is no indication that he took any part in the family business. He pursued his own interests in theology, and was a disappointment to his father, who found him "ever full of fancies" and given to "cross carriage," that is, perverse behaviour.1 He was a deeply religious young man, not at ease in the world in which he found himself, and his Calvinistic background exacerbated the tendency to depression from which he suffered throughout his life.2 (It is not important if one describes this as clinical depression or as the dark night of the soul. What is important is to note that Penington suffered severely in this way, after his convincement as a Quaker as well as before.) As a young man he wrote several books on personal religion and the relation between individual faith and the government of the country. At this time he could have known nothing ofQuakers, then in their very early stages, but the seeds ofthe ideas that eventually drew him to the Quakers Isaac Penington and the Authority of George Fox97 are there. He described Christian happiness in his books, but he did not know it himself. He no longer felt at unity with an organized church, and became one of those called Seekers. In 1654 he married Mary Springett, a young widow with a small daughter. She wrote of Isaac: "All things that appeared to be religion and were not so, were very manifest to him; so that, till then, he was sick and weary of all appearances. My heart became united to him, and I desired to be made serviceable to him in his disconsolate condition; for he was as one alone and miserable in this world."3 Mary also was a lonely person, isolated after the deaths of her husband, small son and mother-in-law, and left "wearied in seeking and not finding." Their partnership was long and strong. The Peningtons went to live in The Grange, a considerable property in Buckinghamshire that had been presumably made over to Isaac junior by his father. They knew of Quakers for several years before becoming involved, but like most people of their social standing they were not favorably impressed at first. Isaac wrote of Quakers: "They were for the most part mean, as to the outward; young country lads, ofno deep understanding or ready expression."4 Presently, however, the Peningtons had opportunities to talk and meet with Quakers, and their opinion of Quakers improved...