Note 47:2 — Chapter V · GERRARD WINSTANLEY
Reading edition
“That which the people called Quakers lay down as a main fundamental in religion, is this, that God, through Christ, hath placed a principle in every man, to inform him of his duty, and to enable him to do it; and that those who live up to this principle, are the people of God; and that those who live in disobedience to it, are not God’s people, whatever name they bear, or profession they may make of religion.... By this principle they understand something that is Divine, and though in man, not of man, but of God; it came from Him and leads to Him all those who will be led by it ... it is the spirit given to every man to profit withal.”—William Penn, Primitive Christianity Revived (1696). Quoted from J. S. Rowntree’s The Society of Friends; its Faith and Practice.