Mirror For Believers - Isaac Penington

here is an enlightening excerpt from 'Mirror for Believers.'  If there was ever an hour when we need to look in the mirror, and see ourselves as God sees us, it is now....

And mark it: the disciples who were illiterate, and not so knowing of the scriptures that were written of Christ, yet they knew Christ; but the Scribes and Pharisees, who were very skilful in the letter, could not know him. What was the reason? The reason lay in the difference of the eye, or light, with which they looked; one looked with an outward eye, the other with an inward eye. A little inward light will do that, which a great deal of outward light will not do. I can certainly affirm that all the light, which men can gather from the Scriptures, cannot give them the knowledge of Christ as he has appeared in this age; no, or as he has appeared in any age, since the days of the apostles; but a little true inward light will give the knowledge of this thing, and open those scriptures infallibly, (in due time), which all the generations of wise and learned men have been arguing and disputing about, in that wisdom and searching spirit, with which they will never understand them. This is then the main and full reason of the deep error of the Jews, and their desperate splitting upon the rock, which would have saved them. They were begotten of the letter, which was given forth in former ages; but not of the life, which was raised up in their age; and so they knew not how to turn to the light within themselves, which alone was able to give them the true and certain knowledge of the things of God.


Now consider these things well, O you believers of this age! and take heed that you do not fall after the same example of unbelief. "Be not high-minded, but fear." Be not so confident of what you have gathered by your wisdom for truth from the Scriptures, (after the manner that they were, of what they had gathered by their wisdom); but fear, lest you should be mistaken as they were; and wait for the opening of that eye in you which was shut in them; even the true eye, in the true light, by the holy anointing; where there never was nor can be any mistake. The Jews fell by unbelief. Unbelief of What? They believed the Scriptures, they believed according to that knowledge they had gathered from the Scriptures; but they did not believe in the living Word. They had a knowledge abiding in them, which they had gathered from the Scriptures, but they had not the living Word abiding in them; and so their faith was but unbelief, (for the living faith stands in the belief of the living Word in the heart, which the Scriptures direct to; without the knowledge of which, all knowledge of words is vain; and without faith in which, all faith is vain also). Now said the apostle to the Gentile Christian, "You stand by faith." Rom 11:20. By what faith? By faith in that Word in the heart, which they neglected and turned from. Rom 10:8. For Moses had taught them, after the laws and ordinances about worship and sacrifices, that the Word that they were to obey and do, (the Word that could give them life, and make them obedient to all the commandments without), was in their heart and mouth. Deut. 30:14. And so the prophet Micah, when they proposed sacrifices and oil, to please God with, brings them to this which was given to them in common with mankind. Micah 6:8. For all ordinances and laws and observations and practices without, are but to bring to the life within, which is to be found again there, where it was lost, and still lies slain and hidden , (even in the field or house where it was lost). And he that seeks abroad, never finds it; but when the candle is lighted in his own house, and he searches narrowly in the field, in his own heart, and the eternal eye begins to open in him; then he cries out, God was in this place, and I was not aware of it. Ah! how the enemy bewitched me, to run from mountain to mountain! and from hill to hill! and has hereby covered my eye from beholding the mountain of the Lord's house, and from feeling the spring of my life, which I further and further ran from, all the while I was seeking abroad. Therefore, O you professors, be not so conceited like the Jews, and running after them into their desolation and misery, but learn wisdom by their fall! Do not you set up your ordinances and scriptures, after the manner that they set up theirs; for this is your danger. For this I clearly, in the light of the Lord, testify to you: that if you gather a knowledge and wisdom from the letter of the Scriptures, after the manner that they did, without knowledge of the Word within, and without a light within from that Word, you lose the living faith, you are but dead branches; and all your knowledge of scriptures, and practices, and faith, and duties, etc., that you here hold and observe, are but for the fire; and the flames of eternal wrath shall kindle more fiercely upon you because of them, than upon the Jews for you stumble upon the same stumbling-stone at which they stumbled and fell, and it will fall upon you also. And as you have more scriptures than they had, and the experience of their fall to warn you; so your destruction will be exceeding dreadful "if you neglect so great salvation;" of which at this day there are so many living and powerful witnesses, as they are known and owned to be in the light of the Lord, though despised in your exalted and conceited wisdom.
Now to help any honest and single hearts among you over this great stumbling-block of a light within, consider these few things.

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