My faith is firm in the blessed, the eternal doctrine preached by Jesus and by every child of God since the creation of the world, especially the great truth that God is the teacher of his people himself; the doctrine that Jesus most emphatically taught, that the kingdom is with man, that there is his sacred and divine temple.
The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another though the divers liveries they wear here makes them strangers. This world is a form; our bodies are form; and no visible act of devotion can be without forms. But the less form in religion, the better, since God is a spirit....
– William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693
Note: Biblical quotations throughout the book are from these translations, noted by title initials:
