glittering church, that is inwardly polluted: for know, as thou sowest, thou reapest, in the great day of account. So to God's Spirit, in thy own conscience, do I recommend thee, that leads out of all evil, and quickens thee to God, as thou obeyest it, and makes thee a child of God, and an heir of glory. I am, in much haste, and as much love, 'London, 9th October, 1675.' Thy true friend, W. PENN.'

In the 12th month of this year, one Matthew Hide, a person that had been very troublesome in the Quakers meetings, by opposing their ministers in their public testimony and prayers, was taken sick; and on his death-bed, being under great remorse of conscience for what he had done, he could not be easy till he had sent for some of that people, and particularly George Whitehead, to whom he expressed great sorrow for the abuses done them, declaring them to be the children of God, and begging mercy of the Lord for his wilful opposition to known truth in gainsaying them; and died penitent. This gave occasion to our author to publish, as a warning to others, a narrative, entitled, "Saul smitten to the Ground."

In the year 1676, he became one of the proprietors of West Jersey in America, and was instrumental in the first colonizing of that province by the English: for king Charles II. having given the propriety of that country to the Duke of York, he granted the same to Sir George Berkley and the Lord Carteret, the former of whom sold his part to one Edward Billing, a Quaker; whose circumstances in the world afterward declining, he transferred his right to William Penn, Gawen Lawrey, and Nicholas Lucas, in trust for the payment of his debts: they accordingly allotted out and sold the lands; and many people from England transported themselves, and settling there, in a few years it became a flourishing plantation, and so continues. The chief town of it is Burlington, situate on the great river Delaware. But we return to religious matters.

About this time it pleased God to inspire the hearts of two protestant ladies of great quality in Germany, with a sense of the follies and vanities of the world, and to excite them to an earnest inquiry after the knowledge of Himself. The one was the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick V. prince palatine of the Rhine and king of Bohemia, granddaughter of king James I. and sister to prince Rupert, and the late princess Sophia, king George the first's mother: the other, Anna Maria de Hornes, countess of Hornes, à familiar acquaintance of the said princess. The report of their religious inclination coming to our author's intelli

gence, who embraced every opportunity of watering the growing seeds of virtue, he sent them a letter of encouragement and consolation, exhorting those noble women to a constancy and perseverance in that holy way which the Lord had directed their feet into. The letter itself, though large, being worthy of the reader's perusal, he will find in this collection.

In the year 1677, he travelled into Holland and Germany; an account of which, written and published by himself, is likewise hereafter inserted.

Soon after his return from Holland, he wrote a letter in answer to one he had received from John Pennyman, a person who had once professed himself a Quaker, but was now become an opposer of them; part of which letter containing advice well adapted to the case of such a backslider, we here subjoin.

To John Pennyman.

'John Pennyman,

'I received a letter from thee since my arrival in this land.Let me tell thee, in the spirit of truth and meekness, my soul has been frequently sad and heavy for thy sake, because of those degenerate and sour grapes which thou hast brought forth, the unnatural and unkindly fruits that of late years have proceeded from thee. Ah! Whence art thou fallen, and what art thou turned to? What is become of thy tenderness and thy zeal for the way of truth, as professed amongst us? Verily thou art increasing thy burthen, and strengthening the Lord's judgment against thee, and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.

'Hadst thou been told of the things thou hast done, ten years since, thou wouldst never have believed it; thou wouldst have cried out, God forbid! far be it from me!" But one weakness brings on another, and one unfaithfulness increaseth another. O that thou wouldst be advised! That thou wouldst see from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and turn to thy first love, and do thy first works; for I have nothing but love and good-will in my heart, both to thee and thy wife; and it is with the grief of a friend of God, and of you both, that I behold the evil and pernicious use that some envious, prejudiced, and unreasonable people make of you, and your carriage to us; yet scorn and deride you in their hearts, after they have served their turns of you. O return, if yet mercy may be found with the Lord, and be not found fighting against him. O that my love could take hold of you, and that my life could raise

any tenderness in you, that yet you might be gathered, and not utterly perish.

:

'This I tell you, in the name and fear of the Lord, the weighty power and life and glory of God is amongst us as a people and though there may be some personal weaknesses, or miscarriages, through the unfaithfulness of some particulars, that serve as food for prejudiced spirits to feed upon, and though some go out from us, and turn against us, speaking lies in hypocrisy, that is, under the pretence of truth, which may cause some to stumble, and several to be astonished, yet all this shall work together for good to them that fear the Lord. It shall tend to greater watchfulness, diligence, and faithfulness to the Lord; and the just shall live more and more by faith, through which they shall overcome all their enemies, and stand in their lot at the end of all days, and live and reign with the Lord for ever. I should willingly spend an hour with thee upon this subject, if I knew when and where without inconvenience to either of us. In the mean while I wish thee well, and for ever. Thy true friend, 'London, 18th of the 9th 'Month, 1677. WILLIAM PENN.'

The people called Quakers being now harrassed with severe prosecutions in the Exchequer, on penalties of twenty pounds per month, or two thirds of their estates, by laws made against Papists, but unjustly turned upon them; William Penn, soliciting the parliament for redress of those grievances, presented the following petitions, viz.

To the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament. The request of the people called Quakers.

'BESIDES those many and great sufferings we have sustained by the execution of laws made against us, to the ruin of many industrious families, we have been many of us much damnified both in our estates and persons, sometimes even to death itself, by laws neither made against us, nor so much as designed against such a people as we are, and such principles as we hold.

'And understanding that you are pleased to insert and enact such a distinguishing clause in the bill against popery, as that they who will take the oath and subscribe a declaration therein expressed, shall not suffer by such laws; and because, for pure conscience, we cannot swear at all (in which we are not alone, for that many of the philosophers, Jews, and many of the best of Christians have had the same tenderness) we intreat you to take our particular case into your serious consideration, and give us some relief, other

wise we are like to come under penalties that belong not to us, because we cannot take this oath; though the ground of our refusal be not the matter to which the penalty is affixed, but the form of it; and that, which with due respect and integrity we offer, is, that our word may be taken instead of an oath, and if we are found faulty, that we may undergo that penalty which shall be inflicted in the other case that we and our families may not be exposed to the malice, self-ends, or revenge of any, which we shall certainly be, if you relieve us not; many of us having already suffered upon this single account and it is not to be thought, by wise and charitable men, that we have any ill design in refusing to swear, since we always refused it in our own case, though to our great detriment.'

The request of some called Quakers, presented to the House of Lords, on the behalf of their suffering friends.

'BECAUSE we are informed that this day you are pleased to consider of religion, particularly the Romish, we think it not improper to let you know, that there are many hundreds of us, that are severely prosecuted, not only upon those laws that look upon us as dissenters in general from the church of England, but by several statutes particularly designed against Popery, and persons professing the Romish religion; insomuch that our persecutors are proceeding to a seizure of two thirds of our estates, and give us that trouble, as well as subjecting us to the loss, which will not only render tenants unable to pay their rents, and others to live upon their own, but make both a charge to the country, who have hitherto by their callings and estates contributed to others.

'The injustice of such strained executions, and cruel misapplications of law considered, we intreat you that you would be pleased to compassionate our case, and out of your mercy and justice relieve and right us the way of doing it is left to your wisdom.'

Being thereupon admitted to an hearing before a committee, on the 22d of the month called March, 1678, he made the following speeches.

His first speech to the Committee.

'If we ought to believe that it is our duty, according to the doctrine of the apostle, to be always ready to give an account of the hope that is in us, and that to every sober and private enquirer; certainly much more ought we to hold ourselves obliged to declare with all readiness, when called to it by so great an authority, what is not our hope,

especially when our very safety is eminently concerned in so doing, and that we cannot decline this discrimination of ourselves from Papists, without being conscious to ourselves of the guilt of our own sufferings; for that must every man needs be that suffers mutely, under another character than that which truly and properly belongeth to him and his belief. That which giveth me a more than ordinary right to speak at this time, and in this place, is the great abuse that I have received above any other of my profession; for of a long time I have not only been supposed a Papist, but a seminary, a Jesuit, an emissary of Rome, and in pay from the Pope, a man dedicating my endeavours to the interest and advancement of that party. Nor hath this been the report of the rabble, but the jealousy and insinuation of persons otherwise sober and discreet: nay, some zealous for the Protestant religion, have been so far gone in this mistake, as not only to think ill of us, and to decline our conversation, but to take courage to themselves to prosecute us for a sort of concealed Papists; and the truth is, what with one thing, and what with another, we have been as the wool-sacks, and common whipping-stock of the kingdom: all laws have been let loose upon us, as if the design were not to reform, but to destroy us, and that not for what we are, but for what we are not it is hard that we must thus bear the stripes of another interest, and be their proxy in punishment; but it is worse that some men can please themselves in such a sort of administration.

I would not be mistaken: I am far from thinking it fit that Papists should be whipt for their consciences, because I exclaim against the injustice of whipping Quakers for Papists no; for though the hand pretended to be lifted up against them, hath (I know not by what discretion) lit heavy upon us, and we complain, yet we do not mean that any should take a fresh aim at them, or that they must come in our room for we must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves; for we have good-will to all men, and would have none suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any hand and I humbly take leave to add, that those methods against persons so qualified, do not seem to me to be convincing, or indeed adequate to the reason of mankind; but this I submit to your consideration.

To conclude, I hope we shall be held excused of the men of that profession in giving this distinguishing decla ration, since it is not with design to expose them, but first to pay that regard we owe to the enquiry of this committee, and in the next place, to relieve ourselves from the daily