comfort themselves with the conceit, that they were once as they are; and as if there were no collateral or oblique line of the compass or globe, that men may be said to come from to the arctic pole, but directly and immediately from the Antarctic. Thy words shall be thy burden, and I trample thy slander as dirt under my feet.

J. R. Well, Mr. Penn, I have no ill-will towards you; your father was my friend, and I have a great deal of kindness for

you.

W. P. But thou hast an ill way of expressing it. You are grown too high to consider or regard the plea of those you call your forefathers for liberty of conscience against the Papists, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Bradford, &c. It was then plea good enough; My conscience will not let me go to mass, and my conscience wills that I should have an English Testament.

But that single plea for separation then considered reasonable, is now by you who pretend to succeed them, adjudged unreasonable and factious.

I say, since the only just cause of the first revolt from Rome was a dissatisfaction in point of conscience, you cannot reasonably persecute others who have right to the same plea, and yet allow that of your forefathers to be warrantable.

J. R. But you do nothing but stir up the people to sedition, and there was one of your friends that told me you preached sedition, and meddled with the Government.

W. P. We have the unhappiness to be misrepresented, and I am not the least concerned therein. Bring me the man that will dare to justify this accusation to my face; and if I am not able to make it appear that it is both my practice, and the practice of all my friends, to instil principles of peace and moderation into people's minds, and only to war against spiritual wickedness, that all men may be brought to fear God and work righteousness, I shall contentedly undergo the severest punishment all your laws can expose me to.

And as for the King, I make this offer, that if any man living can make it appear, directly or indirectly, from the time I have been called a Quaker, I have contrived or acted any thing injurious to his person, or the English Government, I shall submit my person to your utmost cruelties, and esteem them all but a due recompense. It is hard that I being innocent, should be reputed guilty; but the will of God be done. I accept of bad report as well as good report.

J. R. Well, I must send you to Newgate for six months, and when they are expired, you will come out.

W. P. Is that all? Thou well knowest a larger imprisonment has not daunted me. I accept it at the hand of the Lord, and am contented to suffer His will. Alas, you mistake your interest;

you will miss your aim: this is not the way to compass your ends.

J. R. You bring yourself into trouble; you will be heading of parties, and drawing people after you.

W. P. Thou mistakest; there is no such way as this of yours to render men remarkable. You are angry that I am considerable [popular], and yet you take the very way to make me so, by making this bustle and stir about one peaceable person.

J. R. I wish your adhering to these things may not convert you to something at last.

W. P. I would have thee and all men to know, that I scorn that religion which is not worth suffering for, or which is not able to sustain those that are afflicted for it. Mine is, and whatever may be my lot for my constant profession of it, I am no ways careful, but resigned to answer the will of God, by the loss of goods, of liberty, and life itself. When you have got all, you can have no more, and then perhaps you will be contented, and by that time you will be better informed of our innocency. Thy religion persecutes, and mine forgives: and I desire my God to forgive you all that are concerned in my commitment, and I leave you all in perfect charity, wishing your everlasting salvation.

J. R. Send a coporal, with a file of musketeers along with him. W. P. No, send thy lacquey; I know the way to Newgate. Directly after this he was escorted by a corporal and file of musketeers to Newgate, there to expiate by a six months' imprisonment the crime of having refused to take the oath.

CHAPTER VI.

A 1671.

WHILE he was in Newgate, he had ample employment for his pen. Understanding that Parliament was about to take measures to enforce the Conventicle Act with still greater severity, he addressed a paper to that body in behalf of himself and friends, in which he stated in substance, that though the Quakers could not comply with those laws which prohibited them from worshipping God according to their consciences, it being the prerogative of God alone to preside in all matters of religious faith; yet they owned civil government as God's ordinance, and

were ready to yield obedience to it in all temporal matters, and this for conscience' sake; that they renounced all plots and conspiracies, as horrible impiety; and that, as they had conducted themselves patiently and peaceably under all the changes of the government that had taken place since their first appearance as a society, so it was their determination to continue in the same path. He concluded by expressing a hope, that Parliament, before it proceeded to extremities, would give them a free hearing, as it had done upon the first act for uniformity, and that, upon a better knowledge of them as a people, it would remove their hard burthens.

He wrote two letters about the same time; one to the Sheriffs of London, calling their attention to the keeper of Newgate prison, who had been abusive to some of the society then in confinement there on account of their religion; and another to a Roman Catholic, who, having been offended with his "Seasonable Caveat against Popery," had replied to him with considerable warmth.

He wrote and published also during his confinement the four following works :-"A cautionary Postcript to Truth exalted."- "Truth rescued from imposture; or A Brief Reply to a mere Rhapsody of Lies, Folly, and Slander, but a pretended answer to the trial of William Penn and William Mead."-"A serious Apology for the Principles and Practices of the People called Quakers, against the malicious Aspersions, erroneous Doctrines, and horrid Blasphemies of Thomas Jenner and Timothy Taylor, two Presbyterian Preachers, in their Book entitled Quakerism Anatomized.”- "The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience once more briefly debated and defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and Antiquity."

The fourth work was written upon the same ground as the paper that we have just seen him address to the Parliament; namely, because Parliament were then going to bring in a new bill, or one more severe than the former, against those who dissented from the Established Church. It began with an address to "The Supreme Authority of England," of which the following is a copy;:

Toleration for these ten years past has not been more the cry of some, than persecution has been the practice of others, though not on grounds equally rational.

"The present cause of this address is to solicit a conversion of that power to our relief, which has hitherto been employed to our depression; that after this large experience of our innocency, and long since expired apprenticeship of cruel sufferings, you will be pleased to cancel all our bonds, and give us a possession of those freedoms to which we are entitled by English birthright.

"This has been often promised to us, and we as earnestly have expected the performance; but to this time we labour under the unspeakable pressure of nasty prisons, and daily confiscation of our goods, to the apparent ruin of entire families.

"We would not attribute the whole of this severity to malice, since not a little share may justly be ascribed to misintelligence. "For it is the infelicity of governors to see and hear by the eyes and ears of other men; which is equally unhappy for the people.

"And we are bold to say, that suppositions and mere conjectures have been the best measures that most have taken of us and of our principles; for, whilst there have been none more inoffensive, we have been marked for capital offenders.

"It is hard that we should always lie under this undeserved imputation, and which is worse, be persecuted as such without the liberty of a just defence.

"In short, if you are apprehensive that our principles are inconsistent with the civil government, grant us a free conference about the points in question, and let us know what are those laws essential to preservation that our opinions carry an opposition to and if, upon a due inquiry, we are found so heterodox as represented, it will be then but time enough to inflict these heavy penalties upon us.

"And as this medium seems the fairest and most reasonable, so can you never do yourselves greater justice either in the vindication of your proceedings against us, if we be criminal, or, if innocent, in disengaging your service of such as have been the authors of so much misinformation.

"But could we once obtain the favour of such debate, we doubt not to evince a clear consistency of our life and doctrine with the English Government; and that an indulging of Dissenters in the sense defended is not only most Christian and rational, but prudent also; and the contrary, however plausibly insinuated, the most injurious to the peace, and destructive of that discreet balance, which the best and wisest states have ever carefully observed.

"But if this fair and equal offer find not a place with you on which to rest its foot, much less that it should bring us back the

olive-branch of toleration, we heartily embrace and bless the providence of God, and in his strength resolve by patience to out-weary persecution, and by our constant sufferings seek to obtain a victory more glorious than any our adversaries can achieve by all their cruelties."

He began the preface by observing, that, if the friends of persecution were men of as much reason as they counted themselves to be, it would be unnecessary for him to inform them, that no external coercive power could convince the understanding, neither could fines amd imprisonments be judged fit and adequate penalties for faults purely intellectual. He maintained the folly of coercive measures on such occasions on another account; for the enaction of such laws as restrained persons from the freeexercise of their consciences in matters of religion, was but the knotting of whipcord on the part of the enactors. to lash their own posterity, whom they could never promise to be conformed for ages to come to a national religion. He then defined liberty of conscience to be "the free and uninterrupted exercise of our consciences in that way of worship we were most clearly persuaded God required of us to serve him in, without endangering our undoubted birthright of English freedoms." After this he showed how this liberty of conscience had been invaded by the plundering and oppressing of those who had used it; and concluded by pronouncing that, if such desolation were allowed to continue, the state must inevitably proceed to its own decay.

Having finished the preface, he went to the body of the work, which consisted of materials equally rational and Scriptural, and put in a very convincing form. But we must refer the reader to the work itself, if he would have a just idea of its worth.

When he had finished the above works, the time for his liberation from prison approached. This having taken place, he travelled into Holland and Germany. His object was to spread the doctrines of his own religious society in these parts. He was successful in his travels, and continued his labours abroad during the remainder of the year.