Primitive Christianity revived in the faith and practice of the people called Quakers. Written in testimony to the present dispensation of God through them to the world that prejudices may be removed, the simple informed, the well-inclined encouraged, and the truth, and its innocent friends rightly represented

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saiuvaan AiisaaAiNn viawmoo

Iprimiiiire C|ri$tiaititg

REVIVED

IN THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OP THE PEOPLE CALLED

QUAKERS;

"WRITTEN

IN TESTIMONY TO THE PRESENT DISPENSATION OF GOD
THROUGH THEM TO THE WORLD;

PREJUDICES MAY BE REMOVED, THE SIMPLE INFORMED, THE WELL-
INCLINED ENCOURAGED, AND THE TRUTH AND ITS
INNOCENT FRIENDS RIGHTLY REPRESENTED.

BY

WILLIAM PENN.

uh is prefmb a Ulcmoir of JJnui,
By JAMES M. BROWN,

OF VIRGINIA.

This reprint gives much of the Scripture which is referred to in the
original.

1857.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by

JAMES M. BROWN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Western
District of Virginia.

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON AND CO.
PHILADELPHIA.

w

?*

q b

The author gratefully acknowledges the many favours he has
received in aiding him to get up this book, particularly that of
Jno. Frost, LL.D., for the plate of the likeness of William Penn,
and that of Messrs. H. Cowperthwait & Co., for the loan of their
plate of William Penn's Treaty with the Indians at Philadelphia.

Of the various representations of that ever-memorable event,
none that he has seen so fully sets it forth according to his fancy
as it is in the third revised edition of Mitchell's Primary Geogra-
phy, published by Messrs. H. Cowperthwait & Co., of Philadelphia,
1854, page 73.

And for the free use which the author has made of the works of
others who have written of William Penn, he now tenders his pro-
found acknowledgments.

And last, but not least, to Edward W. Miller, Esq., of the
firm of Miller & Burlock, bookbinders, &c, George Street, Phila-
delphia, for the great attention he bestowed in procuring ma-
terials, &c.

To appreciate fully such favours, they must be received by one
remote and unacquainted in cities, like

The Author.

1*

116085

TO THE PUBLIC:

But more especially to the followers of William Perm,
George Fox, and Robert Barclay.

If it be made a question why a member of the M. E.
Church should interest himself so much as to reprint
a work of William Penn's more than one hundred
and fifty years after its first publication, and a short
memoir of the man. let the answer be — William Penn,
like the great Washington, was a benefactor to his
race. No country or sect can claim him exclusively ;
his acts were too general in their character and no-
ble in their object to be confined or appropriated to
any clime or to any persuasion ; hence my privilege.
Read the work attentively, and consider well the cha-
racter of the man, in connection with the condition
of the world at that time, — its moral darkness, the
prevalency of dishonesty, priestcraft, superstition,
intolerance, bigotry, church pride, and arrogance ; in
short, every thing hateful to a man like William Penn,
who was too wise to be cheated by the vanities, empty
professions, or promises, of this fleeting world ; and
then judge whether it be not high time to recur to
first lessons and first principles, and whether there
be a man, woman, or child, who would not only be
gratified, but much profited, by a careful and proper
reading of this little volume ; thence my object and
pleasure.

The Author.

7

BRIEF MEMOIR

WILLIAM PENN,

CHAPTER I.

" He views
The dismal situation waste and wild ;
A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of wo,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades,
Where peace and rest can never dwell." — Paradise Lost.

Our earth, all beautiful as it is, and admirably adapted
to contribute to the wants of the human family and render
them happy, has been by them converted into something
very much resembling a slaughter-house.

From the earliest account of man, we learn that among
his first acts was that of murder, most foul and malicious.
Almost every page of his history repeats the sad story of his
murderous deeds ; and but for the light of the glorious gos-
pel of Jesus Christ, darkness would reign supreme.

At intervals the light has shone brightly, the clouds of
ignorance and wickedness appeared to be yielding to the in-
fluence of the gospel, and hope has again and again sprung
up anew in the bosom of the faithful ; but alas ! alas ! dark-
ness returned with tenfold horrors.

The Reformation seemed to promise much to the cause of

9

10 A BRIEF MEMOIR

Christ. The powers of darkness seemed to be shaken to
their centre, and a flood of light was poured upon the earth
that appeared sufficient to dispel the gloom and make it all
glorious within ; but man, the poor recipient, proved him-
self again unworthy, and in a few years perverted the
blessings that Heaven, in mercy, had richly bestowed upon
him ; and, instead of seeking for others, by the operation
and exercise of faith, hope, and charity, we find him en-
deavouring to merit heaven by good works, and in his blind-
ness and bigotry burning all those who had independence
enough to think and act for themselves.

What an astounding disclosure it would be to the world
could I but give the number and extent of that multitude
of men, women, and children who have suffered death for
opinion's sake at the hands of the ruthless executioner of
religious intolerance !

If it be asked which was the guilty party, let the answer
be forever remembered. It was the party in power. And
the constant warfare waged for ascendency has kept the
earth stained with blood. Any one who will read carefully
the history of Europe for two centuries beginning with
the year 1500, will, I am sure, conclude that darkness then
covered the earth as the waters cover the great deep.
Within this period of time, to wit, on Monday, October the
14th, 1644, was born in London, the great champion of
religious liberty, the American lawgiver, and founder of
Pennsylvania, William Penn. He was the son of Sir Wil-
liam Penn, a man of good estate and high reputation, who
in the time of the Commonwealth served in some of the
highest maritime offices, and whose tomb bears the follow-
ing inscription :

To the Just Memory of Sir "William Penn, Knight, and sometimes
General, Born at Bristol, Anno 1621. Son of Captain Giles Penn, seve-
ral years Consul for the English in the Mediterranean; of the Penns
of Pennslodge in the County of Wilts, and those Penns of Penn in

OF WILLIAM PBNN. 11

the County of Bucks, and by his mother from the Gilberts, in the
County of Somerset, originally from Yorkshire, addicted from his youth
to Maritime affairs : He was made Captain at the years of Twenty
One, Rear-Admiral of Ireland at Twenty Three, Vice-Admiral of Ire-
land at Twenty Five, Admiral to the Streights at Twenty Nine, Vice-
Admiral of England at Thirty One, and General in the first Dutch War
at Thirty Two. Whence returning, Anno 1655, He was a Parliament-
Man for the Town of Weymouth ; 1660 made Commissioner of the Ad-
miralty and Navy, Governor of the Town and Fort of Eingsail; Vice-
Admiral of Munster, and a Member of that Provincial Council, and
Anno 1664 was chosen Great Captain Commander under his Royal
Highness, in that Signal and most evidently Successful Fight against the
Dutch Fleet.

Thus he took leave of the Sea, his old Element, but continued still his
other Employs, till 1669, at which time, through Bodily Infirmitios con-
tracted by the Care and Fatigue of Public Affairs, he withdrew, pre-
pared, and made for his end ; and with a gentle and even Gale in much
Peace arrived, and anchored in his last and best Port at Wanstead in
the County of Esses, the 16th of September, 1670, being then but Forty
Nine years and four months old.

To His Name and Memory, His Surviving Lady hath Erected This
Remembrance.

After the Restoration lie was knighted by King Charles
the Second, being a peculiar favourite of the then Duke of
York, James, a brother to Charles.

Paternal care, and a promising prospect of his son's ad-
vancement, induced the father to give him a liberal educa-
tion; and the youth, of an excellent genius, made such
early improvements in literature, that about the fifteenth
year of his age he was entered a student at Christ's Church
College in Oxford.

His ardent desire after pure and spiritual religion (of
which he had before received some taste, or relish, through
the ministry of one Thomas Loe, a Quaker) now began to
show itself; for, with certain other students of that univer-
sity, he withdrew from the national way of worship, and
held private meetings for the exercise of religion, where
they both preached and prayed among themselves. This
gave great offence to the heads of the college, and when but

12 A BRIEF MEMOIR

sixteen years of age be was fined for nonconformity j for
persisting in the practice, he was soon after expelled.

At this time the true character of the youth was fully
developed. He was endowed with many good properties,
not the least of which were the power of great discernment;
a firmness of purpose, with a moral courage that knew no
fear ; a perfect disregard for the opinion of the world, when
that opinion was at variance with his sense of duty, or stood
between him and his God; a sense of justice capable of
making the nicest discriminations, accompanied by a moral
honesty that stopped at no sacrifice; a perseverance that
never wearied, and a spirit of tolerance and charity that was
truly godlike.

CHAPTER II.

"Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by visions from his father's house,
His kindred and false gods, into a land
Which he will show him, and from him will raise
A mighty nation, and upon him shower
His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest. He straight obeys,
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes." — Paradise Lost.

At this time commenced the conflict between the father
and the son. The fond parent, who had paved the road for
his son to honour, wealth, and fame, now for the first time
saw his hopes blighted, and in the anguish of his spirit
resorted not only to harsh words, but to blows, in order to
change his son's course ; and finding both ineffectual, he
turned him out of doors. The youth bore it patiently until
affection triumphed over anger, when he was sent to France
with some persons of quality, with the view of having his

OF WILLIAM PENN. 13

attention directed from the subject of religion. He con-
tinued there until the object was very nearly accomplished,
and when he returned his father was much pleased to find
the experiment had proved so successful. A knowledge of
the French language and French politeness had been ac-
quired, together with a desire to practise them.

Now it was that he was tempted of the devil to desert
his religious principles. To his youthful mind were pre-
sented the honours and pleasures of the world, the favour
and love of that father who had done so much for him
already, (and was anxious to do so much more,) and the
comforts of his home, where he enjoyed all he could desire,
with a prospect (provided he did not offend his father) of
inheriting his whole estate. To all this must be added the
favour of his king and the smiles and caresses of the court.
Several years were spent in this dubious condition, and
especial care was taken by his father to prevent a return to
his former companions. He entered him as a student of
law at Lincoln's Inn, had him employed in the king's ser-
vice, presented him to great personages, and caused him to
visit them. In the Dutch war he belonged to his father's
staff for a short time, yet witnessed real service. Shortly
after this the plague ravaged London, and William Penn
changed his residence.

The solemn scenes he had witnessed in the metropolis no
doubt revived his former religious sentiments, and more
than ever convinced him of the folly of seeking happiness
in any thing except purity of heart, with which he always
associated a life of self-denial. The admiral was not long
in discovering a change in his son's demeanour, and deter-
mined to repeat his former experiment ; and, owning a fine
estate in Ireland which required immediate attention, pro-
posed to his son to go and take charge of it, giving him
letters of introduction to the first officers of the govern-
ment. He arrived in 1665 among his father's friends, by

2

14 A BRIEF MEMOIR

whom he was received with marked respect. He asso-
ciated on the most familiar and friendly terms with the
Duke of Ormonde and his family. An insurrection among
the soldiers at Carrickfergus afforded Penn an opportunity
to display his military talents. He served as a volunteer,
and so distinguished himself as to receive general applause
from his superior officers, who proposed that he should join
the army, and take command of a company of foot. To this
he assented, and sought his father's consent, which, not
being obtained, the idea was abandoned, but not before he
had his likeness painted in military costume, which is said
to be the truest one ever taken of him.

The duke presented him with a highly responsible office
connected with the fleet at Kinsale, the duties of which he
discharged to the entire satisfaction of his employer. The
interest of the Irish estate required his services in London,
when his superior capacity for business was fully developed.
His father, fearing the religious influence of his former ac-
quaintances, soon hurried him off to Ireland. Having busi-
ness at Cork, he there met and associated with Quakers, and
at their meeting again heard Thomas Loe, who began his
discourse with these ever-memorable words, " There is a
faith that overcomes the world, and there is a faith that is
overcome by the world." By this discourse Sir Admiral
Penn's apparently well-laid plans were entirely defeated,
and William Penn, Jr., thoroughly convinced, subsequent-
ly became a regular attendant at their meetings, brook-
ing violent persecution. In 1667 he and many others were
apprehended at a Quaker meeting in Cork, and taken before
the mayor, who, observing that his dress was not that of a
Quaker, would have set him at liberty upon bond for his
good behaviour. Penn refused to accept this, and, with
eighteen others, was committed to prison.

His openly espousing the cause of the Quakers soon pro-
cured him the reproachful name, which was accompanied

OF WILLIAM FENW. 15

with scoff and derision; he was a by- word of scorn and con-
tempt. The father, being informed of the course his son
had taken, recalled him, and on his return was fully satis-
fied of the truthfulness of the accounts he had received, not
by his dress but by his address.

Every parent must sympathize with William Penn the
elder. Language cannot describe the anguish he expe-
rienced on this occasion. I shall not attempt it. " My
pen," says a former biographer, " is diffident of its abilities
to describe that most pathetic and moving contest which was
betwixt his father and him. His father, actuated by
natural love, principally aiming at his son's temporal ho-
nour; he, guided by a divine impulse, having chiefly in
view his own eternal welfare. His father, grieved to see the
well-accomplished son of his hopes, now ripe for worldly
promotion, voluntarily turn his back upon it; he, no less
afflicted to think that a compliance with his earthly father's
pleasure was inconsistent with an obedience to his heavenly
one. His father, pressing his conformity to the customs
and fashions of the times; he, modestly craving leave to
refrain from what hurt his conscience. His father, earnestly
entreating him, and almost on his knees beseeching him, to
yield to his desire ; he, of a loving, tender disposition, in an
extreme agony of spirit to behold his father's concern and
trouble. His father, threatening to disinherit him; he,
humbly submitting to his father's will therein. His father,
turning his back on him in anger ; he, lifting up his heart
to G-od for strength to support him in that time of trouble."

His father, to compromise matters somewhat, proposed to
excuse him from complying with the fashionable manners
and customs of the day, provided he would take off his hat
in the presence of the king, the duke, and himself. He,
desiring time to consider the question, withdrew, and hum-
bled himself before G-od, with fasting and supplication. He
was thus strengthened in his resolution, and, returning to

16 A BRIEF MEMOIR

his father, humbly signified that he could not comply with
his desire. His father, finding himself utterly disappointed
of his hopes, could no longer endure him in his sight, and
the second time turned him out of doors.

William Penn, in relating his religious experience at a
meeting on the Continent in 1677, said, " Here I began to
let them know how and when the Lord first appeared unto
me, which was about the twelfth year of my age, anno 1656.
How at times, between that and the fifteenth year, the
Lord visited me, and of the divine impressions he gave me
of myself, of my persecutions at Oxford, and how the Lord
sustained me in the midst of that hellish darkness and de-
bauchery; of my being banished the college; the bitter
usage I underwent when I returned to my father — whip-
ping, beating, and turning me out of doors in 1662 ; of the
Lord's dealing with me in France, and in the time of the
great plague in London; in fine, the deep sense he gave
me of the vanity of this world, of the irreligiousness of the
religions of it. Then of my mournful and bitter cries to
him that he would she-w me his own way of life and salva-
tion, and my resolutions to follow him, whatever reproaches
or sufferings should attend me, and that with great reve-
rence and brokenness of spirit. How after all this the
glory of the world overtook me, and I was even ready to
give up myself unto it, seeing as yet no such thing as
the primitive spirit and church on the earth, and being
ready to faint concerning my hope of the restitution of all
things.

" It was at this time that the Lord visited me with a cer-
tain sound and testimony of his eternal word through one
of those the world calls Quakers, namely, Thomas Loe. I
related to them the bitter mockings and scornings that fell
upon me, the displeasure of my parents, the invectiveness
and cruelty of the priests, the strangeness of all my com-
panions. What a sign and wonder they made of me ; but,

OF WILLIAM PENN. 17

above all, that great cross of resisting and watching against
mine own inward vain afflictions and thoughts." ■

I feel that I would be remiss were I to fail to make an-
other extract from his writings touching upon this immediate
subject; a lesson so well calculated to encourage all those
who are in the way of righteousness to persevere therein at
all hazards, and at the same time to admonish parents and
guardians against putting obstacles in the way of tenderly
visited minds. He says, "My own father, after thirty
years' employment with good success in divers places of
eminent trust and honour in his own country, upon serious
reflection, not long before his death, spoke to me in this
manner : ' Son William, I am weary of the world j I would
not live over my days again if I could command them with
a wish ; for the snares of life are greater than the fears of
death. This troubles me, that I have offended a gracious
God that has followed me to this day. Oh, have a care of
sin ! that is the sting both of life and death. Three things
I commend to you : 1. Let nothing in this world tempt
you to wrong your conscience ; I charge you do nothing
against your conscience ; so will you keep peace at home,
which will be a feast to you in a day of trouble. 2. What-
ever you design to do, lay it justly and time it seasonably,
for that gives security and despatch. Lastly : Be not trou-
bled at disappointments ; for if they may be recovered, do
it ; if they can't, trouble is vain. If you could not have
helped it, be content; there is often peace and profit in sub-
mitting to Providence ; for afflictions make wise. If you
could have helped it, let not your trouble exceed instruction
for another time. These rules will carry you with firmness
and comfort through this inconstant world/ At another
time he inveighed against the profaneness and impiety of
the age; often crying out with an earnestness of spirit,
' Wo to thee, 0 England ! God will judge thee, 0 England '
Plagues are at thy door, 0 England !' He much bewailed

18 A BRIEF MEMOIR

that divers men in power, and many of the nobility and'
gentry of the Jdngdom were grown so dissolute and profane,
often saying, ' God has forsaken us, we are infatuated, we
will shut our eyes, we will not see our true interests and
happiness ; we shall be destroyed !' Apprehending the
consequences of the growing looseness of the age to be our
ruin, and that the methods most fit to serve the kingdom,
with true credit at home and abroad, were too much neg-
lected j the trouble of which did not a little help to feed
his distemper, which drew him daily nearer to his end ; and
as he believed it, so less concerned or disordered I never
saw him at any time ; of which I took good notice. Wea-
ried to live, as well as near to die, he took his leave of us
and of me with this expression, and a most composed coun-
tenance : ' Son William, if you and your friends keep to
your plain way of preaching, and keep to your plain way of
living, you will make an end of the priests to the end of the
world. Bury me by mother. Live all in love. Shun all
manner of evil. And I pray God to bless you all ; and he
will bless you/ "

He died on Friday, 16th September, 1670. I let the
reader make his own comment.

Truly man sees not as God sees ; and would it be too
much were I to say that God raised up William Penn for a
special purpose, as he did Moses ? There is certainly a
very striking similarity in many important events of their
lives. Moses was brought up at court; the same may be
said of William Penn. Moses could look forward to the
time when he could enjoy all of the worldly pleasures this
life affords; so could William Penn. The popularity and
wealth of Sir William Penn, and the great obligations
that rested on Charles II., as well as his inclination to pro-
mote the son, rendered it plain to the weakest capacity that
worldly glory was in the grasp of William Penn.

God saw proper to call the attention of Moses to the

OF WILLIAM PENN. 19

burning bush, yet permitted it not to be consumed. This
seems to be the starting-point in his religious life, and one,
no doubt, to which he often recurred when his faith or pa-
tience wavered.

God kindled in the bosom of William Penn a fire that
was to him as remarkable and as certain a beacon in after
life as was the burning bush to Moses, with this difference,
however, in favour of William Penn, his fire never ceased to
burn upon the altar of his heart.

How beautifully does St. Paul describe Moses in his
Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. xi. 24-27 ! — "By faith Moses,
when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with
the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than
the treasures of Egypt : for he had respect unto the recom-
pense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fear-
ing the wrath of the king : for he endured, as seeing Him
who is invisible."

I will also record here what William Penn said of Moses,
after speaking of Abraham and Job ; he said, " Moses is the
next great example in sacred story for remarkable self-denial,
before the times of Christ's appearance in the flesh. He
had been saved, when an infant, by an extraordinary provi-
dence ) and it seems, by what follows, for an extraordinary
service. Pharaoh's daughter (whose compassion was the
means of his preservation when the king decreed the slaugh-
ter of the Hebrew males) took him for her son, and gave him
the education of her father's court. His own graceful pre-
sence and extraordinary abilities, joined with her love for
him and interest in her father to promote him, must have
rendered him, if not capable of succession, at least of being
chief minister of affairs under that wealthy and powerful
prince. For Egypt was then, what Athens and Rome were
alter, the most famous for learning, arts, and glory.

20 A BRIEF MEMOIR

" But Moses, ordained for other work, and guided by a
better star, a higher principle, no sooner came to years of
discretion, than the impiety of Egypt and the oppression of
his brethren there, grew a burden too heavy for him to
bear. And though so wise and good a man could not want
those generous and grateful resentments that became the
kindness of the king's daughter to him, yet he had also seen
that God that was invisible, and did not dare to live in the
ease and plenty of Pharaoh's house whilst his poor brethren
were required to make brick without straw.

" Thus the fear of the Almighty taking deep hold of his
heart, he nobly refused to be called the son of Pliaraolis
daughter, and chose rather a life of affliction with the
most despised and opprest Israelites, and to be the compa-
nions of their temptations and jeopardies, than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season : esteeming the reproach of
Christ (which he suffered for making that unworldly choice)
greater riches than all the treasures of that kingdom. Nor
was he so foolish as they thought him. He had reason on
his side ; for it is said he had an eye to the recompense of
the reward : he did but refuse a lesser benefit for a greater.
In this his wisdom transcended that of the Egyptians, for
they made the present world their choice, (as uncertain as
the weather,) and so lost that which has no end.

" Moses looked deeper, and weighed the enjoyments of
this life in the scales of eternity, and found they made no
weight there. He governed himself, not by the immediate
possession, but the nature and duration of the reward. His
faith corrected his affections, and taught him to sacrifice the
pleasures of self to the hope he had of a future more excel-
lent recompense."

Permit me to pursue the parallel. By faith William
Penn, when he was come to years, refused to enjoy the
pleasures of the court of Charles the Second; choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to

OF WILLIAM PENN. 21

enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ) esteeming the re-
proach of Christ greater riches than all the honours of
England: for he had respect unto the recompense of the
reward. By faith he forsook England, not fearing the
wrath of the king : for he endured, as seeing him who is
invisible.

What a remarkable man, and what a remarkable life !
With every opportunity for the enjoyment of all that world-
lings could desire, he, when yet a youth, renounces them
all, and incurs the absolute displeasure of his king and
father, and was turned out of doors ; incurs the scoffs and
sneers of every worldly-minded man at home and abroad ;
associates with the low and humble# and despised followers
of Jesus Christ; suffering persecution and imprisonment
joyfully.

In the fulness of time, however, a door of deliverance is
opened for him and his oppressed brethren. The second
land of promise is in view, but Penn is required to do more
than Moses, yet his faith fails not. He hesitates not to em-
bark a very large portion of his estate (some say $200,000)
in a wilderness beyond an ocean three thousand miles in
width, inhabited by a few European adventurers and hordes
of savages. He called it the holy experiment.

I will here insert a letter which was written by him at
Chester, Pennsylvania, on the 5th of the 12th month,
(February,) 1682, which will explain my views more fully.

My Old Friend : —

I could speak largely of God's dealings with me in get-
ting this thing. What an inward exercise of faith and pa-
tience it cost me in passing. The travail was mine, as well
as the debt and costs, through the envy of many, both pro-
fessors, false friends, and profane. My God hath given it
me in the face of the world, and it is to hold it in true
judgment, as a reward of my sufferings; and that is seen

22 A BRIEF MEMOIR

here, whatever some despisers may say or think. The
place God has given me, and I never felt judgment for the
power I kept, but trouble for what I parted with. It is
more than a worldly title or patent that hath called me in
this place.

Keep thy place : I am in mine, and have served the God
of the whole earth since I have been in it ; nor am I sitting
down in a greatness that I have denied. I am, day and
night, spending my life, my time, my money, and am not
sixpence enriched by this greatness; costs in getting, set-
tling, transportation, and maintenance now in a public man-
ner at my own charge duly considered ; to say nothing of
my hazard and the distance I am from a considerable estate,
and, which is more, my dear wife and poor children. Well,
the Lord is a God of righteous judgment. Had I sought
greatness I had stayed at home, where the difference between
what I am here and was offered and could have been there,
in power and wealth, is as wide as the places are. No, I
came for the Lord's sake, and therefore have I stood to this
day, well, and diligent, and successful, blessed be his power.
Nor shall I trouble myself to tell thee what I am to the peo-
ple of this place, in travails, watchings, spendings, and my
servants every way, freely, (not like a selfish man,) I have
many witnesses.

To conclude, it is now in friends' hands. Through my
travail, faith, and patience, it came. If friends here keep
to God, and in the justice, mercy, equity and fear of the
Lord, their enemies will be their footstool; if not, their
heirs, and my heirs too, will lose all, and desolation will fol-
low; but, blessed be the Lord, we are well, and live in the
dear love of God, and the fellowship of his tender, heavenly
Spirit; and our faith is for ourselves and one another, that
the Lord will be with us a King and a Counsellor forever.
Thy ancient though grieved friend,

William Penn.

OF WILLIAM PENN. 23

I will here give an extract from his writings, to show
what sustained him in his trials and tribulations.

" Wherefore, my dear friends, be not you discomfited ;
for there is no new thing happened unto you; 'tis the
ancient path of the righteous. For thy sake, says David,
have - 1 borne reproach j I am become a stranger to my
brethren, and an alien to my mother's children. "When I
wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my
reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment, and I became
a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against
me j and I was the song of the drunkard. Save me, 0 God,
for the waters are come in unto my soul ; and the water-
floods are ready to swallow me up. They persecute him
whom thou hast smitten ; and they talk to the grief of those
whom thou hast wounded.

" Do you not know this, dear friends ? are not your tears
become a reproach, your fasts a wonder, your paleness a de-
rision, your plainness a proverb, and your serious and
retired conversation a by-word? Yea, when the Lord hath
wounded, have not they also grieved ? And when the Lord
hath smitten you, have not they mocked ? But this was
David's joy, The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want;
he restoreth my soul ; he leadeth me in the path of right-
eousness for his name's sake ; he maketh me to lie down in
green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea,
though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy
staff comfort me.

" Who was the comforter and preserver of Shadrach, Me-
shach, and Abednego, that refused to obey the king's com-
mand against the commandment of God ? They would not
bow to his image ; but rather chose the fiery furnace than
to commit idolatry, or bow to another thing than to the
living God. Did not we cast three men into the midst of
the fire ? said Nebuclnidnezzar ; lo, I see four men loose,

24 A BRIEF MEMOIR

walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt.
And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

" Oh ! my friends, the fire obeyeth him, as well as the
winds and seas. All power is given to the Son of God,
who is given to you for your salvation. Well, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego the king calleth out of the fire,
and they have no harm, though the mighty men that cast
them into the fiery furnace were consumed. The God of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is by the king highly
preferred. Here is the end of faithfulness; here is the
blessing of perseverance. God will bring honour to his name,
through the patience and integrity of his people.

" And it was this Son of God that preserved Daniel in the
lion's den ; it was his voice, that David said, divideth the
flames of fire; he rideth upon the winds, he sitteth upon
the floods. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice
of the Lord is full of majesty. They that trust in him shall
never be confounded. Blessed are they whose God is the
Lord : for he is a present help in the needful time of trou-
ble. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them
that fear him, and he delivereth them. Oh ! taste and see
that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in
him. Oh ! fear the Lord, for there is no want to them that
fear him. The young lions shall lack, and the old lions
suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want
for any good thing. Many are the afflictions of the right-
eous, but the Lord delivereth them out of all ; for the Lord
redeemeth the souls of his servants, and none of them that
trust in him shall be made desolate. For which cause, my
dear friends, cast away every weight, and every burden, and
the sin that doth so easily beset you. Neither look at the
enemies' strength, nor at your own weakness ; but look unto
Jesus, the blessed Author of your convincement and faith :
the mighty one, on whom God hath laid help for all those
that believe in his name, receive his testimony, and live in

OF WILLIAM PENN. ZD

his doctrine; who said to his dear followers of old, Be of
good cheer, I have overcome the world. Fear not, little
flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom ; and they that endure to the end shall be saved.
I will not leave you comfortless, said he ; I will come to you ;
he that is with you shall be in you.

"■ This was the hope of their glory, the foundation of then
building, which standeth sure. And though sorrow cometh
over night, yet joy shall come in the morning. Ye shall
weep and lament, said Jesus, but the world shall rejoice,
and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned
into joy, and their rejoicing into howling. And, lo ! I am
with you to the end of the world.

" Be ye, therefore, encouraged in the holy way of the Lord ;
wait diligently for his daily manifestations unto your souls,
that you may be strengthened in your inward man, with
might and power to do the will of God on earth as it is
done in heaven. Oh ! watch that you enter not into temp-
tation; yea, watch unto prayer that you enter not into temp-
tation, and that you fail not by the temptation.

" Christ said to Peter, canst not thou watch one hour ?
Every one hath an hour of temptation to go through ; and
this is the hour that every one is to watch. Jesus, the
Captain of our salvation, was under great temptations ; he
was sad unto death; he did sweat drops of blood, but he
watched, he prayed, he groaned ; yea, he cried with strong
cries ; but through suffering overcame ; and remember how
in the wilderness he was tempted, but the angels of the
Lord ministered to him. So they that follow him in the
way of the tribulations and patience of his kingdom, God's
angels shall minister unto them all ; yea, he will keep them
in the hour of temptation ; he will carry their heads above
the waters and deliver them from the devouring floods.

" Wherefore, finally, my friends, I say unto you in the
name of the Lord, Be of good cheer ! Look to Jesus, and

3

26 A BRIEF MEMOIll

fear not man, whose breath is in his nostrils. But be va-
liant for the truth on earth. Love not your lives unto the
death, and you shall receive a crown of life and glory, which
the God of the fathers, the God of the prophets, the God
of the apostles, and the God of the martyrs, the true con-
fessors of Jesus ; yea, the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ shall give unto all those that keep the pure
testimony of his Son in their hearts and patiently and faith-
fully endure to the end.

" Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to
present you faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy ; to the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

" I am your friend that sincerely loves you, and earnestly
travails for your redemption, William Penn."

CHAPTER III.

"All deprav'd,
Justice and temp'rance, truth and faith forgot,
One man except, the only son of light
In a dark age, against example, good ;
Against allurement, custom, and the world
Offended; fearless of reproach and scorn,
Or violence, he of their wicked ways
Shall them admonish, and before them set
The paths of righteousness, how much more safe
And full of peace, denouncing wrath to come
On their impenitence,- and shall return
Of them derided, but of God observ'd."

* * * * *

To teach thee that God attributes to place
No sanctity, if none be thither brought,
By men who there frequent or therein dwell.
And now what further shall ensue, behold." — Paradise Lost.

The history of the transaction in regard to the purchase
of Pennsylvania, as recorded in an early " Life of William

OP WILLIAM PENN. 27

Ponu/' is as follows: — "King Charles the Second, in con-
sideration of the services of Sir William Penn, and sundry
debts due to him from the crown at the time of his decease, by
letters-patent, bearing date the 4th day of March, 1680-81,
granted to William Penn and his heirs that province lying
on the west side of the river Delaware in North America,
formerly belonging to the Dutch, and then called the New
Netherlands " The name was now changed by the king, in
honor of William Penn, whom, and his heirs, he made ab-
solute proprietors and governors of it. Upon this, he pre-
sently published an account of the province of Pennsylva-
nia, with the king's patent, and other papers relating thereto,
describing the country and its produce, and proposing an
easy purchase of lands, offering 100 acres for 40 shillings,
or 5000 acres for £100, and good terms of settlement
for such as might incline to transport themselves. Many
single persons and some families out of England and Wales
went over, and with singular industry and application hav-
ing cleared their purchased lands, settled and soon improved
plantations to good advantage, and began to build the city
of Philadelphia in a commodious situation on the aforesaid
navigable river Delaware.

And to secure the new planters from the native Indians,
(who in some other provinces being injuriously dealt with,
had made reprisals to the loss of many lives,) the governor
gave orders to treat them with all candour and humanity ;
and appointed commissioners to confer with them about
land, and to confirm a league of peace, by whom he also
sent the following letter : —

WILLIAM PENN'S LETTER TO THE INDIANS.

London, the 18th of the 8th month, 1681.

My Friends :

There is a great God and power that hath made the
world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all

28 A BRIEF MEMOIR

people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you
and I must give an account for all that we do in the world.
This great God hath written his law in our hearts, by which
we are taught and commanded to love and help, and do good
to one another and not to do harm and mischief one unto
another. Now this great God hath been pleased to make
me concerned in your part of the world, and the king of the
country where I live hath given me a great province therein,
but I desire to enjoy it with your love and consent, that we
may always live together as neighbours and friends; else
what would the great God do to us? who hath made us not
to devour and destroy one another, but to live soberly and
kindly together in the world. Now I would have you well
observe, that I am very sensible of the unkindness and in-
justice that hath been too much exercised towards you by
the people of these parts of the world, who have sought
themselves, and to make great advantages of you, rather
than to be examples of justice and goodness unto you, which
I hear hath been matters of trouble to you, and caused
great grudgings and animosities, sometimes to the shedding
of blood, which hath made the great God angry. But I
am not such a man, as is well known in my own country.
I have great love and regard towards you, and I desire to
win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just, and
peaceable life, and the people I send are of the same mind,
and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly, and
if in any thing any shall offend you or your people, you
shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for the same by an
equal number of just men on both sides, that by no means
you may have just occasion of being offended against them.
I shall shortly come to you myself, at what time we may
more largely and freely confer and discourse of these mat-
ters; in the mean time I have sent my commissioners to
treat with you about land, and a firm league of peace. Let
me desire you to be kind to them and the people, and receive

OF WILLIAM PENN. 29

these presents and tokens which I have sent you, as a testi-
mony of my good will to you, and my resolution to live
justly, peaceably, and friendly with you.

I am your loving friend,

William Penn.

His friendly and pacific manner of teaching the In-
dians begat in them an extraordinary love and regard to
him and his people, so that they have maintained a perfect
amity with the English of Pennsylvania ever since. And
'tis observable, that upon renewing the treaty with the pre-
sent governor, Sir William Keith, Bar., in 1722, they men-
tion the name of William Penn with much gratitude and
affection, calling him a good man, and as their highest com-
pliment to Sir William use this expression, " We esteem
and love you as if you were William Penn himself. So
universally doth a principle of peace, justice, and morality
operate on the hearts even of those we call heathens."

He also drew up the fundamental constitution of Penn-
sylvania in twenty-four articles, consented to and subscribed
by the first adventurers and freeholders of that province, as
the ground and rule of all future government : the first
of which articles, showing that his principle was to give as
well as take liberty of conscience in matters of religion, we
shall transcribe.

THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.

In reverence to God, the Father of light and spirits, the
author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith, and
worship, I do for me and mine declare and establish for the
first fundamental of the government of this country, that
any person that doth or shall reside therein shall have and
enjoy the free profession of his or her faith and exercise
of worship toward God in such way and manner as any
such person shall in conscience believe is most acceptable

3*

30 A BRIEF MEMOIR

to God. And so long as any such person useth not this
Christian liberty to licentiousness, or the destruction of
others, that is to say, to speak loosely and profanely or con-
temptuously of God, Christ, the Holy Scriptures, or reli-
gion, or commit any moral evil or injury against others in
their conversation, he or she shall be protected in the enjoy-
ment of the aforesaid Christian liberty by the civil magis-
trate.

In the next year, 1682, he published the frame of go-
vernment of Pennsylvania, containing twenty-four articles
somewhat varying from the aforesaid constitutions, together
with certain other laws to the number of forty, agreed on
in England by the governor and diverse freemen of the said
province. Of which laws one was

That all persons living in this province, who confess and
acknowledge the one almighty and eternal God to be the
Creator and upholder and ruler of the world, and that hold
themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly
in civil society, shall in nowise be molested or prejudiced
for their religious persuasion, or practice in matters of faith
and worship; nor shall they be compelled at any time to
frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or minis-
try whatsoever.

In the 6th month, (August,) 1682, William Penn with
many of his friends sailed for his province ; in six weeks
they saw the American coast. Sailing up the Delaware, the
inhabitants, Swedes, Dutch and English received him with
many demonstrations of joy. He landed at New Castle,
which was principally inhabited by Dutch, and the next
day he summoned the people to the court-house where pos-
session of the country was legally given him. He then
sailed for Upland, or Optland, now Chester, where he called
an Assembly, and declared his purpose of coming among
them, and the ends of his government, giving them assu-
rances of a free enjoyment of liberty of conscience in things

OF WILLIAM PENN. 31

spiritual and of civil freedom in temporal, and recommended
to them to live in sobriety and peace one with another, and
received their thankful acknowledgments, 1681.

Now began that remarkable event, the Exodus of the
Quakers, and so extensive was it that William Penn, in a
letter to the Marquis of Halifax, written on the 9th of the
12th month, (February,) 1683, says : " I must without
vanity say I have led the greatest colony into America that
ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most pros-
perous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found
among us." He also added, " Since last summer we have
had about sixty sail of great and small shipping."

The emigration was not confined to England, it exte€ded
to Germany, Ireland, Holland, and Wales, which must have
been very gratifying to the founder, for he came, he said,
into the charge of the province " for the Lord's sake. He
hoped, under the Divine aid, to have raised up a people who
should have been a praise in the earth for conduct, as well
as for civil and religious liberty." He said, " I wanted to
afford an asylum to the good and oppressed of every nation.
I aimed to frame a government which might be an example.
I desired to show men as free and happy as they could be."

What a beautiful example he set before our Revolutionary
fathers ! and to their everlasting credit may it be remem-
bered that they had wisdom and goodness sufficient to act
upon it, and did really contribute not only to make the land
of Penn an asylum to the good and oppressed of every na-
tion, but extended the noble cognomen over all the territory
of the United States, and the identical idea William Penn
expressed near two hundred years ago, is now the most glo-
rious name our beloved country is known by throughout the
earth, viz. : u The Asylum to the Good and Oppressed of
every Nation." Will the beneficiaries have wisdom and
goodness sufficient to perpetuate it ?

He planned the city of Philadelphia and named it, and

32 A BRIEF MEMOIR

in two years it contained 2000 inhabitants. He remained
in America about two years, in which time he succeeded in
establishing his laws and inculcating a spirit of love and
harmony not only among the various sects and denomina-
tions that had arrived from Europe, but even with the In-
dians, and all things being in a prosperous condition he
returned, arriving in England on the 12th of the 6th
month, (August,) 1684.

CHAPTER IV.

" Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth
him out of them all." — Psalm xxxiv. 19.

On Friday, the 6th day of the 12th month following,
(February,) 1685, King Charles the Second died, and was
succeeded by his brother, the Duke of York, by the name
of King James the Second, who being a professed papist,
his accession to the crown filled the people with just appre-
hensions and fears lest he should establish his own religion
by the destruction of others; and had William Penn at that
time fomented the general uneasiness by encouraging multi-
tudes then upon the wing, he might, as he himself said, have
put many thousands of people into his province and £2000
into his pockets. His not doing it, is sufficient proof that
it was not wealth or fame that first brought him to America.

Because James the Second, who was a Catholic, esteemed
him highly, treating him with marked respect and atten-
tion, his enemies fabricated the charge of papist against
him, notwithstanding he had been so bold against that per-
suasion. He, however, soon silenced them and continued
his labours of love — preaching, travelling, and writing.
Among his writings was a persuasion to moderation toward

OF WILLIAM PENN. 33

dissenting Christians, in prudence and conscience, which he
humbly submitted to the king and bis great council, in which
he confutes the several plans for persecution, and confirms
his own argument for toleration by the testimony of emi-
nent authors and the examples of flourishing kingdoms
and states, and shows the dismal effects of the contrary.
A treatise well worthy the reader's serious perusal.

On the 14th of March, 1685-6, came forth the king's pro-
clamation for a general pardon, and instructions being given
to the judges of assizes in their several circuits to extend
the benefit of it to the Quakers ; about thirteen hundred
of that persuasion, many of whom had been imprisoned for
years, were set at liberty. On the 4th of April, 1687, the
king issued a declaration for liberty of conscience, suspend-
ing the execution of all penal laws in ecclesiastical matters.

This was followed by an address of thanks to the king
from the annual Assembly of Friends held in London, who
deputed William Penn and others to present it. On the
27th of April, 1688, King James renewed his declaration
for liberty of conscience, with an order of council for the
reading of it in churches, against which seven bishops peti-
tioning were committed to the Tower. On the 5th of No-
vember, 1688, William, Prince of Orange, landed at Tor-
bay, in Devonshire, to the great joy of the English nation.
James the Second withdrew to France, and on the 13th of
February, 1688-9, William and his spouse, Mary, King
James's daughter, were proclaimed King and Queen of Eng-
land, &c. Of this change the enemies of William Penn
took advantage, charging him with disaffection to the pre-
sent government, and had him arrested on the 10th of De-
cember, 1688. Nothing was proved against him, yet his
strong assurances failed to convince the council that he loved
his country and the Protestant religion above his life, and
they obliged him to give sureties for his appearance the first
day of the next term, which he did, and then was con-

34 A BRIEF MEMOIR

tinued on the same security to Easter term following, on
the last day of which, nothing having been laid to his charge,
he was cleared in open court.

In the year 1690 he was again brought before the lords
of the council, upon an accusation of holding correspondence
with the late King James, and they requiring sureties for
his appearance, he appealed to King William himself, who
after a conference of near two hours inclined to acquit him;
but to please some of the council he was held upon bail for a
while, and in Trinity term the same year again discharged.

He was attacked a third time, and his name inserted in a
proclamation, dated July 18th, wherein he, with divers lords
and others, to the number of eighteen, were charged with
adhering to the enemies of the king; but proof failing re-
specting him, he was again cleared by order of the king's
bench court at Westminster, on the last day of Michaelmas
term, 1690.

Being now at liberty, he proposed visiting Pennsylvania
the second time, and published printed proposals for another
settlement there. He had so far prepared for his transpor-
tation that an order for the convoy was granted him by the
secretary of state, when his voyage was prevented by a fresh
accusation against him, backed by the oath of one William
Fuller, — a WRETCH, afterward by Parliament declared a
CHEAT and IMPOSTOR, — and a warrant was thereupon
granted for his apprehension, which he narrowly escaped at
his return from Gr. Fox's burial, on the 16th of January,
1691. He prudently retired for a few years, during which
time he applied himself to writing, and on the 30th of the
3d month, (May,) 1691, addressed the following epistle to
the yearly meeting in London : —

My beloved, dear, and honoured Brethren : —

My unchangeable love salutes you ; and though I am ab-
sent from you, yet I feel the sweet and lowly life of your

OF WILLIAM PBNN. 35

heavenly fellowship, by which I am with you and a par-
taker amongst you, whom I have loved above my chiefest
joy. Receive no evil surmisings, neither suffer hard thoughts,
through the insinuations of any, to enter your minds against
me, your afflicted but not forsaken friend and brother. My
enemies are yours, and in the ground mine for your sakes,
and that God seeth in secret, and will one day reward openly.
My privacy is not because men have sworn truly, but falsely
against me. For wicked men have laid in wait for me, and
false witnesses have laid to my charge things that I knew not,
who have never sought myself, but the good of all, through
great exercises, and have done some good, and would have
done more, and hurt no man, but always desired that truth
and righteousness, mercy and peace, might take place amongst
us. Feel me near you, and lay me near you, dear and be-
loved brethren, and leave me not ; neither forsake, but wres-
tle with Him that is able to prevail against the cruel desires
of some, that we may yet meet in the congregations of his
people, as in days past, to our mutual comfort. The ever-
lasting God of his chosen in all generations be in the midst
of you, and crown your most solemn assemblies with his
blessed presence, that his tender, meek, lowly, and heavenly
love and life may flow among you ; and that he would please
to make it a seasoning and fruitful opportunity for you, that,
edified and comforted, you may return home to his glorious
high praise, who is worthy forever ! To whom I commit
you, desiring to be remembered of you before him, in the
nearest and freshest accesses, who cannot forget you in the
nearest relation.

Your faithful friend and brother,

William Penn.

By the interposition of friends, he was granted an audi-
ence with the king and council, in the latter part of 1693,
when he established his innocency and was acquitted. The

36 A BRIEF MEMOIR

sad and melancholy bereavement which now awaited him
is thus recorded by himself : —

" My dear wife, after eight months' illness, (though she
never perfectly recovered her weakness the year before,
which held her about six months,) departed this life on the
23d of the 12th month, 1693-4, about half an Lour past
two in the afternoon, being the sixth day of the week, and
in the fiftieth year of her age, and was sensible to the very
last." Her maiden name was Gulielma Maria Springett,
the step-daughter of Isaac Pennington, a ministering Friend.
They had lived in the most happy manner in the holy
estate of wedlock about twenty years. He bears ample tes-
timony to her happy exit from time to eternity. He now
continued to write, preach, and travel, not, however, escap-
ing arrests and other hinderances.

On the 5th of the 1st month, (March,) 1695-6, he
consummated his second marriage, at Bristol, with Hannah,
the daughter of Thomas Callowhill, with whom he lived
during the remainder of his life, and by whom he had four
sons and one daughter.

In April, 1696, his eldest son by his first wife died; his
name was Springett, aged twenty-one years. "This year
he published a treatise, entitled, Primitive Christianity Re-
vived, in the Faith and Practice of the People called Qua-
kers. A book which rightly represented that people's prin-
ciples, and hath been serviceable to the information of
many." This is the book I now reprint, with the hope
that it may prove serviceable to the information of many
more.

Ou the 9th day of September, 1699, himself and family
set sail for his province of Pennsylvania. They were nearly
three months at sea; the great length of the voyage saved
them from the danger of a contagious disease, the yellow
fever, that reigned in the province. When they arrived it
was over, and they were received with the universal joy of

OF WILLIAM PENN. 37

the inhabitants. Intending to remain in the province, he
gave attention to all of its interests. But immediately some
persons in England, taking advantage of his absence, endea-
voured to undermine the proprietary governments. Repre-
sentations were soon made to the Parliament, and time soli-
cited for his return to answer for himself. He was pressed
to return forthwith ; seeing it necessary to comply, he sum-
moned an assembly to meet at Philadelphia, to whom, on
the 15th of September, 1701, he made a speech, setting forth
the condition of the province, the necessity of his return to
England, the great and abiding interest he felt in their
welfare, tendering them his aid to secure their privileges
and property in any and every way in his power that they
might suggest. To which he received the following reply :

May it please the Proprietary and Governor: —

We have this day in our assembly read thy speech delivered
(yesterday) in council ; and having duly considered the same,
cannot but be under a deep sense of sorrow for thy purpose
of so speedily leaving us, and at the same time taking notice
of thy parental regard to us and to our posterity, the free-
holders of this province and territories annexed, in thy lov-
ing and kind expressions of being ready to comply with
whatsoever expedient and provisions we shall offer for our
safety as well in privileges as property, and what else may
render us happy in a nearer union of our interests, not
doubting the performance of what thou hast been solemnly
pleased to promise, do in much humility, and as a token
of our gratitude, return unto thee the unfeigned thanks of
this house. Subscribed by order of the House,

Joseph Growdon, Speaker.

The next month, October, he sailed for England, and
arrived about the middle of December at Portsmouth and
proceeded to London. After his return the bill was wholly

38 A BRIEF MEMOIR

dropped, and never revived. Upon the death of King Wil-
liam, which occurred on the 8th of March, 1701-2, the
Princess Anne of Denmark ascended the throne. She be-
gan her reign with moderation and clemency, maintaining
the Act of Toleration. William Penn was in her favour, and
often at court. He continued to preach, and write, and
travel, until about the year 1709, when the infirmities of
age began to visit him.

In 1710, he, for a better atmosphere, left the vicinity of
London, and took a handsome seat at Ruscombe, near Troy-
ford, in Buckinghamshire, where he resided until his death.
In 1712, he had three several fits, supposed to be apoplec-
tic, by which his understanding and memory were so im-
paired as to render him incapable of public action for the
future. He continued to fail by degrees for the space of
about six years, until, the 30th of the fifth month, (July,)
1718, in the 71th year of his age, his soul, prepared for a
more glorious habitation, forsook the decayed tenement,
which was committed to the earth on the 5th of the 6th
month, at St. Jordan's, in Buckinghamshire, where his
former wife and several of his family had been buried.

CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PENN — BY EDMUND BURKE.

William Penn, as a legislator, deserves great honour among
mankind. He created a commonwealth which, from a few
hundreds of indigent refugees, have in seventy years grown
to a numerous and flourishing people. A people who from
a wilderness have brought their territory to a state of high
cultivation, filled it with wealthy and populous towns, and
who, in the midst of a fierce and lawless race of men, have
preserved themselves, with unarmed hand, by the rules of
justice and MODERATION, better than any other have
done by policy and arms. The way in which he did this
deserves eternal notice. Though brought up, as it were,
in the corrupt courts of Charles the Second, who had en-

OF WILLIAM PBNN. 39

deavoured to carry the kingly prerogative to as high a pitch
of aristocracy as possible, yet, oh, glorious ! oh, all-subdu-
ing power of REASON ! when he got that, he thought of
nothing but to make everybody happy. To take the lands
from the Indians he abhorred; he bought their lands. To
exact and starve the poor who followed him across the ocean
for conscience and quiet sake, he could not brook. He put
the lands at the low rate of forty shillings a hundred acres,
and one shilling per hundred acres yearly quit-rent. But
what crowned all, was the noble character of privileges by
which he made them more free, perhaps, than any people
on earth; and which, by securing both civil and religious
liberty, caused the eyes of the oppressed from all parts of
the world to look to his country for relief. This one act
of godlike wisdom and goodness has settled Penn's country
in a more strong and permanent manner than the wisest
regulations could have done on any other plan. A man
has but to believe there is a God ; that he is the inspector
of our actions, and the future rewarder and punisher of
good and ill, and he is not only tolerated, but, if possessed of
talents and integrity, is on the road to a place.

This great and good man lived to see an extensive coun-
try rescued from the wilderness and filled witlva free and
flourishing people ; he lived to lay the foundation of a splen-
did and wealthy city ; he lived to see it promise every thing,
from the situation he himself had chosen and from the en-
couragement which he himself had given it; he lived to
see all this, but he died in the Fleet prison ! \_A mistake.']

'Tis pleasing to do honour to those great men whose vir-
tues and generosity have contributed to the peopling of the
earth and to the freedom and happiness of mankind; who
have preferred the interest of a remote posterity, and times
unknown, to their own fortune and to the quiet and secu-
rity of their own lives. Now both Britain and America
reap just benefit from his labours and his losses ; and his pos-

40 A BRIEF MEMOIR

terity have a vast estate out of the quit-rents of that very
province whose establishment was the ruin of their prede-
cessor's fortune.

MONTESQUIEU, ON PENN.

" A character so extraordinary in the institutions of
Greece, has shown itself lately in the dregs and corruption
of modern times. A very honest legislator has formed a
people to whom probity seems as natural as bravery to the
Spartans. William Penn is a real Lycurgus ; and though
the former made peace his principal aim, as the latter did
war, yet they resemble one another in the singular way of
living to which they reduced their people — in the ascendent
they gained over freemen, in the prejudices they overcame,
and in the passions they subdued."

CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PENN — BY DR. MARSILLAC,

Deputy Extraordinary from the Quakers in France to the National
Assembly, 1791

" After so many acts of violence and oppression, so many
robberies and murders committed by the Europeans in the
New World, the heart finds some consolation in pausing over
the part which William Penn acted there. In an age when
savage Europe put to death so many innocent people merely
because they could not embrace the faith of their sovereigns,
and spread over so large a part of America those horrors of
fire and sword at which nature revolts, William Penn, like
an angel from heaven, presented the olive-branch to those
afflicted people, and, by acts of godlike justice, not only re-
stored tranquillity to their ravaged quarters, but laid the
foundation of extensive liberty and happiness.

" He was perhaps the first who ever built one of the fair-
est empires of the world on the sole basis of general good,
and, by assuring universal toleration and community of
rights, offered a happy asylum to persecuted innocence

OF WILLIAM PENN. 41

throughout the earth. There are but few sections of the
American continent that have not been drenched with hu-
man blood ; and to their eternal shame it was the enlight-
ened and polished Europeans who did this, and who mur-
dered by thousands the poor harmless natives, who received
them with hospitality! and then to extenuate their guilt,
they branded those as savages whom they had so barbar-
ously slaughtered. The arrival of William Penn put a stop
to those frightful enormities. His godlike humanity to
these oppressed people — treating them as brothers, buying
their lands and heaping them with favours, melted their sim-
ple natures with gratitude and affection. Astonished to see
a white man who was good, and abhorred injustice and blood-
shed, they revered him as something more than man, and
gloried in calling him ' Father.*

" Of all the Europeans who have mitigated the ills of
life and the fury of religious persecution, William Penn
most deserves the gratitude of posterity. His first act in
America held up a lovely presage of the prosperity that was
to follow. And in his unyielding efforts to shield the op-
pressed, he looks like Moses, followed by a host of religious
friends, whom he conducted across the wilderness of waves
to a new 'land of promise,' flowing with the milk and
hone?/ of freedom, peace, and plenty.

" Abhorring persecution, as the direst reproach and
scourge of mankind, he resolved effectually to bar the door
against it. Hence that sublime charter of his, guarantee-
ing the most perfect liberty of conscience to all the honest
worshippers of God, no matter what their opinions and
forms. Instantly crowds of persons, oppressed in their
own country because of religion, embarked for the country
of William Penn. Then shone forth that divine philoso-
phy ' Love thy neighbour as thyself,' in the blessed fruits
resulting from it ; for, while among the antichrists of Eu-
rope, the popes and bishops, nothing was heard but cries

42 A BRIEF MEMOIR

and groans from the inquisitions and dungeons; nothing
talked of but sales of property belonging to heretics and
dissenters ; nothing seen but marks of deadly hate between
the oppressing and oppressed churches ; in good William
Penn's country, glory to God, you met with no spectacles
of this sort ; but, on the contrary, every thing to sparkle
the eye of charity with pleasure. There you saw worship-
pers of a hundred different sects, moving along the streets
to their several churches, in the most perfect peace and
harmony; there, whether Jews or Christians, Catholics or
Protestants, all adored God in the way they thought most
rational; and, meeting with no persecution themselves, they
felt no temptation to persecute others. Every poor emi-
grant to Pennsylvania was welcome as an exile from his
native land; and, having no country or family of his own,
he found in William Penn a tender and generous father.

"The most virtuous of men was the honoured instrument
of blessings to thousands of the unfortunate ; and his in-
stitutions have laid the imperishable foundations of a new
empire, which shines like a star in the west, and whose rays
have already begun to open the eyes of Europe.

" Having held the reins of government no longer than
was necessary for the good of his province, he mixed among
his people as only one of their number, and despising on
the one hand all the pomps of the falsely great, and filling
up life, on the other, with the most beneficent labours, he
came to the grave in a good old age, eulogized by the great-
est philosophers, honoured above the proudest kings, and
to this day revered by the Indians, as a benevolent spirit
sent down from heaven to establish the reign of peace and
happiness on earth."

OF WILLIAM PENN. 43

CHAPTER V.

"the macaulay charges."*

In this supplementary chapter I propose to review the
charges made against William Penn by Whig historians,
and adopted, with novelties and exaggerations of his own,
by Mr. Macaulay in his recent history. The reader who
has traced his career from Tower Hill to the graveyard at
Jordans, may hardly care to read what follows ; the simple
record of his life being the most emphatic answer that can
be given to party misrepresentation ; but I believe there are
some who will look for a more formal refutation of these
charges at my hands, and for their satisfaction I enter into
the several points of controversy which have been raised.
Every one is conscious of the animus which pervades the
last Whig history. To point out the capricious likes and
dislikes of the historian would be tedious, and is unneces-
sary : at the same time I will not deny that his page is alive
with pictures, and that the narrative possesses a unity and
vehemence which render it one of the most useful additions
to our store of historical reading since the appearance of the
Scotch novels.

Mr. Macaulay has written several volumes of history and
criticism. He must be aware that one of the fundamental
laws of Critical Inquiry demands, that when a fact or a cha-
racter has stood the tests of time, and in the progress of
opinion has attained to something like a fixed position in the
historical system, the evidence in support of any assault on it
must be strong and free from taint in some fair proportion to
the length of time and strength of opinion on which it rests.

* From Dixon's Life of Penn.

44 A BRIEF MEM OIK

This rule is deeply based in human nature. The fixity of
historical ideas is, in other words, the permanence of truth.
Once a great historical verdict is passed, the noblest instincts
of our being prompt us to guard it as something sacred, —
to be set aside only after scrupulous inquiry and conclusive
evidence against its justice. The wise man will not rashly
disturb the repose of ages. Our faith in history is akin to
religion : it is a confidence in our power to separate good
from evil — truth from falsehood, — to preserve in their native
purity the wisdom which serves to guide, and the memories
which inspire the best actions of mankind. Mr. Macaulay
will not deny the reasonableness of a rule growing out of
such a feeling. He would himself exact the strongest facts
and the severest logic from the man who should presume to
dispute the laws of Kepler ; and the fullest and most un-
questionable evidence would be required in support of an
assertion that Milton was a debauchee, or Buckingham a
man of virtue.

I will apply this canon to his own method. That I may
not incur the charge of improperly assuming that Penn's
reputation was thus historically fixed, I will cite Mr. Ma-
caulay's own reading of the verdict which more than a cen-
tury and a half has ratified. "Rival nations/' he says,
" have agreed in canonizing him. England is proud of his
name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards
him with a reverence similar to that which the Athenians
felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respect-
able society of which he was a member honours him as an
apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally
regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Mean-
while, admirers of a very different sort have sounded his
praises. The French philosophers of the eighteenth cen-
tury pardoned what they regarded as his superstitious fan-
cies in consideration of his contempt for priests, and of his
cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially extended to all races

OF WILLIAM PENN. 45

and all creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all
civilized countries, a synonym for polity and philanthropy."

This general verdict Mr. Macaulay challenges. He ad-
mits that his attempt " requires some courage ;" I think
the reader will agree with him, when the evidence is ad-
duced'on which his challenge is supported. This evidence
consists of five assertions : (I.) That his connection with
the court in 1684, while he lived at Kensington, caused his
own sect to look coldly on him and even treat him with
obloquy. (II.) That he " extorted money" from the girls
of Taunton for the maids of-honour. (III.) That he allowed
himself to be employed in the work of seducing Kiffin into
a compliance with court designs. (IV.) That he endea-
voured to gain William's assent to the promulgated edict sus-
pending the penal laws. (V.) That he " did his best to se-
duce" the Magdalen collegians " from the path of right," and
was " a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind."

These allegations I shall examine in the order in which
they occur.

I. I quote Mr. Macaulay's own words. " He was soon
surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Ken-
sington was sometimes thronged at his hour of rising by
more than two hundred suitors. He paid dear, however,
for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly
on him and requited his services with obloquy." His
only authority for this statement is Gerard Croese, (Hist.
Qua. lib. ii. 1695,) a Dutchman, who never was in England
in his life, and whose work the Society of Friends has never
recognised. Croese could have no trustworthy knowledge
of the opinions of the Quakers, and no right to represent
their opinions. The statement is not, however, merely un-
supported ; but it is positively contradicted by the Devon-
shire House Records. These prove that at this time Penn
was in regular attendance at the monthly meetiDgs, and was
elected to the highest offices in the body.

46 A BRIEF MEMOIR

II. That the reader may understand the Taunton affair,
I must point out the features, with more exactness than Mr.
Macaulay has done, which relate to his charge against Penn.
When Monmouth arrived at Taunton, he found that the
town had pledged itself to the rebellion, by the signal act
of having had wrought, at the public expense, a set of royal
standards for him and his army, by the daughters of the
principal families. The ceremony of presenting these stand-
ards was one of the most important acts of the rebellion ;
at the head of her procession the schoolmistress carried the
emblems of royal power — the Bible and the sword j* and
the royal banner was presented to the duke as to their sove-
reign. Thereupon he assumed the name of King — set a
price on his uncle's head — and proclaimed the Parliament
then sitting a treasonable convention, to be pursued with
war and destruction. f This insanity cost Monmouth his
head, and won a gibbet for hundreds of his followers. The
case of the maidens was not different to that of many others.
They had taken, with their parents' knowledge, a prominent
part in the rebellion ; and when the day of vengeance came,
they stood before the law guilty of a crime for which the
sentence was — death. The idea of sending them to the
scaffold for faults which were their parents' more than their
own, was of course not thought of; but that the parents
might not escape punishment, the power to pardon them
was given by the king to the maids of honour, — not likely,
I must suppose, to be the most exacting of creditors, — as a
sort of fee or bounty. It is to be remembered the sale of
pardons was in that age a regular profession ; from the king —
at least in Charles's time — to the link-boy or the porter at

* Mr. Macaulay forgets the sword, because Sir James Mackintosh had
forgotten it.

f Though very fond of strong language, Mr. Macaulay softens these
harsh words into simple "illegal assembly" ! his evident object being to
make the after-vengeance appear unprovoked.

OF WILLIAM PENN. 47

his gates, almost every man and woman connected with the
court regularly sold his or her influence. The young girls
about the Queen, daughters, be it remembered, of the first
families in the land, had no proper conception of the horrid
wickedness of this brokerage ; and they requested the Duke
of Somerset to get the affair arranged for them on the best
terms. Somerset wrote to Sir Francis "Warre, the member
for Bridgewater, asking him as a personal favour to see the
parents, as being a neighbour and likely to be known to
them, or to name some proper agent who might arrange the
business. Warre had evidently no wish to be mixed up with
an affair of this kind ; and he replied that it was already in
proper hands, those of one Bird, the town-clerk. For some
unknown reason the maids of honour forbade this agent to
proceed in their behalf, and Warre was again applied to;
but he refused to name a broker on the spot, excusing him-
self on the pleas that the schoolmistress was a woman of
mean birth, and the young ladies were acting at the time
under her orders. Weeks elapsed, and no settlement was
made by the parents ; nor do we know — except by infer-
ence— what was done in the matter at court, until the fol-
lowing letter was written : —

"Whitehall, Feb. 13th, 1685-6.

" Mr. Penne : — Her Majties Maids of Honour having
acquainted me that they designe to employ you and Mr.
Waldon in making a composition with the Relations of the
Maids of Taunton for the high Misdemeanour they have been
guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you know that
His* Majty has been pleased to give their Fines to the said
Maids of Honour, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Wal-
den and you to make the most advantageous composition you
can in their behalfe. I am, Sir, your humble servant,

" Sunderland P."

* In transcribing this letter from the State Papers, Mr. Forster writes
"her" maj'y, — a mistake which gives an erroneous countenance to Mr.
Macaulay's "scandal against Queen" Maria.

40 A BRIEF MEMOIR

To whom was this letter addressed ? Sir James Macin-
tosh, the first man who brought the letter to light, — for Mr.
Macaulay has not even the merit of originality in his errors, —
assumed that it was addressed to William Penn ; and in this
singular assumption he has been followed by his friend and
admirer. But Macintosh went still further : he not only
assumed, without warrant, that a letter addressed to -a " Mr.
Penne" to engage him in a " scandalous transaction''' was
addressed to the Governor of Pennsylvania; but he also
dared, in defiance of every rule of historical criticism, to
assume that "William Penn accepted the commission that was
so offered. Mr. Macaulay, of course, copied this gross mis-
take from Sir James, and gave it the additional currency of
his own volumes. This point is particularly noticeable, —
that Mr. Macaulay did not consult the original authorities,
but satisfied himself with merely quoting from the " Macin-
tosh collection." Now this letter was certainly not addressed
to William Penn. (1.) In the first place, it does not bear
his name : he never wrote his name "Penne," nor did others
ever so write it. In the Pennsylvania correspondence, in
the Minutes of the Privy Council, and in the letters of Van
Citters, Locke, Lawton, Bailey, Creech, and Hunt, and in
the correspondence of his private friends, I have seen it
written hundreds of times, but never once, even by acci-
dent, with an e final. Least of all men could Sunderland,
his intimate acquaintance from boyhood, make such a mis-
take. (2.) The letter is highly disrespectful, if supposed
to be written to a man of his rank — a man who had refused
a peerage, and who stood before the court not only as a per-
sonal friend to the king, but as Lord Proprietor of the largest
province in America; the more especially would this be
the case when it is considered that the letter was written by
the polite and diplomatic Earl of Sunderland. (3.) The
work to be done required a low, trafficking agent, who could
go down to Taunton and stay there until the business was

OF WILLIAM PENN. 49

concluded : it is obvious that this could not be done by Wil-
liam Penn. (4.) The letter is evidently a reply to an offer
of service : the maids of honour " designe to employ'7 Air.
Penne and Mr. Walden, because, as it seems to me, they
had applied for the office. Malice itself would shrink from
the assumption that the governor of Pennsylvania would
voluntarily solicit such an employment. (5.) It is contrary
to every thing else that is known of Penn that he would
allow himself, on any pretence, to be drawn into such a
business. (6.) No mention of it occurs in any of his letters :
I have read some hundreds of them, and, although he was
the most communicative of correspondents, not a trace of
his action, or of his having been applied to in the affair,
is to be found. Knowing his epistolary habit, this met
alone would have satisfied my own mind. (7.) No mention
has been made of his interference by any news-writer, pamph-
leteer, or historian, — though, had he been concerned, the
host of maligners, who rose against him on the flight of
James, could certainly not have failed to point their sar-
casms with the "scandalous transaction" and "extortion of
money." (8.) No tradition of his appearance on the scene
is preserved in the neighbourhood ; when, had he really been
the agent employed, it is impossible that so conspicuous a
broker could have faded so soon from local recollection.

But, if William Penn were not the "Mr. Penne" ad-
dressed by Lord Sunderland, and designed by the ladies to
be employed in their behalf — who was the man ? A little
research enables me to answer this question. In the regis-
ters of the Privy Council I find this entry : —

"Nov. 25th, 16S7.

u George Penne — Upon reading the petition of George
Penne, gent., setting forth that his family having been great
sufferers for their loyalty, He humbly begs that His Ma-
jesty would be graciously pleased to grant him a patent for

50 A BRIEF MEMOIR

the sole exercising the royal Oake lottery, and licensing all
other games, in his Majesty's plantations in America, for
twenty-one years. His Majesty in Council is pleased to
refer this matter to the consideration of the Rt. Hon. the
Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and; upon what their
lordships report of what is fit to be done therein for the
petitioner, His Majesty will declare his further pleasure."

This man, whose fitting reward, according to his own esti-
mate of the value of his services, was the fief of a gaming-
table, was the Mr. Penne. His name is always spelt with
the final e. In the first draft of the foregoing minute, the
clerk had spelt the name George Penn, both in the mar-
gin and in the text, but has filled the final letter in after-
wards, as if propheticall}7 guarding against any confusion
of this wretched fellow with the great governor of Pennsyl-
vania. He was a low hanger-on about the back-doors of
the court, ready for any dirty work. When pardons were
to be bought and sold, he was a pardon-broker. He was
actively engaged in the Taunton affair; and among other feats,
as I am able to state on the authority of a family-cash book
still preserved, he obtained 65/. from Nathaniel Pinney as
the ransom of his brother Azariah Pinney, one of the trans-
ported rebels. Mr. Waldcn was apparently an agent of the
same kind, and equally and deservedly obscure. For some
reason, however, the " designe to employ" these men mis-
carried, and the maids of honour found another agent in
the person of Brent, the Popish lawyer, who was a regular
pardon-broker, and was arrested on the flight of King James,
as I find by the minutes of Privy Council. This fellow em-
ployed as great a rascal as himself, one Crane of Bridge-
water, as his sub-agent, and between them they settled the
business, as Oldmixon relates.

Having cleared Penn from this foul and unfounded charge,
let me say a word or two in behalf of the maids of honour.

OF WILLIAM PENN. 51

Mr. Macaulay says they " were at last forced to be content
with less than a third" of 7000?. How much less ? Is
there any evidence that they received a single guinea ? Dr.
Toulniin collected his information from the families of the
girls of Taunton, at a time when the children of the little
rebels might have been still alive, and he says merely that
some of the parents paid as much as fifty or a hundred
pounds. Some of them ? Oldmixon tells us that the num-
ber of the scholars was twenty. How many of twenty could
be called some ? Take it at ten ; if pardons were purchased
for ten, five at 50?. and five at 100?., this would but yield
750?. altogether. Besides which Oldmixon, who had pecu-
liar means of learning the real facts, says the agent and his
subordinate paid themselves bountifully out of the money.
I know of no proof that the maids of honour got a shilling.
While on this digression, I may add a remark in behalf
of another much-abused lady. The historian counts up with
virtuous indignation the number of transported insurgents
which the Queen, Maria d'Este, selected for her private por-
tion of the spoil, and talks of "the thousand pounds" which
she made by " her unprincely greediness and her unwomanly
cruelty." Now we not only do not know how much, if any
thing at all, the Queen put into her pocket, but we do not
know for certain that she received for herself a single trans-
port. We have no good reason to believe that she ever
dreamt of such a thing. The only ground for this gross
charge against the honour of a woman and a foreigner, is a
letter of Sunderland to Lord Jeffreys — which Mr. Macaulay,
as usual, has copied from the " Macintosh Collection," — in
which that statesman, after giving a list of grants of pri-
soners to various persons about the court, adds in a post-
script— " The Queen has asked for a hundred more of the
rebels who are to be transported ; as soon as I know for
whom, you shall hear from me again." It is clear enough
from Sunderland's words that she did not ask them for her-

52 A BRIEF MEMOIR

self. It is equally clear that Mr. Macaulay's estimate of
" the profits she cleared on the cargo, after making large
allowance for those who died of hunger and fever during
the passage/' is a mere invention. The misfortunes of this
woman should have shielded her from injustice.

III. Towards the close of his reign, when the churchmen
openly repudiated their own doctrine of passive obedience,
James became anxious to secure the adhesion of his dis-
senting subjects; and among other leading men, he selected
Penn's old opponent, William Kiffin, the Baptist, for a city
magistracy. But two of Kimn's grandsons had been taken
and executed in the Western rebellion, and it was doubted
whether the old man would comply with the wishes of the
court. At this point Mr. Macaulay introduces Penn. "The
heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by
themselves, thought that the old man would be easily pro-
pitiated by an alderman's gown, and by some compensation
in money, for the propert}7 which his grandsons had for-
feited. Penn was employed in the work of seduction, but
to no purpose." Now, there is not the slightest foundation
in history for this statement. Mr. Macaulay here asserts
that Penn was " employed," by the " heartless and venal
sycophants" of the court, to seduce Kifiin into an accept-
ance of the alderman's gown, — and that he failed. The
passage means this, or it means nothing. It will be allowed
that on such a point Kifiin himself must be the best author-
ity : in his autobiography, lately published from the origi-
nal manuscript, he says, — "In a little after, a great tempta-
tion attended me, which was a commission from the King,
to be one of the aldermen of the city of London; which, as
soon as I heard of it, I used all the diligence I could, to be
excused, both by some lords near the King, and also by Sir
Nicholas Butler and Mr. Penn. But it was all in vain."
This is just the reverse of what Mr. Macaulay states. Penn
did not go to Kifiin ; Kifiin went to Penn. Instead of be

OF WILLIAM PENN. 53

ing employed in the work of seduction, he was engaged in
the task of intercession. Mr. Macauley makes Kiffin refuse
the magistracy : Kiffin says he accepted it : — " The next
court-day I came to the court, and took upon me the office
of alderman."

IV. A little attention to dates will soon dispose of the
fourth charge against Penn. Mr. Macaulay writes — " All
men were anxious to know what he [the Prince of Orange]
thought of the Declaration of Indulgence. . . . Penn
sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and even went
thither in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a
high opinion, would prove irresistible." Now, Penn re-
turned from Germany in the autumn of 1686, and the De-
claration was not issued until April, 1687. After 1686, he
never went to the Dutch capital. There is no evidence,
even, that Penn sent over " copious disquisitions ;" Burnet,
Mr. Macaulay' s authority, says not a word on such a subject.
When Penn was at the Hague, in the summer of 1686, the
subject that was under discussion related to the Tests, not
the Indulgence. The Declaration was unthought of at that
time j — Burnet is very clear on this point. But there is
other proof that Mr. Macaulay's guesswork is wrong. In
November, 1686, five months before the Declaration was
issued, Van Citters reported to his correspondent the sub-
stance of the conversation between Penn and the Prince,
as it was then known in court circles in London j and in
that report no mention whatever is made of the Declaration.

V. In the ninth chapter of the preceding memoir, I have
given the true history of Penn's connection with the affair
of Magdalen College. In this place I shall content my-
self with a special refutation of Mr. Macaulay' s errors ; first
quoting his material passages, and numbering them for sepa-
rate remark. (1) " Penn was at Chester, on a pastoral
tour. His popularity and authority among his brethren
bad greatly declined (2) since he had become a tool of

54 A BRIEF MEMOIR

the King and the Jesuits." . . . (3) " Perhaps the col-
lege might still be terrified, caressed, or bribed into sub-
mission. The agency of Penn was employed." . . . (4)
" The courtly Quaker, therefore, did his best to seduce the
college from the path of right/' . . . (5) "To such a
degree had his manners been corrupted by evil communica-
tions, and his understanding obscured by inordinate zeal
for a single object, that he did not scruple to become a
broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind, and to
use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury."
These assertions may be looked at, one by one, as they stand
here. (1) Had Penn become in 1687 — the date of Mr.
Macaulay's authority — unpopular and powerless with his
brethren ? There is, fortunately, better evidence than that
of an agent of Louis Quatorze: the evidence of the " bre-
thren' ' themselves. The Records at Devonshire House
prove that his influence was high as ever in the society of
Friends : he was elected to speak their sentiments ; he
served their most important offices ; was in accord with Fox,
Crisp, and the other leaders ; and at the very moment when
Mr. Macaulay introduces him with this disparaging com-
ment, he was on a religious tour, one of the most popular
and brilliant of his public ministry. To this may be added
the testimony of Penn himself; in one of his letters he ex-
pressly says that it is at the joint request of the Society
of Friends, and of persons in authority, that he is engaged
in the business of the nation. (2) Was he ever " a tool of
the King and of the Jesuits V No man, I venture to be-
lieve, will entertain a doubt on this point, after reading the
ninth chapter of these memoirs, and the authorities there
cited. Family experiences had given him an early abhor-
rence of the persecuting spirit of the Roman Church. In
his youth he had written against the errors of Popery, and
in his riper age had pointed many a sentence with honest
indignation at Jesuit morals.

OF WILLIAM PENN. 55

Now that the Jesuits had acquired power at court, he
continually hazarded his influence by urging the King to
banish them from the royal presence. Citters, Johnstone,
and Clarendon, all testify clearly to this effect. The Dutch
diplomatist says, " Penn has had a long interview with the
King, and has, he thinks, shown to the King that Parlia-
ment will not consent to a revocation of the Test and Penal
Laws — and that he never will get a Parliament to his mind,
so long as he will not adopt moderate councils, and drive
away from his presence the immoderate Jesuits, and other
Papists who surround him daily, and whose ultra councils
he now follows." Johnstone says expressly, that Penn was
against the order commanding the Declaration to be read
in the churches. Clarendon says in his Diary that Penn
" laboured to thwart the Jesuitical influence that predomi-
nated." On what authority, then, does Mr. Macaulay make
his assertion ? Simply on his own ! Was he a tool of the
King ? The idea is absurd. He never sacrificed a point to
the humour of James ; but he often crossed that humour,
and his political action was always against the court. Not
to go so far back as the days of Sidney, when, according to
Barillon, he divided the leadership of the most advanced
body of Reformers with that great Republican, — if his pri-
vate friendship was given to Sunderland, Halifax, and Ro-
chester, his political sympathy was always with the more
liberal men of the opposition. The supporters of Monmouth
looked to him and half a dozen others to bring over the
American colonies to the cause of liberty and Protestantism.
Though he was trusted by James, he was always an object
of suspicion to his government. He plainly told the King
of his errors ; he advised him to expel the Jesuits from
Whitehall ; not to trust to his prerogative, but to meet his
Parliament with wise and just proposals; not to insist on
having the Declaration read by the clergy; not to commit
the seven Prelates to the Tower. And when that impolitic

56 A BRIEF MEMOIR

act had been committed, he advised him to take the gracious
opportunity afforded by the birth of a Prince of Wales to set
them at liberty, and still further to signalize the occasion by
a general amnesty to the exiles in Holland. He counselled
him to submit to the will of the nation, and to be content
with a simple toleration of his religion. Can this man be
called a "tool" of the King? Let Mr. Macaulay show an-
other man in that age with equal boldness and integrity.
He braved the royal frowns again and again in the cause
of mercy. He obtained a pardon for Locke, another for
Trenchard, another for Aaron Smith — all of them men who
had deeply offended James. He compelled him to listen to
the councils of the leading Whigs; and in the Oxford affair
told him he was in the wrong in plainer language than the
usages of speech would permit to ordinary men. This man
a tool ! (3) Was the agency of Penn employed to terrify,
caress, or bribe the collegians into submission ? There is
not even a shadow of authority for this most uncharitable
assertion. Penn was alarmed at the quarrel, fearing it
might lead, through the combined obstinacy of the King
and Fellows, to a loss of the College Charter, and a trans-
fer of its immense revenues to the Papists — and he inter-
posed his good offices to heal the wound. Instead of look-
ing on him as a person " employed" to terrify, caress, or
bribe them into submission, we have the evidence of Dr.
Bailey, one of the inculpated Fellows, and that of Thomas
Creech, a student, that the collegians regarded him as a
friend and mediator " in their behalf." (4) Did he " do
his best to seduce the college from the path of right ?" Mr.
Macaulay' s knowledge of the proceeding appears to be de-
rived from " Wilmot's Life of Hough" — though he does not
quote it — and from the " State Trials." To these sources
of information must be added the MS. letters of Dr. Sykes
and Mr. Creech, preserved in the Bodleian Library at Ox-
ford, and the MS. papers of George Hunt, now in the pos-

OF WILLIAM PENN. 57

session of the President of Magdalen College. Hunt was
one of the Fellows, and was present at the interview with
Penn ; Sykes and Creech were both of them well informed
as to all the incidents which occurred ; yet so far is either
he, or are they, from saying that he attempted to " seduce
them from the path of right/ ' that they agree exactly in the
emphatic and conclusive statement that, after hearing their
reasons, he agreed with them that they were justified in
their resistance. He even went further ; he became their
champion. In their presence he wrote a manly English
letter to his sovereign, in which he told him in very plain
terms — "that their case was hard; that in their circum-
stances they could not yield without a breach of their oaths;
and that such mandates were a force on conscience, and
not agreeable to the King's other gracious indulgences."
How singularly unfortunate is Mr. Macaulay in his author-
ities ! "Penn," he says, "exhorted the Fellows not to
rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at
least to temporize." I defy Mr. Macaulay to give any trust-
worthy authority for this macchiavellian council. He wisely
abstains from quoting his author j but the curious reader
will find it in the twelfth volume of the " State Trials," in
the shape of an anonymous letter which was addressed by
some unknown person, during the heat of the dispute, to
Dr. Bailey, one of the Fellows. Bailey, " from the chari-
table purpose" of the letter, thought it might have come
from Penn j and to ascertain the fact, wrote a reply to Penn
without signing his name, saying that if he were his anony-
mous correspondent, he would know how to address his an-
swer. Of course no reply came. No man conversant with
Penn's habit of writing could for an instant mistake it for
his j it commences, " Sir," — and the second person plural
is used throughout. Nor is this all the evidence against its
being written by Penn. The contemporary account of these
proceedings has written, in Hunt's hand, on the margin of

58 A BRIEF MEMOIR

this letter, the words — " This letter Mr. Penn disowned/'
Yet it is on the assumption that Penn actually wrote this
thrice-proven spurious epistle, that Mr. Macaulay has built
his most serious accusation ! What would be said of such
evidence in a court of justice ? Surely the memories of the
illustrious dead are not less precious than the property
of the living ! Let me say, to the credit of Macintosh,
that lie makes no charge against Penn in this Oxford busi-
ness. Here Mr. Macaulay is perfectly original. (5) Did
Penn deal " in simony of a particularly disreputable kind,
and use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury V*
Mr. Macaulay continues to represent him as employed by
the court; and having, as he says, failed in his attempt to
terrify the collegians into obedience, he " then tried a gen-
tler tone. He had an interview with Hough, and with some
of the Fellows, and, after many professions of sympathy and
friendship, began to hint at a compromise. . . . l How
should you like/ said Penn, ' to see Dr. Hough Bishop of
Oxford V " Hereupon follows the indignation about simony
and perjury.

Now, let us see what is really known about this interview.
Dr. Hough, its chief subject, wrote on the evening of the
day on which it took place a letter to his cousin, in which
he recited the principal heads of the discourse, — and this
account, from one too deeply interested to be impartial, and
too much excited to remember any thing but what especially
concerned his own prospects and position, is unfortunately
the only existing authority. Hunt was not present at this
interview, and no account of it is preserved in the Magda-
len College MSS. Holden's MS. letters in the same library
commence posterior to the affair of Penn ; and Baron Jen-
ner's MS. account of the Visitation is not to be found. But
let us take the authority we have, imperfect though it be,
and see what matter can be drawn from it in support of the
accusation. What says Hough ? In the outset, instead of

OF WILLIAM PENN. 59

Perm being " employed," as Mr. Macaulay continues to
misrepresent him, to solicit the Fellows, it appears that the
Fellows had sent a deputation to him, consisting of Hough
and the principal members of the college. Their conversa-
tion lasted three hours ; the substance of it I have given in
the text of the ninth chapter of the memoir : Mr. Macaulay's
version of it is inexact in all its essential particulars. " He
then tried a gentler tone/' The historian does not seem to
know that two interviews took place, one at Oxford, the
other at Windsor, with six weeks of an interval ; there is
no evidence, except the spurious letter, that he ever used
other than a gentle tone. He " began to hint at a compro-
mise :" the words of Hough are — " I thank God he did not
so much as offer at any proposal by way of accommodation. "
How reconcile such statements? Now let us hear what
Hough says of the simony and perjury. Penn, who, accord-
ing to Swift, " spoke agreeably and with spirit/' was always
more or less facetious in conversation. Like his father, he
was fond of a joke, and had that delight in drollery which
belongs to the highest natures. In this very conversation
we see how he made his rhetoric dance — " Christ Church is
a noble structure, University is a pleasant place, and Mag-
dalen College is a comely building." Hough, though not
the most quick-witted of men, saw that he " had a mind to
droll upon us." Stolid and heavy, Hough no doubt reported
the conversation honestly, so far as he could remember and
understand it. To quote his words — " Once he said, smil-
ing, If the Bishop of Oxford die, Dr. Hough may be made
Bishop. What think you of that, gentlemen V Cradock,
one of the Fellows present, took up the tone of pleasantry,
and replied, " They should be heartily glad of it — for it
would do very well with the presidency." Does any one
doubt that this was a mere pleasantry ? Observe, Penn had
no commission to treat with the Fellows, — that he met them
at their own request, to consider how he could serve their

60 A BRIEF MEMOIR

interests. That Cradock thought it a joke is evident from
his retort. Had the suggestion of the bishopric been in
earnest, it must have been offered on condition of Hough
giving up the presidency of his college — that being the point
at issue. In such a case, to talk of the combination of the
two offices would have been insulting and absurd. Even
Hough himself, the least jocular of men, understood this
remark as a mere pleasantry, for he instantly adds, " But,
I told him, seriously, I had no ambition. " And yet this
innocent mirth, accepted and understood as such by all the
parties concerned, after a lapse of nearly two centuries, is
revived and tortured into a ground for one of the foulest
accusations ever brought against an historical reputation !
Is this English History?

Having far exceeded the limits of my original intention,
which was only to introduce William Penn to the rising
generation, and thereby induce the spirit of inquiry to read
the various able biographies written of him, — to which, and
his autobiography, I now make every acknowledgement for
the liberties I have taken with them in compiling this
sketch, — I have to regret that, even after lengthening my
sJwrt memoir to its present extent, I have so signally failed
to portray him in his full and diversified character. I have
met with nothing, in my opinion, that has done him justice,
neither as a Christian nor lawgiver, highly as he has been
extolled for both. I did not know, when I penned my
sketch, that he had ever been likened unto Moses. When
we consider the darkness of the age in which he lived, both
in a religious and political point of view, — the circumstances
that surrounded him, — and contrast him with his fellows,
which is the only correct method to obtain a true picture,
we find him determined at all hazards to do good, surmount-
ing every obstacle that parental authority wielding an im-
mense estate could do to intimidate him, together with the

OF WILLIAM PENN. 61

laws of his benighted country, which inflicted most direful
punishments and persecutions upon him; than, added to all
this, the natural propensities of the human heart, " which
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked :" — I
say, contrast him with his fellows, and we find many of
them pursuing a course diametrically opposite to his. In-
deed, every thing that parents, government, and friends
could do, were brought into requisition to guard their mo-
rals; yet, in defiance of all these restraints, the number
who delighted to do evil and throw themselves away was
very great. I would call the reader's attention to the dia-
logue held between Sir William Penn and his wife, after
William's expulsion from hoine, as given by Weems, for
a clearly-defined exposition of my views.

Good and great as he was, he was not shielded from the
attacks of the ignorant and designing. ' I, therefore, take
the liberty of calling attention to his biography by William
Hepworth Dixon of England, written in 1851 ; and that
also by Samuel M. Janney of Virginia, written since to
exculpate him from various charges recently promulgated ;
they have succeeded, without an effort, to burnish him up,
and caused him to shine forth even as the sun after a sum-
mer thunderstorm. Notwithstanding the facetious style
of the Rev. M. L. Weems, I think his life of Penn should
be introduced into every school in Pennsylvania, and in as
many elsewhere as possible.

(Vl.^w ♦

tmxixn mnmmik SUiML

THE

EPISTLE TO THE READER.

Reader : —

By this short ensuing treatise, thou wilt perceive the sub-
ject of it, — viz. : The Light of Christ in Man, as the Mani-
festation of God's Love for Man's Happiness. Now, foras-
much as this is the peculiar testimony and characteristic
of the people called Quakers, — their great fundamental in
religion, — that by which they have been distinguished from
other professors of Christianity in their time, and to which
they refer all people about faith, worship, and practice both
in their ministry and writings, — that as the fingers shoot out
of the hand, and the branches from the body of the tree, —
so true religion, in all the parts and articles of it, springs
from this divine principle in man. And because the preju-
dices of some are very great against this people and their
way ; and that others, who love their seriousness and com-
mend their good life, are yet, through mistakes, or want of
inquiry, under jealousy of their unsoundness in some points
of faith ; and that there are not a few in all persuasions
which desire earnestly to know and enjoy God in that sen-
sible manner this people speak of, and who seem to long
after a state of holiness and acceptance with God, but are
under doubts and despondings of their attaining it, from the
want they find in themselves of inward power to enable
them, and are unacquainted with this efficacious agent which
God hath given and appointed for their supply.

For these reasons and motives, know, reader, I have taken

in hand to write this small tract of the nature and virtue

of the light of Christ within man ; what and where it is,

l* 5

G THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

and for what end, and therein of the religion of the people
called Quakers ; that, at the same time, all people may be
informed of their true character, and what true religion is,
and the way to it, in this age of high pretences and as deep
irreligion ; that so the merciful visitation of the God of light
and love, (more especially to these nations,) both immedi-
ately and instrumentally for the promotion of piety, (which
is religion indeed,) may no longer be neglected by the inha-
bitants thereof, but that they may come to see and say, with
heart and mouth, this is a dispensation of love and life from
God to the world ; and this poor people, that we have so
much despised, and so often trod upon, and treated as the
off-scouring of the earth, are the people of God and chil-
dren of the Most High. Bear with me, reader; I know
what I say, and am not high-minded, but fear • for I write
with humility towards God, though with confidence towards
thee; not that thou shouldst believe upon my authority
nothing less, for that's not to act upon knowledge, but trust,
but that thou shouldst try and approve what I write ; for
that is all I ask, as well as all I need for thy conviction and
my own justification. The whole, indeed, being but a Scrip-
tural experiment upon the soul, and therefore seeks for no
implicit credit, because it is self-evident to them that will
uprightly try it.

And when thou, reader, shalt come to be acquainted with
this principle, and the plain and happy teachings of it, thou
wilt with us admire thou shouldst live so long a stranger to
that which was so near thee, and as much wonder that other
folks should be so blind as not to see it, as formerly thou
thoughtest us singular for obeying it. The day, I believe,
is at hand that will declare this with an uncontrollable au-
thority, because it will be with an unquestionable evidence.

I have done, reader, with this preface when I have told
thee : — first, that I have stated the principle and opened, as
God has enabled me, the nature and virtue of it in religion,

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER. 7

wherein the common doctrines and articles of the Christian
religion are delivered and improved, and about which I
have endeavoured to express myself in plain and proper
terms, and not in figurative, allegorical or doubtful phrases,
that so I may leave no room for an equivocal or double
sense; but that the truth of the subject I treat upon may
appear easily and evidently to every common understand-
ing. Next, I have confirmed what I writ by Scripture,
reason, and the effects of it upon so great a people, whose
uniform concurrence in the experience and practice thereof,
through all times and sufferings since a people, challenge
the notice and regard of every serious reader. Thirdly, 1
have written briefly, that so it might be every one's money
and reading; and, much in a little is best, when we see
daily that the richer people grow, the less money or time
they have for God or religion ; and perhaps those that would
not buy a large book may find in their hearts to give away
some of these for their neighbour's good, being little and
cheap. Be serious, reader, be impartial, and then be as in-
quisitive as thou canst, and that for thine own soul, as well
as the credit of this most misunderstood and abused people 3
and the God and Father of lights and spirits so bless thine,
in the perusal of this short treatise, that thou may'st receive
real benefit by it, to his glory and thine own comfort, which
is the desire and end of him that wrote it ; who is, in the
bonds of Christian charity, very much and very ardently,

Thy real friend,

William Penn.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED, ETC.

CHAPTER I.

§ 1. Their Fundamental Principle. \ 2. The Nature of it. \ 3. Called
by several names. § 4. They refer all to this, as to Faith and
Practice, Ministry and Worship.

§ 1. 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 that live up to
this principle are the people of God, and those that
live in disobedience to it, are not God's people, what-
ever name they may bear, or profession they may
maize of religion. This is their ancient, first, and
standing testimony : with this they began, and this
they bore, and do bear to the world.

§ 2. By this principle they understand something
that is divine ; and though in man, yet not of man,
but of God ; and that it came from him, and leads to
him all those that will be led by it.

§ 3. There are divers ways of speaking they have
been led to use, by which they declare and express
what this principle is, about which I think fit to pre-
caution the reader — viz., they call it, The light of
Christ within man, or, light within, which is their
ancient, and most general and familiar phrase, also

9

10 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

the ^manifestation 2or appearance of Christ,2, the hvit-
ness of God, the bseed of Grod, the 6seed of the king-

(J) John i. 9. That was the true light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.

(a) Rom. i. 19. Because that which may be known of God is
manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them.

Titus iii. 4. But after that the kindness and love of God our
Saviour toward man appeared.

(3) Acts xvii. 28. For in him we live, and move, and have our
being ; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also
his offspring.

2 Peter i. 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and
precious promises ; that by these ye might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust.

(4) Rom. viii. 6. For to be carnally minded, is death ; but to be
spiritually minded, is life and peace.

1 John v. 10-12. He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the
witness in himself: he that believeth not God, hath made him a
liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his
Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life ;
and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son, hath life ; and he
that hath not the Son of God, hath not life.

(5) 1 Peter i. 23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for-
ever.

1 John iii. 9. Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin ;
for his seed remaineth in him : and he cannot sin, because he is born
of God.

(6) Matt. xiii. 19-23. When any one heareth the word of the
kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one,
and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he
which receiveth seed by the way side.

But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it : yet hath he
not root in himself, but dureth for a while : for when tribulation or
persecution ariseth, because of the word, by-and-by he is offended.

He also that received seed among the thorns, is he that heareth

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 11

dom, ^ wisdom, the2word in the heart, the grace2, that
appears to all men, the ^spirit given to every man to

the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness oi
riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

But he that received seed into the good ground, is he that heareth
the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and
bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty.

(*) Prov. i. 20-23. Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her
voice in the streets : she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in
the openings of the gates : in the city she uttereth her words, say-
ing, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity ? and the
scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge ? Turn
ye at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I
will make known my words unto you.

Prov. viii. 1-4. Doth not wisdom cry ? and understanding put
forth her voice ? She standeth in the top of high places, by the
way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the
entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors : Unto you, 0 men,
I call ; and my voice is to the sons of man.

(2) Deut. xxx. 12-14. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest
say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we
may hear it, and do it ? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou
shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto
us, that we may hear it, and do it ? But the word is very nigh unto
thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

Rom. x. 6-8. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh
on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ?
(that is, to bring Christ down from above;) or, Who shall descend
into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead:)
But what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and
in thy heart ; that is, the word of faith, which we preach.

Psalm cxix. 10. With my whole heart have I sought thee : 0 let
me not wander from thy commandments.

(3) Titus ii. 11, 12. For the grace of God, that bringeth solva-
tion, hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodli-
ness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this present world.

(4) 1 Cor. xii. 7. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to
every man to profit withal.

12 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

profit ivith, the HrutJi in the inward parts, the Spi-
ritual leaven that leavens the whole lump of man :
•which are many of them figurative expressions, but
all of them such as the Holy Ghost hath used, and
which will be used in this treatise, as they are most
frequently in the writings and ministry of this peo-
ple. But that this variety and manner of expression
may not occasion any misapprehension or confusion
in the understanding of the reader, I would have him
know, that they always mean by these terms or deno-
minations, not another, but the same principle, before
mentioned ; which, as I said, though it be in man, is
not of man, but of God, and therefore olivine : and
one in itself, though diversely expressed by the holy
men, according to the various manifestations and
operations thereof.

4. It is to this principle of Light, Life, and Grace,
that this People refer all : for they say it is the great
Agent in Religion; that, without which, there is no
Conviction, so no Conversion, or Regeneration; and
consequently no entering into the Kingdom of God.
That is to say, there can be no true sight of sin, nor
sorrow for it, and therefore no forsaking or over-
coming of it, or Remission or Justification from it.
A necessary and powerful Principle indeed, when

( ') Psalm li. 6. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts :
and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Isaiah xxvi. 2. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation
which keepeth the truth may enter in.

John xiv. 6. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth,
and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

(2) Matt. xiii. 33. Another parable spake he unto them; The
kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and
hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 13

neither Sanctification nor Justification can be had
without it. In short, there is no becoming virtuous,
holy and good, without this Principle ; no acceptance
with God, nor peace of soul, but through it. But on
the contrary, that the reason of so much irreligion
among Christians, so much superstition, instead of
Devotion, and so much profession without enjoyment,
and so little Heart-reformation, is, because people in
religion, overlook this Principle, and leave it behind
them.

They will be religious without it, and Christians
without it, though this be the only means of making
them so indeed.

So natural is it to Man, in his degenerate state, to
prefer sacrifice before obedience, and to make prayers
go for practice, and so flatter himself with hope, by
ceremonial and bodily service, to excuse himself to
God from the stricter discipline of this Principle in
the soul, which leads Man to take up the Cross,
deny self, and do that which God requires of him :
and that is every man's true religion, and every such
man is truly religious ; that is, he is holy, humble,
patient, meek, merciful, just, kind, and charitable ;
which they say, no man can make himself; but that
this principle will make all men so that will embrace
the convictions and teachings of it, being the root of
all true religion in man, and the good seed from
whence all good fruits proceed. To sum up what
they say upon the nature and virtue of it, as contents
of that which follows, they declare that this principle
is, first, divine; secondly, universal; thirdly, effica-
cious ; in that it gives man, first, the knowledge of
God and of himself, and therein a sight of his duty
and disobedience to it. Secondly, it begets a true

14 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

sense and sorrow for sin in those that seriously
regard the convictions of it. Thirdly, it enables tltem
to forsake sin, and sanctifies from it. Fourthly,
it applies God's mercies in Christ for the forgiveness
of sins that are past, unto justification, upon such
sincere repentance and obedience. Fifthly, it gives
to the faithful, perseverance unto a perfect man, and
the assurance of blessedness, ivorld without end.

To the truth of all which, they call in a threefold
evidence : First, the Scriptures, which give an ample
witness, especially those of the New and better Tes-
tament. Secondly, the reasonableness of it in itself.
And lastly, a general experience, in great measure ;
but particularly, their own, made credible by the good
fruits they have brought forth, and the answer God
has given to their ministry : which, to impartial ob-
servers, have commended the principle, and gives
me occasion to abstract their history, in divers par-
ticulars, for a conclusion to this little treatise.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 15

CHAPTER II.

\ 1. The evidence of Scripture for this Principle, John i. 4-9. In
Him was life ; and the life was the light of men. That was the
true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
I 2. Its Divinity. g 3. All things created by it. \ 4. What it is
to Man as to Salvation.

§ 1. I shall begin with the evidence of the blessed
Scriptures of Truth, for this divine principle, and that
under the name of light, the first and most common
word used by them, to express and denominate this
principle by, as well as most apt and proper in this
dark state of the world.

John i. 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with Grod, and the Word was Grod.
' Verse 3. All things were made by him.

Verse 4. In him ivas life, and the life was the
light of men.

Verse 9. That ivas the true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.

§ 2. I have begun with him that began his history
with him that was the beginning of the creation of
Grod • the most beloved disciple, and longest liver of
all the apostles, and he, that for excellent knowledge
and wisdom in heavenly things, is justly entitled
John the divine. He tells us first, what he was in
the beginning, viz. The Word. In the beginning
was the Word.

And though that shows what the Word must be.

16 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

jet he adds and explains, that the Word was with
Grod, and the Word was God ; lest any should doubt
of the divinity of the Word, or have lower thoughts
of him than he deserved. The Word then, is divine,
and an apt term it is, that the evangelist styles him by,
since it is so great an expression of the wisdom and
power of God to men.

§ 3. All things were made by Him. If so, he
wants no power. And if we were made by him, we
must be new made by him too, or we never can enjoy
God. His power shows his dignity, and that nothing
can be too hard for such a sufficiency as made all
things, and without which nothing was made, that
was made. As man's maker must be his husband, so
his Creator must be his Redeemer also.

§ 4. In him was life, and the life was the light of
men. This is our point. The evangelist first begins
with the nature and being of the Word : from thence
he descends to the works of the Word: and lastly,
then he tells us, what the Word is, with respect to
man above the rest of the creation, viz. The Word
was life, and the life was the light of men. The re-
lation must be very near and intimate, when the very
life of the Word (that was with G-od, and was God)
is the light of men: as if men were next to the
Word, and above all the rest of his works ; for it is
not said so of any other creature.

Man cannot want light then ; no not a divine
light : for if this be not divine, that is the life of the
divine word, there can be no such thing at all as di-
vine or su2?ernatural light and life. And the text
does not only prove the divinity of the light, but the
■universality of it also, because man mentioned in it,
is mankind: which is yet more distinctly expressed

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 17

in his 9th verse, That was the true light, which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Im-
plying, that he that lighteth not mankind is not that
true light • and therefore John was not that light,
but bore witness of him that was, who lighteth every
man ; to wit, the Word that took flesh : so that both
the divine nature, and universality of the light of
Christ within, are confirmed together.

CHAPTER III.

\ 1. How this Scripture is wrested. \ 2. That it is a Natural
Light. I 3. That it lighteth not all. \ 4. That it is only the
Doctrine and Life of Christ when in the Flesh. All answered,
and its Divinity and Universality proved.

§ 1. But though there be no passage or proposition
to be found in Holy Scripture, in which mankind is
more interested, or that is more clearly laid down by
the Holy Ghost, than this I have produced, yet
hardly hath any place been more industriously
wrested from its true and plain sense : especially
since this people have laid any stress upon it, in de-
fence of their testimony of the light within. Some
will have it to be but a natural light, or a fart of
man's nature, though it be the very life of the Word,
by which the world was made ; and mentioned within
those verses, which only concern his eternal power
and Grodhead. But because I would be understood,
and treat of things with all plainness, I will open the
terms of the objection as well as I can, and then give
my answer to it.

7*

18 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

§ 2. If by natural be meant a created thing, as man
is, or any thing that is requisite to the composition
of man, I deny it : the text is expressly against it ;
and says, the light with which man is lighted, is the
life of the word, which ivas with Grod, and was Gf-od.
But if by natural is only intended, that the light comes
along with us into the world ; or that we have it as
sure as we are born, or have- nature ; and is the light
of our nature, of our minds and understandings, and
is not the result of any revelation from without, as by
angels or men ; then we mean and intend the same
thing. For it is natural to man to have a supernatural
light, and for the creature to be lighted by an uncre-
ated light, as is the life of the creating word. And
did people but consider the constitution of man, it
would conduce much to preserve or deliver them from
any dilemma upon this account. For man can be no
more a light to his mind, than he is to his body : he
has the capacity of seeing objects when he has the
help of light, but cannot be a light to himself, by
which to see them. Wherefore as the sun in the
firmament is the light of the body, and gives us dis-
cerning in our temporal affairs ; so the life of the ivord
is the glorious light and sun of the soul : our intellec-
tual luminary, that informs our mind, and gives us
true judgment and distinction about those things that
more immediately concern our better, inward and
eternal man.

§ 3. But others will have this text read thus, not
that the word enlightens all mankind, but that all
who are enlightened, are enlightened by him, thereby
not only narrowing and abusing the text, but render-
ing God partial, and so severe to his creatures, as to
leave the greatest part of the world in darkness, with-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 19

out the means or opportunity of salvation ; though we
are assured from the Scriptures that xall have light,
that Christ is the 2light of the world, and that he
3died for all ; yea, the 4ungodly, and that Grod de-
sires not the 5death of any, but rather that all should
repent and come to the knowledge of the truth and
be saved; and ethat the grace of God has appeared
to all men, &c.

§4. There is a third sort that will needs have it
understood, not of any illumination by a divine light
or spirit in man, but by the doctrine Christ preached,
and the life and example he lived, and led in the
world ; and which yet neither reached the thousandth
part of mankind, nor can consist with what the apostle
John intends in the beginning of his history, which
wholly relates to what Christ was before he took
flesh, or at least, what he is to the soul, by his im-
mediate inshinings and influences. 'Tis most true,
Christ was, in a sense, the light of the world, in that

(') John i. 4, 9. In him was life ; and the life was the light of
men. That was the trne Light, which lighteth every man that com-
eth into the world.

(a) Chap. viii. 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying,
I am the light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk
in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

(3) Rom. v. 6. For when we were yet without strength, in due
time, Christ died for the ungodly.

(4) 2 Cor. v. 15. And that he died for all, that they which live,
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which
died for them, and rose again.

(5) 1 Tim. ii. 4. Who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth.

(6) Tit. ii. 11, 12. For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation,
hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly,
in this present world.

20 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

very appearance, and slimed forth by his heavenly
doctrine, many admirable miracles, and his self-deny-
ing life and death: but still that hinders not, but
that he was and is that spiritual light, which shineth
more or less, in the hearts of the sons and daughters of
men. For as he was a light in his life and conversation,
he was only a light in a more excellent sense than he
spoke of to his disciples, when he said, Ye are the
lights of the world. But Christ the word enlightened
them, and enlightens us, and enlightens all men that
come into the world ; which he could not be said to
do, if we only regard his personal and outward ap-
pearance : for in that sense it is long since he was
that light, but in this he is continually so. In that
respect he is remote, but in this sense he is present
and immediate, else we should render the text, That
ivas the true light which did lighten, instead of tvhich
UgJiteth every man that cometh into the world. And
that the evangelist might be so understood, as we
speak, he refers to this as an evidence of Ms being
the Messiah, and not John ; for whom many people
had much reverence, for in verse eighth he saith of
John, He was not that light, but was sent to bear
'witness of that light: now comes his proof and our
testimony, that was the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world ; which was not
John, or any else, but the word that was with God,
and was God.

The evangelist did not describe him by his fasting
forty days, preaching so many sermons, working so
many miracles, and living so holy a life ; and, after
all, so patiently suffering death, (which yet Christ
did) thereby to prove him the light of the world ; but,
says the evangelist, That was the true light, the ivord

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 21

in flesh, the Messiah, and not John, or any else, which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. So
that Christ is manifested and distinguished by giving
light : and indeed so are all his followers from other
people, by receiving and obeying it. There are many
other Scriptures, of both Testaments, that refer to the
light within ; either expressly, or implicitly ; which, for
brevity's sake, I shall waive reciting ; but the reader
will find some directions in the margin, which will
guide him to them.

The Scriptures referred to are as follows.

Job xviii. 5, 6. Yea, the light of the wicked shall be
put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The
light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle
shall be put out with him.

Chap. xxi. 17. How oft is the candle of the wicked
put out ? and how oft cometh their destruction upon
them ? God distributeth sorrows in his anger.

Chap. xxv. 3. Is there any number of his armies ?
and upon whom doth not his light arise.

Chap, xxxviii. 15. And from the wicked their light
is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.

Psalm xviii. 28. For thou wilt light my candle :
the Lord my God will lighten my darkness.

Psalm xxvii. 1. The Lord is my light and my sal-
vation ; who shall I fear ? The Lord is the strength
of my life ; of whom shall I be afraid ?

Psalm xxxiv. 5. They looked unto him, and were
lightened : and their faces were not ashamed.

Psalm xxxvi. 9. For with thee is the fountain of
life : in thy light shall we see light.

Psalm cxviii. 27. God is the Lord, which hath
showed us light : bind the sacrifice with cords, even
unto the horns of the altar.

22 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

Psalm cxix. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.

Prov. xiii. 9. The light of the righteous rejoiceth:
but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.

Prov. xx. 20, 27. Whoso curseth his father or his
mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.
The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, search-
ing all the inward parts of the belly.

Prov. xxiv. 20. For there shall be no reward to the
evil man ; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.

Isa. ii. 5. 0 house of Jacob, come ye, and let us
walk in the light of the Lord.

Isa. viii. 20. To the law and to the testimony : if
they speak not according to this word, it is because
there is no light in them.

Isa. xlii. 6. I the Lord have called thee in right-
eousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee,
and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light
of the Gentiles :

Isa. xlix. 6. And he said, It is a light thing that
thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes
of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel : I
will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that
thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the
earth.

1 Peter ii. 9. But ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ;
that ye should shew forth the praises of him who
hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light:

1 John ii. 8. Again, a new commandment I write
unto you, which thing is true in him, and in you ;
because the darkness is past, and the true light now
shineth.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 23

CHAPTER IV.

§ 1. The virtue of the light within ; it gives discerning. \ 2. It mani-
fests God. ?£ 3. It gives life to the soul. \ 4. It is the apostolic
message. \ 5. Objection answered about two lights. \ 6. About-
natural and spiritual light: not two darknesses within, therefore not
two lights within, g 7. The Apostle John answers the objection fully :
the light the same, 1 John ii. 8, 9. Again, a new commandment
I write unto you, "which thing is true in him, and in you ; be-
cause the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He
that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in dark-
ness even until now

§ 1. The third thing, is the virtue and efficacy of
this light for the end for which God hath ^given it,
viz. To lead and guide the soul of man to blessed-
ness. In order to which, the first thing it does in
and for man, is to give him a true sight or discerning
of himself: what he is, and what he does ; that he may
see and know his own condition, and what judgment to
make of himself, with respect to religion and a future
state : of which, let us hear what the word himself
saith, that cannot err, as John relates it, chap. iii.
20, 21. " For every one that doeth evil, hateth the
light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that doth truth cometh to the
light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God."

A most pregnant instance of the virtue and author-
ity of the light. First, it is that which men ought
to examine themselves by. Secondly, it gives a true

24 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

discerning betwixt good and bad, what is of God,
from what is not of God. And, lastly, it is a judge,
and condemneth or acquitteth, reproveth or comforteth,
the soul of man, as he rejects or obeys it. That must
needs be divine or efficacious, which is able to disco-
ver to man, what is of God, from what is not of God ;
and which gives him a distinct knowledge, in himself,
of what is wrought in God, from what is not wrought
in God. By which it appears, that this place does not
only regard the discovery of man and his works, but,
in some measure, it manifesteth God, and his ivorks
also, which is yet something higher ; forasmuch as it
gives the obedient man a discovery of what is wrought
or performed by God's poiver, and after his will,
from what is the mere workings of the creature of
himself.

If it could not manifest God, it could not tell man
what was God's mind, nor give him such a grounded
sense and discerning of the rise, nature, and tendency
of the workings of his mind or inward man, as is
both expressed and abundantly implied in this pas-
sage of our Saviour. And if it reveals God, to-be-
sure it manifests Christ, that flows and comes from God.
Who then would oppose or slight this blessed light ?

§ 2. But that this light doth manifest God, is yet
evident from Rom. i. 19. Because that which may
be known of God, is manifest in them : for God hath
showed it unto them. An universal proposition ; and
we have the apostle's word for it, who was one of a
thousand, and inspired on purpose to tell us the truth :
let it then have its due weight with us. If that which
may be known of God is manifest in men, the people
called Quakers cannot, certainly, be out of the way in
preaching up the light within, without which, nothing

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 25

can be manifested to the mind of man ; as saith the
same apostle to the Ephesians, Eph. v. 13.

But all things that are reproved, are made mani-
fest by the light : for whatsoever doth make manifest,
is light. Well then may they call this light within a
manifestation or appearance of Grod, that sheweth in
and to man, all that may be known of God. A pas-
sage much like unto this, is that of the Prophet Micah,
chap. vi. 8. God hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is
good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God ? God hath shewed thee, 0 man ! It
is very emphatical. But how hath He shewed him ?
Why by his light in the conscience, which the ivicked
rebel against, Job xxiv. 13. Who, for that cause,
know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths
thereof: For its ways are ways of pleasantness, and
all its paths are peace, to them that obey it.

§ 3. But the light giveth the light of life, which is
eternal life to them that receive and obey it. Thus,
says the blessed Saviour of the world, John viii. 12.
I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall
not abide in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Now he is the light of the world, because he lighteth
every man that cometh into the world, and they that
obey that light obey him, and therefore have the light
of life. That is, the light becomes eternal life to the
soul : that as it is the life of the word, which is the
light in man, so it becomes the life in man, through
his obedience to it, as his heavenly light.

§ 4. Furthermore, this light was the very ground
of the apostolic message, as the beloved disciple as-
sures us, 1 John i. 5, 6, 7. This then is the message
which we have heard of him, and declare unto you,

8

26 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

that G-od is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If ive say that ive have felloiuship ivith him, and walk
in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth : but if we
walk in the light, as he is in the light, ive have fellow-
ship one with another* and the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Which is so com-
prehensive of the virtue and excellency of the light,
in reference to man, that there is little need that
more should be said upon it ; forasmuch as, first, it
reveals God, and that God himself is light. Secondly,
it discovers darkness from light, and that there is no
fellowship between them. Thirdly, that man ought to
walk in the light. Fourthly, that it is the way to obtain
forgiveness of sin and sanctification from it. Fifthly,
that it is the means to have peace and fellowship with
God and his people ; his true church, redeemed from
the pollutions of the world.

§ 5. Some, perhaps, may object, as indeed it hath
been more than once objected upon us, That this is
another light, not that light wherewith every man is
enlightened. But the same apostle, in his evangelical
history, tells us, that in the word ivas life, and the
life was the light of men, and that that very light, zvas
the life of the icord, was the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world, John i. 4, 9.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
That was the true light, which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. Where is there so plain
a text to be found against the sufficiency, as well
as universality of the light within ; or a plainer for
any article of faith in the whole book of God ? Had
the beloved disciple intended tivo lights, in his evan-
gelical history, and his epistles, to-be-sure he would
have noted to us his distinction : but we read of none,

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 27

and by the properties ascribed in each writing, we
have reason to conclude he meant the same.

§ 6. But if any shall yet object, That this is to be
understood a spiritual light, and that ours is to be a
natural one, I shall desire them to do two things :
First, to prove that a natural light, as they phrase
it, doth manifest God, other than as I have before ex-
plained and allowed ; since whatever is part of man, in
his constitution, but especially in his degeneracy from
God, is so far from yielding him the knowledge of
God, that it cannot rightly reprove or discover that
which offends him, without the light we speak of: and
it is granted, that what we call divine, and some, mis-
takingly, call natural light, can do both. Secondly,
if this light be natural, notwithstanding it doth ma-
nifest our duty, and reprove our disobedience to God,
they would do well to assign us some certain medium,
or way, whereby we may truly discern and distinguish
between the manifestations and reproofs of the natu-
ral light within, from those of the divine light within,
since they allow the manifestation of God, and reproof
of evil, as well to the one, as to the other. Let them
give us but one Scripture that distinguishes between
a natural and a spiritual light within. They may,
with as much reason, talk of a natural and spiritual
darkness within. It is true, there is a natural pro-
per darkness, to wit, the night of the outward world ;
and there is a spiritual darkness, viz. the clouded
and benighted understandings of men, through dis-
obedience to the light and spirit of God : but let
them assign us a third, if they can. People use, in-
deed, to say, improperly, of blind men, they are dark,
we may call a natural or idiot so, if we will ; but
where is there another darkness of the understanding,

28 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

in the things of God ? If they can, I say, find that,
in and about the things of God, they do something.

Christ distinguished not between darkness and
darkness, or light and light, in any such sense ; nor did
any of his disciples : yet both have frequently spoken
of darkness and light. "What difference, pray, doth
the Scriptures put between spiritual darkness and
darkness mentioned in these places,

Luke i. 79. To give light to them that sit in dark-
ness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace.

Mat. iv. 1G. The people which sat in darkness, saw
great light ; and to them which sat in the region and
shadow of death, light is sprung up.

John i. 5. And the light shineth in darkness ; and
the darkness comprehended it not.

John iii. 19. And this is the condemnation, that
light is come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

John viii. 12, 31, 46. Then spake Jesus again unto
them, saying, I am the light of the world : he that
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, If ye continue in my word,
then are ye my disciples indeed ; which of you con-
vinceth me of sin ? And if I say the truth, why do
ye not believe on me ?

1 Thes. v. 4. But ye, brethren, are not in dark-
ness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

1 John i. 6. If we say that we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not
the truth.

Acts xxvi. 18. To open their eyes, and to turn
them from darkness to light, and from the power of

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 29

Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanc-
tified by faith' that is in me.

Rom. xiii. 12. The night is far spent, the day is
at hand : let us, therefore, cast off the works of dark-
ness, and let us put on the armour of light.

2 Cor. vi. 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers ; for what fellowship hath righteous-
ness with unrighteousness ? and what communion hath
light with darkness ?

Eph. v. 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but
now are ye light in the Lord : walk as children of the
light :

Col. i. 13. Who hath delivered us from the power
of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom
of his dear Son ;

Upon the strictest comparison of them I find none.
It is all one spiritual darkness. Neither is there so
much as one Scripture that affords us a distinction
between light ivitlrin and light within; or that there
are really two lights from God, in man, that regard
religion. Peruse Mat. iv. 16. The people which sat
in darkness, saw great light ; and to them which sat
in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.

Luke ii. 32. A light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of thy people Israel.

Luke xv. 8. Either what woman, having ten pieces
of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a can-
die, and sweep the house, and seek diligently, till she
find it ?

John i. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9. In him was life ; and the life
was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkv
ness ; and the darkness comprehended it not. There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John,

30 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the
light, that all men through him might believe. He
was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of
that light. That was the true light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.

Chap. iii. 19, 20, 21. And this is the condemna-
tion, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil. For every one that doeth evil, hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the
light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they
are wrought in God.

Chap. viii. 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them,
saying, I am the light of the world ; he that follow-
eth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life.

Acts xxvi. 18. To open their eyes, and to turn
them from darkness to light, and from the power of
Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanc-
tified by faith that is in me.

Rom. xiii. 12. The night is far spent, the day is at
hand : let us, therefore, cast off the works of dark-
ness, and let us put on the armour of light.

2 Cor. iv. 6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.

Chap. vi. 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers ; for what fellowship hath righteous-
ness with unrighteousness ? and what communion hath
light with darkness ?

Eph. v. 8, 13. For ye were sometimes darkness, but

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 31

now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of
light. But all things that are reproved, are made
manifest by the light; for whatsoever doth make
manifest, is light.

Col. i. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father, which
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light ;

1 Thes. v. 5. Ye are all the children of light, and
the children of the day : we are not of the night nor
of darkness.

1 Tim. vi. 16. Who only hath immortality, dwell-
ing in the light which no man can approach unto ;
whom no man hath seen, nor can see : to whom be
honour and power everlasting. Amen.

1 Pet. ii. 9. But ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ;
that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath
called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

1 John i. 5, 7. This then is the message which
we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. But
if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another ; and the blood of Jesus
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Chap. ii. 8. Again, a new commandment I write
unto you, which thing is true in him, and in you ; be-
cause the darkness is past, and the true light now
shineth.

Rev. xxi. 23, 24. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for the glory
of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof. And the nations of them which are saved,
shall walk in the light of it ; and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

61 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

Chap. xxii. 5. And there shall be no night there :
and they need no candle, neither light of the sun ;
for the Lord God giveth them light ; and they shall
reign forever and ever.

And we believe the greatest opposer, to our asser-
tion, will not be able to sever light from light, or find
out tivo lights within, in the passages here mentioned,
or any other, to direct man in his duty to God and
his neighbour : and if he cannot, pray let him for-
bear his mean thoughts and words of the light of
Christ within mail, as man's guide in duty to God
and man. For as he must yield to us, that the light
manifesteth evil, and reproveth for it, so doth Christ
himself teach us of the light, John iii. 20. For every
one that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
unto the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
And the Apostle Paul plainly saith, Eph. v. 13. But
all things that are reproved are made manifest by the
light ; therefore there are not two distinct lights
within, but one and the same manifesting, reproving,
and teaching light within. And this the Apostle
John, in his first epistle, makes plain, beyond all ex-
ception, to all considerate people : First, in that he
calls God, light, chap. i. 5 : This then is the message
which we have heard of him, and declare unto you,
that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Secondly, in that he puts no medium or third thing
between that light, and darkness, verse 6. If ive say
ive have fellowship ivith him, and ivalk in darkness,
we lie, &c. Intimating, that men must walk either in
light or darkness, and not in a third, or other state or
region. I am sure, that which manifests and reproves
darkness, cannot be darkness. This all men must
confess.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 66

§ 7. And, as if the Apostle John would have an-
ticipated their objection, viz. ' Tis true, your light
within reproves for evil, but it is not therefore the
Divine Light ivhich leads into higher things, and
which comes by the gospel; he thus expresseth him-
self, 1 John ii. 8, 9 : The darkness is past, and the
true Light noiv shineth. He that saith he is in the
light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even
until now ; which is not another light than that men-
tioned before, chap. i. For as light is put there, in
opposition to darkness, so light here, is put in oppo-
sition to darkness. And as the darkness is the
same, so must the light be the same. Wherefore we
may plainly see, that it is not another light, than
that which reproves a man for hating his brother,
which brings a man into fellowship tvith God, and to
the blood of cleansing, as the next verse speaks:
therefore that Light which reproveth a man for hating
his brother, is of a divine and efficacious nature. In
short, that light which is opposite to, and reproves
spiritual darkness, in a man and woman, is a spiritual
Light; but such a Light is that which we confess,
testify to, and maintain : therefore it is a spiritual
Light. It is also worth our notice, that the apostle
useth the same manner of expression here, chap. ii. 8,
The true Light shineth, that he doth in his Evange-
lical History, chap. i. 9: That was the true Ligld ;
intimating the same divine Word, or true Light noiv
shineth ; and that it is the same true Light in his ac-
count, that reproveth such as hate their brethren:
consequently, that Light that so reproveth them is
the true Light. And strange it is, that Christ and
his disciples, but especially his beloved one, should
so often make that very light, which stoops to the

3-i PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

lowest step of immorality, and to the reproof of the
grossest evil, to be no other than the same divine
light, in a farther degree of manifestation, which
brings such as follow it to the Light of Life, to tho
blood of cleansing, and to have fellowship with God,
and one with another: Nay, not only so, but the
apostle makes a man's being a child of Gfod, to de-
pend upon his answering of this light in a palpable
and common case, viz. Not hating of his brother:
and that yet any should shut their eyes so fast against
beholding the virtue of it, as to conclude it a natural
and insufficient light, is both unscriptural and un-
reasonable. Shall wTe slight it, because we come so
easily by it, and it is so familiar and domestic to us ?
Or make its being so common an argument to under-
value so inestimable a mercy? What is more common
than light, and air, and water? And should we
therefore contemn them, or prize them ? Prize them,
certainly, as what wTe cannot live, nor live comfortably
without. The more general the mercy is, the greater,
and therefore the greater obligation upon man to live
humbly and thankfully for it. And to those alone
that do so, are its divine secrets revealed.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 35

CHAPTER V.

§ 1. The Light the same with the Spirit. It is of God; proved by its
properties. § 2. The properties of the Spirit compared with those
of the Light. $ 3. The Light and Grace flow from the same prin-
ciple, proved by their agreeing properties. \ 4. An objection an-
swered. § 5. Difference in manifestation, or operation, especially
in Gospel times, but not in principle, illustrated.

§ 1. But some may say, We could willingly allow
to the Spirit and grace of God, which seemed to be
the peculiar blessing of the new and second cove-
nant, and the fruit of the coming of Christ, all that
which you ascribe to the light within ; but except it
appeared to us that this light ivere the same in nature
ivith the Spirit and grace of God, tve cannot easily
bring ourselves to believe what you say in favour of
the light ivithin.

Answ. This objection, at first look, seems to carry
weight with it : but upon a just and serious review, it
will appear to have more words than matter, show
than substance : yet because it gives occasion to solve
scruples, that may be flung in the way of the simple,
I shall attend it throughout. I say, then, if it ap-
pear that the properties ascribed to the light within
are the same with those that are given to the Holy
Spirit and grace of G-od- and that those several
terms or epithets, are only to express the divers
manifestations or operations of one and the same
principle, then it will not, it cannot be denied, but

86 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

this light within, is divine and efficacious, as we have
asserted it. Now, that it is of the same nature with
the Spirit and grace of God, and tends to the same
end, which is to bring people to God, let the pro-
perties of the light be compared with those of the
Spirit and grace of God. I say, they are the same,
in that, First, The light proceeds from the One Word,
and One Life of that One Word, which was with God
and was God. John i. 4 : In him was life ; and the
life was the light of men. And John i. 9 : That was
the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world. Secondly, It is universal, it lighteth
every man. Thirdly, It giveth the knoivledge of God
and fellowship with him. Rom. i. 19 : Because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for
God hath shewed it unto them. John iii. 21 : But he
that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds
may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
1 John i. 5, 6 : This then is the message which we
have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that
we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness,
we lie, and do not the truth. Fourthly, It manifesteth
and reproveth evil, John iii. 20 : For every one that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the
light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Eph. v. 13 :
But all things that are reproved are made manifest
by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is
light. Fifthly, It is made the rule and guide of
Christian walking, Psalm xliii. 3 : 0 send out thy
light and thy truth : let them lead me ; let them bring
me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. John
viii. 12 : Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying,
I am the light of the world : he that followeth me

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 37

shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light
of life. Eph. v. 13, 14 : But all things that are re-
proved are made manifest by the light : for whatso-
ever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he
saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that
ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
Sixthly, It is the path for God's people to go in,
Psalm cxix. 105 : Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path. Prov. iv. 18 : But the path
of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. Isa. ii. 5 : 0 house
of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the
Lord. 1 John i. 7 : But if we walk in the light, as
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with an-
other, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
us from all sin. Rev. xxi. 21 : And the nations of
them which are saved, shall walk in the light of it:
and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and
honour into it. And the nations of them that are
saved, shall walk in the light (of the Lamb.)
Lastly, It is the armour of the children of God
against Satan, Psalm xxvii. 1 : The Lord is my light
and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? The Lord is
the strength of my life ; of whom shall I be afraid ?
Rom. xiii. 12 : The night is far spent, the day is at
hand : let us therefore cast off the works of dark-
ness, and let us put on the armour of light.

§ 2. Now let all this be compared with Xhe properties
of the Holy Spirit, and their agreement will be very
manifest. First, It proceedeth from God, because it
is the Spirit of God, Rom. vi. 11 : Likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Se-

9

OS PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

condly, It is universal. It strove with the old world,
Gen. vi. 3 : And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not
always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet
his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Then
to be sure with the new One: Every one hath a
measure of it given to profit withal, 1 Cor. xii. 7.
Thirdly, It revealeth God, Job xxxii. 8 : But there is
a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth them understanding. 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11 : But
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: For
the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things
of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man,
save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Fourthly, It reproveth sin, John xvi. 8 : And when
he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment. Fifthly, It is a rule
and a guide for the children of God to walk by, Rom.
viii. 14 : For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God. Sixthly, It is also the
path they are to walk in, Bom. viii. 1 : There is there-
fore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. Gal. v. 16 : This I say then, walk in the Spirit,
and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Walk in
the Spirit. Lastly, This is not all; it is likewise the
spiritual iveapon of a true Christian. Eph. vi. 17 :
Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God. After this, I hope
none will deny that this Light and this Spirit must be
of one and the same nature, that work one and the
same effect, and tend evidently to one and the same
holy end.

§ 3. And what is said of the Light and Spirit, may

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 39

ulso, very well be said of the Light and Grace of God :
in that, First, The grace floweth from Christ, the
Word, that took flesh, as well as the light; for as
in him was life, and that life the light of men, so
he was full of grace and truth, and of his fulness
have all we received, and grace for grace, John i. 4,
9, 14, 16 : In him was life ; and the life was the light
of men. That was the true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world. And the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father,) full of grace and truth. And of his
fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Secondly, It is universal; both from this text, and
what the apostle to Titus teacheth: For the grace
of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all
men, Teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this present world, Titus ii. 11, 12. Thirdly,
It manifesteth evil, for if it teaches to deny ungodli-
ness and worldly lusts, it must needs detect them, and
so says the text. Fourthly, It revealeth godliness,
and consequently it must manifest Crocl. Fifthly, it
is an instructor and Guide; for, says the apostle,
It teaches to deny ungodliness and tvorldly lusts, and
to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present
world, and herein a rule of life, Tit. ii. 11, 12.
Sixthly, It is to all that receive it, all that they can
need or desire. 2 Cor. xii. 9 : And he said unto me,
My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is
made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will
I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me. An high testimony from

40 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

Heaven, to the power of this teaching and saving
grace, under the strongest temptations.

§ 4. Obj. But there is a little mention made of the
Spirit, and none of the Grace, before Christ's coming,
and therefore the Spirit, as spoken of in the writings
of the New Testament, and especially the Grace, must
be another, and a nobler thing than the light within.
Answ. By no means another thing, but another
name, from another manifestation or operation, of
the same principle. It is called light from the dis-
tinction and discerning it gives. Let there be light,
and there was light, said God in the beginning of the
world ; so there is first Light in the beginning of the
new creation of God in man. It is called Spirit, be-
cause it giveth life, sense, motion and vigour: and it
is as often mentioned in the writings of the Old as
New Testament; which every reader may see, if he
will but please to look into his Scripture Concordance.
Thus God's Spirit strove with the old world, Gen.
vi. 3 : And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is flesh : yet his days
shall be an hundred and twenty years. And with
Israel in the wilderness, Neh. ix. 30 : Yet many years
didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them
by thy Spirit in thy prophets : yet would they not
give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand
of the people of the lands. And David asked, in the
agony of his soul, Psalm exxxix. 7, Whither shall
I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from
thy presence? And the prophets often felt it. It is
styled grace, not from its being another principle,
but because it was a fuller dispensation of the virtue
and power of the same divine principle: and that
being purely God's favour and mercy, and not man's

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 41

merit, is aptly, and deservedly called the grace, fa-
vour, or good-will of God to undeserving man. The
wind does not always blow fresh, nor heaven send
down its rain freely, nor the sun shine forth clearly;
shall we therefore say, it is not of the same kind of
wind, rain, or light, when it blows, rains, or shines
but a little, as when it blows, rains, or shines much ?
It is certainly the same in nature and kind; and so
is this blessed principle, under all its several dispen-
sations, manifestations and operations, for the benefit
of man's soul, ever since the world began.

§ 5. But this is most freely, humbly and thankfully
acknowledged by us, that the dispensation of the Gos-
pel was the clearest, fullest, and noblest of all other,
both with regard to the coming of Christ in the flesh,
and being our one holy offering to God for sin,
through the eternal Spirit; and the breaking forth of
his light, the effusion of his Spirit, and appearance
of his grace in, and to man, in a more excellent
manner, after his ascension. For though it was not
another Light, or Spirit, than that which he had given
to man in former ages, yet it was another and greater
measure; and that is the privilege of the gospel
above former dispensations. What before shined but
dimly, shines since with great glory. 2 Cor. iii. 18 :
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of
the Lord. Then it appeared but darkly, but now with
open face. Types, figures and shadows vailed its
appearances and made them look low and faint; but
in. the gospel time, the vail is rent, and the hidden
glory manifest. John i. 5, 17 : And the Light shineth
in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
9*

42 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ." It was under the law but as
a dew, or small rain, but under the gospel, it may be
said to be poured out upon men ; according to that
gracious and notable promise of God, by the prophet
Joel, chap. ii. 28: "And it shall come to pass after-
ward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh ;
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, your young men
shall see visions." Thus we say when it rains plenti-
fully, look how it pours, so God augments his light,
grace, and Spirit to these latter days. They shall
not have it sparingly, and by small drops, but fully
and freely, and overflowing too. And thus Peter,
that deep and excellent apostle, applies that promise
in Joel, on the day of Pentecost, as the beginning of
the accomplishment of it. This is grace, and fa-
vour, and goodness indeed. And therefore well may
this brighter illumination, and greater effusion of
the Spirit, be called grace • for as the coming of the
Son excelled that of the servant, so did the mani-
festation of the light and Spirit of God, since the
coming of Christ, excel that of the foregoing dispen-
sations ; yet ever sufficient to salvation, to all those
that walked in it. This is pur sense of the light,
Spirit, and grace of God: and by what is said, it is
evident they are one and the same principle, and that
he that has light, need not want the Spirit or grace
of God, if he will but receive it, in the love of it :
for the very principle, that is light to show him, is
also spirit to quicken him, and grace to teach, help,
and comfort him. It is sufficient in all circumstances
of life, to them that diligently mind and obey it.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 43

CHAPTER VI.

§ 1. An Objection answered: All are not Good, though all are lighted.
\ 2. Another Objection answered, That Gospel truths were known
before Christ's Coming. \ 3. Another: The Gentiles had the
same Light, though not with those Advantages : Proved by
Scripture.

§ 1. But some may yet say, If it be as you declare,
how comes it, that all who are enlightened, are not so
good as they should be ; or, as you say, this ivould
make them?

Answ. Because people don't receive and obey it:
all men have reason, but all men are not reasonable.
Is it the fault of the grain, in the granary, that it
yields no increase, or of the talent in the napkin, that
it is not improved ? It is plain a talent was given ; and
as plain that it was improveable ; both because the like
talents were actually improved by others, and, that
the just Judge expected his talent tvith advantage ;
which else, to be sure, he would never have done.
Now when our objectors will tell us, whose fault it
was the talent was not improved, we shall be ready to
tell them, why the unprofitable servant ivas not so
good as he should have been. The blind must not
blame the sun, nor sinners tax the grace of insuffi-
ciency. It is sin that darkens the eye, and hardens
the heart, and that hinders good things from the sons
of men. If toe do his will, we shall hnotv of his divine
doctrine, so Christ tells us. Men not living to what
they know, cannot blame God, that they know no

44 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

more. The unfruitfulness is in us, not in the talent.
'Twere well indeed, that this were laid to heart. But,
alas ! men are too apt to follow their sensual appe-
tites, rather than their reasonable mind, which renders
them brutal instead of rational. For the reasonable
part in man, is his spiritual part, and that guided by
the divine Logos, or Word, which Tertullian interprets
reason in the most excellent sense, makes man truly
reasonable ; and then it is that man comes to offer up
himself to God a reasonable sacrifice. Then a man
indeed; a complete man; such a man as God made,
when he made man in his oivn image, and gave him
Paradise for his habitation.

§ 2. Obj. But some yet object, If mankind had
always this ^>finciple, lioiv comes it that gospel-truths
were not so fully known before the coming of Christ,
to those that were obedient to it.

Answ. Because a child is not a grown man, nor
the beginning the end ; and yet he that is the be-
ginning, is also the end: the principle is the same,
though not the manifestation. As the world has many
steps and periods of time towards its end, so hath
man to his perfection. They that are faithful to what
they know of the dispensation of their own day, shall
hear the happy welcome, of Well done, good and faith-
ful servant. And yet many of God's people in those
days, had a prospect of the glory of the latter times,
the improvement of religion, the happiness of the
church of God.

This we see in \\\q prophecy of Jacob and Moses, con-
cerning the restoration of Israel by Christ. Gen. xlix.
10 : " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ;
and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 45

Deut. xviii. 15, 18. " The Lord thy God will raise
up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken.
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their
brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his
mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall
command him."

So David, in many of his excellent Psalms, ex-
pressing most sensible and extraordinary enjoyments,
as well as Prophecies; particularly his 2, 15, 18, 22,
23, 25, 2T, 32, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51, 84, &c. The
Prophets are full of it, and for that reason have their
name; particularly Isaiah, chap. 2, 9, 11, 25, 28, 32,
35, 42, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66.
Jeremiah also, chap. 23, 30, 31, 33. Ezekiel, chap.
20, 34, 36, 3T. Daniel, chap. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Hosea, chap. 1, 3. Joel, chap. 2, 3. Amos, chap. 9.
Micah, chap. 4, 5. Zachariah, chap. 6, 8, 9, 11, 13,
14. Malaehi, chap. 3, 4. This was not another
principle, though another manifestation of the same
principle, nor was it common, but particular and ex-
traordinary in the reason of it.

It was the same Spirit that came upon 3Ioses, which
came upon John the Baptist, and it was also the same
Spirit that came upon Grideon and Samson, that fell
upon Peter and Paul; but it was not the same dis-
pensation of that Spirit. It hath been the way of
God, to visit and appear to men, according to their
states and conditions, and as they have been prepared
to receive him, be it more outwardly or inwardly,
sensibly or spiritually. There is no capacity too low,
or too high, for this divine principle : for as it made
and knows all, so it reaches unto all people. It ex-
tends to the meanest, and the highest cannot subsist

46 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

without it. Which made David break forth in his
expostulations with God, Psalm cxxxix. 7, 8, 9, 10.
"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall
I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into hea-
ven, thou art there : if I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even
there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall
hold me." Implying it was everywhere, though not
everywhere, not at every time alike. If I go to
heaven, to hell, or beyond the seas, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
That is, there will this divine Word, this Light of
men, this Spirit of God, find me, lead me, help me,
and comfort me. For it is with me wherever I am,
and wherever I go, in one respect or other ; Prov.
vi. 22 : « When thou goest, it shall lead thee ; when
thou steepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou
aw ah est, it shall talk with tltee :" and I can no more
get rid of it, if I would, than of myself, or my own
nature ; so present is it with me, and so close it sticks
unto me. Isa. xliii. 2 : " When thou passest through
f/n' /raters, I ivill be with thee; and through the rivers,
they shall not overfloiv thee : ivhen thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee." David knew it, and therefore had a
great value for it. "In thy light shall toe see light,"
or we shall be enlightened by thy light. "Thou wilt
light my candle; the Lord my Grod ivill lighten my
darkness." Again, "The Lord is my Light, ivhom
shall I fear." It was his armour against all danger.
It took fear away from him, and he was undaunted,
because he was safe in the way of it. Of the same
blessed word he says elsewhere, "It is a lamp unto

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 47

my feet, and a lanthom to my paths." In short, a
light to him in his way to blessedness.

§ 3. Obj. But if the Jews had this light, it does
not folloiv that the Gientiles had it also ; but by your
doctrine all have it.

Answ. Yes, and it is the glory of this doctrine
which we profess, that God's love is therein held forth
to all. And besides the texts cited in general, and
that are as full and positive as can be expressed, the
apostle is very particular in the second chapter of
his Epistle to the Romans, verse 7 : "To them who, by
patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and
honour, and immortality, eternal life : 8. But unto
them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth,
but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath:
9. Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man
that doeth evil ; of the Jew first, and also of the
Gentile :

10. But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that
worketh good ; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile :

11. For there is no respect of persons with God.

12. For as many as have sinned without law, shall
also perish without law ; and as many as have sinned
in the law, shall be judged by the law;

13. (For not the hearers of the law are just before
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

14. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law,
do by nature the things contained in the law, these,
having not the law, are a law unto themselves :

15. Which shew the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness,
and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else
excusing one another ;)

16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets

48 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."
That is, they had not an outward law, circumstanced
as the Jeios had ; but they had the work of the law
written in their hearts, and therefore might well be
a law to themselves, that had the law in themselves.
And so had the Jeios too, but then they had greater
outward helps to quicken their obedience to it ; such
as God afforded not unto any other nation : and there-
fore the obedience of the Grentiles, or uncircumcision,
is said to be by nature, or naturally, because it wTas
without those additional, external, and extraordinary
ministers and helps which the Jews had to provoke
them to duty. Which is so far from lessening the
obedient Grentiles, that it exalts them in the apostle's
judgment; because though they had less advantages
than the Jews, yet the work of the law ivritten in
their hearts, was made so much the more evident by
the good life they lived in the world. He adds,
" their consciences bearing witness (or as it may be
rendered, witnessing with them) and their thoughts,
meanwhile, accusing, or else excusing one another,
in the day when Gf-od shall judge the secrets of all
hearts by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel."
Which presents us with four things to our point, and
worth our serious reflection. First, That the Gentiles
had the law written in their hearts. Secondly, That
their conscience was an allowed witness or evidence
about duty. Thirdly, That the judgment made
thereby shall be confirmed by the apostle's gospel
at the great day, and therefore valid and irreversible.
Fourthly, That this could not be, if the light of this
conscience were not a divine and sufficient light:
for conscience truly speaking, is no other than the
sense a man hath, or judgment he maketh of his duty

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 49

to God, according to the understanding God gives
him of his will. And that no ill, but a true and
scriptural use may be made of this word conscience,
I limit it to duty, and to a virtuous and holy life,
as the apostle evidently doth, about which we cannot
miss, or dispute; read verses 7, 8 and 9: "To them
who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for
glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
but unto them that are contentious, and do not
obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation
and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul
of man that doeth evil ; of the Jew first, and also
of the Gentile." It was to that therefore the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ desired to be made manifest,
for they dared to stand the judgment of conscience,
in reference to the doctrine they preached and pressed
upon men. The beloved disciple also makes it a judge
of man's present and future state, under the term
heart. 1 John iii. 20, 21 : "For if our heart condemn
us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all
things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then
have we confidence toward God." Plain and strong
words: and what were they about, but whether we
love God, in deed and in truth: and how must that
appear? Why, in keeping his commandments, which
is living up to what we know. And if any desire to
satisfy themselves farther of the divinity of the Gen-
tiles, let them read Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus,
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and the Gentile turiters.
They will also find many of their sayings, collected
in the first part of a book, called The Christian Quaker,
and compared with the testimonies of Scriptures, not
for their authority, but agreeableness. In them they
may discern many excellent truths, and taste great

10

50 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

love and devotion to virtue : a fruit that grows upon
no tree, but that of life, in no age or nation. Some
of the most eminent writers of the first ages, such as
Justin Martyr, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, &c,
bore them great respect, and thought it no lessening
to the reputation of Christianity, that it was defended
in many Gentile authors, as well as that they used
and urged them, to engage their followers to the
faith, as Paul did the Athenians with their own
poets.

CHAPTER VII.

\ 1. An Objection answered about the various Dispensations of God :
The Principle the same. \ 2. God's Work of a piece, and Truth
the same under divers Shapes. $ 3. The Reason of the Preva-
lency of Idolatry. \ 4. The Quaker's Testimony the best Anti-
dote against it, viz. Walking by a divine Principle in Man.
§ 5. It was God's End in all his Manifestations, that Man might
be God's Image and Delight.

§ 1. Obj. But it may be said, If it were one prin-
ciple, why so many modes and shapes of religion, since
the world began ? For the patriarchal, Mosaical, and
Christian, have their great differences ; to say nothing
of what has befallen the Christian, since the publica-
tion of it to the world.

Answ. I know not how properly they may be called
divers religions, that assert the true God for the
object of worship; the Lord Jesus Christ, for the
only Saviour; and the light, or Spirit of Christ, for
the great agent and means of mans conversion, and
eternal felicity, any more than infancy, youth, and
manhood, make three men, instead of three growths

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 51

or periods of time, of one and the same man. But
passing that, the many modes, or ways of God's ap-
pearing to men, arise, as hath been said, from the
divers states of men, in all which, it seems to have
been his main design to prevent idolatry and vice,
by directing their minds to the true object of wor-
ship, and pressing virtue and holiness. So that though
mediately he spoke to the patriarchs, mostly by
angels, in the fashion of men, and by them to their
families, over and above the illumination in them-
selves ; so to the prophets, for the most part, by the
Revelation of the Holy Ghost in them, and by them
to the Jews ; and since the Gospel Dispensation, by
his Son, both externally, by his coming in the flesh,
and internally, by his spiritual appearance in the
soul, as he is the great Light of the ivorld; yet
all its Sowings mediately through others, have still
been from the same principle, co-operating with
the manifestation of it immediately in man's own
particular.

§ 2. This is of great weight, for our information
and encouragement, that God's work, in reference
to man, is all of a piece, and, in itself, lies in a nar-
row compass, and that his eye has ever been upon the
same thing in all his dispensations, viz. to make men
truly good, by planting his holy awe, and fear in
their hearts: though he has condescended, for the
hardness and darkness of men's hearts, to approach,
and spell out his holy mind, to them, by low and car-
nal ways, as they may appear to our more enlightened
understandings: suffering truth to put on divers sorts
of garments, the better to reach to the low state of
men, to engage them from false gods, and ill lives;
seeing them sunk so much below their nobler part,

52 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

and what he made them, that, like brute beasts, they
knew not their own strength and excellency.

§ 3. And if we do but well consider the reason of
the prevalency of idolatry, upon the earlier and darker
times of the world, of which the Scripture is very
particular, Gen. xxxi. xxxv. ; Exod. xx. ; Levit. xxi. ;
Deut. xxix. xxx. xxxi. xxxii. ; Josh. xxii. xxiii. xxiv.,
we shall find that it ariseth from this: That it is more
sensual, and therefore calculated to please the senses
of men; being more outward or visible, or more in
their own power to perform, than one more spiritual
in its object. For as their gods were the workman-
ship of men's hands, they could not prefer them, that
being the argument which did most of all gall their
worshippers, and what of all things, for that reason,
they were most willing to forget. But their incidency
to idolatry, and the advantages it had upon the true
religion with them, plainly came from this, That it
was more outward and sensual: they could see the
object of their devotion, and had it in their power to
address it when they would. It was more fashionable
too, as well as better accommodated to their dark and
too brutal state. And therefore it was that God, by
many afflictions, and greater deliverances, brought
forth a people, to endear himself to them, that they
might remember the hand that saved them, and wor-
ship him, and him only; in order to root up idolatry,
and plant the knowledge and fear of him in their
minds, for an example to other nations. Whoever
reads Deuteronomy, which is a summary of the other
four books of Moses, will find the frequent and earnest
care and concern of that good man for Israel, about
this very point ; and how often that people slipt and
lapsed, notwithstanding God's love, care, and pa-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 53

tience over them, into the idolatrous customs of the
nations about them. Divers other Scriptures inform
us also, especially those of the prophets, Isa. xliv.
xlv. ; Psalms xxxvii. cxv. ; and Jer. x., where the Holy
Ghost confutes and rebukes the people, and mocks
their idols with a sort of holy disdain.

§ 4. Now that which is farthest from idolatry, and
the best antidote against it, is the principle we have
laid down, and the more people's minds are turned and
brought to it, and that they resolve their faith, wor-
ship, and obedience into the holy illuminations and
power of it, the nearer they grow to the end of their
creation, and consequently to their Creator. They
are more spiritually qualified, and become better fitted
to worship God as he is : who, as we are told, by our
Lord Jesus Christ, Is a Spirit, and will be worshipped
in spirit and in truth, and that they are such sort of
worshippers which God seeketh to worship him, in this
gospel-day. "The hour cometh," saith he, "and now
is." That is, some now do so, but more shall. A plain
assertion in present, and a promise and prophecy of
the increase of such worsphippers in future. Which
shews a change intended from a ceremonial worship,
and state of the church of God, to a spiritual one.
Thus the text : " But the time cometh, and noiv is, when
true worshippers shall ivorship the Father in spirit
and in truth." Which is as much as to say, when the
worship of God shall be more inward than outward
and so more suitable to the nature of God, and the
nobler part of man, his inside, or his inward and better
man : for so those blessed words import, in " spirit and
in truth." In spirit, that is, through the poiver of the
Spirit. In truth, that is, in realities, not in sha-
dows, ceremonies, or formalities, but in sincerity,
10*

04 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

with and in Life, being divinely prepared and ani-
mated ; which brings man not only to offer up right
worship, but also into intimate communion and fel-
lowship with God, ivho is a Spirit.

§ 5. And if it be duly weighed, it will appear, that
God in all his manifestations of himself, hath still
come nearer and nearer to the insides of men, that
he might reach to their understandings, and open their
hearts and give them a plainer and nearer acquaint-
ance with himself in spirit : and then it is that man
must seek and find the knowledge of God for his
eternal happiness. Indeed, all things that are made
shew forth the power and wisdom of God, and his
goodness too, to mankind ; and therefore many men
urge the Creation to silence Atheistical objections :
but tho' all those things shew a God, yet man does
it, above all the rest. He is the precious stone of the
ring, and the most glorious jewel of the globe; to
whose reasonable use, service, and satisfaction, the
whole seems to be made and dedicated. But God's
delight (by whom man was made, we are told by the
Holy Ghost) is in the habitable paints of the earth, zvith
the so?is of men, Prov. viii. 31. And with those that are
contrite in spirit, Isa. lxvi. 1, 2 : " Thus saith the Lord,
The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot-
stool : where is the house that ye build unto me ? and
where is the place of my rest ? For all those things
hath mine hand made, and all those things have been,
saith the Lord : but to this man will I look, even
to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembleth at my word." And why is man his delight,
but because man only, of all his works, was of his
likeness ? This is the intimate relation of man to
God : somewhat nearer than ordinary ; for of all other

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 55

beings, man only had the honour of being his image;
and, by his resemblance to God, as I may say, came
his kindred with God and knowledge of him. So that
the nearest and best way for man to know God, and
be acquainted with him, is to seek him in himself, in
his image; and, as he finds that, he comes to find and
know God. Now man may be said to be God's image
in a double respect. First, As he is of an immortal
nature ; and, next, as that nature is endued with those
excellencies in small, and proportionable to a creature's
capacity, that are by nature infinitely and incompa-
rably in his Creator. For instance, wisdom, justice,
mercy, holiness, patience, and the like. As man
becomes holy, just, merciful, patient, &c. By the
copy he will know the original, and by the work-
manship in himself he will be acquainted with the
holy workman. This, reader, is the Regeneration and
Neiv Creaturewe press, (Gal. vi. 15, 16 : "For in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor un-
circumcision, but a new creature. And as many as
walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and
mercy, and upon the Israel of God,") and according-
to this rule, we say, men ought to be religious, and
walk in this ivorld. Man, as I said just now, is a
composition of both worlds ; his body is of this, his
soul of the other world. The body is as the temple
of the soul, the soul the temple of the Word, and
the Word the great temple and manifestation of God.
By the body the soul looks into and beholds this
world, and by the Word it beholds God, and the
world that is without end. Much might be said of
this order of things, and their respective excellen-
cies, but I must be brief.

56 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

CHAPTER VIII.

$ 1. The doctrines of satisfaction and justification owned and
worded according to Scripture. § 2. What constructions we can't
believe of them, and which is an abuse of them. \ 3. Christ
owned a Sacrifice and Mediator. \ 4. Justification twofold,
from the guilt of sin, and from the power and pollution of it.
\ 5. Exhortation to the reader upon the whole.

§ 1. Though there be many good things said, how
Christ appears and works in a soul, to awaken, con-
vince and convert it; yet you seem not particular
enough about the death and sufferings of Christ: and
it is generally rumoured and charged upon you by
your adversaries, that you have little reverence to the
doctrine of Christ's satisfaction to God for our sins, and
that you do not believe, that the active and passive
obedience of Christ, when he was in the world, is the
alone ground of a sinner's justification before God.

Answ. The doctrines of satisfaction and justifica-
tion, truly understood, are placed in so strict an union,
that the one is a necessary consequence of the other,
and what we say of them, is what agrees with the
suffrage of Scripture, and for the most part in the
terms of it ; always believing, that in points where
there arises any difficulty, be it from the obscurity
of expression, mis-translation, or the dust raised by
the heats of partial writers, or nice critics, it is ever
best to keep close to the text, and maintain charity in
the rest. I shall first speak negatively, what we do not
own, which perhaps hath given occasion to those who

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 57

have been more hasty than wise, to judge us defective,
in our belief of the efficacy of the death and suffer-
ings of Christ to justification : as

§ 2. First, we cannot believe that Christ is the
cause, but the effect of God's love, according to the
testimony of the beloved disciple John, chap. iii. : Grod
so loved the world, that he gave his only -begotten Son
into the world, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life.

Secondly, we cannot say, God could not have taken
another way to have saved sinners, than by the death
and sufferings of his Son, to satisfy his justice, or that
Christ's death and sufferings were a strict and rigid
satisfaction for that eternal death and misery due to
man for sin and transgression : for such a notion were
to make God's mercy little concerned in man's salva-
tion ; and indeed we are at too great a distance from
his infinite wisdom and power, to judge of the liberty
or necessity of his actings.

Thirdly, we cannot say Jesus Christ was the great-
est sinner in the world, (because he bore our sins on
his cross, or because he was made sin for us, who
knew no sin,) an expression of great levity and un-
soundness, yet often said by great preachers and pro-
fessors of religion.

Fourthly, we cannot believe that Christ's death and
sufferings so satisfies God or justifies men, as that they
are thereby accepted of God : they are indeed thereby
put into a state capable of being accepted of God,
and, through the obedience of faith and sanctification
of the Spirit, are in a state of acceptance : for we can
never think a man justified before God, while self-
oondemned: or that any man can be in Christ who is
not a new creature; or that God looks upon men

58 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED

otherwise than they are. AVe think it a state of pre-
sumption and not of salvation, to call Jesus Lord, and
not by the work of the Holy Ghost : Master, and he
not yet master of their affections : Saviour, and they
not saved by him from their sins: Redeemer, and yet
they not redeemed by him from their passion, pride,
eovetousness, ivantonness, vanity, vain honours, friend-
ships, and glory of this world : which were to deceive
themselves ; for God will not be mocked. Such as men
sow, such they must reap. And though Christ did die
for us, yet we must, by the assistance of his grace,
work out our salvation with fear and trembling : as
he died for sin, so we must die to sin, or we cannot
be said to be saved by the death and sufferings of
Christ, or thoroughly justified and accepted with God.
Thus far negatively. Now, positively, what we own
as to justification.

§ 3. We do believe that Jesus Christ was our holy
sacrifice, atonement, and propitiation ; that he bore
our iniquities, and that by his stripes we were healed
of the wounds Adam gave us in his fall ; and that
God is just in forgiving true penitents upon the credit
of that holy offering Christ made of himself to God
for us ; and that what he did and suffered satisfied
and pleased God, and was for the sake of fallen man,
that had displeased God ; and that through the offer-
ing up of himself once for all, through the eternal
Spirit, he hath forever perfected those (in all times)
that were sanctified, who walked not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit, Rom. viii. 1. Mark that.

§ 4. In short, justification consists of two parts, or
hath a tivofolcl consideration, viz., justification from
the guilt of sin, and justification from the power and
pollution of sin, and in this sense justification gives

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 59

a man a full and clear acceptance before God. For
want of this latter part it is, that so many souls, reli-
giously inclined, are often under doubts, scruples, and
despondencies, notwithstanding all that their teachers
tell them of the extent and efficacy of the first part
of justification. And it is too general an unhappi-
ness among the professors of Christianity, that they
are apt to cloak their own active and passive disobe-
dience with the active and passive obedience of Christ.
The first part of justification, we do reverently and
humbly acknowledge, is only for the sake of the death
and sufferings of Christ : nothing can we do, though
by the operation of the Holy Spirit, being able to can-
cel old debts, or wipe out old scores : it is the power
and efficacy of that propitiatory offering, upon faith
and repentance, that justifies us from the sins that are
past ; and it is the power of Christ's Spirit in our
hearts, that purifies and makes us acceptable before
God. For till the heart of man is purged from sin,
God will never accept of it. He reproves, rebukes and
condemns those that entertain sin there, and therefore
such cannot be said to be in a justified state • con-
demnation and justification being contraries : so that
they who hold themselves in a justified state by the ac-
tive and passive obedience of Christ, while they are not
actively and passively obedient to the Spirit of Christ
Jesus, are under a strong and dangerous delusion ; and
for crying out against this sin-pleasing imagination,
not to say doctrine, we are staged and reproached as
deniers and clespisers of the death and sufferings of
our Lord Jesus Christ. But be it known to such,
they add to Christ's sufferings, and crucify to them-
selves afresh the Son of God, and trample the blood
of the covenant under their feet, that walk unholily

60 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

under a profession of justification : for God will not
acquit the guilty, nor justify the disobedient and un-
faithful.

Such deceive themselves, and at the great and final
judgment their sentence will not be, Come, ye blessed,
because it cannot be said to them, Well done good
and faithful, for they cannot be so esteemed that live
and die in a improvable and condemnable state ; but,
Go ye cursed, &c.

§ 5. Wherefore, 0 my reader ! rest not thyself
wholly satisfied with what Christ has done for thee in
his blessed person without thee, but press to know
his power and kingdom within thee, that the strong
man, that has too long kept thy house, may be bound,
and his goods spoiled, his works destroyed, and sin
ended, according to 1 John iii. 7: "Little children,
let no man deceive you, he that doeth righteousness
is righteous, even as He is righteous." "For which
end," says that beloved disciple, "Christ was mani-
fested, that all things may become new : new heavens
and new earth, in which righteousness divells" Thus
thou wilt come to glorify God in thy body and in thy
spirit, which are his, and live to him and not to thy-
self. Thy love, joy, worship and obedience ; thy life,
conversation, and practice ; thy study, meditation,
and devotion, will be spiritual : for the Father and
the Son will make their abode with thee, and Christ
will manifest himself to thee; for "the secrets of
the Lord are with them that fear him:" and an
holy unction or anointing have all those, which
leads them into all truth, and they need not the
teachings of men. They are better taught, being
instructed by the divine oracle: no bare hearsay, or
traditional Christians, but fresh and living witnesses:

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 61

those that have seen with their otvn eyes, and heard
with their own ears, and have handled with their own
hands, the word of life, in the divers operations of
it to their souls' salvation. In this they meet, in this
they preach, and in this they pray and praise. Be-
hold the new covenant fulfilled, the church and wor-
ship of Christ, the great Anointed of God, and the
great anointing of God, in his holy high-priesthood,
and offices in his church!

CHAPTER IX.

$ 1. A confession to Christ and his work, both in doing and suffer-
ing. $ 2. That ought not to make void our belief and testimony
of his inward and spiritual appearance in the soul. $ 3. What
our testimony is in the latter respect : that it is impossible to
be saved by Christ without us, while we reject his work and
power within us. \ 4. The dispensation of grace, in its nature
and extent. g 5. A further acknowledgment to the death and
sufferings of Christ. $ 6. The conclusion, showing our adversa-
ries' unreasonableness.

§ 1. And lest any should say we are equivocal in
our expressions, and allegorize away Christ's appear-
ance in the flesh ; meaning only thereby, our own flesh ;
and that as often as we mention Him, we mean only
a mystery, or a mystical sense of Him, be it as to his
coming, birth, miracles, sufferings, death, resurrec-
tion, ascension, mediation and judgment ; I would
yet add, to preserve the well-disposed from being
staggered by such suggestions, and to inform and re-
claim such as are under the power and prejudice of
them, that, we do, we bless God, religiously believe
11

62 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

and confess, to the glory of God the Father, and the
honour of his dear and beloved Son, that, Jesus Christ
took our nature upon him, and ivas like unto us in
all things, sin excepted : That he ivas born of the
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, the
Roman governor, was crucified, dead, and buried
in the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea ; rose again
the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sits on
the right hand of God, in the power and majesty of
his Father ; who will one day judge the world by him,
even that blessed man, Christ Jesus, according to their
works.

§ 2. But because we so believe, must we not believe
what Christ said, "He that is ivith you shall be in
you"? John xiv. "I in them and they in me," &c. :
chap. xvii. " When it pleased God to reveal Jiis Son
in me," &c. : Gal. " The mystery hid from ages, is
Christ in the Gentiles the hope of glory :" Col. i.
"Unless Christ be in you, ye are reprobates :" 2 Cor.
xiii. Or must we be industriously represented de-
niers of Christ's coming in the flesh, and the holy ends
of it, in all the parts and branches of his doing and
suffering, only because we believe and press the ne-
cessity of believing, receiving and obeying his inward
and spiritual appearance and manifestation of him-
self, through his light, grace, and Spirit, in the hearts
and consciences of men and women, to reprove, con-
vict, convert, and change them? This we esteem
hard and unrighteous measure ; nor would our warm
and sharp adversaries be so dealt with by others : but
to do as they would be done to, is too often no part
of their practice, whatever it be of their profession.

§ 3. Yet we are very ready to declare to the whole
world, that we cannot think men and women can be

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 63

saved by their belief of the one, without the sense
and experience of the other ; and that is what we
oppose, and not his blessed manifestation in the flesh.
We say that he then overcame our common enemy,
foiled him in the open field, and in our nature tri-
umphed over him that had overcome and triumphed
over it in our forefather Adam and his posterity :
and that as truly as Christ overcame him in our
nature, in his own person, so, by his divine grace,
being received and obeyed by us, he overcomes him
in us : that is, he detects the enemy by his light in
the conscience, and enables the creature to resist him
and all his fiery darts ; and finally, so to fight the
good fight of faith, as to overcome him, and lay hold
on eternal life.

§ 4. And this is the dispensation of grace, which we
declare has appeared to all, more or less; teaching
those that will receive it, "to deny ungodliness and
worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and
godly in this present ivorld ; looking for (which none
else can justly do) the blessed hope, and glorious
appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus
Christ" &c. : Tit. ii. 11, 12, 13. And as from the
teachings, experience and motion, of this grace we
minister to others, so the very drift of our ministry
is to turn people's minds to this grace in themselves,
that all of them may up and be doing, " even the
good and acceptable ivill of Gfod, and work out their
salvation with fear and trembling, and make their
high and heavenly calling and election sure;" which
none else can do, whatever be their profession, church,
and character ; for such as men sow they must reap ;
and his servants we are whom we obey. Regenera-
tion we must know, or we cannot be children of God,

G4 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

and heirs of eternal glory : and to be born again,
another spirit and principle must prevail, leaven,
season, and govern us, than either the spirit of the
world, or our own depraved spirits ; and this can be
no other spirit than that which dwelt in Christ ; for
unless that dwell in us, we can be none of his. Rom.
viii. 9. : "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,
if so be that the Spirit of Crod dwell in you. Noiv if
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his." And this Spirit begins in conviction, and ends
in conversion and perseverance ; and the one follows
the other. Conversion being the consequence of
convictions obeyed, and perseverance a natural fruit
of conversion, and being born of God. "For such sin
not, because the Seed of Grod abides in them." John
iii. 7, 8 : "3Iarvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must
be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh, and ivhither it goeth : so is every
one that is born of the Spirit." But such, through
faithfulness, continue to the end, and obtain the pro-
mise, even everlasting life.

§ 5. But let my reader take this along with him,
that we do acknowledge that Christ, through his holy
doing and suffering, (for being a Son he learned
obedience) has obtained mercy of God his Father for
mankind, and that his obedience has an influence to
our salvation, in all the parts and branches of it,
since thereby he became a conqueror, and led cap-
tivity captive, and obtained gifts for men, with divers
great and precious promises, that thereby we might be
partakers of the divine nature, having (first) escaped
the corruption that is in the world, through lust. I
say, we do believe and confess, that the active and

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 65

jMssive obedience of Christ Jesus affects our salva-
tion throughout, as well from the power and pollution
of sin, as from the guilt, he being a conqueror as
well as a sacrifice, and both through suffering. Yet
they that reject his divine gift, so obtained, (and which
he has given to them, by which to see their sin and
the sinfulness of it, and to repent and turn away
from it, and do so no more ; and to wait upon God
for daily strength to resist the fiery darts of the
enemy, and to be comforted through the obedience
of faith in and to this divine grace of the Son of
God) such do not please God, believe truly in God,
nor are they in a state of true Christianity and sal-
vation. "Woman" said Christ, to the Samaritan at
the well, " hadst thou knoivn the gift of God, and
who it is that speaheth to thee," &c. People know
not Christ, and God, whom to know is life eternal,
John xvii., because they are ignorant of the gift of
God, viz., a measure of the Spirit of God that is
given to any one to profit with. 1 Cor. xii. 7 : "But
the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man
to profit withal." Which reveals Christ and God to
the soul; 1 Cor. ii. 1 : "xlnd I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of
wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

" 2. For I determined not to know any thing
among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

" 3. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear,
and in much trembling.

" 4. And my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon-
stration of the Spirit and of power :

" 5. That your faith should not stand in the wis-
dom of men, but in the power of God.

66 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

" 6. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that
are perfect : yet not the wisdom of this world, nor
of the princes of this world, that come to nought :

" 7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden tvisdom, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory ;

" 8. Which none of the princes of this world knew :
for had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory.

" 9. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him.

"10. But God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God.

" 11. For what man knoweth the things of a man,
save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

" 12. Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God.

" 13. Which things also we speak, not in the words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things with spi-
ritual.

" 14. But the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto
him : neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.

" 15. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things,
yet he himself is judged of no man.

"16. For who hath known the mind of the Lord,

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 67

that he may instruct him ? But we have the mind
of Christ."

Flesh and blood cannot do it, Oxford and Cam-
bridge cannot do it, tongues and philosophy cannot
do it : for they that by wisdom knew not God, had
these things for their wisdom. They were strong,
deep and accurate in them ; but, alas ! they were
clouded, puffed up, and set further off from the inward
and saving knowledge of God, because they sought
for it in them, and thought to find God there. But the
Key of David is another thing, which shuts and no
man opens, and opens and no man shuts ; and this
key have all they that receive the gift of Cfod into
their hearts, and it opens to them the knowledge of
God and themselves, and gives them a quite other
sight, taste and judgment of things than their edu-
cational or traditional knowledge afforded them.
This is the beginning of the neiv creation of God,
and thus it is we come to be new creatures.

And we are bold to declare, there is no other way
like this, by which people can come into Christ, or be
true Christians, or receive the advantage that comes
by the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore we say, and upon good authority, even
that oiour oivn experience, as well as that of the Scrip-
tures of truth, Christ will prove no saving sacrifice
for them, that refuse to obey him for their example.
They that reject the gift, deny the giver instead of
themselves for the giver's sake. Oh that people were
wise, that they would consider their latter end, and
the things that make for the peace thereof! Why
should they perish in a vain hope of life, ivhile death
reigns ? Of living with God, who live not to him, nor
walk with him?

68 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

Awake, thou that sleepest in thy sin, or at best,
in thy self-righteousness ! Awake, I say, and Christ
shall give thee life ! For he is the Lord from heaven,
the quickening Spirit, that quickens us, by his Spirit,
if we do not resist it and quench it by our disobe-
dience, but receive, love and obey it, in all the holy
leadings and teachings of it. Rom. viii. 14, 15, 16 :
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God.

" 15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear ; but ye have received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

" 16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are children of God :"

To which Holy Spirit I commend my reader, that
he may the better see where he is, and also come to
the true belief and advantage of the doings and
sufferings of our dear and blessed Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, who saves from the power and pollution,
as well as guilt of sin, all those that hear his knocks,
and open the door of their hearts to him, that he may
come in and work a real and thorough reformation in
and for them; and so the benefit, virtue and efficacy
of his doings and sufferings without us, will come to
be livingly and effectually applied and felt, and fel-
lowship with Christ in his death and sufferings known,
according to the doctrine of the apostle ; which, those
that live in that which made him suffer, know not,
though they profess to be saved by his death and
sufferings. Much more might be said as to this
matter, but I must be brief.

§ 6. To conclude this chapter, we wonder not that
we should be mistaken, misconstrued and misrepre-
sented, in what we believe and do to salvation, since

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 69

our betters have been so treated in the primitive
times. Nor indeed is it only about doctrines of
religion ; for our practice in worship and discipline
have had the same success. But this is what I
earnestly desire, that however bold people are pleased
to make with us, they would not deceive themselves
in the great things of their own salvation: that while
they would seem to own all to Christ, they are not
found disoivned of Christ in the last clay. Read the
7th of Mattheiv : It is he that hears Christ, the
great Word of G-od, and does what he enjoins, what
he commands, and by his blessed example recom-
mends, that is a wise builder, that has founded his
house well, and built with good materials, and whose
house will stand the last shock and judgment. For
which cause we are often plain, close and earnest
with people to consider, that Christ came not to save
them in, but from their sins ; and that they that
think to discharge and release themselves of his yoke
and burden, his cross and example, and secure them-
selves, and compliment Christ with his having done
all for them (while he has wrought little or nothing
in them nor they parted with any thing for the love
of him) will finally awake in a dreadful surprise, at
the sound of the last trumpet, and at this sad and
irrevocable sentence, "Depart from me ye workers of
iniquity, I knoiv you not:" which terrible end may
all timely avoid, by hearkening to wisdom's voice, and
turning at her reproof, that she may lead them in the
ways of righteousness, and in the midst of the paths
of judgment, that their souls may come to inherit
substance ; even durable riches and righteousness in
the kingdom of the Father, ivorld without end.

70 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

CHAPTER X.

§ 1. Of the true worship of God in what it stands. \ 2. Of the trite
ministry, that it is by inspiration. \ 3. The Scripture plain in thai
case. \ 4. Christ's ministers, true witnesses, they speak what they
know, not by report. \ 5. Christ s ministers preach freely ; it is
one of their marks.

§ 1. As the Lord wrought effectually, by his divine
grace, in the hearts of this people, so he thereby
brought them to a divine worship and ministry:
Christ's words they came to experience, viz. : That
G-od was a Spirit, and that he would therefore be wor-
shipped in the Spirit, and in the truth, and that such
worshippers the Father would seek to worship him.
For, bowing to the convictions of the. Spirit in them-
selves, in their daily course of living, by which they
were taught to eschew that which was made manifest
to them to be evil, and to do that which was good,
they, in their assembling together, sat down, and
waited for the preparation of this Holy Spirit, both
to let them see their states and conditions before the
Lord, and to worship him acceptably ; and as they
were sensible of wants, or shortness, or infirmities, so
in the secret of their own hearts, prayer would spring
to God, through Jesus Christ, to help, assist and sup-
ply : but they did not dare to awake their Beloved
before his time ; or approach the throne of the King
of Grlory, till he held out his sceptre; or take thought
what they should say, or after their own or other
men's studied ivords and forms, for this were to offer

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 71

strange fire ; to pray, but not by the Spirit ; to ask,
but not in the name, that is, in the power of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who prayed, as well as spoke, like one
having authority, that is, power, a divine energy and
force to reach and pierce the heavens, which he gives
to all that obey his light, grace and Spirit, in their
solemn waitings upon him. So that it is this people's
principle, that fire must come from heaven; life and
power from God to enable the soul to pour out itself
acceptably before him.

And when a coal from his holy altar touches our
lips, then can we pray and praise him as we ought to
do. And as this is our principle, and that according
to Scripture, so it is, blessed be God, our experience
and practice : and therefore it is we are separated
from the worships of men, under their several forms,
because they do not found it in the operation, motion
and assistance of the Spirit of Christ, but the ap-
pointment, invention and framing of man, both as to
the matter, words and time. We do not dissent in
our own wills, and we dare not comply against his
that has called us, and brought us to his own spiritual
worship ; in obedience to whom we are what we are,
in our separation from the divers ways of worship in
the world.

§ 2. And as our worship stands in the operation
of the Spirit and Truth in our inward parts, as before
expressed, so does our ministry. For as the holy
testimonies of the servants of God of old, were from
the operation of his blessed Spirit, so must those of
his servants be in every age, and that which has not
the Spirit of Christ for its spring and source, is of
man, and not of Christ. Christian ministers are to
minister what they receive: this is Scripture; now

72 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVE©.

that which we receive is not our own, less another
man's, but the Lord's : so that we are not only not
to steal from our neighbours, but we are not to study
nor speak our own words. If we are not to study
what we are to say before magistrates for ourselves,
less are we to study what we are to say for and from
God to the people. We are to minister, as the oracles
of God ; if so, then must we receive from Christ,
God's great oracle, what we are to minister. And
if we are to minister what we receive, then not
what we study, collect, and beat out of our own
brains, for that is not the mind of Christ, but our
imaginations, and this will not profit the people.

§ 3. This was recommended to the Corinthians by
the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. xiv., that they should speak
as they were moved, or as any thing was revealed to
them, by the Spirit, for the edification of the church ;
for, says he, ye may all prophesy ; that is, ye may
all preach to edification, as any thing is revealed to
you, for the good of others, and as the Spirit giveth
utterance. And if the Spirit must give Christ's
ministers their utterance, then those that are his are
careful not to utter any thing in his name to the
people, without his Spirit ; and by good consequence,
they that go before the true guide, and utter words
without the knowledge of the mind of the Spirit, are
none of Christ's ministers : such, certainly, run, and
God has not sent them, and they cannot profit the
people. And indeed, how should they, when it is
impossible that mere man, with all his parts, arts and
acquirements, can turn people from darkness to light,
and from the poiver of Satan to God, which is the
very end and work of the gospel ministry. It must
be inspired men, men gifted by God, taught and in-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 73

fluenced by his heavenly Spirit, that can be qualified
for so great, so inward, and so spiritual a work.

§ 4. Ministers of Christ are his ivitnesses ; and the
credit of a witness is, that he has heard, seen or
handled: and thus the beloved disciple states the
truth and authority of their mission and ministry ;
1 John i. 1, 3 : That ivhich we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon
and our hands have handled, that declare we unto
you, that your fellowship may be ivith us, and truly
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son
Jesus Clirisb. I say, if Christ's ministers are his
witnesses, they must know what they speak ; that is,
they must have experienced and passed through those
states and conditions, they preach of, and practically
know those truths they declare of to the people, or
they come not in by the door, but over the wall, and
are thieves and robbers. He that has the key of
David comes in at the door, Christ Jesus, and has his
admission and approbation from him, anointed by
him, the alone high-priest of the gospel dispensation.
He it is that breathes, and lays his hands upon his
own ministers ; he anoints them, and recruits their
cruse, and renews their horn with oil, that they may
have it pure and fresh for every occasion and service
he calls them to, and engages them in.

§ 5. Nor is this all, but as they receive freely, freely
they give: they do not teach for hire, divine for
money, nor preach for gifts or reivards. It was
Christ's holy command to his ministers to give freely,
and it is our practice. And truly we cannot but
admire that this should be made a fault, and that
preaching for hire should not be seen to be one ; yea,
a mark of false prophets, wThen it has been so fre-

12

74 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

quently and severely cried out upon, by the true pro-
phets of God in former times. I would not be un-
charitable, but the guilty are desired to call to mind,
who it was that offered money to be made a minister,
and what it was for ; if not to get money and make a
trade or livelihood by it ; and what answer he met
with from the Apostle Peter, Acts viii. 18, 19, 20 :
" And when Simon saiv that through laying on of
the apostle s hands the Holy Ghost was given, he
offered them money, saying, Give me also this power,
that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the
Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money
perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the
gift of God may be purchased with money."

The Lord touch the hearts of those that are giving
money to be made ministers, in order to live by their
preaching, that they may see what ground it is they
build upon, and repent, and turn to the Lord, that
they may find mercy, and become living witnesses of
his power and goodness in their own souls ; so may
they be enabled to tell others what God has done for
them, which is the root and ground of the true
ministry ; and this ministry it is that God does bless.
I could say much on this subject, but let what has
been said suffice at this time, only I cannot but
observe, that where any religion has a strong tempta-
tion of gain to induce men to be ministers, there is
great danger of their running faster to that calling,
than becomes a true gospel minister.

§ 1. Obj. But does not this sort of ministry, and
worship, tend to make people careless, and to raise
spiritual pride in others, may it not give an occasion
to great mischief and irreligion ?

Answ. By no means, for when people are of age,

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 75

they, of right, expect their inheritances ; and the
end of all words is to bring people to the great Word,
and then the promise of God is accomplished, " They
shall be all taught of me, from the least to the great-
est, and in righteousness (pray mark that) they shall
be established, and great shall be their peace" To
this of the evangelical prophet, the beloved disciple
agrees, and gives a full answer to the objection :
These things have I ivritten unto you, concerning
them that seduce you: but the anointing, which ye
have received of him, abideth in you, and ye need
not that any man teach you, but as the same anoint-
ing teacheth you, of all things, and is truth, and is
no lie : and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide
in him : In which, three things are observable. 1st.
That he wrote his epistle upon an extraordinary occa-
sion, viz. to prevent their delusion. 2dly. That he
asserts a nearer and superior minister than himself,
viz. the anoi7iting or grace they had received ; and
that not only in that particular exigency, but in all
cases that might attend them. 3dly. That if they
did but take head to the teachings of it, they would
have no need of man's directions, or fear of his se-
ducings. At least of no ministry that comes not from
the power of the anointing : though I rather take the
apostle in the highest sense of the words : thus also
the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians : " But as
touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto
you : for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one
another, " 1 Thess. iv. 9. But helps are useful, and
a great blessing, if from God, such was John the Bap-
tist's ; but remember he pointed all to Christ. John
i. 26 : « Lo, the Lamb of God ! I baptize you with
water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost

76 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

and with fire," Matt. iii. 11. And so the true ministry
does. And while people are sensual, and under such
an eclipse, by the interposition of sin and Satan, God
is pleased to send forth his enlightening servants to
awaken and turn them from the darkness to the light
in themselves, that, through obedience to it, they may
come to be children of the light. John xii. 36 : And
have their fellowship one with another in it, and an
inheritance at last, with the saints in light forever.

And as it is the way God has taken to call and
gather people, so a living and holy ministry is of
great advantage to watch over, and build up the
young, and comfort and establish the feeble and sim-
ple ones. But still I say, the more inward, the less
outtvard ; the more people come to be taught imme-
diately of God, by the light of his word and Spirit in
their hearts, the less need of outward means, read
Isa. lx. 19, 20 : " The sun shall be no more thy light
by day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give
light unto thee : but the Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun
shall no more go down ; neither shall thy moon with-
draw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting
light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."
Which is held by all to be a gospel promise, and the
sun and moon there are generally understood to mean
the external means in the church. Compare them
with John i. 13 : " Which tvere born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God." And Rom. i. 19 : "Because that which may
be known of God is manifest in them : for God hath
sheiued it unto them." And 1 Cor. ii. 11-15 : "For
what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him ? Even so, the things of God

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 77

knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now ive
have received, not the spirit of the ivorld, but the
Sjnrit which is of God; that we might know the
things that are freely given to us of God. Which
things also we speak, not in the words which mans
wisdom teacheth, but ivhich the Holy Ghost teacheth;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually dis-
cerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things,
yet he himself is judged of no man.1' And 1 Thess.
iv. 9: "But as touching brotherly love, ye need not
that I write unto you : for ye yourselves are tauglit
of God to love one another. ," And 1 John ii. 20-27 :
" But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye
know all things. I have not written unto you be-
cause ye knoiv not the truth ; but because ye know it,
and that no lie is of the truth. Wlio is a liar, but he
that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is Anti-
christ, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whoso-
ever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father :
(but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the
Father also.) Let that therefore abide in you, which
ye have heard from the beginning. If that ivhich ye
have heard from the beginning shall remain in you,
ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
And this is the promise that he hath promised us,
even eternal life. These things have I written unto
you concerning them that seduce you. But the
anointing, which ye have received of him, abideth in
you ; and ye need not that any man teach you : but
as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and
is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught

12*

78 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

you, ye shall abide in him" And Rev. xxi. 22, 23, 24 :
"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God
Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it. And
the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon,
to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of
them tvhich are saved, shall walk in the light of it;
and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and
honour into it." All which places prove what we
assert of the sufficiency and glorious privilege of in-
ward and spiritual teachings. And most certainly,
as men grow in grace, and know the anointing of the
Word in themselves, the dispensation will be less in
words (though in words) and more in life ; and preach-
ing will in great measure be turned into praising, and
the worship of God, more into walking with, than
talking of God : for that is worship indeed, that bows
to his will at all times, and in all places : the truest,
the highest worship, man is capable of in this world.
And it is that conformity that gives communion, and
there is no fellowship with God, no light of his coun-
tenance to be enjoyed, no peace and assurance to be
had, further than their obedience to his will, and a
faithfulness to his word, according to the manifesta-
tion of the light thereof in the heart.

I say, this is the truest and highest state of wor-
ship ; for set days and places, with all the solemnity
of them, were most in request in the weakest dispen-
sation. Altars, arks and temples, Sabbaths and
festivals, &c, are not to be found in the writings of
the New Testament. There every day is alike, and
every place is alike ; but if there were a dedication, let
it be to the Lord. Rom. xiv. 5, 6, 7, 8, 17 : " One man
esteemeth one day above another ; another esteemeth

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 79

every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, re-
gardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not
the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that
eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ;
and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and
giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live,
we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die
unto the Lord ; ivhether we live, therefore, or die, we
are the Lord's.

17th ver. "For the kingdom of God is not meat
and drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in
the Holy Ghost."

1 Cor. viii. 6: "But to us there is but one God,
the Father, of ivhom are all things, and tve in him;
and one Lord Jesus Christ, by ivhom are all things,
and toe by him" Col. ii. 16,17: " Let no man
therefore, judge you, in meat, or in drink, or in re-
spect of an holy -day, or of the new-moon, or of the
sabbath-days ; which are a shadoiv of things to come;
but the body is of Christ."

Phil. i. 21 : " For to me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain."

Gal. ii. 20: "Z am crucified with Christ: never-
theless L live : yet not L, but Christ liveth in me :
and the life ivhich J noiu live in the flesh, L live by
the faith of the Son of God, ivho loved me, and gave
himself for me." Thus the Apostle, but he plainly
shows a state beyond it, for to live (with him) was
Christ, and to die was gain ; for the life he lived,
was by the faith of the Son of God, and therefore it
was not he that lived, but Christ that lived in him ;
that is, that ruled, conducted, and bore sivay in him,

80 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

which is the true Christian life, the supersensual life ;
the life of conversion and regeneration ; to which all
the dispensations of God, and ministry of his servants
have ever tended, as the consummation of God's work
for man's happiness. Here every man is a temple,
and every family a church, and every place a meeting-
place, and every visit a meeting. And yet a little
while and it shall be so yet more and more ; and a
people the Lord is now preparing to enter into this
Sabbath or degree of rest.

Not that we would be thought to undervalue public
and solemn meetings: we have them all over the
nation where the Lord hath called us. Yea, though
but two or three of us be in a corner of a country,
we meet, as the Apostle exhorted the saints of his
time, and reproved such as neglected to assemble
themselves. But yet show we unto thee, 0 reader, a
more excellent way of worship: for many may come
to those meetings, and go away carnal, dead and
dry ; but the worshippers in spirit and in truth,
whose hearts bow, whose minds adore the Eternal
God, that is a Spirit, in and by his Spirit, such as
conform to his will, and walk with him in a spiritual
life, they are the true, constant, living and acceptable
worshippers ; whether it be in meetings or out of
meetings ; and as with such, all outward assemblies
are greatly comfortable, so also do we meet for a
public testimony of religion and worship, and for the
edification and encouragement of those that are yet
young in the truth, and to call and gather others to
the knowledge of it, who are yet going astray ; and
blessed be God, it is not in vain, since many are
thereby added to the church, that we hope and believe
shall be saved.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 81

CHAPTER XL

| 1. Against tithes. \ 2. Against all sicearing. \ 3. Against tear
among Christians. $ 4. Against the salutations of the times. § 5.
And for plainness of speech. $ 6. Against mixt marriages. $ 7.
And for plainness in apparel, £fc. No sports and pastimes after the
manner of this world. \ 8. Of observing days. \ 9. Of care of
poor, peace and conversation.

§ 1. And as God has been pleased to call us from
an human ministry, so we cannot for conscience' sake
support and maintain it, and upon that score, and not
out of humour or covetousness, we refuse to pay
tithes, or such like pretended dues, concerning which,
many books have been writ in our defence : we can-
not support what we cannot approve, but have a tes-
timony against ; for thereby we should be found in-
consistent with ourselves.

§ 2. We dare not swear, because Christ forbids it.
Matt. v. 34-37 : " But I say unto you, swear not at
all : neither by heaven ; for it is God's throne : nor
by the earth ; for it is his footstool: neither by Jeru-
salem ; for it is the city of the great King : neither
shalt thou swear by thy head ; because thou canst not
make one hair white or black. But let your com-
munication be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for whatsoever is
more than these cometh of evil." And James, his
true follower. It is needless as well as evil, for the
reason of swearing being untruth, that man's yea ivas
not yea. Swearing was used to awe men to truth-
speaking, and to give others satisfaction, that what

82 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

was sworn, was true. But the true Christian's yea
being yea, the end of an oath is answered and there-
fore the use of it is needless, superfluous and cometh
of evil. The Apostle James taught the same doctrine,
and the primitive Christians practised it, as may be
seen in the Book of Martyrs ; as also the earliest and
best of the Reformers.

§ 3. We also believe, that war ought to cease,
among the followers of the Lamb Christ Jesus, who
taught his disciples to forgive and love their enemies,
and not to war against them, and kill them ; and that
therefore the weapons of his true followers are not
carnal but spiritual ; yea, mighty, through God, to
cut down sin and ivickedness, and dethrone him that
is the author thereof. And as this is the most
Christian, so the most rational way ; love and per-
suasion having more force than weapons of war.
Nor would the worst of men easily be brought to hurt
those that they really think love them. It is that
love and patience must in the end have the victory.

§ 4. We dare not give worldly honour, or use the
frequent and modish salutations of the times, seeing
plainly, that vanity, pride and ostentation, belong to
them. Christ also forbade them in his day, and made
the love of them a mark of declension from the sim-
plicity of purer times ; and his disciples, and their
followers, were observed to have obeyed their Master's
precept. It is not to distinguish ourselves a party,
or out of pride, ill-breeding or humour, but in obedi-
ence to the sight and sense we have received from
the Spirit of Christ, of the evil rise and tendency
thereof.

§ 5. For the same reason we have returned to the
first plainness of speech, viz. thou and thee, to a

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 83

single person, which though men give no other to God,
they will hardly endure it from us. It has been a
great jest upon pride, and shewn the blind and weak
insides of many. This also is out of pure conscience,
whatever people may think or say of us for it. We
may be despised, and have been so often, yea, very
evilly entreated, but we are now better known, and
the people better informed. In short, it is also both
scripture and grammar, and we have propriety of
speech for it, as well as peace in it.

§ 6. We cannot allow of mixed marriages, that is,
to join with such as are not of our society; but
oppose and disown them, if at any time any of our
profession so grossly err from the rule of their com-
munion ; yet restore them upon sincere repentance,
but not disjoin them. The book I writ of the rise
and progress of the people called Quakers, is more full
and express herein.

§ 7. Plainness in apparel and furniture, is another
testimony peculiar to us, in the degree we have bore
it to the world : as also few ivords, and being at a
word. Likewise temperance in food, and abstinence
from the recreations and pastimes of the world : all
which we have been taught, by the Spirit of our Lord
Jesus Christ, to be according to godliness ; and there-
fore we have loug exhorted all, that their moderation
may be known unto all men, for that the Lord was at
hand, to enter into judgment with us for every in-
temperance or excess ; and herein we hope we have
been no ill examples, or scandal unto any that have a
due consideration of things.

§ 8. We cannot, in conscience to God, observe holy
days (so called) the public fasts and feasts, because
of their human institution and ordination, and that

84 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED.

they have not a divine warrant, but are appointed in
the will of man.

§ 9. Lastly, we have been led by this good Spirit
of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which I have treated in
this discourse, according to primitive practice, to
have a due care over one another, for the preservation
of the whole society, in a conversation more suitable
to their holy professions.

First. In respect to a strict walking both towards
those that are without, and those that are within;
that their conversation in the world, and walking in
and towards the church, may be blameless. That as
they may be strict in the one, so they may be faithful
in the other.

Secondly. That collections be made to supply the
wants of the poor, and that care be taken of widows
and orphans, and such as are helpless, as well in
counsel, as about substance.

Thirdly. That all such as are intended to marry,
if they have parents, or are under the direction of
guardians or trustees, are obliged, first, to declare to
them their intention, and have their consent before
they propose it to one another, and the meeting they
relate to, who are also careful to examine their clear-
ness, and being satisfied with it, they are by them
allowed to solemnize their marriage in a public select
meeting, for that purpose appointed, and not other-
wise : whereby all clandestine and indirect marriages
are prevented among us.

Fourthly. And to the end that this good order may
be observed, for the comfort and edification of the
society, in the ways of truth and soberness; select
meetings (of care and business) are fixed in all parts,
where we inhabit, which are held monthly, and which

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY REVIVED. 85

resolve into quarterly meetings, and those into one
yearly meeting, for our better communication one
with another, in those things that maintain piety and
charity ; that God, who by his grace, has called us to
be a people, to his praise, may have it from us,
through his beloved Son, and our ever-blessed and
only Redeemer, Jesus Christ, for he is worthy,
worthy, now and ever. Amen.

Thus, reader, thou hast the character of the people
called Quakers, in their doctrine, worship, ministry,
'practice and discipline : compare it with Scripture,
and primitive example, and we hope thou wilt find,
that this short discourse hath, in good measure,
answered the title of it, viz. : —

Primitive Christianity Revived, in the principles
and practice of the people called Quakers.

13

APPENDIX.

"GOSPEL TRUTHS/'

« Sober reader, if thou hadst rather we should be
in the right than in the wrong, and if thou thinkest
it but a reasonable thing that we should be heard
before we are condemned, and that our belief ought
to be taken from our own mouths, and not at theirs
that have prejudged our cause, then we entreat thee
to read and weigh the following brief account of those
things that are chiefly received and professed among
us, the people called Quakers, according to the testi-
mony of the Scriptures of truth, and the illumination
of the Holy Ghost, which are the double and agree-
ing record of true religion. Published to inform the
moderate inquirer, and reclaim the prejudiced to a
better temper ; which God grant, to his glory and
their peace.

"I. It is our belief that God is, and that he is
a rewarder of all them that fear him, with eternal
rewards of happiness ; and that those that fear him
not, shall be turned into hell. Heb. xi. 16 ; Rev. xxii.
12 ; Rom. ii. 5-8 ; Ps. ix. 17.

"II. That there are three that bear record in
heaven : the Father, the Word, and the Spirit ; and
these three are really one. 1 John v. 7.

"III. That the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among men, and was and is the only-begotten of the

APPBNDI^ 87

Father, full of grace and truth — his beloved Son, in
whom he is well pleased, and whom we are to hear
in all things; who tasted death for every man, and
died for sin, that we might die to sin, and by his
power and spirit be raised up to newness of life here,
and to glory hereafter. John i. 14 ; Matt. iii. 17 ;
Heb. ii. 9.

" IV. That as we are only justified from the guilt
of sin by Christ, the propitiation, and not by works of
righteousness that we have done, so there is an abso-
lute necessity that we receive and obey, to unfeigned
repentance and amendment of life, the holy light and
spirit of Jesus Christ, in order to obtain that remis-
sion and justification from sin; since no man can be
justified by Christ who walks not after the Spirit, but
after the flesh ; for whom he sanctifies, them he also
justifies. And if we walk in the light as he is light,
his precious blood cleanseth us from all sin, as well
from the pollution as guilt of sin. Horn. iii. 22-26;
chap. viii. 1-4 ; 1 John v. 7.

"V. That Christ is the great light of the world,
that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,
and is full of grace and truth, and giveth to all light
for light, and grace for grace ; and by his light and
grace he inwardly appears to man, and teaches such
as will be taught by him, 'that, denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, right-
eously, and godly in this present world.' John vii.
12 ; chap. i. 9, 14 ; Tit. ii. 11, 12.

"VI. That this principle of light and grace, which
is God's gift, through Christ to man, is that which
shows us our sins, reproves us for them, and would
lead all out of them that obey it, to serve God in
fear and love all their days. And they that turn

88 APPENDIX.

not at the reproofs thereof, and will not repent, and
live and walk according to it, shall die in their sins ;
and where Christ is gone, they shall never come; who
is undefiled and separated from sinners. Eph. v. 13;
John xvi. 7 ; Prov. i. 20-24 ; John viii. 24.

"VII. This is that principle by which God pre-
pares the heart to worship him aright ; and all the
duties of religion, as praying, praising, and preach-
ing, ought to be performed through the sanctifying
power and assistance of it; other worship being but
formal and will-worship, with which we cannot in
conscience join, nor can we maintain or uphold it.
Rom. viii. 26 ; 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11.

"VIII. Worship in this gospel-day, is inward and
spiritual ; for God is a Spirit, as Christ teacheth, and
he will now be worshipped in spirit and in truth, being
most suitable to his divine nature. Wherefore we
wait in our assemblies to feel God's Spirit to open and
move upon our hearts, before we dare offer sacrifice
to the Lord or preach to others the way of his king-
dom ; that we may preach in power as well as words,
and as God promised and Christ ordained, without
money, and without price. John iv. 23, 24 ; 1 Thess.
i. 5 ; Isa. Iv. 1 ; Rev. xxii. 17 ; Matt. x. 8.

" IX. This also leads us to deny all the vain cus-
toms and fashions of the world, and to avoid excess
in all things, that our moderation may be seen of all
men ; because the Lord is at hand to see and judge
us according to our deeds. Tit. ii. 12; Rom. xii. 2;
Phil. iv. 5 ; Eccl. xii. 14 ; Matt. xvi. 27 ; Rom. ii. 6;
Rev. xx. 12.

"X. We believe the necessity of the one baptism
of Christ, as well as of his one supper, which he pro-
mised to eat with those that open the door of their

APPENDIX. 89

hearts to hirn, being the baptism and supper signified
by the outward signs; which, though we disuse, we
judge not those that conscientiously practise them.
Matt, iii. 11; Eph. iv. 1; 1 Pet. iii. 21, 22 ; Johnvi.;
Rev. iii. 20.

" XI. We honour government, for we believe it is
an ordinance of God ; and that we ought in all things
to submit, by doing or suffering ; but esteem it a great
blessing, where the administration is a terror to evil-
doers, and a praise to them that do well. Rom. xiii.
1-5.

"This hath all along been the general stream and
tendency, both of our ministry and writings, as our
books will make appear, notwithstanding what ill-
minded and prejudiced persons may have strained to
misrepresent us and our Christian profession.

"William Penn, Thomas Story,
"Anthony Sharp, George Rook.*

"Dublin, 3d month, 160S.''

* Perm's Select Works, Loudon ed. 1771.

THE END.

STIKEOTYPED BY L. JOUNiOX & CO.
rUILAl'LLl'HIA.

IS*

'***

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