perfon raised, as you are, above the common level, to lie under the prejudice of fo general a mistake, in fo important a matter. The general and the long prevalency of any opinion gives it a ftrength, efpecially among the vulgar, that is not eafily fhaken, And as it happens that you have also enemies of an ' higher rank, who will be ready to improve fuch popular mistakes, by all forts of malicious artifices, it 'must be taken for granted that thofe errors will be thereby ftill more confirmed, and the inconveniences that may arise from thence no less increased. This, Sir, I affure you, is a melancholy prospect to your 'friends; for we know you have fuch enemies. The defign of fo univerfal a liberty of confcience as your principles have led you to promote, has offended many of those whofe intereft is to cross it: I need ' not tell you how many and how powerful they are: nor can I tell you either how far, or by what ways ' and means, they may endeavour to execute their revenge. But this, however, I muft needs tell you, that in your prefent circumstances, there is fufficient 'ground for fo much jealoufy, at leaft, as ought to excite you to use the precaution of fome publick vindication. This the tenderness of friendship prompts your friends to defire of you; and this the just fenfe of your honour, which true religion does not extinguish, requires you to execute.

Pardon, I intreat you, Sir, the earneftness of these expreffions; nay, fuffer me, without offence, to expoftulate with you yet a little farther. I am fearful left these perfonal confiderations fhould not have their due weight with you, and therefore I cannot ⚫ omit to reflect also upon fome more general confequences of your particular reproach. I have said it already, that the king, his honour, his government, and even the peace and fettlement of this whole nation, either are, or have been, concerned in this matter: your reputation, as you are faid to have 'meddled in publick affairs, has been of publick ' eoncernment. The promoting a general liberty of

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confcience having been your particular province; the afperfion of popery and jefuitifm, that has been cast upon you, has reflected upon his MAJESTY, for having made ufe, in that affair, of fo difguifed a perfonage as you are fuppofed to have been. It has ⚫ weakened the force of all your endeavours, obftructed their effect, and contributed greatly to difappoint this poor nation of that ineftimable happiness, and fecure establishment, which I am perfuaded you defigned, and which all good and wife men agree, that a juft and inviolable liberty of confcience would infallibly produce. I heartily with this confideration had been fooner laid to heart, and that fome de• monstrative evidence of your fincerity in the pro • feffion you make, had accompanied all your endea< vours for liberty.

But what do I fay, or what do I wish for? I confefs that I am now ftruck with aftonishment at that abundant evidence which I know you have constantly given, of the oppofition of your principles to those of the Romish church, and at the little regard there has been had to it. If an open profeffion of the directeft oppofition against Popery, that has ever appeared in the world, fince Popery was firft diftinguished from common Christianity, would ferve the • turn, this cannot be denied to all thofe of that soCIETY, with which you are joined in the duties of religious worship. If to have maintained the principles of that fociety, by frequent and fervent difcourses, by many elaborate writings, by suffering ignominy, imprisonment, and other manifold difadvantages in defence thereof, can be admitted as any • proof of your fincere adherence thereunto; this, it is evident to the world, you have done already nay farther, if to have enquired as far as was poffible for < you, into the particular ftories that have been framed against you, and to have fought all means of rectifying the mistakes upon which they were grounded, could in any measure avail to the fettling a true character of you in mens judgments; this alfo I know

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you

you have done. For I have feen under the hand of a * reverend dean of our English church, a full ⚫ acknowledgment of fatisfaction received from you, • in a fufpicion he had entertained upon one of those ftories, and to which his report had procured too great credit. And though I know you are averse to the publishing of his letter without his exprefs leave, and perhaps may not now think fit to afk it; yet I am fo thoroughly affured of his fincerity and can dour, that I cannot doubt but he has already vindicated you in that matter, and will (according to his promife) be ftill ready to do it upon all occafions. Nay I have seen also your justification from ⚫ another calumny of common fame, about your hav• ing kidnapped one who had formerly been a мONK, out of your American province, to deliver him here into the hands of his enemies; I fay, I have seen your juftification from that story under that perfon's own hand: and his return to Pennsylvania, where he now refides, may be an irrefragable confutation of it, to any that will take the pains to enquire thereinto.

Really it afflicts me very much to confider that all this does not fuffice. If I had not that particular • respect for you which I fincerely profefs; yet I could not but be much affected, that any man who had fo • defervedly acquired fo fair a reputation as you have <formerly had, whose integrity and veracity had always been reputed fpotlefs, and whofe charity had been continually exercifed in ferving others, at the dear expence of his time, his ftrength, and his eftate, without any other recompence than what results ⚫ from the consciousness of doing good; I fay, I could not but be much affected, to fee any fuch perfon fall innocently and undefervedly under fuch unjust reproaches as you have done. It is an hard cafe; and I think no man, that has any bowels of humanity, can reflect upon it, without great relentings,

Dr. Tillotson.

• Since

Since therefore it is fo, and that fomething re⚫ mains yet to be done, fomething more exprefs, and especially more publick, than has yet been done for your vindication, I beg of you, dear Sir, by all the tender efficacy that friendship, either mine, or that • of your friends and relations together, can have upon you; by the due regard which humanity, and even Christianity, obliges you to have to your reputation; by the duty you owe unto the king; by your love to the land of your nativity; and by the caufe of univerfal religion and eternal truth; let not the scandal of infincerity, that I have hinted at, lie any longer upon you; but let the fenfe of all these obligations perfuade you to gratify your friends and • relations, and to ferve your king, your country, and your religion, by fuch a publick vindication of your honour, as your own prudence, upon these suggestions, will now fhew you to be moft neceffary, and most expedient. I am, with unfeigned and most refpectful affection,

• London, October the

• 20th, 1688.'

< Honoured Sir,

Your most humble, and

moft obedient Servant.

W. PENN'S Answer to the foregoing Letter.
WORTHY FRIEND,

T is now above twenty years, I thank God, that 'I have not been very folicitous what the world thought of me. For fince I had the knowledge of < religion from a PRINCIPLE in MYSELF, the first and main point with me has been, to approve myself in the fight of God, through patience and well-daing: fo that the world has not had weight enough with me, to fuffer its good opinion to raise me, or its ill opinion to deject me. And if THAT had been the < only motive or confideration, and not the defire of a good friend, in the name of many others, I had

‹ been

< been as filent to thy letter, as I use to be to the idle and malicious fhams of the times: but as the laws of friendship are facred, with thofe that value that relation, fo I confefs this to be a principal one with me, not to deny a friend the fatisfaction he defires, when it may be done without offence to a good con• science.

The bufinefs chiefly infifted upon, is my POPERY, ⚫ and endeavours to promote it. I do fay then, and • that with all fincerity, that I am not only no Jefuit, but no PAPIST. And, which is more, I never had < any temptation upon me to be it, either from doubts in my own mind about the way I profefs, or from the discourses or writings of any of that religion. And, in the prefence of Almighty God, I do declare, that the king did never once, directly or in• directly, attack me, or tempt me, upon that subject, the many years that I have had the advantage of a free access to him; fo unjuft, as well as fordidly false, are all those ftories of the town.

The only reason, that I can apprehend, they have to repute me a Roman Catholick, is, my frequent going to WHITEHALL, a place no more forbid to • me than to the reft of the world, who, it feems, find 'much fairer quarter. I have almost continually had < one business or other there for our friends, whom I • ever ferved with a steady folicitation, through all · times, fince I was of their communion. I had also a 'great many perfonal good offices to do, upon a principle of charity, for people of all perfuafions, thinking it a duty to improve the little intereft I had for the good of thofe that needed it, especially the poor. I might add fomething of my own affairs too; though I must own (if I may without vanity). ⚫ that they have ever had the least share of my thoughts or pains, or else they would not have still depended as they yet do.

But because fome people are fo unjuft, as to render inftances for my Popery, (or rather hypocrify, ' for fo it would be in me) it is fit I contradict them

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