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O prize your precious and high calling, and diligently feek to make your calling and election fure, by working out your fo great falvation by the power and fpirit of Jefus our Lord: and as many as are led by it, are children and heirs, yea, co-heirs, of that life and kingdom with him, which abideth for evermore. So the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, by his holy arm and power, compafs you • about, and have your fouls and bodies in his keeping, that in his fear and love you may live towards him and one another the remainder of your days: fo fhall honour afcend to him, and his peace like a • river flow amongst you to your unutterable rejoicing, world without end.

I am

• Your fenfible, tender, and fincere friend and brother in the everlasting truth, to ferve you to the utmost of my ability therein,

From my houfe at Rickmerfworth, in the

nation of England, the 4th of the

10th month S. V. 1673.

TO FRIENDS in MARYLAND.

DEAR FRIENDS,

"T

W. P.'

HOUGH unknown to you in body, yet well known in fpirit, by that eternal living union ⚫ and fellowship that the light of the Lord Jefus • Chrift hath brought us into, which comprehends the ‹ world, the life, wisdom, and works of it, and reproves them all as degenerated from the life of God, ⚫ and the commonwealth of his bleffed fpiritual Ifrael: ⚫ and bleffed will you be for ever, as you keep therein; for a growing-up into immortality, and the life, peace, and joy that are eternal, you will witness more and more, which is the heavenly durable trea• fure in the earthen veffel. In the living fenfe of his precious truth, and glorious day of light, life, and love, that has dawned, and is breaking up clearer and

clearer

clearer upon us, my foul falutes you, the honeft and faithful-hearted friends of Maryland plantation, wishing you the increases of God day by day, to the ⚫ building you more and more up into the image that is glorious, being the exprefs representation of Him that hath called you to the hope that gives comfort in the day of the Lord: Oh, my dear friends, up and work for the Lord God, for the defpifed light and truth of Jefus, in your day; and let not us be lefs vigilant, in the tender, diligent, fervent fpirit for God, than the world is for their mammon, that fo we may appear men for God, not for ourfelves, minding the things of Chrift, and not our · own, Phil. ii. 21. So fhall God's truth fpread to the utmost parts of the earth, and the heathen shall ⚫ become the inheritance of that true light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

Dear friends, it fell to my lot to manage your ' concerns with the attorney-general of the colony, and the lord Baltimore, about oaths: I obtained to George Fox's paper the answer endorsed on the back-fide: now my advice to you is to represent to them,

First, That oaths have rifen from corruptions; that falfeness, diftruft, and jealoufies brought them into the world, as fay Polybius, Grotius, Bishop • Gawden, and others; and God having redeemed you to truth-speaking, the cause is taken away, viz. falsehood; therefore the effect, by way of remedy, to wit, oaths, fhould cease.

Secondly, Chrift expressly forbids swearing; inafmuch as he doth not only prohibit VAIN fwearing, < which was already forbidden under the law, but that fwearing which the law ALLOWED.

༩

Thirdly, That it is not only our fenfe: Polycarpus, Ponticus, Blandina, Bafilides, Primitive Martyrs were of this mind; and Juftin Martyr, Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, Clemens Alexandrinus, Bafilius Magnus, Chryfoftom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, • Chromatius, Euthymius, (Fathers) so read the text,

• пос

not to mention any of the Proteftant Martyrs. * Therefore fhould they be tender.

Fourthly, There is no injury done to the planta<tion to take your WORDS; if any, to you that suffer the fame penalty for a LYE, which is only due to PERJURY, and which the law, without your consent, ' does not inflict; your caution and pledge for HоNESTY is as large as he that fwears; for, as truthspeaking fulfils the law, fo equal punishment with perjured perfons, fatisfies it.

Laftly, That your coming thither as to a fanctuary, makes it reafonable that they fhould not drive you thence for mere confcience, fo well grounded and ' confirmed by scripture, reason, and authorities. Let < your yea and nay be all.

The lord Baltimore mentioned fomething about 'your allowing fome small matter for not performing martial matters: in that be wife, deliberate and paffive; only if they prefs too hard, interpofe. I fuppose they will be moderate in that, and all other cafes relating to you, at leaft I was told and affured

< so.

I have no more, but that truth profpers, in meetings and out of them: our adverfaries fall before us: and the fober people of these three nations are open to hear, and ready both to think and speak well of, the way of the Lord. I fent you one of • Edward Burrough's books, and two fmall ones of my own, as a token of my love, which accept. So the Lord God of eternal strength preferve us all, living, fresh, zealous, and wife, in that which is pure of Himself, which he hath fhed abroad in our hearts, to his eternal praise, and our everlafting comfort. Amen, amen, faith my foul.

• Your friend and brother, in the truth and caufe ' of Christ Jesus, the light of the world.

• Anno 1673.'

• W. PENN.'

• To

To J. H. and his Companions, JUSTICES in Mid<dlefex.

'BE

< Rickmersworth, the 3ift of the 1st month, called March, 1674.

ECAUSE you are justices as well as neighbours, and reputed gentlemen, not only civility, but duty, engages me to govern myself with all due refpect in this epiftle: which, as it proceeds out of love to your perfons, and that hearty defire I have your actions may not fall fhort of that courtesy, • neighbourhood, confcience, and fundamental law that becomes every man, much more a gentleman, and he an Englishman and a juftice too, but most ⚫ of all a true Chriftian, to fquare himself by, rather than any finifter end; fo, I beseech you, give it your perufal and ferious confideration; and then, if you pleafe, afford me your answer.

I offered, as you may remember, feveral things, to < abate your proceedings with us at Ruflipe, which then it did not please you to hear enough to embrace. Perhaps a reiteration may conduce more to your fatisfaction; at least, it will acquit my confcience; which, whatever you faid, or think, is of · great value with me. And thofe that have known ⚫ me better than you do, are not ignorant how much I have been thought to ftand in my own light, merely to preserve that unblemished.

I told you then, that fince you affirmed the report of this meeting to have reached you a month since (which, I think, was at least a week before any fuch thing was intended) it had been handfome and neighbourly, indeed but natural and juft, to give < us notice of your intentions: for in a country fo quiet as this (as where is there now any difquiet?) ⚫ who could have expected fuch a fand or rock to strike upon? Men ufe to provide land-marks and fuch like tokens for caution, where danger is, to prevent

it. We never heard you to be fevere; on the contrary moderate; men of more candor than to express feverity, or extend the letter of the law upon your neighbours.

For what elfe, I befeech you, can I call your fending for all that fhould meet there to appear before you, without any the leaft preceding information of your displeasure? Again, the conftable could give no evidence of a meeting, who left the people, fome in the house, fome in the yard, fome in the orchard, and feveral walking in the highway: no more preaching or praying, then, where no people < were. When you came, those that the conftable faw, were difperfed, and had been near an hour: which we thought the thing you only aimed at: finding some five that remained, either at some repast, or discourse, very remote from a CONVENTICLE, in your own sense of the word, how fair an opportunity had you to clear your hands, as juftices and ‹ friends, nothing offensive to the law in your hands ⚫ being present to you. Perhaps we expected to hear that you were glad to find the people gone; and that the occafion of any rigour, to you unpleasant, was removed; with, it may be, fome gentle caution for the future, that you might quit yourselves as well like men in power, as kind neighbours. But truly none of us, I dare fay, so much as conceived one thought like your actions. Not that I think them the harfheft that were ever fhown; by no means; but exceeding our expectations, the circumftances confidered, and the door that was thereby • opened for you to get out at: especially when you would not take our words to be gone, but, after an untoward manner, compelled us out. I farther urged the general quiet of the feafon, the unplea• fantness of these things to the king, his abfolute re• nunciation of all fuch proceedings; that his DECLARATION was a great inftance; that though IT be ⚫ cancelled, yet not the LIBERTY; for the quarrel lay not against the indulgence, but the GRANT of it forVOL. I. • maliter.

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