subject. Among the many excellent passages contained in it, I shall select the following: "Next, let it be weighed," says he, "that we came not to our liberties and properties by the Protestant religion. Their date rises higher. Why then should a nonconformity to it, purely conscientious, deprive us of them? This or that sort of religion was not specified in the ancient civil government”—and further on he observes thus: "The nature of body and soul, of earth and heaven, of this world and that to come, differs. There can be no reason, then, to persecute any man in this world about any thing that belongs to the next. Who art thou, says the Holy Scripture in this case, that judgest another man's servant? He must stand or fall to his master, the great God. Let tares and wheat grow together till the harvest. To call for fire from heaven was no part of Christ's religion. Indeed he reproved the zeal of some of his disciples. His sword is spiritual, like his kingdom. Be pleased to remember, that faith is the gift of God, and what is not of faith is sin. We must either be hypocrites in doing what we believe in our consciences we ought not to do, or in forbear

ing what we are fully persuaded we ought to do. Either give us better faith, or leave us with such as we have; for it seems unreasonable in you to disturb us for that which we have, and yet be unable to give us any other."

But, alas, the evil began seriously to spread! The same spirit of persecution appeared in Somersetshire. Humsheer, the

town clerk of Bridgwater, and William Bull and Colonel Stawell, two justices of the peace for that county, were conspicuous for their severity there. Several Quakers were fined on suspicion only. Fines were levied upon others without warrants, and this to the breaking of locks and bolts. Goods were seized and taken, which were of twice the value of the fines; and, where the former were not of equal value with the latter, the parties were sent to gaol. These proceedings becoming known to William Penn, he thought it time to interfere more seriously; and therefore, hoping to set aside these practices by a summary proceeding, he addressed a letter immediately on the subject to the King.

This letter appears to have been of no

avail (nor indeed could the King help himself); for persecution still continued, and it not only spread to other counties, but it was carried on by a revival of that unjust procedure, by which William Penn himself had been sent to Newgate by Sir John Robinson, as mentioned in a preceding chapter; that is, when magistrates could not convict Quakers of the charges brought against them, they offered them the oath of allegiance; knowing that, if they obeyed their own scruples, they could not take it, and that, if they refused, they might be sent to prison. This being the case, and innocent men being thus tortured legally, William Penn was of opinion, that the country at large ought to know what the Quakers had to say for their conduct, when put to the test, on such occasions. Accordingly he published "A Treatise of Oaths," in which, first, he gave to the world all those reasons, both argumentative and scriptural, upon which they grounded their refusal to swear before the civil magistrate; hoping that these, when known, would at any rate shield them from the charge of disaffection, and, by so doing, that possibly they might put an end to the oppressive

oppressive process in question. He then endeavoured to enforce these reasons by a learned appeal to the opinion and practice of the ancients, as it related to the Heathen world; by a reference to the testimony of the most famous Jewish writers; and by quotations from the sayings and writings of Christians of all ages, taking in those of fathers, confessors, martyrs, and others eminent both among the laity and the church.

But this work, however it might have softened some, had not the least influence (such was the religious fury of the times) where it was most to be desired. Bigots, who had power, still continued to abuse it. Persons were thrown into gaol, so that parents and their children were separated. Cattle were driven away. The widow's cow was not even spared. Barns full of corn were seized, which was thrashed out and sold. Household-goods were distrained, so that even a stool was not left in some cases to sit on, and the very milk boiling on the fire for the family thrown to the dogs in order to obtain the skillet as a prize. These enormities sometimes took place on suspicion only that persons had preached to or

attended

attended a conventicle; and to such length were they carried, that even some of those who went only to visit and sit by their sick relations, were adjudged to be a company met to pray in defiance of the law. In this trying situation William Penn attempted again to stem the torrent by a work of a new kind. He indulged a hope, that, if he could not affect some men's minds by one kind of argument, he might by another. In addition therefore to his moral and religious Treatise upon Oaths, he published a political one under the following title: "England's present Interest considered with Honour to the Prince and Safety to the People, in Answer to this one Question, What is most fit, easy, and safe at this Juncture of Affairs to be done for quieting Differences, allaying the Heat of contrary Interests, and making them subservient to the Interest of the Government, and consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom? submitted to the Consideration of our Superiors,"

Of this admirable work I cannot but notice the contents. He began it by a short preface. In this he showed the heated and divided state in which the kingdom then

was