William Penn: Political Writings [Annotated] 1108497128, 9781108497121

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WI L L I A M PE N N

Political Writings William Penn (1644–1718) – Quaker activist, theorist of liberty of conscience, and colonial founder and proprietor – played a central role in the movement for religious liberty on both sides of the Atlantic for more than four decades. This volume presents, for the first time, a fully annotated scholarly edition of Penn’s political writings over the course of his long public career, tracing his thinking from his early theorisation of religious toleration and liberty of conscience in England, as a leading member of the Society of Friends during the 1670s, to his colonial undertaking in Pennsylvania a decade later, his controversial role in the years leading up to the 1688 Revolution, and the ongoing consequences of that Revolution for his future prospects. Penn’s political writings provide an illuminating window into the increasingly sophisticated and influential movement for liberty of conscience in the early modern world. Andrew R. Murphy is Professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University. His work on Penn has spanned several decades, including a biography, William Penn: A Life (2019); a collection of essays (co-edited with John Smolenski), The Worlds of William Penn (2019); and the first study of Penn’s political thought in fifty years, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration (2016).

CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT General editor Quentin Skinner Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities, School of History, Queen Mary University of London Editorial board Michael Cook Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University Gabriel Paquette Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University Andrew Sartori Professor of History, New York University Hilde de Weerdt Professor of Chinese History, Leiden University Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought is firmly established as the major student series of texts in political theory. It aims to make available all the most important texts in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece to the twentieth century, from throughout the world and from every political tradition. All the familiar classic texts are included, but the series seeks at the same time to enlarge the conventional canon through a global scope and by incorporating an extensive range of less well-known works, many of them never before available in a modern English edition, and to present the history of political thought in a comparative, international context. Where possible, the texts are published in complete and unabridged form, and translations are specially commissioned for the series. However, where appropriate, especially for non-western texts, abridged or tightly focused and thematic collections are offered instead. Each volume contains a critical introduction together with chronologies, biographical sketches, a guide to further reading and any necessary glossaries and textual apparatus. Overall, the series aims to provide the reader with an outline of the entire evolution of international political thought. For a list of titles published in the series, please see end of book

WI LLI AM PENN

Political Writings e dit e d b y

A ND R E W R . MUR PH Y Virginia Commonwealth University

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108497121 doi: 10.1017/9781108684156 © Andrew R. Murphy 2021 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2021 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. isbn 978-1-108-49712-1 Hardback isbn 978-1-108-73950-4 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents Acknowledgmentspage vii Introduction: The Political Thought of William Penn (1644–1718) Note on the Texts

1 24

p a r t i p o l i t i c a l liberties 1 The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (1670)

32

2 England’s Present Interest Discover’d (1675)

83

3 England’s Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament (1679)

140

4 The Great and Popular Objection Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests (1688)

149

p a r t i i t o l e r a t ion and liberty of conscien ce 5 The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670)

163

6 The Proposed Comprehension (1673)

207

7 One Project For the Good of England (1679)

212

8 A Perswasive to Moderation to Church Dissenters (1686)

230

v

Contents p a r t i i i p e n nsylvania   9 Some Account of the Province of Pennsilvania in America (1681)

286

10 The Fundamentall Constitutions of Pennsilvania (unpublished, summer 1681)

299

11 The Frame of the Government of Pennsilvania…Together with certain Laws Agreed upon in England (1682)

315

12 The Charter of Privileges (1701)

332

p a r t i v b r o a der perspectives 13 An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693)  344 14 A Briefe and Plaine Scheame (unpublished, February 1697)

363

15 Proposal for the Advancement of Trade in America (unpublished, March 1697)

365

Select Bibliography

368

Index

372

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Acknowledgments This volume represents the culmination – and, for the time being, the completion – of more than two decades in which the life, career, and thought of William Penn has played a major role in my scholarship. From my doctoral dissertation (a revised version of which was published as Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America)1 to my most recent work on Penn (Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn; William Penn: A Life, and the co-edited volume The Worlds of William Penn),2 I have devoted a great deal of energy to arguing for Penn’s inclusion in the canon of political thinkers worthy of sustained scholarly treatment. To be sure, Penn produced neither an architectonic masterwork of Leviathan-esque proportions nor a touchstone for later generations like Locke’s Second Treatise. Moreover, he was viewed with suspicion by many (including Locke) in his own day, and by others ever since (most famously, Macaulay in his History of England),3 for his close and supportive relationship with James II. However, as I have argued in my prior work on Penn, between the late 1660s and the early 1710s, William Penn Andrew R. Murphy, Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2001). 2 Andrew R. Murphy, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Andrew R. Murphy, William Penn: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); Andrew R. Murphy and John Smolenski (eds.), The Worlds of William Penn (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019). 3 Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II, 5 vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849–1861), vol. I, ch. 4. 1

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Acknowledgments played an enormously influential role in the movement for toleration in both England and America. Not only did he articulate principles of liberty of conscience in his native country, most particularly during the 1670s, but he seized the opportunity to attempt to instantiate those principles in Pennsylvania. (That he found practice far more challenging than theory ought neither to surprise us nor lessen the importance of his career to the history of toleration.) This volume’s publication in the Cambridge Texts series originated in an offhand comment made more than a decade ago, over coffee, by Quentin Skinner, a comment that I had either the temerity or the foolhardiness to remember years down the road. I am grateful to the editors of this august series for deeming Penn worthy of inclusion, and hope that this volume’s appearance sparks renewed interest not only in Penn himself, but in the broader seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contexts that shaped him, and that he did so much to shape. Over the years countless colleagues and friends have offered helpful observations, encouragement, and conversation about Penn and the broader tolerationist movement. It is impossible to remember, much less to mention, them all individually. With regard to this volume in particular, I thank Steve Angell, Teresa Bejan, Alastair Bellany, Jane Calvert, John Coffey, Ben Pink Dandelion, Mark Goldie, Evan Haefeli, Christie Maloyed, John Smolenski, and Scott Sowerby for their intellectual camaraderie as well as, at times, their assistance in tracking down some of Penn’s more obscure references. In addition, as it depended on access to the many different printings of Penn’s original texts, this volume also would not have been possible without the helpful assistance of reference librarians at the British Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library of the Religious Society of Friends at Friends House, London. At Cambridge University Press, Elizabeth Friend-Smith, Atifa Jiwa, and Ruth Boyes guided the project from proposal to publication; along the way, Christopher Jackson and Heather Dubnick provided outstanding copyediting and indexing services. Although I have been working on Penn for quite some time, the completion of this manuscript coincided with my institutional move to the Political Science Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019. I have benefited greatly from the intellectual camaraderie of my new colleagues at VCU, and I thank them all, particularly my department chair, Jason Arnold, for warmly welcoming me into the VCU community. In addition, much of the final work on annotations was advanced viii

Acknowledgments immeasurably by support from the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, where I held the Richard L. Morrill Distinguished Chair in Ethics and Democratic Values during Fall 2018. I thank the Jepson School’s dean, Sandra Peart, all my Jepson colleagues, and Richard Dagger and Kevin Cherry of the UR Department of Political Science, for their hospitality. Finally, but no less importantly, my debts of gratitude to Beth Angell, and to Peter and Sam Murphy, go beyond words. I shall leave them there.

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Introduction The Political Thought of William Penn (1644–1718) This volume aims to introduce William Penn and his political thought to audiences who may be familiar with his contemporaries (Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, Sidney) but less so with Penn himself. As I have written elsewhere, more than 300 years after his death Penn remains “a man apart, a figure whom many know a little, but few know well.”1 But a close examination of William Penn’s remarkable political career – of the ideas that he developed as a Dissenter in England, and his attempts to implement them as a colonial proprietor in America – provides a window into the broader emergence of civil and religious liberty in early modern England and America. Born two years after the outbreak of civil war, Penn came of age during the Restoration and lived on, though in declining health, into the reign of George I. At the height of his involvement in politics, between 1685 and 1688, he was one of the best-known and most influential Dissenters in the land. At its depths, he found himself imprisoned on several occasions in the aftermath of the 1688 Revolution, suspected of Jacobite sympathies, and accused of treason. Later still, he spent much of 1708 in debtors’ prison. But between the late 1660s and the early eighteenth century, William Penn played a central role in the political life of the nation, the development of Quakerism, the

Murphy, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration, p. ix. For more extensive treatment of these topics, see chapters 1 and 8 of Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration, from which much of the material in this Introduction is drawn.

1

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Introduction articulation of religious liberty as a necessary component of legitimate government, and the launching of a major American colony. Penn has never been without champions. Voltaire sang his praises in some stirring passages in the fourth of his Letters on the English (though it must also be admitted that Voltaire’s paeans to Penn misstate a number of key dates and details). Thomas Jefferson pronounced Penn “the greatest lawgiver the world has produced, the first in either ancient or modern times who has laid the foundation of government in the pure and unadulterated principles of peace, of reason and right” in pursuit of “the only legitimate objects of government, the happiness of man.”2 Yet for years, with the exception of Mary Maples Dunn’s William Penn: Politics and Conscience, systematic scholarly attention to Penn’s political thought lagged behind that lavished on his more famous contemporaries.3 To be sure, Penn often appears in studies of his more famous contemporaries, such as John Locke, Algernon Sidney, or James II. Other scholars have explored the key role he played in the Society of Friends, as well as the founding of Pennsylvania and the religious, political, and economic developments that made its early years so noteworthy in the history of English colonizing efforts in North America.4 In what follows, I lay out some of the reasons for this oversight, as well as the payoffs of reintroducing Penn into the history of political thought. Voltaire, Lettres, Ecrites de Londres sur les Anglois et Autres Sujets (London, 1734), Letter 4; “Jefferson to Peter Stephen Duponceau,” November 16, 1825; http://rotunda.upress .virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-04-02-02-5663 3 Mary Maples Dunn, William Penn: Politics and Conscience (Princeton University Press, 1967). 4 On Penn’s famous contemporaries, see Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Princeton University Press, 1986); Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, 1677–1683 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Scott Sowerby, Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).   On his role in the Society of Friends, see Melvin B. Endy, Jr., William Penn and Early Quakerism (Princeton University Press, 1973); William C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1919); Richard C. Allen and Rosemary Moore (with specialist contributors), The Quakers, 1656–1723: The Evolution of an Alternative Community (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2018); Jane E. Calvert, Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).   On early Pennsylvania, see Edwin B. Bronner, William Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681–1701 (New York: Temple/Columbia, 1962); J. William Frost, A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1993); Sally Schwartz, A Mixed Multitude: The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York: NYU Press, 1988). 2

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Introduction Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn, by the present writer, more recently joined Dunn’s as the only book-length treatment of Penn’s political thought, and sought to enrich scholarship by drawing on the recent insights of Cambridge School and contextualist approaches to the history of political thought since the late 1960s.5 And in the wake of the 300th anniversary of Penn’s death, which was marked in 2018, a new scholarly biography, along with a new collection of essays, The Worlds of William Penn, approached its subject’s complex legacy – both the worlds that shaped him and the worlds he helped shape – from a multidisciplinary set of perspectives.6 *** At first glance, William Penn’s political thinking can appear puzzling. Although deeply engaged in both political theorizing and active political involvement, Penn did not produce a political-philosophical magnum opus. Most of Penn’s public writings were pièces d’occasion, and his public career embodied a number of paradoxes that have challenged scholars seeking to understand his complex legacy. First, William Penn lived with a sharp tension between egalitarian ideas and hierarchical and deferential expectations. As a zealous convert to, and an influential leading member of, the Society of Friends, Penn espoused a radically egalitarian theology that proclaimed human equality in the sight of God and the transformative power of the Light within.7 Yet, as a member of the English gentry, raised in a prominent family with a war hero for a father, Penn expected deference and subordination from others, consistently lived beyond his means, was never without servants, and even owned slaves who worked at Pennsbury, his American estate. Much of Penn’s correspondence with Pennsylvania’s government during his extended absences from the colony read like the fulminations of a parent disappointed in his wayward children. Murphy, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration. I refer of course to the pioneering work of Quentin Skinner, J. G. A. Pocock, and the “Cambridge School.” See the essays collected in Skinner, Visions of Politics, Volume I: Regarding Method (Cambridge University Press, 2002); Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (University of Chicago Press, 1971); and John Dunn, Political Obligation in Historical Context: Essays in Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1980). 6 Murphy, William Penn: A Life; and Murphy and Smolenski (eds.), The Worlds of William Penn, the title of which pays homage to, and moves beyond, another outstanding collection: Richard S. Dunn and Mary Maples Dunn (eds.), The World of William Penn (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986). 7 See Rosemary Moore, The Light in Their Consciences: Early Quakers in Britain, 1646–1666 (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000). 5

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Introduction Second, Penn’s own political loyalties shifted dramatically over the course of his long public career. In its early days, he became a national figure by defending the rights of Dissenters, and he championed representative popular institutions, such as juries and parliament, as guarantors of the people’s liberties. Yet during the late 1680s Penn was widely reviled as James II’s mouthpiece, the paid lackey of an absolutist monarch bent on destroying the rule of law. Penn himself reconciled his varied commitments – to representative institutions, to liberty of conscience, and to the king’s program for granting liberty of conscience – by insisting that the king’s Declaration of Indulgence be followed in short order by parliamentary confirmation. Nonetheless, in such a heated political atmosphere, we ought not to be surprised if the nuances of his position escaped those who saw his employer as an existential threat to English liberties. Third, despite his high hopes for Pennsylvania, Penn’s physical absence from his American province virtually ensured that such aspirations would go unfulfilled. A few months after his arrival in Pennsylvania, Penn wrote that “I am mightily taken with this part of the world…I like it so well, that…my family being once fixt with me; and if no other thing occur, I am like to be an adopted American.”8 Yet he would spend just about four years of his remaining thirty-six in America. The man whose name would eventually grace American banks, insurance companies, hotels, universities, and schools became a cipher to those he had so assiduously recruited to America. He spent his final seventeen years far from Pennsylvania and was finally laid to rest in Old Jordans Cemetery outside of London. The divergent fortunes of Penn and his colony represent a fourth paradox worth considering here. From modest beginnings in the early 1680s, Philadelphia grew into the “richest, fastest-growing, and most cultivated of American cities” by the middle of the next century.9 Yet Penn was never able to reap the benefits of the colony’s multifaceted promise. His imprisonment for debt in 1708 provides evidence of his chronic difficulties managing money, and his excessive borrowing is inseparable from his Penn to Lord Culpeper, February 5, 1683, Papers of William Penn, ed. Richard S. and Mary Maples Dunn, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981–1986), vol. II: p. 350. Hereafter, references to the Papers will appear as PWP volume: page number – so here, PWP II: 350. 9 Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 80, 197. 8

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Introduction inability to realize the economic possibilities of American colonization. In fact, he was attempting to sell Pennsylvania back to the crown when he was incapacitated by the first of several strokes in 1712. It seems likely that the dynamic growth of Pennsylvania might well have taken place precisely because of, rather than in spite of, the proprietor’s extended absences. *** If William Penn produced no masterwork, no synthetic or architectonic work that guaranteed him entry into the canon of political philosophy, he nonetheless played a crucial role in the emergence of religious toleration and liberty of conscience as a fundamental element of early modern political thought. His importance derives, first and foremost, from his central role in the increasingly vocal, organized, and philosophically sophisticated tolerationist movement that gained strength over the second half of the seventeenth century. Shaped by the experience of religious and political dissent on both sides of the Atlantic, theorists of toleration generated substantive principles of civil and religious liberty, insisting that individuals and groups be free to follow the dictates of their conscience not only in the narrow essentials of religious worship, but in the many ways in which issues of conscience arise in public life. Penn’s placement at the heart of this movement grants his political thought a signal importance in the emergence of toleration as both a philosophical principle and a political reality. Not only did Penn attempt to articulate principles of religious liberty as a Quaker in England, he actually experienced firsthand the complex relationship between theory and practice. Unlike most theorists of toleration (certainly, unlike his contemporary, Locke), Penn wielded political power as the chief officer of a constituted government. Given the divergent localities in which Penn produced most of his political theorizing (England) and in which he occupied public office (America), a study of Penn sheds a great deal of light on the transatlantic context of early modern political thought, and especially on the complex phenomenon known as the “British Atlantic.” On the one hand, despite living into the eighteenth century and founding an American colony, Penn’s world was that of the seventeenth century, and his center of gravity – intellectually, religiously, socially – was English. Viewing Penn primarily as an American “founder,” then, runs the risk of underplaying the degree to which he was shaped by his English background. On the other hand, Penn was no ordinary English Dissenter: He was the proprietor and governor of a 

Introduction large American colony, a recipient of crown largesse, and deeply invested in the project of imperial expansion and American settlement. An Atlantic perspective helps make sense of Penn’s multifaceted political thought and its interplay with the exercise of political power.10 *** Twenty-first century audiences, for good reason, often consider “toleration” rather minimal and uninspiring compared with the more robust defenses of difference articulated by contemporary theorists of identity. Nor is it only twenty-first-century audiences who express such sentiments: In his 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, George Washington noted that “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”11 That said, the concrete victories won by tolerationists over the course of the seventeenth century represented a basic level of legal protection and coexistence for people who had long faced fines, corporal punishment, and jail time for attempting to live with conscientious integrity, and paved the way for the eighteenth-century developments lauded by Washington. Toleration (often also referred to as “indulgence”) generally refers to the political protection of dissenting individuals and groups. In Penn’s time, it contained a number of different dimensions: nonpunishment for those whose religious commitments placed them outside the Church of England, and an end to jailing, fines, or other sanctions for refusing to conform to the Church of England; a reduction in the social power of the established church and the acceptance that Dissent was a permanent feature of English life; and some minimal freedom of assembly and speech (for proselytizing and gathering for worship).12 Toleration is also closely connected to “liberty of conscience,” a term often understood to ground political protections for Dissent on the less ambiguous theoretical footing of natural-rights arguments. Yet the seventeenth-century sense of these terms was hardly a model of consistency: Penn himself used the two terms interchangeably in his Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, whose On Atlantic history, see Karen Ordahl Kupperman, The Atlantic in World History (Oxford University Press, 2012); Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 11 George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, August 18, 1790: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-the-hebrewcongregation-at-newport/ 12 See Teresa M. Bejan, “Evangelical Toleration,” Journal of Politics 77 (2015): 1103–1114. 10

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Introduction extended title proclaimed the work to be “a general reply to such late discourses as have opposed a toleration.”13 William Penn came of age during the Restoration, but religious and political discord had plagued English society for years, firing the English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I, and dominating the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods. Prior to his restoration, in the Declaration of Breda (April 1660), Charles II had indicated his desire for a moderate religious settlement; the Restoration’s ultimate outcome, however, effected by a series of parliamentary statutes known as the Clarendon Code, imposed a narrow and rigid Anglicanism. Thus Restoration debate over the rights of Dissenters always took place against the backdrop of struggles for preeminence between king and parliament. Tolerationist arguments during these years drew upon a range of sources, and Penn employed all of them. Christian and Protestant arguments emphasized the sanctity of individual conscience, and such Scriptural offerings as Jesus’s claim that his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36), the parable of the tares and wheat (Matthew 13), and Paul’s exhortation that whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14). Epistemological arguments insisted that the heart of religion resided in inner conviction, and that belief represented a faculty of the understanding and not the will, and was thus impervious to physical coercion. Civil governments, on this view, might control their subjects’ bodies for the common good, but could not compel belief. Historical arguments invoked the ancient English constitution and Magna Carta, maintaining that Englishmen held their civil liberties irrespective of religious differences, and offering catalogues of English and European statesmen who endorsed principles of religious liberty, thus providing an historical pedigree for tolerationist claims. And finally, prudential or pragmatic arguments emphasized the prosperity and civil peace that toleration would yield after years of religious strife. But tolerationists always faced an uphill battle. After all, they were calling for a departure from longstanding practices of political and religious uniformity, and they struggled against often-vivid memories of numerous instances where political and religious unrest clearly had gone hand in hand. It is impossible to understand discourses of toleration without careful consideration of the criticisms they faced. Historical or political arguments drew on memories of the 1640s and 1650s, when See Penn, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670) (Selection 5 in this volume).

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Introduction Dissenters played a central role in a civil war and regicide. Religious or ecclesiastical arguments reflected the widespread view that civil rulers were charged with overseeing matters of worship within their borders. Anglican thinkers developed a doctrine of passive obedience that was only reluctantly discarded in 1688, and then only in the face of a frontal assault by a Catholic monarch.14 And theological or epistemological arguments undergirded penal legislation and the suppression of Dissent, with English Protestants going so far as to draw on Augustine’s writings justifying coercion against the Donatists. When Penn entered into these debates over toleration in Restoration England, he did so on behalf of the Society of Friends, a sect that had burst across the British Isles during the 1650s and was soon sending missionaries to Europe and North America. Their “peace testimony” notwithstanding, Quakers continued to attract condemnation from authorities in church and state: They refused to observe conventional practices of decorum and deference, exuberantly celebrated what George Fox, one of the group’s key founders, called “the inward Light” or “that of God in every man,” and dissented from central elements of Christian orthodoxy such as the Trinity. The Restoration years saw the growth of the Society of Friends from a movement that emphasized the experience of inner Light and the spirit of Christ within to a far more ordered system of Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings, complete with disciplinary ecclesiastical structures and collective oversight of members’ writings. Penn’s support for Fox’s organizational efforts sought to provide a balance between the power of individual religious experience and the need for established structures to facilitate the Lord’s work.15 Complicating all these disputes, England was never a closed system: It was situated within a European world and, increasingly, an ever more intricate incipient global empire overseen by royal officials determined to centralize colonial affairs in the service of a “grand imperial vision.”16 The English had been settling the North American coast, with varying degrees of success, for nearly a century: from Jamestown in 1607 through Mark Goldie, “The Political Thought of the Anglican Revolution,” in The Revolutions of 1688: The Andrew Browning Lectures, ed. Robert Beddard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 102–136. 15 Endy, William Penn, p. 154, and chs. 4, 5 more generally. Also Moore, The Light in Their Consciences; Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism; and Allen and Moore, The Quakers. 16 Owen Stanwood, The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 25. 14

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Introduction Massachusetts and Maryland during the 1630s; from Carolina in the 1660s through New Netherland, which the English finally took from the Dutch in the 1670s. Although he never visited America until his voyage to Pennsylvania in 1682, Penn had been involved in mediating disputes between Quakers involved in the New Jersey colony during the 1670s, and was a signatory of the West Jersey Concessions of 1677. Domestic religious considerations intersected with policy toward the Catholic European powers as well as the Protestant Dutch. Stuart kings and Restoration parliaments often had rather different agendas: The secret clauses of the 1670 Treaty of Dover (in which Charles II promised to convert to Catholicism in return for a French subsidy) show the lengths to which English kings would go to be freed from dependence on parliament. In 1685, Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes reignited debates about “popery” and persecution just as James II, a Catholic king, began his reign in England.

*** The selections included in this volume span three decades in William Penn’s public career. Born in 1644 to then Captain (later Admiral, later Admiral Sir) William Penn and his wife, Margaret, a widowed Dutchwoman who had fled to London from the Irish violence of the early 1640s, William Penn grew up in and around London. His father rose through the ranks of the navy, siding with parliament during the Civil Wars and gaining additional renown under Cromwell. In the mid 1650s, Admiral Penn (having invoked Cromwell’s displeasure due to his failure to capture Hispaniola in the ill-fated “Western Design”)17 took his family to their lands in County Cork, Ireland, which Cromwell had bestowed in happier times. The boy spent four years there, leaving to attend Christ Church College, Oxford, in the fall of 1660. It was a miserable experience, and Penn was ejected after just two years for some unspecified religious nonconformity. Thus began an unsettled period between 1664 and 1666: travel in Europe, including study at the Protestant Academy in Saumur, France; a stint as messenger between his father and royal officials, including King Charles II himself, in the run-up to the Second Anglo-Dutch War; and an attempt to study law at Lincoln’s Inn, which ended almost before it began when plague hit London. Finally, in early See Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).

17

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Introduction 1666, Sir William sent his son to Ireland to negotiate lease agreements with his tenants. The following year, at a Quaker Meeting in Cork, Penn underwent a profound spiritual transformation and joined the Society of Friends. It was a religious conversion with equally profound social and political implications – Quakers were one of the most despised sects in Britain – and represented an apparently unambiguous repudiation of his father’s plans for him to enter the English elite. But when one door closes, another door opens. His Quaker convincement set Penn’s life on a radically new path, and his prominent family name provided Friends with a high-profile convert. Over the next several decades, William Penn would build bridges between the Society of Friends and a variety of other audiences.18 One particular aspect of that early career stands out: Penn’s 1670 trial with his fellow Quaker William Mead, in which the defendants effectively hijacked a trial for disturbing the peace and transformed it into an impassioned defense of religious assembly and the rights of Englishmen.19 The publication of a “transcript” of this trial, The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (Selection 1), made Penn a widely known figure in the movement for toleration during these years. Before the decade was out, another political crisis engulfed the realm. The Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis not only framed Penn’s political thinking between 1678 and 1681, but also provided the immediate backdrop for his petition for an American colony. Rumors of Catholic plots to assassinate Charles II and install his (Catholic) brother James on the throne gave new life to Whig efforts to exclude James from the succession, and led to passage of the Test Act of 1678, which extended to parliament the terms of earlier legislation that had required public officeholders to swear oaths of allegiance to the monarch, as well as renunciations of Catholic doctrine, and to receive Communion in an Anglican church, as a condition of holding public office.20 Penn was deeply engaged in politics during these years, preparing petitions defending Quakers, endorsing toleration, and working (unsuccessfully) in support of Algernon Sidney’s efforts to get elected to the House of Commons. Like many of his contemporaries, Penn denounced “popery” – one of the

See my “William Penn after 300 Years: Paradoxes and Legacies of a Boundary-Spanner,” Quaker Studies 24: 1 (2019): 5–23. 19 The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (1670) (Selection 1). 20 Test Act of 1678 (30 Car. II. st. 2); Test Act of 1673 (25 Car. II c. 2). 18

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Introduction most charged political epithets in seventeenth-century English political debate – and called for Protestant unity in the face of the Catholic threat. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Penn continually sought a place for peaceful and politically loyal English Catholics, developing a notion of “civil interest” aimed at unifying a society deeply divided along religious lines. One of the signal events of Penn’s life was the founding of Pennsylvania. Petitioning for a colony in America in lieu of repayment of debts the crown owed his father, Penn received the charter for Pennsylvania in March 1681. He famously described his hope “that there may be room there, though not here, for…an holy experiment” to secure liberty of conscience; earlier, he had told another correspondent that “God…will I believe bless and make it the seed of a nation.”21 He journeyed to America in 1682, and spent two years fully immersed in the business of founding. Although he had hopes of remaining in Pennsylvania and convincing his family to join him, Penn returned to England in fall 1684 to litigate an increasingly bitter dispute over the Pennsylvania–Maryland border with Lord Baltimore, his southern neighbor. Although he emerged victorious, he was quickly drawn back into the world of English politics, aligning himself with the new king, James II, an association that would have fatal consequences for his reputation as well as his ability to oversee his colony. James II acceded to the throne in February 1685 upon the death of his brother Charles. An old naval colleague of Penn’s father, James shared with Admiral Penn’s son a disaffection from the established church and a desire for liberty of conscience. The new king welcomed Penn at court, and enlisted him in a controversial campaign to extend toleration to Protestant Dissenters and English Catholics by royal decree, which he hoped to follow with parliamentary approval. The years between 1686 and 1688, when James was campaigning for liberty of conscience and Penn was one of his lieutenants in that cause, saw Penn reach the pinnacle of his public influence. It was an ambitious – and politically unrealistic – vision, and it collapsed in spectacular fashion when William of Orange invaded England in December 1688. Penn spent much of 1689 either in hiding or in prison, under suspicion as chief ideologist of a disgraced regime and suspected sympathizer of ongoing Jacobite efforts to reinstate James as king. He lost control of the colony altogether between 1692 and “To James Harrison,” August 25, 1681, PWP II: 108; “To Robert Turner,” March 5, 1681, PWP II: 83.

21

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Introduction 1694, when William and Mary assigned the government to New York governor Benjamin Fletcher; and suffered personal tragedy as well, with the death of his wife, Gulielma, in 1694 and son, Springett, in 1696. (He did remarry in 1696, to Hannah Callowhill, a wealthy Bristol Quaker who would administer Pennsylvania as his health declined after 1712.) The debacle of 1688 did not signal the end for Penn. Although he would never again attain the kind of public profile that he had achieved during James’s reign, he gradually worked his way back into public life. In 1693, he published An Essay toward the Present and Future Peace of Europe, which envisioned a deliberative European Diet to which states could take their grievances and work for the peaceful settlement of their disputes. He played an increasingly prominent role as a spokesman for colonial proprietors and others engaged in the project of American colonization. And at the very end of the decade, he finally returned to his colony after an absence of fifteen years. It was a quite different visit from his 1682 voyage, made even more difficult by the fact that the colony’s magistrates had revised the Frame of Government without Penn’s permission during his lengthy absence. This second stay lacked the drama and high aspirations that characterized the earlier, founding voyage, with fifteen years of bitterness, miscommunication, and rivalry producing friction between the proprietor and many of his colonists. In agreeing to the Charter of Privileges (Selection 12) granted upon his final departure in 1701, Penn made a number of difficult and painful concessions to the fact that his political position was markedly weaker than in those early days of settlement. Penn had been in poor financial shape when he initiated his colony in the early 1680s, and despite recruiting nearly 600 investors and undertaking an impressive sales campaign over the ensuing decades, he never realized the financial promise that danced before his eyes in the early 1680s. As Richard S. Dunn has put it, “The selling of Pennsylvania was a grand success all around – except for William Penn.”22 In 1704 Penn sent his son, William, to Pennsylvania in his stead, apparently hoping that responsibilities there would cure William Jr. of his spendthrift and dissolute ways (hopes that were quickly dashed). James Logan, his agent in Pennsylvania, fought an increasingly lonely battle there to protect the proprietor’s investment and prerogatives. Penn spent much of 1708 Richard S. Dunn, “William Penn and the Selling of Pennsylvania,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 127 (1983): 328.

22

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Introduction in the Fleet (debtors’) prison. His health failed after 1710, and his passing in 1718 removed from the scene an individual who had played a vital role in the articulation of religious liberty as a fundamental element of legitimate government across the Atlantic world.

*** Introducing Penn’s political thought to the political theory canon ne­ cessarily invites comparisons with two of his seventeenth-century tolerationist contemporaries: Roger Williams and John Locke. Like Penn, Williams was born, raised, and formed (philosophically, politically, and religiously) in England, and came to be closely identified with a particular American colony.23 Both Penn and Williams arrived in America in their 30s, seeking to transcend what they saw as the errors of religious establishment in England through the theorizing and creation of societies in America. Each projected onto America a variety of hopes and fears directly related to the many ways in which England, in their view, remained unwilling to adopt the proper relationship between church and state. Recall Penn’s invocation of a “holy experiment” in America: “There may be room there, though not here, for such an holy experiment.”24 During the Pequot War of 1636 to 1638, Williams elaborated a view of the Massachusetts Bay settlements as not essentially different from Old England, with its national church, and predicted “the end of one vexation…[and] the beginning of another, till conscience be permitted (though erroneous) to be free amongst you.”25 Yet despite these similarities, Penn and Williams’s firsthand personal engagement with their polity differed dramatically. Williams arrived in Providence a fugitive and an exile, Penn as a royally designated proprietor. Williams was never a wealthy man, and after helping to settle Providence and the surrounding towns, he played a number of official and unofficial roles: ambassador to the surrounding tribes, colonial agent in England, chief governing officer, trader, farmer, preacher, colonial agent This consideration of Penn and Williams draws on my more extensive comparison in “‘Lively Experiment’ and ‘Holy Experiment’: Two Trajectories of Religious Liberty,” in The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present, ed. Chris Beneke and Christopher Grenda (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), pp. 37–51. 24 “To James Harrison,” August 25, 1681, PWP II: 108. 25 “To Governor John Winthrop,” July 21, 1637, in The Correspondence of Roger Williams, ed. Glenn W. Lafantasie (Hanover, NH, and London: University Press of New England, 1988), vol. I: p. 106. 23

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Introduction in England (again), president of Providence Plantations, and all-around mediator. Penn, on the other hand, received his province directly from the crown; a number of already existing settlements of English, Dutch, and Swedish inhabitants were incorporated into the new province of Pennsylvania, along with territory ceded by his personal friend, the duke of York (later King James II). He arrived in Pennsylvania as proprietor and governor; upon his arrival, he assembled the inhabitants at the courthouse in New Castle, and shortly thereafter set about directing the ongoing physical construction of Philadelphia according to plans he had drafted in England. Furthermore, despite the reputations of their colonies as outposts of religious liberty, both Penn and Williams found enacting and maintaining civil society, and staving off disorder, without an established religion to be a difficult undertaking. Internal dissension, American neighbors, and English rivals all contributed to the difficulties in securing order. The early years of Rhode Island were littered with fractious political debates, and, like Penn, Williams lamented not only the fact of division, but the ammunition that these divisions would provide for the colony’s enemies. Dissension was endemic from Rhode Island’s early years on, and not surprisingly: individuals who could not stomach religious authority were often similarly unwilling to abide political magistrates. The hostility of the Massachusetts Bay settlements proved a constant source of concern; land disputes between towns persisted. Rhode Island’s rejection of civil governors’ authority to enforce moral and spiritual orthodoxy struck at the heart of conventional understandings of the legitimate functions of government, and provided the colony’s early residents with an enormous challenge, that of creating civil order in a heavily religious culture while maintaining a religiously neutral governmental sphere. Although Pennsylvania has had, in one sense, quite a different reputation – thanks in no small part to its Quaker promoters, both at its founding and ever since – it was not, or rather was not only, an oasis of peace and harmony. From the very beginning, Penn’s “Quaker colony” had to contend with a sizable population of non-Quakers, who had their own ideas about governance and were not shy about voting in a bloc to pursue their interests. Disputes over land were widespread. A decade after the colony’s founding, the Keithian schism of 1692 to 1694, which began as a debate about theological principles and grew into a full-fledged attack on the colony’s leadership, provided an especially vivid example of the difficulty of establishing order while simultaneously 

Introduction preserving a broad understanding of liberty of conscience.26 The dominance of Friends in the political and economic life of the young colony, while it reflected the founder’s vision, aroused resentment among nonQuakers. Pennsylvania’s Anglicans successfully petitioned for their own clergy, criticized Quaker hegemony, and accused Friends of everything from fixing legal proceedings to turning a blind eye to smuggling. Pennsylvania’s religious diversity did not always operate as harmoniously as the founder insisted, and concerns about order and discord were constantly present during the colony’s early years. For both Penn and Williams, the search for order involved something that we might consider rather minimal by today’s standards: What they sought, ultimately, was a modus vivendi – literally, a way of living together. Tolerationists sought to create a public space in which individuals and groups of differing persuasions could live out their own deepest commitments with some degree of integrity. Recent reconsiderations of Williams have sought to appreciate the importance of his use of “civility” to describe a central tolerationist aspiration, although we should not confuse the early modern content of that term with contemporary, and generally much more expansive, understandings of its meaning or requirements.27 One final point of comparison between these two figures: Each founder articulated powerful theories of religious liberty that reflected larger debates in seventeenth-century England and that predated, and went beyond, the more famous theory later put forward by Locke. Although Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration would become the most widely celebrated exposition of what we now call “liberal” tolerationism, Penn and Williams arguably present more ambitious theories, with a more robust understanding of the individual conscience and a broader range of protected beliefs and behaviors. Williams’s articulation of liberty of conscience, as presented in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, began from a concern for the purity of the church and the sanctity of the individual conscience. Civil affairs were the proper prerogative of the state, and necessarily involved the exercise I pass over the details of the events of the schism: for a collection of the primary documents, see J. William Frost, The Keithian Schism in Early Pennsylvania (Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1980); and my own “Persecuting Quakers? The Politics of Toleration in Early Pennsylvania,” in The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Religious Intolerance in the Making of America, ed. Christopher Beneke and Chris Grenda (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), pp. 143–167. 27 See Teresa M. Bejan, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), ch. 2. 26

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Introduction of coercion; in effect, governments are responsible for people’s bodies, while salvation remained in the hands of God. [M]agistrates, as magistrates, have no power of setting up the form of church government, electing church officers, punishing with church censures…And on the other side, the churches as churches, have no power…of erecting or altering forms of civil government, electing of civil officers, inflicting civil punishments…as by deposing ­magistrates from their civil authority, or withdrawing the hearts of the people against them, to their laws, no more than to discharge wives, or children, or servants, from due obedience to their husbands, parents, or masters; or by taking up arms against their magistrates.28

Put more briefly, “all civil states…[are] essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual of Christian state and worship.”29 Later, in his famous “ship of state” letter to the town of Providence, Williams reiterated the shared interest that “papists, protestants, Jews, or Turks” have in the smooth functioning of their shared political community.30 Yet this radical political position had an orthodox theological foundation. Williams drew upon the traditional Christian notion of conscience, admitting that conscience could err; even while holding that one should not be persecuted even for erroneous conscientious views, since conscience was a faculty of the understanding and not the will, and thus could not be coerced into believing anything of which it was not fully persuaded by its own judgment. Penn shared many of the commitments that animated Williams’s thinking on these matters, and his theory, laid out over the course of the 1670s and 1680s, will become clear in the pages of this volume. Persecution was rooted, in Penn’s view, in spiritual pride and in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus’s ministry. A proper understanding of the nature of Christ’s kingdom, as well as of the nature of the individual conscience, would lead to a proper understanding of earthly politics and to firm guarantees of religious liberty. All of these arguments together formed the basis of Penn’s view of England as a civil commonwealth, bound together by civil interest. And it was some version of this

Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent, of persecution (London, 1644), p. 136. Ibid., p. 3. 30 To the Town of Providence, c. January 1654/5, Correspondence, II: 423–4. The ship of state metaphor is not, of course, unique to Williams: it appears in book 6 of Plato’s Republic. 28 29

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Introduction theory that Penn sought to plant – with all the ambiguity inherent in such an attempt – in America. And yet again, within this broad parallel, it is worth noting an important distinction between Penn and Williams: Penn’s political career involved a movement from theory to practice, Williams’s apparently the other way around, developing (or at least sharpening and elaborating) a theory of religious liberty out of his experience of persecution in Massachusetts Bay. The powerful theory of liberty of conscience that Williams laid out in his public debate with John Cotton was elaborated in the mid to late 1640s, a full decade after Williams’s expulsion from Massachusetts Bay. Penn, on the other hand, initiated his public career with a call for liberty of conscience: His Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Selection 5) contains all the basic building blocks of his mature theory. Penn was a published theorist of religious liberty long before he ever set foot in America. The contentious early months of his first residency in Pennsylvania – when he had to deal with the colony’s assembly, which he himself had created but which turned out to have political ideas of its own – provided Penn with a rough lesson in the realities of politics in a fallen world, in the difficult road one begins down when attempting to translate political theory into political practice. *** Penn’s more immediate contemporary, John Locke, represents another fruitful avenue of comparison.31 Each possesses an enduring importance for scholars of toleration for the way in which they encapsulate a dynamic and ongoing political debate in early modern England and America. The immediate aftermath of Penn’s fall from grace in the late 1680s saw the publication of Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, which has come to be viewed as a sort of proto-liberal ur-text in the tolerationist tradition.32 Penn and Locke shared several important personal and professional connections. Each one advanced Whig arguments during the 1670s, and their contact was facilitated by mutual friendships with wellconnected figures like Algernon Sidney, James Tyrrell, William Popple, and Benjamin Furly. Locke owned copies of Penn’s Great Case of Liberty This consideration of Penn and Locke draws on my more extensive comparison in Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration, ch. 8. 32 See John Christian Laursen and Cary J. Nederman’s critique of the “Locke obsession” in their Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration before the Enlightenment (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), p. 2. 31

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Introduction of Conscience and each of his three 1687 Letters from a Gentleman in the Country.33 Yet despite the persistence of a myth about Penn arranging a pardon for Locke during the late 1680s, Locke deeply distrusted Penn’s alliance with James.34 Both men also had keen interests in American colonization, although their experiences in that realm were quite different. Locke’s involvement with the Carolina colony unfolded as the secretary to a large investor, and not as a proprietor with governing powers. Just as, in the Two Treatises, Locke emphasized that God has not granted natural political authority to any individual, so he insisted in the Letter that God has not conferred such authority over salvation to any individual. He offered religious arguments linked to the nature of Christianity and the testimony of Scripture, and, by distinguishing between the outward nature of force and the inward nature of persuasion, evoked the broader tolerationist tradition of which he and Penn were a part. Indeed, even if one’s magistrate believed the correct religion – an arguable premise, to be sure, given the lack of human certainty on such matters laid out in Book IV of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding35 – persecution was still not justified: Although the magistrate’s opinion in religion be sound, and the way that he appoints be truly evangelical, yet if I be not thoroughly perswaded thereof in my own mind, there will be no safety for me in following it. No way whatsoever that I shall walk in, against the dictates of my conscience, will ever bring me to the mansions of the blessed.36

As a result, then, Locke pronounced toleration as both “agreeable to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind.”37

John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration, and Early Enlightenment Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 153; Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, p. 489. 34 The myth about the pardon has been cited by many Penn scholars, including Vincent Buranelli, The King and the Quaker (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), p. 174; Joseph Illick, William Penn the Politician: His Relations with the English Government (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), p. 137; Edward C. O. Beatty, William Penn as Social Philosopher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), pp. 5–6, 10; and Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Dissenting Protestants and the Separation of Church and State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 51. It was convincingly demolished by Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, pp. 514–20. 35 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book 4. 36 Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration, in Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 232. 37 Ibid., p. 217. 33

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Introduction Politically speaking, Locke’s argument depends on a sharp bifurcation between the church and the commonwealth. He defined the commonwealth as a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing of their own civil interests…It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general, and to every one of his subjects in particular, the just possession of these things belonging to this life.

A church, by contrast, Locke understood as “a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own accord, in order to the publick worshipping of God, in such a manner as they judge acceptable to him, and effectual to the Salvation of their Souls.”38 From the late 1660s onward, Penn had built a similar distinction, calling on civil magistrates “to regulat[e] civil matters with most advantage to the tranquility, enrichment and reputation of their territories” and defining government as “an external order of justice, or the right and prudent disciplining of any society, by just laws.”39 While neither Locke nor Penn presented full-fledged arguments for disestablishment, each envisioned societies that would forswear coercion while endorsing the evangelical efforts of religious individuals to convert their neighbors. No one disputed the idea that churches possess disciplinary authority over their own members. But such clerical influence must remain confined to the ecclesiastical realm: Churches have neither any jurisdiction in worldly matters, nor are fire and sword any proper instruments wherewith to convince mens minds of error, and inform them of the truth…[Clerical] authority…ought to be confined within the bounds of the church…because the church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth.40

Ultimately, the tolerationist tradition sought not to liberate individuals from their spiritual duties, but to locate the responsibility for the fulfillment of those duties on individuals and their freely chosen religious communities. Individuals ought to fulfill their religious obligations through the church that they find most efficacious to their own salvation, since Ibid., pp. 218, 220, 224. Penn, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, this volume, pp. 62–63, 23. Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 223.

38 39

40

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Introduction “every man has an immortal soul…whose happiness depending upon his believing and doing those things in this life, which are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour, and are prescribed by od to that end; it follows…the observance of these things is the highest obligation that lies upon mankind.”41 At the same time, humans are not simply spiritual, but also temporal and corporeal, beings. [B]esides their souls…men have also their temporal lives here upon earth…[T]he necessity of preserving men in the possession of what honest industry has already acquired and also of preserving their liberty and strength…obliges men to enter into society with one another, that by mutual assistance and joint force they may secure unto each other their properties…leaving in the meanwhile to every man the care of his own eternal happiness.42

The tolerationist agenda, for Locke, boiled down to one very simple phrase: that, regardless of religious differences, “the sum of all we drive at is, that every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others.” Penn could scarcely have agreed more, and his repeated emphases on “civil interest” as the bond of civil society pushed toward broadly similar goals regarding the relief of Protestant Dissenters. In fact, Penn’s agenda encompassed a broader range of belief and practice than did Locke’s. Penn, for example, refused to impose oaths in Pennsylvania legal proceedings out of respect for Quaker objections to swearing, and after 1692 Pennsylvania was the only American colony to permit the public celebration of the Catholic Mass. Each of these practices pushes beyond the limitations that Locke placed on his theory of toleration.43 The tolerationist tradition did not end with Locke and Penn, of course, and a broader account of these ideas would certainly have to include Jefferson (who was so heavily influenced by Locke) and, in turn, Madison and the American constitutional tradition that he did so much to put in place. If Locke’s Letter has become the most renowned theoretical product of these early modern disputes over toleration in England, Penn’s colony represents an attempt to institutionalize the foundational precepts of the tolerationist platform: not simply in England, where a

Ibid., p. 241.  42  Ibid., p. 242. See Joseph J. Casino, “Anti-Popery in Colonial Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 105 (1981): 279–309.

41 43

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Introduction precise constellation of political and religious forces would be required even to achieve the halfway measures of the Toleration Act, but in the setting-up of a new society in America. *** William Penn was far from the only political actor attempting to get a colony off the ground during the seventeenth century; he entered this transatlantic enterprise rather late in the game. Virtually the entire eastern seaboard of America had been settled by the time he received his charter in 1681. But he was an effective and well-connected promoter, and Pennsylvania quickly became an integral part of the early modern British empire, which stretched from Canada to the Caribbean, appealing to both the economically aspiring and the religiously distressed. Such rapid growth was facilitated by the cessation of armed conflict with the Dutch: namely, the 1674 Treaty of Westminster, which returned New York to the English and made possible the Quaker-dominated colonization efforts that resulted in New Jersey during the mid 1670s and Pennsylvania early in the following decade.44 Nor is the transatlantic connection simply about politics. Commercial interests figured heavily in Penn’s plans for his American colony. The colonies formed a part of a British imperial system in which the Royal African Company provided slaves to work sugar plantations in the Caribbean, whose products went to Great Britain along with tobacco, timber, wheat, furs, and skins from the North American colonies. Quaker merchants, drawing on the extensive network of Friends across Europe and unburdened by later Quaker support for abolitionism, eagerly grasped the commercial opportunities of a growing imperial system. Pennsylvania merchants shipped grain, flour, pork, beef, and shingles (wooden house-tiles), along with fish from New England, to the West Indies; meanwhile, a thriving textile trade was carried on by the English East India Company. Tobacco from the lower counties, furs from the Indians, grains, beef, bread, barrel staves: The story of early Pennsylvania, as recounted by Frederick Tolles, is the story of “Philadelphia’s rapid rise to unchallenged commercial supremacy in colonial America.”45 An even fuller consideration of Pennsylvania’s role in these developments would Evan Haefeli, New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), esp. ch. 10. 45 Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763 (New York: Norton Editions, 1948), p. 85. 44

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Introduction place the British Atlantic into a broader story of Atlantic history writ large, including the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French colonial systems. *** William Penn was intimately involved in both the theorizing and the practice of politics, on both sides of the Atlantic, over a span of more than four decades. Between 1668 and 1671, Penn emerged as a public figure; as a young and newly convinced member of the Society of Friends, his involvement in the public controversy over the Conventicle Act culminated in his celebrated 1670 trial with Mead. A decade later, during the furor surrounding the Popish Plot and the effort to exclude James from the throne, Penn spoke out in support of parliament, Protestant unity, English liberties, and the rights of Dissenters, theorizing the limits of civil magistrates’ legitimate functions even while he participated firsthand in Algernon Sidney’s unsuccessful campaign for parliament. The plot years also laid the foundation for Penn’s colonizing effort in America: the founding of Pennsylvania involved him in everything from drafting governing documents and attracting investors and settlers to selling land. After Penn’s arrival, the complex process of adjusting theory to practice – and vice versa – proved an enormously time-consuming task, and the ongoing search for a firm legal foundation for the colony led him back to England just two years later. While James II reigned, Penn was able to maintain his colony’s independence from the crown’s increasingly assertive attempts to gain control over its far-flung territories, but after 1688 such efforts became much more challenging. Although he regained control of Pennsylvania in 1694, and returned at the end of the decade, that second visit was also cut short by Penn’s concern about additional moves afoot in London. *** The William Penn whose political thought emerges from the selections in this volume possesses all the hallmarks of a political theorist as scholars understand the term. He thought carefully about the foundations of political legitimacy and authority, the ways in which political institutions function to instantiate political principles, and the fundamental ideals on which societies ought to be based. Above all, he consistently sought to ensure that governments respected the primacy and sanctity of the individual conscience. That said, the twists and turns of his political 

Introduction career, not to mention the occasional character of so much of his political writing, have tended to obscure the importance of his contribution to the development of ideas and practices of toleration in the early modern world. Bringing Penn’s political thought into the canon of early modern political theory will add a long-neglected voice to scholarly and popular understanding of the emergence of liberty of conscience as both a theoretical principle and a practical aspect of early modern politics.

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Note on the Texts The texts included in this volume span more than three decades, from Penn’s 1670 Great Case of Liberty of Conscience to the Charter of Privileges he granted as he prepared to leave Pennsylvania in late October 1701. All but three were published in Penn’s lifetime; details on the specific editions and the context(s) of their composition and publication appear in the introductions to each part. Unlike most extant collections of Penn’s writings, this volume presents all texts in their entirety and exactly as Penn intended them to appear (i.e., not in excerpts, and not reprinted from the posthumously published A Collection of the Works of William Penn, which appeared in 1726 and introduced some alterations to Penn’s texts). Providing the Wing Short-title catalogue reference for each title allows scholars wishing to consult PDF images to locate the exact edition reprinted here. For the most part, in keeping with the practices of the Cambridge Texts series, I have retained Penn’s original (often idiosyncratic) orthography, including such early modern conventions as past tense verbs ending in t or ’d, “then” rather than “than,” and the additional “e” at the end of words like “dayes” and “alwayes.” Any general approach, however, requires judicious application and the occasional exception, particularly in the case of obvious printing errors or where preserving the original runs the risk of confusing or impeding contemporary readers’ comprehension of Penn’s texts. For example, I have silently changed such terms as “gaol”/“goal” (jail), “loose” (when in context Penn meant “lose”), and “presidents” (precedents). All of Penn’s original capitalization and italicization has been preserved, except where noted, although I have silently



Note on the Texts standardized the occasional double-capitalization (“THe” to “The”). Editorial additions or clarifications are marked off by brackets, as are page numbers from the original editions, which appear in the margins; [p.b.] denotes an unnumbered page break (generally found in a Preface or “To the Reader” introducing a text). Though it can be distracting to the contemporary reader, I have retained Penn’s prodigious early modern love of commas. Although I provide details on important pieces of legislation that Penn cites, or where the context seems to call for elaboration, it is simply not possible, nor have I attempted, to provide a detailed reference for every statute mentioned. Readers can use the standard format to identify such references (year of reign, monarch, statute number) and consult Statutes of the Realm (11 vols. [London, 1810–28]), which is also widely available online at databases such as Hathi Trust and British History Online. For example: 3 Car. I c. 1, the Petition of Right (1628), was the first statute passed in the third year of Charles I’s reign. (Sometimes the monarch’s name is abbreviated to just the first letter, as in H. VIII for Henry VIII.) Where a reference, or Scriptural citation, is clear by the context (e.g., “Chief Justice Cook in his Proaem to the 2d Part of his Institutes”) I do not add further information. The same goes for foreign-language phrases that Penn translates for his reader: if he provides a reasonable translation I have not added another one of my own.

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Part I Political Liberties

Part I: Political Liberties Although I have titled this opening part “Political Liberties” and the one following it “Toleration and Liberty of Conscience,” there is of course a certain arbitrariness in designating early modern texts as primarily “political” or “religious” in nature. For Penn, as for most of his contemporaries, liberty of conscience was simultaneously a political and religious aspiration, driven by Scriptural, theological, economic, political, and epistemological commitments. Part I includes texts that foreground Penn’s emphasis on English law, juries, and representative institutions, and that invoke Magna Carta or the English “ancient constitution,” as foundations for popular liberties. Those more narrowly concerned with Penn’s tolerationist agenda appear in Part II, although clearly the two sets of texts mutually inform each other. Part I opens with The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, an account of Penn’s September 1670 trial with fellow Quaker William Mead. Upon his return to London from Ireland in mid 1670, Penn discovered that, under the terms of the recently passed Conventicle Act, the authorities had shuttered the Quaker meetinghouse on Gracechurch Street in London. Accompanied by Mead, Penn began preaching in the street outside the meetinghouse. Arrested and charged with the common law offense of disturbing the peace (i.e., riot) and taking part in a tumultuous assembly, the two men were brought to the Old Bailey for trial, where they faced a hostile court intent on securing public order and defending political and religious orthodoxy. The defendants, of course, had other aims. Though Peoples reads like a transcript of the trial, its presentation of the events that took place in the courtroom is clearly a stylized construction, aimed at presenting the defendants as heroic Dissenters railroaded by a persecuting state–church system. “The question is not whether I am guilty of this indictment,” Penn famously insisted, “but whether this indictment be legal.”1 I have argued at length, elsewhere, that Peoples is best understood as both a work of political theory and a piece of political theater (or, put another way, it offers a view of political theory as political theater).2 The publication of Peoples marked Penn’s emergence as a new voice in the world of English Dissent. The work was enormously popular, going through nine printings in 1670 alone and occasioning a blistering rebuttal The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (Selection 1), p. 41 below. Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration, ch. 3, which draws on my earlier “Trial Transcript as Political Theory: Principles and Performance in the Penn–Mead Case,” Political Theory 41: 6 (2013): 775–808.

1 2

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Part I: Political Liberties by London Mayor Sir Samuel Starling, whose Answer to a scandalous and seditious pamphlet took issue with Peoples’ account of the trial and defended the actions of court officers (including himself).3 Although Penn’s sole authorship of the work has never been authoritatively established, he was clearly involved in its composition and publication, and reaped the benefits of its stylized portrayal of him as a heroic spokesman for popular liberties. The work made Penn a national figure (although sharing a name with his famous father did not hurt in this regard), and it remains an essential part of the Anglo-American legal tradition through its connection with “Bushel’s case,” which established the principle of jury independence. (Edward Bushel was one of the Penn–Mead jurors, and successfully appealed the fine levied on him by the court.) In addition to the “transcript” proper, Peoples included numerous supporting documents aimed at establishing the injustice of the court’s proceedings. This volume reprints the second edition (Wing P1334C), which corrected a number of errata present in earlier printings. The next selection, England’s Present Interest Discover’d (1675), appeared midway through the 1670s, during a time of continuing political and religious turmoil: the aftermath of the disastrous Anglo-Dutch War of 1672 to 1674. In March 1672, just two days before he declared war against the Dutch as part of his alliance with Louis XIV, Charles II had issued a Declaration of Indulgence directing that “the execution of . . . all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical…be immediately suspended.”4 Dissenters enjoyed a brief respite from persecution. Ironically, perhaps, granting Quakers freedom to worship openly in fact increased attacks on them, as their critics’ opposition and hostility now had a more concrete target: Friends openly practicing in their midst. The parliamentary backlash was not long in coming, and the king withdrew the declaration after less than a year. England’s Present Interest proposed three steps for navigating the conflictual political and religious landscape that persisted in the wake of the Conventicle Act’s passage. First, rulers should recommit themselves to the longstanding English rights of liberty, property, representation, and juries, and the principle of popular consent that undergirded them all. Samuel Starling, An Answer to the Seditious and Scandalous Pamphlet (London, 1670), which drew a rejoinder from Penn: Truth Rescued from Imposture (London, 1670). 4 Declaration of Indulgence, March 15, 1672; reprinted in Frank Bate, The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672: A Study in the Rise of Organized Dissent (London: University of Liverpool Press, 1908), pp. 76–78. 3

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Part I: Political Liberties (For the historical details of this argument, Penn’s marginal citations, and occasionally his exact wording, draw heavily on Nathaniel Bacon’s Historicall Discourse [London, 1647], which itself drew on earlier work by John Selden.)5 Second, Penn argued, rulers should balance the religious interests of the kingdom, rather than privileging of the Church of England at the expense of Dissenters. And finally, authorities should promote a general, practical religion that rewarded works of charity and mercy, rather than exercising their coercive powers against groups who dissent on matters of doctrine. Such an approach would emphasize what all English Christians agreed upon, rather than dwell on the details that divided them: “Every man owns the text; tis the comment that’s disputed.”6 The second edition (Wing P1280), which corrected errata from the first edition, appears in this volume. In January 1679, facing a deadlock over finances and the disbanding of the army, and in the midst of rumors of popish plotting, Charles II dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had sat since 1661. Preparations began for the first general election in eighteen years. Selection 3, England’s Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament (Wing P1278, first edition) appeared in spring of that year, while Penn worked in support of Algernon Sidney’s candidacy for parliament. Indeed, Jonathan Scott has described Selection 3, England’s Great Interest as the “manifesto [of] the first Sidney/Penn campaign.”7 It couples a theoretical defense of parliament’s role in the realm’s governance with a series of pointed recommendations to those casting ballots in the upcoming election. As the guardian of English rights, Penn argued, parliament was charged with the task of “secur[ing] to us the execution of our ancient laws, by new ones.”He pointed out the important business facing parliament: pursuing popish plotters, opposing those at the royal court who would misinform the king and seek arbitrary power, and easing the condition of loyal Protestant Dissenters. He urged electors to choose “sincere Protestants” and “men of large principles” who would stand steadfastly against the machinations of papists while maintaining the civil rights of Dissenters.8 The final selection in Part I is The Great and Popular Objection Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests (1688), written as part of Penn’s See below, fn. 129, where more details of this feature of the text are explained. Penn, England’s Present Interest (Selection 2), p. 136 below. 7 Scott, Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, p. 135. 8 England’s Great Interest (Selection 3), pp. 141, 146 below. 5 6

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Part I: Political Liberties support of James II’s tolerationist agenda. Penn stood at the intellectual forefront of a group dedicated to repealing the penal laws and tests, and to securing a “new Magna Charta” for liberty of conscience. James issued his royal Declaration of Indulgence in April 1687, and hoped to have it ratified by a subsequent parliament. By the time of the publication of The Great and Popular Objection, the impending parliamentary elections dominated public debate over the issue, with James (and Penn) attempting to ensure a compliant parliament that would repeal the penal laws and Test Acts. Had they succeeded, they would have placed liberty of conscience on the firm foundation of fundamental law. That the effort failed spectacularly – “the repealer utopia never arrived,” Scott Sowerby has written, “William of Orange and a Dutch fleet did” – should not obscure the radical nature of James and Penn’s vision of a multiconfessional British nation.9 This volume reprints the first edition (Wing P1298A).

Sowerby, “Forgetting the Repealers: Religious Toleration and Historical Amnesia in Later Stuart England,” Past and Present 215 (2012): 106.

9

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1. THE Peoples {Ancient and Just} Liberties ASSERTED, IN THE TRYAL OF William Penn, and William Mead, At the Sessions held at the Old-Baily in London, the first, third, fourth and fifth of Sept. 70. against the most Arbitrary procedure of that Court. Isa. 10. 1, 2. Wo unto them that Decree Unrighteous Decrees, and write grievousness, which they have prescribed; to turn away the Needy from Judgment, and to take away the right from the Poor, &c. Psal. 94. 20. Shall the Throne of Iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a Law. Sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas.10 Old-Baily, 1st. 3d. 4th, 5th of Sept. 1670. Printed in the Year, 1670.

To the English Reader.

[3]

If ever it were time to speak, or write, ’tis now, so many strange Occurrances, requiring both.

Slight misrendering of Juvenal, Satires, VI: l. 223: “Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas”; that is, “I will it, I command it, let my will stand for reason.”

10

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties How much thou art concerned in this ensuing Trial (where not only the Prisoners, but the Fundamental Laws of England) have been most Arbitrarily Arraigned: Read, and thou mayst plainly judge. Liberty of Conscience, is counted a Pretence for Rebellion, and Religious Assemblies, Routs, and Riots; and the Defenders of both, are by them reputed Factious and Dis-affected. Magna Charta, is Magna Far— with the Recorder of London; and to demand Right an affront to the Court. Will and Power are their great Charter, but to call for Englands, is a Crime, incurring the penalty of their Bale-Dock, and Nasty-hole, nay, the menace a Gag, and Iron Shackles too. The Jury (though proper Judges of Law and Fact)11 they would have overruled in both, as if their Verdict signified no more, than to echo back the illegal charge of the Bench; and because their courage and honesty did more then hold pace, with the threat and abuse of those, who sate as Judges, (after two dayes and two nights restraint for a Verdict) in the end were fined and imprisoned for giving it. O! what monstrous, and illegal proceedings are these? Who reasonably can call his Coat his own? When Property is made subservient to the Will and Interest of his Judges; or, Who can truly esteem himself a Free-man? When all Pleas for Liberty are esteemed Sedition, and the Laws, that give, and maintaine them, so many insi[g]nificant pieces of formality. And what do they less than plainly tell us so, who at Will and Pleasure break open our Locks, rob our Houses, raze our Foundations, imprison our Persons, and finally, deny us Justice to our relief; as if they then acted most like Christian men, when they were most barbarous, in ruining such as are really so; and that no Sacrifice could be so acceptable to God, as the destruction of those, that most fear him. In short, That the Conscientious should only be obnoxious, and the just demand of our Religious Liberty, the reason why we should be denied our civil Freedom (as if to be a Christian and an English-man were inconsistant) and that so much solicitude and deep contrivance, should be imployed only to ensnare and ruin so many ten thousand conscientious Families so eminently, industrious, serviceable and exemplary; whilst Murders can so easily obtain pardons, Rapes be remitted, publick Uncleanness pass unpunished, and Penn refers to the longstanding question of whether juries are merely judges of fact (did Penn and Mead in fact preach in Gracechurch Street?), or whether they are also properly judges of law (did Penn and Mead incite a riotous assembly?). Peoples claims that juries were legitimate judges of both law and fact.

11

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[4]

Part I: Political Liberties all manner of Levity, Prodigality, Excess, Prophaneness and Atheism, universally connived at, [(]if not in some respect manifestly encouraged) cannot but be detestably abhorrent to every serious and honest mind. Yet that this lamentable state is true, and the present Project in hand, let London’s Recorder, and Canterburies Chaplain be heard. The first in his publick Panegerick, upon the Spanish Inquisition, highly admiring the prudence of the Romish Church, in the erection of it, as an excellent way, to prevent Schism, which unhappy expression, at once passeth sentence, both against our fundamental Laws, and Protestant Reformation.12 The second in his printed Mercinary Discourse against Toleration,13 asserting for a main Principle, That it would be less injurious, to the Government, to dispence with Prophane and Loose Persons, then to allow a toleration to religious Dissenters: It were to over-do the business, to say any more, where there is so much said already. And therefore to conclude, We cannot chuse but admonish all, as well Persecutors, to relinquish their Heady, Partial, and Inhumane Prosecutions (as what will certainly issue in disgrace here, and inevitable condign punishment hereafter) as those who yet dare express their moderation (however out of fashion, or made the Brand of Fanaticism) not to be huf’d, or menaced out of that excellent temper, to make their parts and persons subservient to the base humors, and sinister designs of the biggest mortal upon Earth; but to reverence and obey the Eternal just God, before whose great Tribunal all must render their accounts, and where he will recompence to every Person according to his works.

The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead.

[5]

AS there can be no Observation, where there is no Action; so its impossible, there should be a juditious Intelligence, without due Observation. And since there can be nothing more seasonable then a right information, especially of Publick Acts; and well knowing, how industrious some will be, to mis-represent, this Trial to the disadvantage of the Cause and Prisoners, it was thought requisite, in defence of both, and for the satisfaction of the People, to make it more publick; nor can there be any business wherein the People of England are more concerned, then in that See below, p. 49. Samuel Parker, A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie (London, 1670). Parker became archdeacon of Canterbury in June 1670 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – hereafter ODNB).

12 13

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties which relates to their civil and Religious Liberties, questioned in the Persons above-named, at the Old-Baily, the first, third, fourth and fifth of Sept. 1670. There being present on the Bench, as Justices. Sam. Starling, Mayor. John Howel, Recorder. Tho. Bludworth, Alder. William Peak, Alderm. Richard Ford, Alderm. John Robinson, Alderm. Joseph Shelden, Alderm. Richard Brown. John Smith, James Edwards, Sheriffs.14 The Citizens of London that were summoned for Jurors, appearing, were impannelled, viz.

Clar[k]. Call over the Jury. Cryer. O Yes, Thomas Veer, Ed. Bushel, John Hammond, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Brightman, Wil. Plumsted, Hen. Henly, James Damask, Henry Michel, Wil. Lever, John Baily. The Form of the Oath. You shall well and truely try, and true Deliverance make betwixt our Soveraign Lord the King, and the Prisoners at the Bar, according to your Evidence; So help you God. The Indictment. That William Penn, Gent. and William Mead, late of London, LinnenDraper,16 with divers other Persons, to the Jurors unknown, to the number 15

On the aldermen listed here, see Alfred P. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III–1912 (London, 1908). Starling was elected lord mayor of London in 1669. Howell served as recorder from 1668 to 1676: see Thomas Allen, The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Parts Adjacent (London, 1828), vol. II: p. 284. Robinson served as lieutenant of the Tower of London from 1660 until 1679 (ODNB). For the sheriffs, see John Noorthouck, “The Mayors and Sheriffs of London,” in A New History of London Including Westminster and Southwark (London, 1773), pp. 889–893. 15 Throughout, Penn’s name is variously rendered “Penn” and “Pen.” I have silently standardized. 16 William Mead (1627–1713), member of the Company of Merchant Taylors, became a convinced Quaker in 1670 (ODNB). 14

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[6]

Part I: Political Liberties

[7]

of three hundred, the 14 day of August, in the 22th year of the King,17 about eleven of the Clock in the forenoon, the same day, with Force and Arms &c. in the Parish of St. Bent Grace-Church in Bridge-ward, London, in the street called Grace-Church-street,18 unlawfully and tumultuously did assemble and congregate themselves together, to the disturbance of the Peace of the said Lord the King: and the aforesaid William Penn and William Mead, together with other persons, to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, then and there so assembled and congregated together; the aforesaid William Penn, by agreement between him and William Mead, before made; and by abetment of the aforesaid William Mead then and there, in the open street, did take upon himself to preach and speak, and then, and there, did preach and speak, unto the aforesaid William Mead, and other persons there, in the street aforesaid, being assembled and congregated together, by reason where of a great concourse and tumult of People in the street aforesaid, then and there, a long time did remain and continue, in contempt of the said Lord the King, and of his Law, to the great disturbance of his Peace, to the great terror and disturbance of many of his Leige people and Subjects, to the ill example of all others, in the like case Offenders, and against the Peace of the said Lord the King, his Crown, and Dignity. What say you, William Penn and William Mead, are you guilty, as you stand indicted, in manner and form, as aforesaid, or not guilty. Penn. It is impossible, that we should be able to remember the Indictment verbatim, and therefore we desire a Copy of it, as is customary in the like occasions. Rec. You must first plead to the Indictment, before you can have a Copy of it. Penn. I am unacquainted with the formality of the Law,19 and therefore, before I shall answer directly, I request two things of the Court. First, That no Advantage may be taken against me, nor I deprived of any Benefit, which I might otherwise have received. Secondly, That you will promise me a fair hearing, and liberty of making my Defence. 1670. Charles II always reckoned his reign from his father’s execution in 1649 rather than from his restoration in 1660. 18 The Friends Meeting on Gracechurch, or Gracious Street, was one of the central London Meetings. See Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism, pp. 253–256. 19 Penn matriculated at Lincoln’s Inn on February 7, 1665, intending to study law. But the Inn closed due to the plague by June of that year, ending his legal studies almost before they began. 17



Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Court, No Advantage shall be taken against you; you shall have Liberty, you shall be Heard. Penn, Then I plead not guilty in Manner and Form. Cla. What sayest thou William Mead, art thou guilty in manner, and form, as thou standest indicted, or not guilty? Mead. I shall desire the same Liberty as is promised William Penn. Cour. You shall have it. Mead. Then I plead not guilty in manner and form. The Court adjourned until the afternoon. Cryer, O yes, &c. Cla. Bring William Penn and William Mead to the Bar. Obser. The said Prisoners were brought, but were set aside, and other business prosecuted. Where we cannot choose but observe, that it was the constant and unkind practices of the Court, to the Prisoners, to make them wait upon the Tryals of Fellons and Murderers, thereby desi[gn]ing in all probability, both to affront and tire them. After five hours attendance the Court broke up, and adjourned to the third instant. The third of September, 1670. the Court sate. Cry. O yes, &c. Cla. Bring William Penn and William Mead to the Bar. Mayor, Sirrah, Who bid you put off their Hats? put on their Hats again. Obser. Whereupon one of the Officers putting the Prisoners Hats upon their heads (pursuant to the Order of the Court) brought them to the Bar. Record. Do you know where you are? Penn. Yes. Rec. Do you not know it is the Kings Court? Penn. I know it to be a Court, and I suppose it to be the Kings Court. Rec. Do you not know there is respect due to the Court? Penn. Yes. Rec. Why do you not pay it then? Penn. I do so. Rec. Why do you not put off your Hat then? Penn. Because I do not believe, that to be any respect.20 See Penn’s No Cross, No Crown (London, 1669), ch. 1, for his critique of hat-honour.

20

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[8]

Part I: Political Liberties Rec. Well, the Court sets forty Marks a piece upon your Heads, as a Fine for your contempt of the Court. Penn. I desire it might be observed, that we came into the Court with our Hats off, (that is, taken off) and if they have been put on since, it was by order from the Bench; and therefore not we, but the Bench should be fined. Mead. I have a Question to ask the Recorder, Am I fined also? Rec. Yes. Mead. I desire the Jury, and all People to take notice of this Injustice of the Recorder, who spake not to me to pull off my Hat, and yet hath put a Fine upon my head. O fear the Lord, and dread his Power, and yield to the Guidance of his Holy Spirit; for he is not far from every one of you. The Jury Sworn again. Obser. J. Robinson Lieutenant of the Tower, disingen[u]ously objected against Edw. Bushel, as if he had not kist the Book, and therefore would have him sworn again; though indeed, it was on purpose, to have made use of his tenderness of Conscience in avoiding reiterated Oaths, to have put him by his being a Jury-man, apprehending him to be a person, not fit to answer their arbitrary ends.

[9]

The Clark read the Indictment, as aforesaid. Cl. Cryer, Call James Cook into the Court, give him his Oath. Cl. James Cook, lay your hand upon the Book, “The Evidence you shall give to the Court, betwixt our Soverain the King, and the Prisoners at the Bar, shall be the Truth, and the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth; so help you God, &c.” Cook. I was sent for, from the Exchange, to go and disperse a Meeting in Gratious-street, where I saw Mr. Penn speaking to the people, but I could not hear what he said, because of the noise, I endeavoured to make way to take him, but I could not get to him for the crowd of people; upon which Captain Mead came to me, about the Kennel21 of the Street, and desired me to let him go on; for when he had done, he would bring Mr. Penn to me. Court. What number do you think might be there? Cook. About three or four hundred People. Court. Call Richard Read, Give him his Oath. The surface drain of a street; the gutter (OED, def. 2).

21

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Read being sworn was askt, What do you know concerning the Prisoners at the Bar. Read. My Lord, I went to Gracious-Street, where I found a great crowd of People, and I heard Mr Penn preach to them; and I saw Captain Mead speaking to Lieutenant Cook, but what he said, I could not tell. Mead. What did William Penn say? Read. There was such a great noise, that I could not tell what he said. Mead. Jury, observe this Evidence, he saith he heard him preach, and yet saith, He doth not know what he said. Jury take notice, he swares now a clean contrary thing, to what he swore before the Mayor, when we were committed: for now he swares that he saw me in Gracious-Street, and yet swore before the Mayor, when I was committed, that he did not see me there. I appeal to the Mayor himself if this be not true; but no answer was given. Cour. What number do you think might be there. Read. About four or five hundred. Penn. I desire to know of him what day it was? Read. The 14th day of August. Penn. Did he speak to me, or let me know he was there; for I am very sure I never saw him. Cla. Cryer, Call – into the Court. Cour. Give him his Oath. [–] My Lord, I saw a great number of people, and Mr Penn, I suppose was speaking; I see him make a motion with his hands, and heard some noise, but could not understand what he said; but for Captain Mead, I did not see him there[.] Rec. What say you Mr Mead? Were you there? Mead. It is a Maxime in your own Law, Nemo tenetur accusare seipsum, [10] which if it be not true Latine, I am sure it is true English, That no man is bound to accuse himself: And why dost thou offer to ensnare me with such a question? Doth not this shew thy malice? Is this like unto a Judge, that ought to be Council for the Prisoner at the Bar? Record. Sir, Hold your Tongue, I did not go about to insnare you. Penn. I desire we may come more close to the point, and that silence be commanded in the Court. Cry. O yes, All manner of Persons keep silence upon pain of imprisonment – Silence in the Court.

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Part I: Political Liberties

[11]

Penn. We confess our selves to be so far from recanting, or declining to vindicate the assembling of our selves, to Preach, Pray, or worship the Eternal, Holy just God, that we declare to all the World, that we do believe it to be our indispensable duty, to meet incessantly upon so good an account; nor shall all the powers upon Earth be able to divert us from reverencing and adoring our God, who made us. Brown. You are not here for worshipping God, but for breaking the Law; you do your selves a great deal of wrong in going on in that discourse. Penn. I affirm I have broken no Law, nor am I guilty of the Indictment that is laid to my charge, and to the end, the Bench, the Jury, and my self, with these that hear us, may have a more direct understanding of this procedure, I desire you would let me to know by what Law it is you prosecute me, and upon what Law you ground my indictment. Rec. Upon the Common-Law. Penn. Where is that Common-Law. Rec. You must not think that I am able to run up so many years, and over so many adjudged Cases, which we call Common-Law, to answer your curiosity. Penn. This Answer I am sure is very short of my Question, for if it be Common, it should not be so hard to produce. Rec. Sir, will you plead to your Indictment? Penn. Shall I plead to an Indictment, that hath no Foundation in Law, if it contain that Law you say I have broken, why should you decline to produce that Law, since it will be impossible for the Jury to determine, or agree to bring in their Verdict, who have not the Law produced by which they should measure the truth of this Indictment, and the guilt, or contrary, of my fact? Rec. You are a saucy Fellow, speak to the Indictment. Penn.22 I say, it is my place to speak to matter of Law; I am arraigned a Prisoner, my Liberty, which is next to Life it self, is now concerned; you are many Mouths and Ears against me, and if I must not be allowed to make the best of my Case, it is hard: I say again, unless you shew me, and the People, the Law you ground your Indictment upon; I shall take it for granted, your proceedings are meerly Arbitrary. Rec. The Question is whether you are guilty of this Indictment?

Marginal Note: Obser. At this time several upon the Bench urged hard upon the Prisoner to bear him down.

22

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Penn. The Question is not whether I am guilty of this Indictment, but whether this Indictment be legal, it is t[oo] general and imperfect an Answer, to say it is the Common Law, unless we knew both where, and what it is; For where there is no Law, there is no transgression;23 and that Law which is not in being, is so far from being Common, that it is no Law at all. Rec. You are an impertinent Fellow, Will you teach the Court what Law is? Its Lex non scripta,24 that which many have studied thirty or forty years to know, and would you have me to tell you in a moment? Penn. Certainly, if the Common Law be so hard to be understood, its far from being very Common; but if the Lord Cook in his Institutes, be of any consideration, he tells us, That Common Law is Common Right, and that Common Right is the great Charter-Priviledges, Confirmed 9 Hen. 3. 29. 25 Edw. 1. 1. 2 Edw. 3. 8. Cook Instit. 2. p. 56.25 Rec. Sir, you are a troublesom Fellow, and it is not for the honour of the Court to suffer you to go on. Penn. I have asked but one Question, and you have not answered me; though the Rights and Priviledges of every English-man be concerned in it. Rec. If I should suffer you to ask Questions till tomorrow morning you [12] would be never the wiser. Penn. That is according as the Answers are. Rec. Sir, We must not stand to hear you talk all Night. Penn. I design no affront to the Court, but to be heard in my just Plea; and I must plainly tell you, that if you will deny me Oyer of that Law, which you suggest I have broken, you do at once deny me an acknowledged right, and evidence to the whole World your resolution to sacrifice the Priviledges of English-men, to your Sinister and Arbitrary designs. Rec. Take him away: My Lord, if you take not some course with this pestilent Fellow, to stop his Mouth, we shall not be able to do any thing to Night. May. Take him away, take him away, turn him into the Bale-dock.26 Romans 4:15.    24  Unwritten law. Sir Edward Coke (often rendered, as here, Cook), The Second Part of the Institutes (London, 1642), commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, p. 56; 9 Hen. III c. 29 (1225); 25 Edw. I c. 1, Confirmation of the Charters (1297); 2 Edw. III c. 8, Commands in Delay of Justice Act (1328). 26 “At the Old Bailey, London…a small room taken from one of the corners of the court, and left open at the top; in which, during the trials, are put some of the malefactors” (OED). 23 25

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Part I: Political Liberties

[13]

Penn. These are but so many vain Exclamations; Is this Justice or true Judgment? Must I therefore be taken away because I plead for the Fundamental Laws of England? However, this I leave upon your Consciences, who are of the Jury (and my sole Judges) that if these Antient Fundamental Laws, which relate to Liberty and Property, [(]and are not limited to particular Perswasions in matters of Religion) must not be indispensibly maintained and observed. Who can say he hath right to the Coat upon his back? Certainly our Liberties are openly to be invaded, our Wives to be ravished, our Children slaved, our Families ruined, and our Estates led away in Triumph, by every Sturdy Beggar and Malicious Informer, as their Trophies, but our (pretended) forfeits for Conscience sake; the Lord of Heaven and Earth will be Judge between us in this matter. Rec. Be silent there. Penn. I am not to be silent in a Case wherein I am so much concerned, and not only my self, but many ten thousand Families besides. Obser. They having rudely haled him into the Bale-dock, William Mead they left in Court, who spake as followeth. Mead, You men of the Jury, here I do now stand, to answer to an Indictment against me, which is a bundle of Stuff, full of Lyes and Falshoods; For therein I am accused, that I met Vi & Armis, Illicite & Tumultuose:27 Time was, when I had freedom to use a carnal Weapon, and then I thought I feared no man; but now I fear the Living God, and dare not make use thereof, nor hurt any man;28 nor do I know I demeaned my self, as a tumultuous person. I say, I am a peaceable man, therefore it is a very proper Question what William Penn demanded in this Case, An OYER of the Law, on which our Indictment is grounded. Rec. I have made answer to that already. Mead, Turning his face to the Jury, said, You men of the Jury, who are my Judges, if the Recorder will not tell you what makes a Riot, a Rout, or an unlawful Assembly, Cook, he that once they called the Lord Cook, tells us what makes a Riot, a Rout, and an unlawful Assembly– A Riot is when three, or more, are met together to beat a man, or to enter forcibly With force of arms, unlawfully and tumultuously. The indictment used the words “unlawfully and tumultuously”; the additional phrase, “vi et armis” was widely used in common law tort trials to indicate that force was used in the commission of a crime. See William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (London, 1800), vol. III: pp. 153–154. 28 Mead refers to the Quaker peace testimony: A Declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers (London, 1660). 27

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties into another mans Land, to cut down his Grass, his Wood, or break down his Pales.29 Obser. Here the Recorder interrupted him, and said, I thank you Sir, that you will tell me what the Law is, scornfully pulling off his Hat. Mead. Thou mayst put on thy Hat, I have never a Fee for thee now. Brown. He talks at random, one while an Independent, another while some other Religion, and now a Quaker, and next a Papist.30 Mead. Turpe est doctorum cum culpa redarguit ad ipsum.31 May. You deserve to have your Tongue cut out. Rec. If you discourse on this matter, I shall take occasion against you. Mead, Thou didst promise me, I should have fair Liberty to be heard. Why may I not have the Priviledge of an English-man? I am an Englishman, and you might be ashamed of this dealing. Rec. I look upon you to be an Enemy to the Laws of England, which ought to be observed and kept, nor are you worthy of such Priviledges, as others have. [14] Mead, The Lord is Judge between me and thee in this matter. Obser. Upon which they took him away into the Bale-dock, and the Recorder proceeded to give the Jury their charge, as followeth. Rec. You have heard what the Indictment is, it is for preaching to the people, and drawing a tumultuous Company after them, and Mr. Penn was speaking; if they should not be disturbed, you see they will go on; there are three or four Witnesses, that have proved this, that he did preach there, that Mr. Mead did allow of it; after this, you have heard by substantial Witnesses what is said against them: Now we are upon the Matter of fact,32 which you are to keep to, & observe, as what hath been fully sworn at your peril. Obser. The Prisoners were put out of the Court, into the Bale-dock, and the charge given to the Jury in their absence, at which W. P. with a very raised Voice, it being a considerable distance from the Bench, spake. Penn. I appeal to the Jury, who are my Judges, and this great Assembly, whether the proceedings of the Court are not most Arbitrary, and void of all Law, in offering to give the Jury their Charge in the absence of the Prisoners; I say, it is directly opposit to, and destructive of the Fences made of stakes driven into the ground (OED, def. 2); Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes (London, 1644), ch. 79. 30 Mead had affiliated with other sects before becoming a Quaker. 31 Cato, Disticha Moralia, I: 30: “It is improper for a doctor (teacher) to engage in the faults he condemns in others.” 32 See above, fn. 11, on juries and the fact/law distinction. 29

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Part I: Political Liberties

[15]

undoubted right of every English Prisoner, as Cook in the 2 Inst. 29. on the chap. of Magna Charta speaks.33 Obser. The Recorder being thus unexpectedly lasht for his extra-juditial procedure, said with an inraged smile. Rec. Why, ye are present, you do hear, do you not? Penn. No thanks to the Court, that commanded me into the Baledock; and you of the Jury take notice, that I have not been heard, neither can you legally depart the Court, before I have been fully heard, having at least ten or twelve material points to offer, in order to invallid their Indictment.34 Rec. Pull that Fellow down, pull him down. Mead, Are these according to the Rights and Priviledges of Englishmen, that we should not be heard, but turned into the Bale-dock, for making our defence, and the Jury to have their Charge given them in our absence; I say these are barbarous and unjust proceedings. Rec. Take them away into the Hole; to hear them talk all Night, as they would, that I think doth not become the honour of the Court, and I think you [i.e. the Jury] your selves would be tired out, and not have patience to hear them. Obser. The Jury were commanded up to agree upon their Verdict, the prisoners remaining in the stinking Hole;35 after an hour and halfs time eight came down agreed, but four remained above, the Court sent an Officer for them, and they accordingly came down: The Bench used many unworthy Threats to the four that dissented; and the Recorder, addressing himself to Bushel, said, ‘Sir, You are the cause of this disturbance, and manifestly shew your self an Abettor of Faction, I shall set a Mark upon you Sir.’ J. Robinson, ‘Mr. Bushel, I have known you near this fourteen years; you have thrust your self upon this Jury, because you think there is some service for you; I tell you, you deserve to be indicted more then any man that hath been brought to the Bar this day. [’] Bush. No Sir John, There were threescore before me, and I would willingly have got off, but could not.

See above fn. 25.  34  See “An Appendix,” below. The “stinking Hole” was “the worst cell in the Old Bailey”; see Marcus Bourne Houish, The American Pilgrim’s Way in England (London, 1907), p. 258.

33 35

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Bloodw. I said when I saw Mr. Bushel, what I see is come to pass, for I knew he would never yield. Mr. Bushel, we know what you are. May. Sirrah, you are an impudent Fellow, I will put a Mark upon you. Obser. They used much menacing Language, and behaved themselves very imperiously to the Jury, as persons not more void of Justice then sober Education: After this barbarous usage, they sent them to consider of bringing in their Verdict, and after some considerable time they returned to the Court. Silence was called for, and the Jury called by the[ir] names. Cla. Are you agreed upon your Verdict? Jur. Yes. Cl. Who shall speak for you? Ju. Our Fore-man. Cl. Look upon the Prisoners at the Bar; How say you? Is William Penn guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted in manner and form, or not guilty. [16] Fore-m. Guilty of Speaking in Gratious-Street. Court. Is that all? Fore-m. That is all I have in commission. Rec. You had as good say nothing. May. Was it not an unlawful Assembly? you mean he was speaking to a Tumult of people there? Fore-m. My Lord, this was all I had in Commission. Obser. Here some of the Jury seemed to buckle to the Questions of the Court, upon which Bushel, Hammond, and some others opposed themselves, and said, They allowed of no such word, as an unlawful Assembly in their Verdict; at which the Recorder, Mayor, Robinson, and Bloodworth took great occasion to villifie them with most [o]pprobious Language; and this Verdict not serving their turns, the Recorder expressed himself thus. Rec. The Law of England will not allow you to part till you have given in your Verdict. Jur. We have given in our Verdict, and we can give in no other. Rec. Gentlemen, you have not given in your Verdict, and you had as good say nothing; therefore go and consider it once more, that we may make an end of this troublesome business. Jur. We desire we may have Pen, Ink, and Paper. Obser. The Court adjourns for half an hour; which being expired, the Court returns, and the Jury not long after.

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Part I: Political Liberties The Prisoners were brought to the Bar, and the Juries names called over.

[17]

Cla. Are you agreed of your Verdict? Jur. Yes. Cla. Who shall speak for you? Jur. Our Fore-man. Cla. What say you? look upon the Prisoners, Is William Penn guilty in Manner and Form, as he stands indicted, or not guilty? For-m. Here is our Verdict, Holding forth a piece of Paper to the Clark of the Peace, which follows. We the Jurors, hereafter named, do find William Penn to be guilty of Speaking or preaching to an Assembly, met together in Gratious-Street, the 14th of August last 1670. and that William Mead is not guilty of the said indictment. Fore-m. Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel, John Hammond, Henry Henley, Henry Michel, John Brightman, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Baily, William Lever, James Damask, Wil. Plumsted.

Obse[r]. This both Mayor and Recorder resented at so high a rate, that they exceeded the bounds of all reason and civility. May. What will you be le[d] by such a silly Fellow as Bushel? an impudent canting Fellow; I warrant you, you shall come no more upon Juries in haste: You are a Fore-man indeed, addressing himself to the Fore-man, I thought you had understood your place better. Rec. Gentlemen, You shall not be dismist till we have a Verdict that the Court will accept; and you shall be lockt up, without Meat, Drink, Fire, and Tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse the Court; we will have a Verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it. Penn. My Jury, who are my Judges, ought not to be thus menaced; their Verdict should be free, and not compelled; the Bench ought to wait

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties upon them, but not forestaul them; I do desire that Justice may be done me, and that the arbitrary resolves of the Bench may not be made the measure of my Juries verdict. Rec. Stop that prateing F[e]llows mouth, or put him out of the Court. May. You have heard that he preacht, that he gathered a company of tumultuous people, and that they do not only disobey the Martial power, but the Civil also. Penn. It is a great mistake, we did not make the tumult, but they that interrupted us; the Jury cannot be so ignorant, as to think, that we met [18] there, with a design to disturb the civil Peace, since (1st) we were by force of Arms kept out of our Lawful house, and met as near it in the street, as their Souldiers would give us leave; and (2d) because it was no new thing, (nor with the Circumstances exprest in the Indictment) but what was usual and customary with us; tis very well known that we are a peaceable People, and cannot offer violence to any man.36 Obser. The Court being ready to break up, and willing to huddle the Prisoners to their Jail, and the Jury to their Chamber, Penn spoke as follows. Penn. The agreement of twelve men is a Verdict in Law, and such a one being given by the Jury, I require the Clark of the Peace to record it, as he will answer it, at his Peril: And if the Jury bring in another Verdict, contradictory to this, I affirm they are perjured men in Law. (and looking upon the Jury said) You are English-men, mind your Priviledge, give not away your Right. Bush. &c. Nor will we ever do it. Obser. One of the Jury men pleaded indisposition of Body, and therefore desired to be dismist. May. You are as strong as any of them, starve them37 and hold your Principles. Rec. Gentlemen, You must be content with your hard fate, let your patience overcome it; for the Court is resolved to have a Verdict, and that before you can be dismist. Jury, We are agreed, we are agreed, we are agreed. Obser. The Court swore several persons, to keep the Jury all night without Meat, Drink, Fire, or any other accommodation; they had not so much as a Chamber-pot, though desired. For the Quaker peace testimony, see fn. 28 above. Later editions have “starve then,” which also makes sense.

36 37

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Part I: Political Liberties Cry. O yes, &c, Obser. The Court adjourns till seven of the Clock next morning (being the fourth instant, vulgarly called Sunday) at which time the Prisoners were brought to the Bar; the Court sate, and the Jury called to bring in their Verdict. Cry. O yes, &c.–Silence in the Court, upon pain of imprisonment. [19] The Juries names called over. Cla. Are you agreed upon your Verdict? Jur. Yes. Cla. Who shall speak for you? Jur. Our Fore-man. Cla. What say you? look upon the Prisoners at the Bar; Is W. Penn guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted, in manner and form as aforesaid, or not guilty? Fore-man. William Penn is guilty of speaking in Gratious-street. May. To an unlawful Assembly? Bush. No my Lord, We give no such Verdict, then what we gave last Night, we have no other Verdict to give. May. You are a factious Fellow, [I’ll] take a course with you. Bloodw. I knew Mr. Bushel would not yield. Bush. Sir Tho. I have done according to my Conscience. May. That Conscience of yours would cut my throat. Bush. No my Lord, it never shall. May. But I will cut yours so soon as I can. Rec. He has inspired the Jury, he has the spirit of divination, methinks I feel him; I will have a positive Verdict, or you shall starve for it. Penn. I desire to ask the Recorder one Question; Do you allow of the Verdict given of William Mead. Rec. It cannot be a Verdict, because you are indicted for a Conspiracy, and one being found not guilty, and not the other, it could not be a Verdict. Penn. If Not guilty be not a Verdict, then you make of the Jury and Magna Charta but a meer Nose of Wax.38 Mead, How! is Not guilty no Verdict. Rec. No, tis no Verdict.

A thing easily turned or molded; a person easily influenced or of a weak character (OED, def. 9).

38

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Penn. I affirm that the consent of a Jury, is a Verdict in Law; and if W. M. be not guilty, it consequently follows, that I am clear, since you have indicted us of a Conspiracy, and I could not possibly conspire alone. Obser. There were many Passages, that could not be taken, which passed between the Jury and the Court. The Jury went up again, having received [20] a fresh charge from the Bench, if possible to extort an unjust verdict. Cry. O yes, &c. --- Silence in the Court. Cour. Call over the Jury. --- Which was done. Cla. What say you? Is William Penn guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted, in manner and form aforesaid, or not guilty. Fore-M. [G]uilty of speaking in Gratious-Street. R e c . What is this to the purpose? I say, I will have a verdict. And speaking to E. Bushel said, You are a factious Fellow; I will set a Mark upon you; and whilst I have any thing to do in the City, I will have an eye upon you. May. Have you no more wit than to be led by such a pittiful Fellow? I will cut his Nose. Penn. It is intolerable that my Jury should be thus menaced; Is this according to the Fundamental Laws? Are not they my proper Judges by the great Charter of England? What hope is there of ever having justice done, when Juries are threatned, and their verdicts rejected? I am concerned to speak and grieved to see such arbitrary proceedings. Did not the Lieutenant of the Tower render one of them worse then a Fellon? And do you not plainly seem to condemn such for factious Fellows, who answer not your ends? Unhappy are those Juries, who are threatned to be fined, and starved, and ruined, if they give not in Verdicts contrary to their Consciences. Rec. My Lord, you must take a course with that same Fellow. May. Stop his Mouth; Jaylor bring Fetters, and Stake him to the Ground. Penn. Do your pleasure, I matter not your Fetters. Rec. Till now I never understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the Inquisition among them: And certainly it will never be well with us, till something like the Spanish-Inquisition be in England. Obser. The Jury being required to go together to find another verdict, and stedfastly refusing it (saying they could give no other verdict then what was already given) the Recorder in great passion was running off the Bench, with these words in his mouth, “I protest I will sit here no [21]

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Part I: Political Liberties

[22]

longer to hear these things.” At which the Mayor calling, Stay stay, he returned, and directed himself unto the Jury, and spoke as followeth. Rec. Gentlemen, we shall not be at this pass alwayes with you; you will find the next Sessions of Parliament, there will be a Law made, that those that will not conform shall not have the protection of the Law. Mr. Lee,39 draw up another Verdict, that they may bring it in special. Lee, I cannot tell how to do it. Jury, We ought not to be returned, having all agreed, and set our hands to the Verdict. Rec. Your Verdict is nothing, you play upon the Court; I say you shall go together, and bring in another Verdict, or you shall starve; and I will have you Carted, about the City, as in Edward the thirds time. Fore-M. We have given in our Verdict, and all agreed to it, and if we give in another, it will be a force upon us to save our lives. May. Take them up. Offic. My Lord, they will not go up. Obser. The Mayor spoke to the Sheriff, and he came off of his seat, and said. Sher. Come, Gentlemen, you must go up; you see I am commanded to make you go. Obser. Upon which the Jury went up; and several sworn to keep them without any Accomodation aforesaid, till they brought in their Verdict. Cry. O yes, &c. The Court adjourns till to morrow morning at seven of the clock. Obser. The Prisoners were remanded to New-Gate,40 where they remained till next Morning, and then were brought unto the Court, which being sate, they proceeded as followeth. Cry. O yes, &c. --- Silence in the Court upon pain of imprisonment. Cla. Set William Penn and William Mead to the Bar. Gentlemen of the Jury, answer to your Names, Tho. Veer, Edw. Bushel, John Hammond, Henry Henly, Henry Michell, John Brightman, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Baily, William Leaver, James Damask, William Plumstead. Are you all agreed of your Verdict? Jury, Yes. Cla. Who shall speak for you?

Reference unclear. No Lee appears among the personnel listed at the opening of this text. Newgate was one of the oldest prisons in London, located adjacent to the Old Bailey.

39 40

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Jury, Our Fore-man. Cla. Look upon the Prisoners. What say you? is William Penn guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted, in manner and form &c. or not guilty? Fore-M. You have there read in writing already our Verdict in writing, and our hands subscribed. Obser. The Clark had the Paper, but was stopt by the Recorder from reading of it; and he commanded to ask for a positive Verdict. Fore-M. If you will not accept of it, I desire to have it back again. Cour. That Paper was no Verdict, and there shall be no advantage taken against you by it. Cla. How say you? Is William Penn guilty, &c. or not guilty? Fore-M. Not guilty. Cla. How say you? Is William Mead guilty, &c. or not guilty? Fore-M. Not guilty. Cla. Then hearken to your Verdict, you say, that William Penn is not guilty in manner and form as he stands indicted; you say that William Mead is not guilty in manner and form as he stands indicted, and so you say all. Jury. Yes, we do so. Obser. The Bench being unsatisfied with the Verdict, commanded that every person should distinctly answer to their names, and give in their Verdict, which they unanimously did, in saying, Not guilty, to the great satisfaction of the Assembly. Record. I am sorry, Gentlemen, you have followed your own judgments and opinions, rather then the good and wholsom advice, which was given you; God keep m[y] life out of your hands; but for this the Court fines you forty Marks a man; and imprisonment, till paid: At which Penn stepped up towards the Bench, and said. [23] Penn. I demand my liberty, being freed by the Jury. May. No, you are in for your Fines. Penn. Fines, for what? May. For contempt of the Court.41 Penn. I ask, if it be according to the Fundamental Laws of England, that any English-men should be fined or amerced,42 but by the judgment of his Peers or Jury; since it exprestly contradicts the fourteenth and twenty ninth See pp. 37−38, where the court fined the defendants for not removing their hats. Fined arbitrarily.

41 42

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Part I: Political Liberties Chap. of the Great Charter of England, which say, No Free-man ought to be amerced, but by the Oath of good and Lawful men of the Vicinage. Rec. Take him away, Take him away, take him out of the Court. Penn. I can never urge the Fundamental Laws of England, but you cry, Take him away, take him away. But tis no wonder, Since the Spanish Inquisition hath so great a place in the Recorders heart. God Almighty who is just, will judge you all for these things. Obser. They haled the Prisoners into the Bale-dock, and from thence sent them to New-Gate, for non-payment of their Fines; and so were their Jury. [24]

An Appendix, by way of Defence for the Prisoners, as what might have been offered against the Indictment, and illegal proceedings of the Court thereon, had they not violently over-rul’d and stopp’d them.

Upon a sober disquisition into the several parts of the Indictment, we find it so wretchedly defective, as if it were nothing else but a meer composition of error, rather calculated to the malicious designs of the Judges, than to the least verity of fact committed by the Prisoners. To prove this, what we say, will be a main help to discover the Arbitrary proceedings of the Bench in their frequent Menaces to the Jury; as if it were not so much their Business to try, as to condemn the Prisoners; and that not so much for any Fact they had committed, as what the Court would have suggested to the Jury to have been their Fact. §. 1. It is the constant Common Law of England, that no man should be Taken, Imprisoned, Amerced, Deseized of his Free-hold, of his Liberties or free Customs, but by the judgment of his Peers, which are vulgarly called a Jury, from Jurare, because they are sworn to do right.43 §. 2. The only assistance that is given the Jury, in order to a Verdict, is, First, The Evidence given of the Fact committed, by the person indicted. Secondly, The knowledge of that Law, Act or Statute the Indictment is grounded upon, and which the Prisoners are said to have transgressed. [25] §. 3. We shall neglect to mention here, how much they were deprived, of that just advantage the antient equal Laws of England do allow; designing it for a conclusion of the whole, and shall only speak here to matter of Fact and Law. Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, p. 46; and, more generally, Coke’s commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, pp. 45–57.

43

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties §. 4. The Evidence, you have read in the Tryal, the utmost import of which, is no more than this, That William Penn was speaking in Gratiousstreet, to an Assembly of people, but knew not what he said, which is so great a contradiction, as he that runs may read it; for no man can say another man Preaches, and yet understand not what he saith; he may conjecture it, but that is a lame evidence in Law; it might as well have been sworn, That he was speaking of Law, Physick, Trade, or any other matter of civil concernment: besides there is no Law against preaching what is Truth, whether it be in the Street, or in any other place; nor is it possible, that any man can truly swear, That he preacht Sedition, Heresie, &c. unless he so heard him, that he could tell what he said. §. 5. The Evidence further saith, That W. Mead was there, but till being in Gracious-street be a fault, and hearing a man speak the Witness knows not what, be contrary to Law, the whole Evidence is useless, and impert[i]nent; but what they want of that, they endeavour to supply with Indictment; whose parts we proceed to consider.

Exceptions against the Indictment. §. 6. It saith, That the Prisoners [were met upon the 15th day of August, 1670] whereas their own Evidence affirms it to be upon the 14th day of August, 70.44 §. 7. [That they met with force and Arms] which is so great a Lye, that the Court had no better cover for it, than to tell the Jury, it was only a piece of Form, urging that the man tried for clipping of money this present Sessions had the same words used in his Indictment.45 But that this Answer is too scanty, as well as it was, too weak to prevail [26] with the Jury; we desire it may be considered, that the same words may be used more of course, and out of form at one time, then at another: And though we grant they can have little force with any Jury in a Clippers case, for meer Clipping; yet they are words that give so just a ground of jealousie, nay, that carry so clear an Evidence of illegality, where they

Here and in #7−12 below, brackets in original. In the first edition of Peoples, the indictment read “15th day of August.” By the time of the second edition, the proper date appeared; but this exception remained unaltered. 45 Coin clipping was widespread in early modern England, and a serious threat to the integrity of English money. Yet, being generally done in secret, it would hardly strike most people as “with force and arms.” 44

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Part I: Political Liberties are truly proved and affirmed of any Meeting, as that they are the proper Roots from whence do spring those Branches which render an Indictment terrible, and an Assembly truly to the terror of the people. §. 8. [Unlawfully, and tumultuously to disturb the Peace] which is as true, as what is said before, (that is, as false) this will evidently appear to all that consider how lawful it is to assemble, with no other design then to worship God, and their calling a lawful Assembly an unlawful one, no more makes it so, then to say Light is Darkness, Black is white, concludes so impudent a falsity true. In short, Because to worship God can never be a crime, no Meeting or Assembly, designing to worship God, can be unlawful. Such as go about to prove an unlawful Assembly, must prove the Assemblers intent not to Worship God, but that no man can do, because no man can know another mans intentions, and therefore its impossible that any should prove such an Assembly unlawful. That is properly an unlawful Assembly, according to the definition of the Law, when several persons are met together, with design to do violence, and to do mischief, but that Dissenters meet with no such intention, is manifest to the whole World, therefore their Assemblies are not unlawful; he that hath only right to be worshipped, which is God, hath only right to institute how he will be worshipped; and such as worship him in that Way they apprehend him to have instituted, are so far from being unlawful Assemblies, that therein they do but express the duty they owe to God.46 [Tumultuously] Imports as much as disorderly, or an Assembly full of Noise, Bustle, and Confusion, using force and violence, to the injury of [27] Persons, Houses, or Grounds. But whether Religious Dissenters, in their peaceable Meetings, therein desiring and seeking nothing more than to express that duty they owe to God Almighty, be a Tumultuous action, or meeting in the sence exprest (and which is the very definition of the Law) will be the question. Certainly such as call these Meetings tumultuous,

For the definition of unlawful assembly, see Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes, ch. 79. Although the defendants were not charged under the 1670 Conventicle Act (22 Car. II c. 1), that statute, which forbade attendance at “any assembly…under colour or pretence of any exercise of religion in other manner than according to the liturgy and practice of the Church of England,” formed an important part of the trial’s broader context. Here Penn repeated Quaker arguments that they were not guilty of sedition, since they met “without any such pretense, but in reality to worship and glorify God”; see A Declaration from the People of God Called Quakers against all Seditious Conventicles (London, 1670), Postscript.

46

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties and to break the peace, offer the greatest violence to common words, that can be well imagined; for they may as rightly say, such persons meet adulterously, thievishly, &c. as to affirm they meet tumultuously, because they are as truly applicable; in short, such particulars, as are required to prove them such Meetings in Law, are wholly wanting. §. 9. [To the disturbance of the peace] If the disturbance of the peace be but matter of form with the rest, as is usually pleaded; leave out this matter of form and then see what great matter will be left. Certainly such Assemblies, as are not to the breach and disturbance of the peace, are far from being unlawful or tumultuary: but if the peace, be broken by them, how comes it the evidence was so short? We cannot believe it was in favour of the Prisoners. This may shew to all the reasonable World, how forward some are, to brand innocency with hateful Names, to bring a suspition, where there was none deserved. §. 10. [That the said Penn and Mead met by agreement before hand made.] But if persons that never saw each other, nor converse[d] together, neither had correspondence by any other hand, cannot be said to be agreed, to any action, before it be done; then the Prisoners were far from an Agreement; for they had never Seen, Converst, nor Corresponded, directly, nor indirectly, before the Officers came to disturb the Assembly: We well know how far they would have stretcht the word, Agreement, or Conspiracy; but God who brings to nought, the Counsels of the wicked,47 prevented their cruel designs. §. 11. [That William Mead did abet the said William Penn in preaching.] [28] No man can be said to abet another, whilst they are both unknown to each other, especially in this case, where abetting follows agreeing, and agreeing supposes fore-knowledge. Nay, the word abet in Law signifies to command, procure or counsel a person, which W. Mead, could not be said to do, in reference to W. Penn, they being so great Strangers one to another, and at so great a distance; for the Evidence proves that he was with Lieutenant Cook, and Lieutenant Cook swears he could not make his way to W. Penn, for the Cro[w]d. §. 12 [That W. Penn’s preaching and speaking caused a great concourse and tumult of People to remain and continue a long time in the street.]

Psalm 33:10, which reads “the counsel of the heathen.”

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Part I: Political Liberties But this is so improbable to believe, that the very nature of a Tumult admits of no such thing as preaching; but implies a disorderly multitude, where all may be said to speak, rather then any to hear. §. 1. [In contempt of the King and his Laws.] They are so far from contemning the King and his Laws, that they are obl[i]ged and constrained by their own principles, to obey every Ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, but not against the Lord for man’s sake, which is the question in hand. Besides, their continuance there, was not in contempt, but by the permission of the chief Officer present, that came there by the Kings authority; nor is it for the honour of the King that such persons should be said to act in contempt of his Laws, as only meet to honour God and his Laws. §. 2. [And to the great disturbance of the King’s Peace.] It is far from disturbing and breaking the King’s Peace, for men peaceably to meet to worship God; for it is then properly broken and invaded, when force and violence are used, to the hurt and prejudice of Persons [29] and Estates; or when any thing is done that tends to the stirring up of Sedition, and begetting in people a dislike of the Civil Government: But that such things are not practised by us in our Assemblies, either to offer violence to mens Persons and Estates, or to stir up People to Sedition, or dislike to the civil Government, is obvious to all that visit our Assemblies. §. 3. [To the great terror and disturbance of the Kings liege people and Subjects, and to the evil example of all others in the like case offending, against the Kings peace, his Crown, and Dignity.] Were these black Criminations as true as they are wretchedly false, we should give as just an occasion, to lose our Liberties, as our cruel Adversaries are ready to take any to deprive us unjustly of them, O! How notorious is it to all sober people, that our manner of life is far from terrifying any; and how absurd to think that naked men (in the generality of their conversation, known to be harmless and quiet) should prove a terror or disturbance to the People; certainly, if any such thing should be in the time of our Meetings, it is brought with the cruelty and barbarous actions of your own Souldiers; they never learned by our example to beat, hale before Magistrates, fine, and imprison for matters relating to God’s Worship; neither can they say, we are their Precedents; for all those Adulterous, Prodigal, Lascivious, Drunken, Swearing, and Prophane acts they daily commit, and esteem rather occasion of brag and boast, than sorrow and repentance: No, they need not go so

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties far, they have too many (God Almighty knows) of their own Superiors for their example. §. 4. But we can never pass over with silence, nor enough observe the detestable juggle of such Indictments, which we require all English and conscientious men to mind, as they value themselves in the like occasion, how little a grain of fact was proved, yet how spacious an Indictment was made? had it related to the Evidence, the bulk had been excuseable; but when it only swelled with malicious scaring Phrases, to suggest to the people, that they were the meerest Villains, the most dangerous Persons, [30] and designing mutually the subversion of the Laws, and breach of the Peace, to the terrifying of the People, &c. Who can choose but tell them of their Romance-Indictment, that is so forged, as it truly merits another against it self. This they childishly call Form; but had an Italian, or other Stranger been in Court, he would have judged it matter of fact, as thinking it unworthy of a Kings Court, to accuse men in terms, not legally, truly, or probably due to the fact they really had committed; as well as that no Court would practise it, but that which loved to deprive men of their Liberties, and Lives, rather then to save them, Nolens Volens.48 §. 5. Had their cruelty and juggle ended here it self, they would have spared us the pains of any further observation. But that which we have to add on the Prisoners’ behalf, renders their actions so abominable, in the sight of Justice, that all honest and ingenious hearts must needs abhor their base Snares. They tell the Jury, that being but Judges of Fact only, they were to bring the Prisoners in guilty (that is of the Fact) at their peril; and it was the part of the Bench, to judge what was Law: So that if the Jury had brought them in Guilty, without any further additional explanation (though intentionally they meant only of the fact proved by evidence) yet the Bench would have extended it to every part of the Indictment, and by this impious delusion, to have perjured a well meaning Jury, and have had their barbarous ends upon the innnocent Prisoners. But the Jury better understanding themselves brought in Will. Penn guilty of the fact proved, namely, That he was speaking to some people met in Gratious-Church-Street, but not of an unlawful Assembly, so circumstantiated (the mention of which stabbed their design of moulding the general answer of guilty to their own ends, Whether one likes it or not (literally, willing or not willing).

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Part I: Political Liberties to the heart) nor indeed could they do otherwise; for as well the Jury as Prisoners, were denyed to have any Law produced, by which they might measure the Truth of the Indictment, and guilt of the fact. But because the Recorder would or could not (perhaps tis so long since he read Law, that he may have forgotten it) we shall perform his part, in shewing what is that common Law of the Land, which in general, he said, they were [31] indicted for the breach, and which indeed, if rightly understood, is the undoubted Birth-right of every English-man; yea, the Inheritance of ­Inheritances, Major Haeriditas venit unicuiq[ue], nostrum a Jure et Legibus, quam a Parentibus. Cook Instit. 2. 56.49 §. 6. All the various kinds or models of Government, that are in the World, stand either upon Will and Power, or Condition and Contract, the first, rule by men, the second by Laws: It is our happiness to be born under such a constitution, as is most abhorrent in it self, of all arbitrary Government, and which is, and ever has been, most choice and careful of her Laws, by which all Right is preserved. §. 7. All Laws are either Fundamental, and so immutable, or Superficial, and so alterable.50 By the first we understand such Laws, as injoyn men to be just, honest, v[i]rtuous; to do no wrong, to kill, rob, deceive, prejudice none; but to do as one would be done unto; to cherish good, and to terrifie wicked men; in short, universal Reason, which are not subject to any revolutions, because no emergency, time, or occasion can ever justifie a suspention of their execution, much less their utter Abrogation. §. 8. By Superficial Laws we understand, such Acts, Laws, or Statutes, as are suited to present occurrances; and which may as well be abrogated, for the good of the Kingdom, as they were first made for it. For instance, those Statutes, that relate to Victuals, Cloaths, and places of Trade, &c. which have ever stood whilst the reason of them was in force, but when that benefit, which once redounded, fell by cross occurrances, they ended according to that old maxime, Cessante ratione Legis, cessat Lex;51 but this cannot be said of Fundamental Laws, Till Houses stand without their

“A greater inheritance comes to everyone from our law and legislation than from their parents”: Cicero, Oration on behalf of Aulus Caecina, sec. 26. The passage appears on the title page of Coke, The First Part of the Institutes (London, 1628), and in The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, p. 56. 50 Penn further elaborated this distinction in England’s Present Interest Discover’d (1675), ch. 1 (Selection 2); and The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670), ch. 5 (Selection 5). 51 “The law ceases when the reason for the law ceases”: Coke, Reports, Part VII, 7a (Milborn’s case). 49

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Foundations, and English man-kind wholly cease to be, which brings close upon the point. §. 9. There is not any Country, that has more constantly exprest her care and deep solicitude; to the preservation of her fundamental Laws, [32] than the English Nation; and though the evil of some particular times and persons have endeavoured an utter Abolition of those excellent Fundamentals, which we have before defined and defended from any just reason of revolution; yet God Almighty, who is alwayes concerned to avenge the cause of Justice, and those excellent good Laws, by which it is upheld, has by his providence befool’d their contrivances, and baffled their attempts, by bringing their designs to nought, and their persons frequently to condign punishment and disgrace, their Age no Antiquary living can assure us, unless they say, As old as Reason it self; but our own Authors are not lacking to inform us, that the Liberties, Properties and Priviledges of the English Nation are very antient. §. 10. For Horn in his Mirror of Justice (writ in Edward the first’s time) Fol. 1. tells us, “That after God had abated the Nobility of the Britans, he did deliver the Realm to men more humble and simple, of the Countries adjoyning, to wit the Saxons, which came from the parts of Almaign [Germany] to conquer this Land, of which men there were forty Soveraigns which did rule as Companions; and those Princes did call this Realm England, which before was named the Greater Britan: these after great wars, Tribulations, and Pains, by long time suffered, did choose a King to raign over them, to govern the People of God, and to maintain and defend their persons, and their good in Quiet, by the Rules of Right; and at the beginning they did cause him to sware to maintain the holy Christian Faith, and to guide his People by Right, with all his power, without respect of persons, and to observe the Laws: And after when the Kingdom was turned into an Heritage; King Alfred, that governed this Kingdom about an Hundred Seventy One Years before the Conquest, did cause the great men of the Kingdom to assemble at London, and there did ordain for a perpetual usage, That twice in the year, or oftner, if need should be, in time [of] Peace, they should assemble at London in Parliament; for the Government of Gods People, that men might live in quiet, and receive right by certain Usages, and holy Judgments.”52 Andrew Horn (d. 1328), The Booke Called, the Mirrour of Justices (London, 1646), ch. 1, secs. 2–3 (pp. 3–6). Penn is quoting loosely here. The ordinances take up pp. 6–15 of the 1646 edition.

52

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Part I: Political Liberties “In which Parliament (saith our Author) the Rights and Prerogatives [33] of the Kings and of the Subjects are distinguished and set apart; and particularly by him expressed, too tedious here to insert;53 amongst which Ordinances we find, ‘That no man should be imprisoned, but for a capital Offence. And if a man should detain another in Prison, by colour of right (where there was none) till the party imprisoned died; he that kept him in Prison should be held guilty of murder,’” as you may read pag. 33. And pag. 36. “He is declared guilty of Homicide, by whom a man shall die in prison, whether it be the Judges, that shall too long delay to do a man right, or by cruelty of Jailors, or suffering him to die of Famine; or when a man is adjudged to do pennance, and shall be surcharged by his Jailer with Irons, or other pain, whereof he is deprived of his life.” And p. 149. “That by the antient Law of England, it was Fellony to detain a man in prison, after sufficient Bale offered; where the party was plevisable;54 every person was plevisable, but he that was appealed of Treason, Murder, Robbery or Burglary,” pag. 35. “None ought to be put in common Prisons, but only such as were ATTAINTED, or principally APPEALED or INDICTED of some capital Offence, or ATTAINTED of false or wrongful Imprisonment; so tender have the ancient Laws and Constitutions of this Realm been of the Liberty of their Subjects persons, that no man ought to be Imprisoned, but for a Capital Offence, as Treason, Murder, Robbery, or Burglary.”55 §. 11. Nor is Lambard short in his excellent translation of the Saxon Laws, from King Ina’s time, 712. to Hen. 3. 1100. In describing to us the great Obligation, and strong Condition, the people were wont to put upon their Kings, To observe the ancient fundamental Laws, and free Customs of this Land, which were handed down from one Age to another.56 And in the 17th Chap. of Edw. the Confessors Laws, the mention there made of a Kings duty is very remarkable, That if he break his Oath, or performed not his Obligation (Nec nomen Regis in eo constabit).57 The Bailable (OED). Penn’s page listings do not match the 1646 edition of Horn. Most of the references below appear in ch. I, sec. 9 (pp. 29–30) and ch. II, secs. 9–10 (pp. 72–74). Penn refers to murder; Horn uses “man-slaughter.” 56 William Lambarde (1536–1601), Archeion, or, A Discourse upon the High Courts of Justice in England (London, 1635), pp. 112–113. 57 Bruce R. O’Brien, God’s Peace and King’s Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 1998), p. 175. 58 Lambarde, Archeion, pp. 261–262. The pledge to maintain Edward the Confessor’s laws, according to Lambarde, was made by William the Conqueror’s son Henry I. 54 55

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties [34]

same Lambard further tells us, That however any may affirm William of Normandy to be a Conquerer; He was received by the people as Edwards Successor, and by solemn Oath taken, to maintain unto them the same Laws that his Kinsman Edward the Confessor did;58 this Doctrine remained in the general, unquestioned, to the reign of King John, who imperiously thought that Voluntas Regis and not Sal[us] Populi, was suprema Lex, or the Kings will was the Supream Law, and not the People’s Preservation; till the incensed Barons of that time, betook themselves to a vigorous defence of their antient Rights and Liberties, and learnt him to keep those Laws by a due restraint and timely compulsion, which his former invasion of them evidenced to the World he would never have done willingly. §. 12. The Proposals and Articles of Agreement, with the Pledges given to the Barons, on the behalf of the People by the King, were confirm’d in Hen. the 3ds. time, his Son and Successor; When the abused, slighted, and disregarded Laws, by his Father, were thought fit to be reduced to record, that the people of England might not forever after be [compelled?] to seek for a written recorded Law, to their defence and security; for, Misera servitus est ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum;59 and so we enter upon the Grand Charter of Liberty and Priviledge, in the Cause Reason, and End of it. §. 1. We shall first rehearse it, so far as we are concerned, (with the formalities of Grant and Curse) and shall then say something as to the Cause, Reason and End of it. A Rehearsal of the Material Parts of the Great Charter of ­England.60 [35] Henry, by the Grace of God, King of England, &c. To all Arch-Bishops, or Earls, Barons, Sheriffs, Provosts, Officers, and to all Bailiffs, and our faithfull Subjects, who shall see this present Charter, greeting. Know ye, That we unto the honour of Almighty God, and for the Salvation of the Souls of our Progenetors, and our Successors Kings of England, to the advancement of holy Church, and amendment of our Realm, of our meer Servitude is miserable where the law is vague or unknown (Latin maxim). A note on the various versions of Magna Carta. The original charter was issued by John in 1215. In 1225, Henry III, his son and successor, reissued and reconfirmed it (9 Hen. III c. 1–37). In 1297, Henry’s son Edward I did the same, quoting his father’s reconfirmation (25 Edw. I c. 1). Finally (for these purposes), Edward III once again confirmed the charter in 1354 (28 Edw. III c. 1). 61 Marginal note: 9 H. 3. confirmed 28 Ed. 3. [In other words, as above (fn. 60), 28 Edw. III represented a reconfirmation of 9 Hen. III.] 62 Marginal note: Chap. 1. the form of ancient Acts, &c. Co. 2. Inst. fol. 2. Chap. 14 Cha. 29. [Penn refers to Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, chs. 14, 29. The following two paragraphs quote chs. 14 and 29.] 63 Property. 59 60

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Part I: Political Liberties and free will have given and granted to all Arch-Bishops, &c. and to all Free-men of this our Realm, these Liberties under-written, to be holden and kept in this our Realm of England for evermore.61 We have granted and given to all Free-men of our Realm, for us and our Heirs for evermore, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them, and to their Heirs, of us and our Heirs fore-nam’d.62 A Free-man shall not be Amerced for a small fault, but after the quantity of the fault: and for a great fault, after the manner thereof, saving to him his Contenements63 or Free-hold. And a Merchant likewise shall be amerced, saving to him his Merchandize; and none of the said Amercements shall be assessed, but by the Oath of good and honest men of the Vicinage. No Free-man shall be taken, or imprisoned, nor be disseized of his Free-hold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be Outlawed, or Exiled, or any other wayes destroyed; nor we shall not pass upon him, nor condemn [36] him, but by lawfull judgement of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land; we shall sell to no man, we shall deny nor defer to no man either Justice or Right. And to all these Customs, Liberties aforesaid, which we have granted to be holden within this our Realm, as much as appertaineth to us and our Heirs we shall observe; and all men of this our Realm, as well Spiritual as Temporal, (as much as in them is) shall observe the same against all persons in likewise. And for this our Gift, and Grant of these Liberties, and for other contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forrest, the Arch-Bishops, Bishops, A[b]bots, Priors, Earls, Barons, Knights, Freeholders, and other our Subjects, have given unto us the fifteenth part of all their moveables; And we have granted unto them on the other part, that neither we, nor our Heirs, shall procure or do any thing whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken; and if any thing be procured by any person contrary to the Premises, shall be had of no force nor effect. These being Witnesses, Boniface Arch-Bishop of Canterbury,64 &c. We ratifying and approving those Gifts and Grants aforesaid, confirm and make strong all the same, for us and our Heirs perpetually, and by the Tenor of these Presents do renew the same willingly; and granting for us and our Heirs, that this Charter, in all and singular his Articles for Penn misidentifies Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury from 1249 to 1270; the text of 9 Hen. III actually refers to “Lord S. Archbishop of Canterbury”, i.e., Stephen Langton (1159–1228), who held the office from 1207 until his death. 65 The final sentences (from “We Ratifying” onward) are from Edward I’s reconfirmation, 25 Edw. I (1297). 66 37 Hen. III (1253). 64

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties evermore shall be stedfastly, firmly, and inviolably observed. And if any Article in the same Charter contained, yet hitherto peradventure hath not been observed, nor kept, we will, and by our Authority Royal command, from henceforth firmly they be observed. Witness, &c.65 [37]

The Sentence of Curse given by the Bishops, with the King’s consent, against the Breakers of the great Charter.66 In the year of our Lord 1253. the third day of May, in the great Hall of the King at Westminster, in the presence, and by the consent of the Lord Henry, by the Grace of God, King of England, and the Lord Richard, Earl of Cornwall, his Brother; Roger Bigot, Earl of Norfolk Marshal of England; Humphry, Earl of Hereford; Henry, Earl of Oxford; John, Earl Warren; and other Estates of the Realm of England: We Boniface, by the mercy of God, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, Primate of England, F. of London, H. of Ely, S. of Worcester, E. of Lincoln, W. of Norwich, P. of Hereford, W. of Salesbury, W. of Durham, R. of [Exeter], M. of Carlile, W. of Bath, E. of Rochester, T. of St Davids, Bishops, apparelled in Pontificals, with Tapers burning, against the Breakers of the Churches Liberties, and of the Liberties and other Customs of this Realm of England; and namely these which are contained in the Charter of the common Liberties of England, and Charter of the Forrest, have denounced Sentence of Excommunication in this form, by the Authority of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, &c. of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all Apostles, and of all Martyrs, of blessed Edw. King of England, and of all the Saints of Heaven, We Excom- [38] municate and Accurse, and from the benefit of our holy Mother the Church we sequester all those that hereafter willingly and maliciously deprive or spoil the Church of her Right; and all those that by any craft, or willingness, do violate, break, diminish, or change the Churches Liberties, and free Customs contained in the Charters of the common Liberties, and of the Forrest, granted by our Lord the King to Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and other Prelates of England, and likewise to the Earls, Barons, Knights, and other Freeholders of the Realm; and all that secretly and openly, by deed, word or counsel do make Statutes, or observe them being made, and that bring in Customs to keep them, when they be brought in, against the said Liberties, or any of them, and all those that shall presume to judge against them; and all and every such person, before

25 Edw. I c. 1–6 (1297).

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Part I: Political Liberties mentioned, that wittingly shall commit any thing of the premises, let them well know that they incur the aforesaid Sentence ipso facto. A Confirmation of the Charters and Liberties of England, and of [39] the Forrest, made the twenty fifth year of Edward the first.67 Edward, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Guyan, To all those that these present Letters shall hear or see, greeting. Know ye that we to the honour of God, and to the profit of our Realm, have granted for us, and our Heirs, [that] the Charter of Liberties, and the Charter of Forrest, which were made by common assent of all the Realm, in the time of King Henry our Father, shall be kept in every point, without breach; and we will that the same Charters shall be sent under our Seal, as well to our Justices of the Forrest, as to others, and to all Sheriffs of Shires, and to all our other Officers, and to all our Cities throughout the Realm, together with our Writs, in the which it shall be contained, that they cause the aforesaid Charters to be published, and to declare to the People, that we have confirmed them in all points;68 and that our Justices[,] Sheriffs, Mayors, and other Ministers, which under us have the Laws of our Land to guide, shall allow the same Charters pleaded before them in Judgment, in all their points; that is, to wit, the great Charter, as the Common Law, and the Charter of our Forrest, for the Wealth of our Realm. [40] And we will that if any Judgment be given from henceforth, contrary to the points of the Charter aforesaid, by the Justices, or by any other of our Ministers that hold Plea before them, against the points of the Charters, it shall be undone, and holden for naught. And we will that the same Charters shall be sent under our Seal to Cathedral Churches throughout our Realm, there to remain, and shall be read before the people two times by the year. And that all Arch-bishops and Bishops shall pronounce the Sentence of Excommunication against all those that by word, deed or counsel do contrary to the foresaid Charters, or that in any point do break or undo them; And that the said Curses be twice a year denounced and published by the Prelates aforesaid; and if the same Prelates, or any of them be

At this point a marginal image of a finger points to “all points.”  

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  25 Edw. I (1297).

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties remiss in the denunciation of the said Sentences, the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York, for the time being, shall compel and distrain them to the execution of their duties in form aforesaid. [41]

The Sentence of the Clergy against the Breakers of the Articles above-mentioned.69 In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen: Whereas our Soveraign Lord the King, to the honour of God, and of holy Church, and for the common profit of the Realm, hath granted for him, and his Heirs for ever, these Articles above written: Robert Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England,70 admonished all his Province once twice and thrice, because that shortness will not suffer so much delay, as to give knowledge to all the People of England of these presents in writing: We therefore enjoyn all Persons, of what estate soever they be, that they, and every of them, as much as in them is, shall uphold and maintain these Articles granted by our Soveraign Lord the King, in all points; And all those that in any point do resist, or break, or in any manner hereafter Procure, Counsel, or in any wise Assent to Testifie or Break those Ordinances, or go about it, by word or deed, openly or privily, by any manner of pretence or colour; we, the aforesaid Arch Bishop, by our Authority in this Writing expressed, do Excommunicate and Accurse, and from the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and from all the Company of Heaven, and from all the Sacraments of Holy Church do sequester, and exclude. We may here see, that in the obscurest Times of sottish Popery, they were not left without a sence of Justice, and the necessity of Liberty and Property, to be inviolably enjoy’d which brings us to the cause of it. 1st The cause of this famous Charter, was, as we have already said, the [42] Incroachments that were made by several Ministers of precedent Kings, that almost became Customary, and which had neer extinguisht the free Customs due to Englishmen: How great care it cost our Ancestors, it unbecomes us to ignore, or by our silence to neglect; It was that Yoak and Muzzle, which failed not to dis-able many raging Bears, from entring the pleasant Vineyard of English-Freedoms, that otherwise would not have left a fruitful Vine in being. Anon we may give the Reader an account of some, with their Wages as well as Works.

Robert Winchelsey (1245–1313), archbishop of Canterbury 1294–1313.

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Part I: Political Liberties 2d The Reason of it, is so great, that it seems to be its own. It is the very Image and Expression of Justice, Liberty, and Property; Points of such eminent importance, as without which no Government can be said to be Reasonable, but Arbitrary, and Tyrannical. It allows every man that Liberty God and Nature hath given him, and the secure possession of his property, from the In-road or Invasion of his Neighbour, or any else of that constitution. It justifies no man in a fault, only it provides equal and just wayes to have the Offender tryed; considering the malice of many Prosecutors, and the great vallue of Liberty and Life. 3d The End of it was the most noble of any earthly Projection, to wit, The refixing of those shaken Laws, held for many hundred years, by ­constant claim, that they living might be re-enstated in their primitive liberty, and their posterity secured in the possession of so great a happiness. Amongst those many rich Advantages, that accrew to the free People of England, from this Great Charter; and those many confirmatory Statutes of the same, we shall present the Reader with the sight of some few, that may most properly fall, under the consideration and inquiry of these present times, as found in our Common Law Books. [43] 1st [That every English-man is born free.]71 2d [That no such Free-man shall be taken, attached, assessed, or imprisoned, by any Petition or Suggestion to the King or his Counsel, unless by the Indictment or presentment of good and lawful men, where such deeds be done] 5 Edw. 3. chap. 9. 25 Edw. 3. chap. 4. 17 R. 2. chap. 6 Rot. Parl. 42 Edw. 3. Cook 2 Inst. 46. 3d [That no Free-man shall be disseized of his Free-hold or Liberties, or free Customs, &c. hereby is intended, saith Cook, That Lands, Tenements, Goods, and Chattels] shall not be seised into the Kings hands contrary to this Great Charter, &c. 43. Ass. pag. 12. 43 Edward 3. Cook 2 Inst. 32. Neither shall any such Free-man be put from his Livelihood without answer, Cook 2. Inst. 47. 4ly [That no Free-man shall be out-lawed.] unless he shroud and hide himself voluntarily from the Justice of the Law, 2 & 3 Phil. & Mar. Dier. 114. 145.

Brackets here (from 1st through 8th) are Penn’s. I have reproduced Penn’s supplementary references intact and without elaboration; he takes them from Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, pp. 46–50.

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties 5ly [No Free-man shall be exiled.] Cook saith there are but two Grounds, upon which any man may be exiled: One by Act of Parliament (supposing it not contrary to the great Charter.)–the other in case of abjuration, for Fellony by the Common Law, &c. Cook 2. Inst. 47. 6ly [No Free-man shall be destroyed, that is, he shall not be fore-judged of Life, Limb, Dis-herited, or put to Torture, or Death] every oppression against Law, by colour of any usurped Authority, is a kind of Destruction, and it is the worst Oppression that is done by colour of Justice. Cook Instit. 2. 48. 7th [That no Free-man shall be thus taken, or imprisoned, disseized, outlawed, exiled, or destroyed of his Liberties, Free-holds, and free Customs, but [44] BY THE LAWFULL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS] (vulgarly called Jury.) So that the Judgment of any fact or person, is by this Fundamental Law, referred to the Bre[a]sts and Consciences of the Jury; it is rendred in Latine PER LEGALE JUDITIUM, that is, Lawful Judgment; from whence it is to be observed, that the Judgment must have Law in it, and be according to Law, which cannot be where they are not Judges, how far the fact is Legal or the contrary; Juditium quasi Juris Dictum [The Voice of Law and Right] And therefore is their Verdict not to be rejected, because it is supposed to be the Truth, according to their Consciences: For Verdict from vere dictum, is quasi dictum veritatis [or A true Saying or Judgment] 9 Hen. 3. 29. Cook Inst. 1. 32. Inst 4. 207. Cook says, that by the word LEGALE three things are implyed. (1st) That this was by Law, before the Statute, and therefore this Statute but declaratory of the Antient Law. (2d) That their Verdict must be legally given; wherein is to be observed. (1st) The Jury ought to hear no Evidence, but in the Hearing and Presence of the Prisoner. (2d) That they cannot send to ask any Question in Law of the Judges, but in the presence of the Prisoner, for, De facto jus oritur.72 (3d) The Evidence produced by the Kings Counsel, being given, the Judges cannot collect the Evidence, nor urge it by way of charge to the Jury, nor yet confer with the Jury about the Evidence, but in the presence of the Prisoner. Cook Inst. 2. 49. 8th [Or by the Law of the Land] It is a Synonimous Expression, importing no more then by a Tryal of Peers or a Jury; for it is sometimes rendred not The law arises from the fact. Starling took great exception to this claim in An Answer, p. 3.

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Part I: Political Liberties (or) disjunctively, but (and) which is connectively, however, it can never signifie any thing contrary to the old way of trying by Peers; for then it would be connected to a contradiction.73 Besides, Cook well observes, that in the 4th Chapter of the 25th Edw. 3. Per Legem Terrae, imports no more then a Tryal by due process, and writ Original at Common Law, which cannot be without a Jury; therefore, Per [45] Judicium parum & per Legem Terrae, signifies the same priviledge unto the people. Cook Inst. 2. pag. 50. Thus have we presented you with some of those Maxims of Law, dearer to our Ancestors, then life, Because they are the defence of the Lives and Liberties of the People of England; it is from this 29th chapter of the Great Charter; Great, not for its Bulk, but the Priviledges in it; as from a spatious Root, that so many fruitfull Branches of the Law of England springs, if Cook may be credited.74 But how sacred soever they have been esteemed, and still are by noble and just minds, yet so degenerate are some, in their proceedings, that conscious to themselves of their baseness, they will not dare stand the touch of this Great Charter, and those just Laws grounded upon it, of which number we may truly rank the Mayor and Recorder of London, with the rest of their wise Companions, in their late Sessions at the Old Baily, upon the occasions of the Prisoners. 1st The Prisoners were taken, and imprisoned without Presentment of good and lawfull men of the Vicinage, or the Neighbourhood, but after a military and Tumultuous manner, contrary to the grand Charter. 2d They refused to produce the Law upon which they proceeded, leaving thereby the Prisoners, Jury, and the whole Assembly in the dark. 3d They refused the Prisoners to plead, and directly withstood that great Priviledge mentioned in the first Chap. 25 Edw. 1. Where all Justices, Mayors, Sheriffs, and other Ministers that have the Laws of the Land to guide them, are required to allow the said Charter to be pleaded in all its points, and in all causes that shall come before them in Judgment.75 For no sooner did William Penn, or his Fellow-Prisoner, urge upon them the Great Charter, and other good Laws, but the Recorder cried, Take him [46] away, take him away, put him into the Bale-dock or hole; from which the Recorder can never deliver himself, unless it be by avowing; the Laws are

Coke described chapter 29 of Magna Carta as “a roote [out of which] many fruitful branches of the Law of England have sprung” (The Second Part of the Institutes, p. 46). 25 Edw. I c. 1 (1297).

74

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties not his Guide, and therefore [he] does not suffer them to be pleaded before him in Judgment. 4ly They gave the Jury their charge, in the Prisoners absence, endeavouring highly to [incense] the Jury against them. 5ly The verdict being given, which is in Law, DICTUM VERITATIS, (The voice of Truth her self) (because not sutable to their humor) They did five times reject it, with many abusive, imperious, and menacing Expressions to the Jury, (such as no precedent can afford us) as if they were not the only constituted Judges by the Fundamental Laws of the Land, but meer Cyphers only to signifie something behind their Figures. 6ly Though the Prisoners were cleared by their Jury, yet were they continued for the non-payment of their Fines, laid upon them, for not pulling off their Hats, in which the Law is notoriously broken. (1st) In that no man shall be amerced, but according to the Offence; and they have fined each forty Marks. (2d) They were not merced by any Jury, but at the will of an incensed Bench. Besides there is no Law against the Hat, and where there is no Law there can be no Transgression,76 and consequently no legal Amercement or Fine, 9 Hen. 3. chap. 14. But how the Prisoners were trappanned77 into it, is most ridiculous on the side of the Contrivers, that finding their Hats off, would have them put on again by their Officers, to fool the Prisoners, with a trial of putting them off again; which childish conceit not being gratified, they fined them the forty Mark a piece. 7ly Instead of accepting their Verdict as good in Law, and for the true deci[s]ion of the matter, according to the Great Charter (that constitutes them proper Judges, and which bears them out, with many other good Laws, in what they agreed to, as a Verdict) the Court did most illegally, and tyrannically fine and imprison them, as in the Tryal was exprest. [47] And that notwithstanding the late just resentment of the House of Commons, in Judge Keelings Case, where they resolved, that the precedent and practice of Fining and Imprisoning of Juries, for their Verdicts, were illegal.78 And here we must needs observe two things. (1st) That the Fundamental Laws of England cannot be more slighted, and contradicted in any thing (next English-men being quite destroyed)

Romans 4:15.  77  Trapped or ensnared.   Archaic form of “debauched” (OED, def. 1).

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  See Postscript, below.

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Part I: Political Liberties then in not suffering them to have that equal medium, or just way of tryal, that the same Law has provided, which is by a Jury. (2d) That the late proceeding of the Court, at the Old-Baily, is an evident Demonstration, that Juries are now but meer Formality, and that the partial Charge of the Bench must be the Verdict of the Jury; for if ever a Rape were attempted on the Consciences of any Jury, it was there. And indeed the ignorance of Jurors of their authority by Law, is the only Reason of their unhappy cringing to the Court, and being scared into an Anti-Conscience Verdict; by their lawless threats. But we have lived to an Age, so deboist79 from all humanity and reason, as well as Faith and Religion, that some stick not to turn Butchers to their own Priviledges, and Conspirators against their own Liberties. For however Magna Charta had once the Reputation of a Sacred Unalterable Law, and few hardned enough, to incur and bear the long Curse, that attends the Violaters of it, yet it is frequently objected now, that the benefits there designed are but temporary, and therefore lyable to alteration, as other Statutes are. What Game such Persons play at, may be lively read, in the attempts of Dyonisius, Phalaris, &c. which would have Will and Power be the peoples Law.80 But that the Priviledges due to English-men, by the Great Charter of England, have their Foundation in Reason and Law; and that those new Cassandrian wayes, to introduce Will and Power deserve to be detested by all persons professing sence and honesty, and the least Allegiance to our [48] English Government; we shall make appear from a sober consideration of the nature of those Priviledges contained in that Charter. (1)  The Ground of alteration of any Law in Government (where there is no invasion) should arise from the universal discommodity of its continuance, but there can be no disprofit in the discontinuance81 of Liberty and Property, therefore there can be no just ground of alteration. (2)  No one English-man is born Slave to another, neither has the one a right to inherit the Sweat and benefit of the others labour (without consent) therefore the Liberty and Property of an English-man, cannot reasonably be at the will and beck of another, let his quality and rank be never so great. (3)  There can be nothing more unreasonable then that which is partial, but to take away the LIBERTY and PROPERTY of any (which are natural On Dionysius the Elder (c. 462–367 BCE), tyrant of Syracuse, see Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, books 13–15; Phalaris, tyrant of Syracuse during the 560s and first half of the 550s BCE. 81 Penn surely means “disprofit in the continuance.” 82 Some editions read “uneasie.” 80

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Rights) without breaking the Law of Nature (and not of Will and Power) is manifestly partial; and therefore unreasonable. (4)  If it be just and reasonable for men to do as they would be done by, then no sort of men should invade the Liberties and Properties of other men, because they would not be served so themselves. (5)  Where Liberty and Property are destroyed, there must alwayes be a state of Force and War, which however pleasing it may be unto the Invaders, it will be esteemed intolerable by the Invaded, who will no longer remain subject in all humane probabillity, then while they want as much power to free themselves, as their Adversaries had to enslave them: The Troubles, Hazards, Ill-consequences, and Illegality of such attempts as they have declined by the most prudent in all Ages, so have they proved most easie82 to the most savage of all Nations, who first or last have by a mighty Torent freed themselves, to the due punishment and great infamy of their Oppressors: such being the advantage, such the disadvantage which necessarily do [49] attend the fixation, and removal of Liberty and Property. We shall proceed to make it appear, that Magna Charta (as recited by us) imports nothing less then their preservation. No Free-men shall be taken, or imprisoned or be disseissed of his Free-hold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be out-lawed, or exiled, or any other wayes destroyed; nor we will upon him pass, nor condemn him, but by the lawfull judgement of his Peers, &c. A Free-man shall [not] be83 amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault; and for a great fault, after the greatness thereof, and none of the said amercement shall be assessed, but by the Oath of good and lawfull men of the Vicinage. First, It asserts English-men to be free; that’s Liberty. Secondly, That they have Free-holds, that’s Property. Thirdly, That Amercement, or Penalties should be proportioned to the faults committed, Which is Equity. Fourthly, That they shall lose neither, but when they are adjudged to have forfeited them, in the judgment of their honest Neighbours, according to the Law of the Land; which is lawfull Judgment. It is easie to discern to what pass the Enemies of the great Charter would bring the People of England. First, They are now Free-men; but they would have them Slaves.

Text reads “shall be,” but should read “shall not be.”

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Part I: Political Liberties Secondly, They have now right unto their Wives, Children, and Estates, as their undoubted property; but such would rob and spoil them of all. Thirdly, Now no man is to be amerced, or punished, but suitably to his fault; whilst they would make it suitable to their revengeful minds, and unlimitted wills. Fourthly, Whereas the Power of Judgment lies in the Bre[a]sts and [50] Consciences of twelve honest Neighbours; they would have it at the discretion of mercenary Judges: To which, we cannot chuse but add, That such Discourses manifestly strike at this present constitution of Government; for it being founded upon the Great Charter (which is the Ancient Common-Law of the Land) as upon its best Foundation; none can design the cancelling of the Charter, but they must necessarily intend the extirpation of the English Government; for where the cause is taken away the effect must consequently cease. And as the restauration of our antient English Laws, by the Great Charter, was the soveraign Balsom84 which cured our former breaches, so doubtless will the continuation of it prove an excellent prevention to any future disturbances. But some are ready to object, That the Great Charter consisting as well of Religious as civil Rights, the former having received an alteration, there is the same reason, why the latter may have the like. To which we answer, That the reason of alteration cannot be the same, therefore the consequence is false. The one being matter of Opinion, about Faith and Religious Worship, which is as various, as the unconstant apprehensions of men; but the other is matter of so immutable right, and justice, that all Generations (however differing in their religious Opinion) have concentured,85 and agreed to the certainty, equity, and indispensable necessity of preserving these fundamental Laws; so that Magna Charta hath not risen and fallen with the differing religious Opinions that have been in this Land, but ha[s] ever remained, as the stable right of every individual English man, purely as an English man. Otherwise, If the civil Priviledges of the People, had fallen with the pretended Religious Priviledges of the Popish Tyranny, at the first Reformation (as must needs be suggested by this Objection) our case had ended here, that we had obtained a Spiritual [51] Freedom, at the cost of a Civil bondage; which certainly was far from the A healing, soothing agent or agency (OED, def. 3). To agree, coincide; to be in harmony or accord (OED, def. 4). 86 Here Penn invokes the distinction between things malum in se (inherently evil or immoral) and those malum prohibitum (forbidden by law). On this distinction, see Goldie, “The Political Thought of the Anglican Revolution.” 84 85

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties intention of the first Reformers, and probably an unseen consequence, by the Objectors to their idle Opinion. In short, There is no time, in which any man may plead the necessity of such an Action, as is unjust in its own nature,86 which he must unavoidably be guilty of, That doth deface or cancel that Law by which the justice of Liberty and Property is confirmed and maintained to the People. And consequently, no person may legally attempt the subversion, or extenuation of the force of the Great Charter. We shall proceed to prove from instances out of both. 1st Any Judgment given contrary to the said Charter, is to be undone, and holden for nought. 25 Edw. 1. chap. 2. 2d Any that by Word, Deed, or Counsel, go contrary to the said Charter, are to be excommunicated by the Bishops: And the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York, are bound to compel the other Bishops to denounce Sentence accordingly, in case of their remissness, or neglect; which certainly hath relation to the State rather then the Church; since there was never any necessity of compelling the Bishops to denounce sentence in their own case, though frequently in the peoples, 25 Edw. 1. chap. 4. 3d That the great Charter, and Charter of Forrest, be holden and kept in all Points, and if any Statute be made to the contrary, that it shall be holden for nought. 4[2] Edw. 3. 1.87 Upon which Cook, that famous English Lawyer, said, That albeit, Judgments in the King Courts, are of high regard in Law, and Judicia are accounted as Juris Dicta; yet it is provided by Act of Parliament, That if any Judgment be given contrary to any of the points of the great Charter, it shall be holden for nought. He further saith, That upon the Statute of the 25th Edw. 1. chap. 1. That this great Charter, and the Charter of Forrest, are properly the Common Law of this Land, or the Law is Common to all the People thereof.88 4ly Another Statute runs thus, If any Force come to disturb the execu- [52] tion of the Common Law, ye shall cause their bodies to be arrested, and put in Prison; Ye shall deny no man right by the Kings Letters, nor counsel the King any thing, that may turn to his damage, or disherison.89 18 Edw. 3. chap. 7.90 Neither to delay Right by any command under the great or little Seal. This Some editions read 43 Edw. 3. 1. The correct year is 42 (1368). Both Coke citations are from the Proem (Introduction) to The Second Part of the Institutes. 89 Depriving of inheritance (OED). 90 Penn apparently misidentifies the statute; the wording resembles the Oath of Justices, 20 Edw. III (1346). 91 Actually Penn misstates the date twice; this is 28 Edward I c. 1 (1300). 87 88

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Part I: Political Liberties is the Judges Charge and Oath. 2 Edw. 3. chap. 8. 14 Ed. 3. 14. 11 R. 2. chap. 10. 5ly Such care hath been taken, for the preservation of this Great Charter, that in the 25th of Edw. 1. It was enacted, That Commissioners should issue forth, that there should be chosen in every Shire-Court, by the commonalty of the same Shire, three Substantial men, Knights, or other lawful, wise, and well disposed persons, to be Justices, which shall be assigned by the Kings Letters, Patents, under the great Seal, to hear and determine (without any other writ, but only their Commission) such plaints as shall be made upon all those, that commit, or offend against any point, contained in the aforesaid Charters. 21. Edw. 1. chap. 1.91 6ly The necessity of preserving these Charters, hath appeared in nothing more, than in the care they have taken to confirm them; which as Cook observes, hath been by thirty two Parliaments Confirmed, Established, and Commanded to be put in execution, with the condign punishment they had inflicted upon the Offenders. Cooks Proem, to the second Book of his Inst. 7ly That in the notable Petition of Right, many of these great Priviledges, and free Customs, contained in the aforesaid Charters, and other good Laws, are recited and confirmed, 3 Car. 1.92 8ly The late King, in his Declaration, at New-Market, 1641. acknowledged the Law to be the Rule of his Power, By which he doubtless [53] intended Fundamental Laws, since it may be the great advantage of Countries, sometimes to suspend the execution of temporary Laws.93 Having so manifestly evidenced that venerable esteem, our Ancestors had of that Golden Rule (the Great Charter) with their deep solicitude, to preserve it from the defacing of Usurpation and Faction. We shall proceed to give an account of their just resentment and earnest prosecution against some of those, who in any Age have adventured, to

Petition of Right (1628), 3 Car. I c. 1. His Majesties Declaration to Both Houses of Parliament (Edinburgh, 1642), 5. The reference to King Alfred is apparently not to Lambarde but to Horn’s Mirror of Justices; Horn reports forty-four judges executed in one year (p. 239). Alfred’s correction of unjust judges is mentioned by his ninth-century biographer, Asser (Life of King Alfred, ch. 106); but the purported numbers have been dismissed as an “absurd story” (D. Alcock, Great and Good [London, 1864], p. 72).

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties undermine that antient Foundation, by introducing an Arbitrary way of Government. 1st, As Juditious Lambard reports in his Saxon Translation; That the Kings in those dayes, were by their Coronation-Oaths obliged to keep the Antient Fundamental Laws and Customs of this Land (of which this great Charter is but declaratory) so did King Alfred (reputed the most famous Compiler of Laws amongst them) give this discovery of his indignation against his own Judges, for acting contrary to those Fundamental Laws, that he commanded the execution of forty of them; which may be a seasonable Caveat to Judges of our times.94 2d. Hubert de Burgo, once chief Justice of England[,] having advised Edw. 1. in the eleventh year of his reign, (in his Counsel holden at Oxford, To cancel this great Charter, and that of the Forrest) was justly sentenced according to Law, by his Peers, in open Parliament. When the Statute called CONFIRMATIONIS CARTARUM was made; in the first Chapter whereof, Magna Charter, is peculiarly called, the Common Law, 25 Edw. 1. chap. 2.95 3d The Spencers, (both Father and Son) for their Arbitrary Domination, and rash, and evil counsel to Edw. the 2d (by which he was seduced to break the Great Charter) were Banished for their pains, as Cook relates.96 4ly The same fate attended Tresillian and Belknap, for their illegal proceedings.97 5ly The Breach of this great Charter, was the ground of that exem- [54] plary Justice, done upon Empson and Dudley,98 whose case is very memorable in this point; For though they gratified Hen. 7. in what they did, and had an Act of Parliament for their Warrant, made the eleventh of his reign; yet met they with their due reward from the hands of Justice, that Act being against Equity and common Reason, and so no justifiable Ground or Apology, for those frequent Abuses, and Oppressions of the People, they were found guilty of. Hear what the Lord Cook further saith, concerning the matter,99

Hubert de Burgh (c. 1170–1243), first earl of Kent and justiciar (ODNB). De Burgh advised Henry III, not Edward I. 96 Proem to The Second Part of the Institutes. 97 Robert Tresilian (executed 1388) and Sir Robert Bealknap (exiled to Ireland 1388) (ODNB). 98 Sir Richard Empson (b. 1450) and Edmund Dudley (b.1462), beheaded on Tower Hill in 1510. 99 From below through “sit justum” – with the exception of the parenthetical “a Case…” – is taken verbatim from Coke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes (London, 1644), pp. 39–41. 95

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Part I: Political Liberties “There was an Act of Parliament, made in the eleventh year of King Hen. 7. which had a fair flattering Preamble, pretending to avoid divers mischiefs, which were (1st) The high displeasure of Almighty God. (2d) The great Let of the Common Law, And (3d) The great Let of the Wealth of this Land. And the purvien of that Act, tended in the execution contrary, EX DIAMETRO. viz. To the high displeasure of Almighty God, and the great Let, nay the utter subversion of the common Law, and the great Let of the Wealth of this Land, as hereafter shall appear;” the substance of which Act follows in these words. “That from thenceforth, as well Justices of Assize, as Justices of the Peace, in every County, upon information for the King, before them made, without any Finding or Presentment by Twelve men, shall have full Power and Authority, by their discretion; and to hear and determine all Offences, as Riots, unlawfull Assemblies, &c. committed and done against any Act or Statute made, and not repeal’d, &c. (a Case that very much resembles this of our own times.)” [55] “By pretext of this Law, Empson and Dudley did commit upon the Subjects, unsufferable Pressure and Oppressions; and therefore this Statute was justly, soon after the decease of Hen. 7. repealed, at the next Parliament, after his decease, by the Statute of the 1 H. 8. chap. 6. “A good Caveat to Parliaments, to leave all causes to be measured by the Golden and Straight Metwand100 of the Law, and not to the incertain and crooked Cord of discretion. “It is almost incredible to foresee, when any Maxime, or Fundamental Law of this Realm is altered (as elsewhere hath been observed) what dangerous inconveniences do follow; which most expresly appeareth by this most unjust and strange Act of the eleventh of H. 7. for hereby not only Empson and Dudley themselves, but such Justices of Peace (corrupt men) as they caused to be authorized, committed most grievous, and heavy oppressions and exactions, grinding the faces of the poor Subjects by penal Laws (be they never so obsolete, or unfit for the time) by information only, without any presentment, or trial by Jury, being the antient Birth-right of the Subject; but to hear and determine the same, by their discretions; inflicting such penalty as the Statute not repealed imposed. These, and other like oppressions and exactions by, or by the means of Standard by which something is measured or judged (OED, def. 2). Let those who follow, be horrified by their end. Discretion is the selection of that which is just by the law.

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Empson and Dudley, and their Instruments, brought infinite Treasure to the Kings Cof[f]ers, whereof the King himself, at the end, with great grief, and compunction, repented, as in another place we have observed. “This Statute of the 11th of H. 7. we have re[c]ited, and shewed the just inconveniences thereof; to the end, that the like should never hereafter be attempted in any Court of Parliament; and that others might avoid the fearfull end of those two Time-servers, Empson and Dudley, Qui eorum vestigiis insistunt, eorum exitus per horrescant.101 [56] “See the Statute of 8. Edw. 4. chap 2. a Statute of Liveries, an Information, &c. By the discretion of the Judges, to stand as an Original, &c. This Act is deservedly repealed, vide, 12 R. 2. chapter 13. Punishment by discretion, &c. vide, 5th of H. 4. chap. 6, 8. See the Commission of Sewers; discretion ought to be thus described, Discretio est discernere per Legem, quid sit justum;102 From whence three things seem most remarkable. First, The great Equity and Justice of the Great Charter, with the high value our Ancestors have most deservedly set upon it. Secondly, The dreadful Maledictions, or Curse, they have denounced upon the Breakers of it; with those exemplary punishments they have not spared to inflict upon such notorious Offenders. Thirdly, So hainous a thing was it esteemed of old, to endeavour an enervation, or subvertion of these Antient Rights and Priviledges, that Acts of Parliaments themselves (otherwise the most sacred with the People,) have not been of force enough to secure or defend such persons from condign punishment, who in pursuance of them, have acted inconsistant with our Great Charter. Therefore it is, that great Lawyer, the Lord Cook, doth more then once aggravate the example of Empson and Dudley (with persons of the same rank) into a just caution, as well to Parliaments as Judges, Justices as inferior Magistrates, to decline making, or executing any Act, that may in the least seem to restring or confine this so often avowed and confirmed Great Charter of the Liberties of England since Parliaments are said to err when they cross it; the Obeyers of their Acts punished, as Time-serving Transgressers; and that Kings themselves, (though enriched by those courses) have with great Compunction and Repentance left among their dying words their recantations. Therefore most notable and true it was, with which we shall conclude [57] this present Subject, what the King pleased to observe in a speech to Charles II, speech at end of 1661 parliamentary session, in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England (London, 1808), vol. IV: p. 247.

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Part I: Political Liberties the Parliament, about 1662. (viz.) The good old Rules of Law are our best security.103 The manner of the Courts behaviour towards the Prisoners, and Jury, with their many extravigant Expressions, must not altogether slip our observation. (1st) Their carriage to the Jury outdoes all precedents; they entertained them more like a Pack of Fellons, then a Jury of honest men, as being fitter to be try’d themselves, then to acquit others. In short, no Jury, for many Ages, received so many instances of displeasure and affront, because they prefered not the humor of the Court before the quiet of their own Consciences, even to be esteemed as perjured, though they had really been so, had they not done what they did. (2d) Their treatment of the Prisoners was not more unchristian, then inhumane, History can scarce tell us of one Heathen Roman that ever was so ignoble to his Captive: What! to accuse, and not hear them; to threaten to Bore their Tongues, Gag and Stop their Mouths, Fetter their Leggs, meerly for defending themselves, and that by the antient fundamental Laws of England too. O Barbarous! had they been Turks and Infidels, that carriage would have ill become a Christian Court, such actions proving much stronger dissuasives, then Arguments to convince them, how much the Christian Religion inclines men to Justice and moderation above their dark Idolatry. It is truly lamentable that such occasion should be given, for intelligence to forreign Parts, where England hath had the reputation of a Christian Country, by the ill treating of its Sober and Religious Inhabitants for their conscientious Meetings to worship God. But, above all, Dissenters had little reason to have expected this boarish fierceness from the Mayor of London, when they consider his eager prosecution of the Kings Party under Cromwells Government, as thinking he could never give too great a Testimony of his Loyalty to that new Instrument, which makes the old Saying true, That one Runagade is worse then three Turks.104 Alderman Bludworth, being conscious to himself of his partial kindness to the Popish Friars, hopes to make amends by his zealous prosecution of [58] the poor Dissenters; for at the same Sessions he moved to have an Evidence Common maxim. The saying appears in Whiting’s Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (R56), attributed to Benjamin Franklin, where the ratio is one renegade to ten Turks. 105 Bludworth’s entry in ODNB does not include any details on this purported episode, although it does note that he was “accused of secret Roman Catholic sympathies.” 106 Mary I, reigned 1553–8. 104

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties (of no small quality) against Harrison, the Mendicant Fryar, sent to Bridewel and whipt; he was earnest to have the Jury fined and imprisoned, because they brought not the Prisoners guilty, when no Crime was proved against them, but peaceably worshipping their God: Whence it may be easie to observe, That Popish Friars, and Prelatical Persecutors are meer Confederates.105 But what others have only adventured to stammer at, the Recorder of London, has been so ingenious as to speak most plainly; or else, what means those two fatal Expressions, which are become the talk and terror both of City and Country? First, in assuring the Jury, That there would be a Law next Session of Parliament, That no man should have the protection of the Law, but such as conformed to the Church: Which should it be as true, as we hope it is false (and a dishonorable Prophesie of that great Assembly) the Papists may live to see their Marian dayes out-done by profest Protestants.106 But surely no English-man can be so sottish, as to conceive that his right to Liberty and Property, came in with his Profession of the Protestant Religion; or that his natural and humane Rights, are dependant on certain Religious apprehensions; and consequently, he must esteem it a cruelty in the abstract, that persons should be denied the benefit of those Laws which relate to civil concerns. who by their deportment in civil affairs, have no wayes transgrest them, but meerly upon an Opinion of Faith and matter of Conscience. It is well known that Liberty and Property, Trade and Commerce were in the World long before the Points in difference betwixt Protestants and Dissenters, as the common Priviledges of Mankind; and therefore not to be measured out by a conformity to this, or the other religious Perswasion, but purely as English-men. Secondly, But we should rather choose to esteem this an Expression of heat in the Recorder, then that we could believe a Londons Recorder should say, an English Parliament should impose so much Slavery on the present Age, and entayle it upon their own Posterity (who for ought they know may be reckoned among the Dissenters of the next Age) did he not encourage us to believe, it was both his Desire and his Judgment, from that deliberate Elogy he made on the Spanish-Inquisition, expressing himself [59] much to this purpose: viz. “Till now I never understood the reason of See above, p. 49. Jacob van Hoogstraaten (c. 1460–1527), Flemish Dominican, religious controversialist, and inquisitor. 109 Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534), papal legate to the Diet of Augsburg in 1518. 107 108

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Part I: Political Liberties the pollicy and prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the Inquisition amongst them: And certainly it will never be well with us, till some thing like unto the Spanish-Inquisition be in England.”107 The gross malignity of which Saying, is almost inexpressable: What does this but justifie that Hellish design of the Papists to have prevented the first Reformation; If this be good Doctrine, then Hoggestrant, the grand Inquisitor, was a more venerable Person then Luther the Reformer.108 It was an expression that had better become Cajetan the Popes Legate, then Howel, a Protestant Cities Recorder.109 This is so far from helping to convert the Spaniard, that it is the way to harden him in his Idolatry; when his abominable cruelty shall be esteemed prudence; and his most barbarous and exquisite torturing of Truth, an excellent way to prevent Faction. If the Recorder has spake for no more then for himself, it is well; but certainly he little deserves to be thought a Protestant, and a Lawyer, that puts both Reformation and Law into the Inquisition: There being nothing more destructive of the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of England, and that noble design of primitive Reformation, then the Arbitrary Power and Terrifying ra[c]ks of the Spanish-Inquisition. And doubtless the supream Governours of the Land, are highly obl[i]ged in Honour and Conscience (in discharge of their Trust to God and the People[)], to take these things into their serious consideration, as what is expected from them, by those who earnestly wish theirs and the Kingdoms safety and prosperity. [60]

A Postscript. The Copy of Judge Keeling’s Case, taken out of the Parliament Journal.110 Die Mercurij, 11th Decembris, 1667. The House resumed the Hearing of the rest of the Report touching the matter of Restraints upon Juries; and that upon the examination of divers Witnesses, in several Clauses of restraints, put upon Juries, by the Lord Chief Justice Keeling; whereupon the Committee made their Resolutions, which are as followeth.

Parliament Journal, December 11, 1667, www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/ vol9/pp35-36#h3-0008; December 13, 1667, www.british-history.ac.uk/commonsjrnl/vol9/p37#h3-0011. See also Keyling (ODNB).

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Selection 1: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties First, That the proceedings of the Lord Chief Justices, in the Cases now reported, are Innovations, in the Trial of men for their Lives and Liberties; and that he hath used an Arbitrary and Illegal power, which is of dangerous consequence to the Lives and Liberties of the people of England, and tends to the introducing of an Arbitrary Government. Secondly, That in the place of Judicature, the Lord Chief Justice hath under-valued, vilified, and contemned Magna Charta, the great Preservers of our Lives, Freedom, and Property. Thirdly, That he be brought to Trial, in order to condign punishment, in such manner as the House should judge most fit and requisite. [61]

Die Veneris, 13th Decembris, 1667. Resolved, &c. That the Precedents and Practice of Fining or Imprisoning, Jurors, for Verdicts, is Illegal. Now whether the Justices of this Court, in their Proceedings (both towards the Prisoners, and Jury) have acted according to Law, to their Oaths and Duty, and to do Justice without partiality, whereby Right might be preserved, the Peace of the Land secured, and our Ancient Laws established? or whether such Actions tend not to deprive us of our Lives and Liberties, to rob us of (our Birth-right) the Fundamental Laws of England? and finally to bring in an Arbitrary and Illegal power to usurp the Benches of all our Courts of Justice, we leave the English Reader to judge[.] Certainly, there can be no higher affront offered to King and Parliament, then the bringing their Reputations into suspition with their People, by the irregular actions of subordinate Judges: And no Age can parallel the carriage of this Recorder, Mayor, &c. Nor can we think so ignobly of the Parliament, as that they should do less then call these Persons to account, who fail’d not to do it to one less guilty, and of more repute, (to wit) Judge Keeling: For if his behaviour gave just ground of jealousie, that he intended an Innovation, and the introducing an Arbitrary Government, this Recorder much more. Did chief Justice Keeling say, Magna Charta was Magna farta; so did this Recorder too:111 And did Justice Keel-

The “Magna Farta” comment was apparently widespread, perhaps originating with Cromwell himself. See Ferdinand Mount, “Back to Runnymede,” London Review of Books 37: 8 (April 23, 2015): p. 15.

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Part I: Political Liberties ing Fine and Imprison Juries, contrary to all Law, so did this Recorder also. In short, there is no difference, unless it be, that the one was questioned, and the other deserves it: But we desire in this they may be said to differ. [62] That though the former escap’d punishment, the latter may not, who having a Precedent before, did notwithstanding notoriously transgress. To conclude, The Law supposes the King can’t err, because it is willing to suppose, he alwayes acts by Law (and Voluntas Legis, est voluntas Regis, Or the Kings Will is regulated by the Law) but it says no such

See pp. 59, 74.  113  “Let justice be done.”

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2. ENGLAND’s Present Interest DISCOVER’D With HONOUR to the PRINCE, AND SAFETY to the PEOPLE. In Answer to this One Question; What is most Fit, Easie and Safe at this Juncture of Affairs to be done, for Composing, at least Quieting of Differences; Allaying the Heat of Contrary Interests, & making them Subservient to the Interest of the Government, and Consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom? Presented and Submitted to the Consideration of SUPERIOURS, By William Penn. And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no Strife between me and thee; for we are Brethren, Gen. 13. 8. As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise, Luke 6. 31. Lex est Ratio sine appetitu.114 Printed in the Year 1675.

“Law is reason without desire [appetite]”: Aristotle, Politics, book 3, 1287a.

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Part I: Political Liberties

THE CONTENTS.115 The Introduction to the Question. The Question stated. The Answer to the Question. I. Of English Rights, in the British, Saxon and Norman Times. Particularly of Liberty and Property. Of Legislation. Of Juries. That they are Fundamental to the Government, and but repeated and confirmed by the Great Charter. The Reverence paid them by Kings and Parliaments, and their Care to ­preserve them. The Curse and Punishment that attended the Violators.

[p.b.]

More General Considerations of Property, &c. The Uncertainty and Ruin of Interests that follow, especially where it is not maintain’d; Precedents: That it is the Prince’s Interest to preserve it Inviolably from the fingering of the Church; that it is not Justly Forfeitable for Non-conformity to her; and that where she has the keeping of Property, the Government is chang’d from Civil to Ecclesiastical, King to Bishop, Parliament-House to the Vestary;116 for so the Clergy have the Keys as well of Civil as ChurchSociety. II. Of a Ballance, respecting Religious Differences. Eight Prudential Reasons why the Civil Magistrate should embrace it. Three Objections Answered. A Comprehension consider’d, but a Toleration preferr’d, upon Reasons and Examples.

I have retained the headings but removed the pagination from Penn’s original listing of “The Contents.” 116 Archaic spelling of “vestry,” body of parishioners charged with parish management (OED, def. 2). 115

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d III. Of General & Practical Religion. That the Promotion of it only is the Way to take in, and stop the Mouth of all Perswasions, being the Center to which all Parties verbally tend, and therefore the fittest Station for a prudent Magistrate to meet every Interest: the Neglect of it pernicious; Instances: That it is the Unum Necessarium117 to Felicity here & hereafter. An Exhortation to Superiours. A Corollary.

THE INTRODUCTION.

[1]

There is no LAW under Heaven, which hath its Rise from NATURE or GRACE, that forbids Men to Deal Honestly and Plainly with the greatest Personages in Matters of highest Importance to their Present and Future Good; On the Contrary, the Dictates of both enjoyn every Man that Office to his Neighbour, and from Charity among Private Persons, it becomes a Duty indispensible to the Publick: Nor do Worthy Minds think ever the less kindly of Honest and Humble Monitors; and God, he knows, that oft-times Princes are Deceived, and Kingdoms Languish for Want of them. How far the Posture of our Affairs will justifie this Address, I shall submit to your Judgment, and the Observation of every intelligent Reader. Certain it is, that there are few Kingdoms in the World more Divided within themselves, and whose Religious Interests lie more seemingly cross to all Accommodation, then that we live in, which renders the Magistrate’s Task hard, and giveth him a Difficulty, some think insurmountable. Your Endeavours for an Uniformity have been many; Your Acts not a few to Enforce it; but the Consequence, whether you intended it or no, through the Barbarous Practices of those that have had their Execution, hath been the Spoiling of several Thousands of the Free Inhabitants of [2] this Kingdom of their Unforfeited Rights. Persons have been flung into Jails, Gates and Trunks broak open, Goods distrained, till a Stool hath not been left to sit down on; Flocks of Cattel driven, whole Barns full of Corn seized, Parents left without their Children, Children without their Parents, both without Subsistence: But that which aggravates the Cruelty, is, the One thing necessary.

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Part I: Political Liberties Widdows Mite hath not escaped their Hands;118 they have made her Cow the Forfeit of her Conscience, not leaving her a Bed to lie on, nor a Blanket to cover her: And which is yet more Barbarous, and helps to make up this TRAGEDY, the poor Helpless Orphan’s Milk boiling over the Fire, was flung away, and the Skillet made part of their Prize; that, had not Nature in Neighbours been stronger then Cruelty in such Informers and Officers, to open her Bowels for their Relief and Subsistence, they must have utterly perisht. Nor can these inhuman Instruments plead Conscience or Duty to those Laws that have been made against Dissenters, since their Actions have abundantly transcended the severest Clause in them; for to see the Imprison’d has been Suspicion enough for a Jail; and to visit the Sick, to make a Conventicle: Fining and Straining119 for Preaching and being at a Meeting where there hath been neither; and Forty Pound for Twenty, at pick and choose too, is a Moderate Advance with some of them. Others thinking this a Way too Dull and Troublesom, alter the Question, and turn, Have you met? which the Act intends,120 to, Will you Swear? which it intendeth not: so that in some Places it hath been sufficient to a Primunire,121 that men have had Estates to lose; I mean, such men, who through [3] Tenderness refuse the Oath, but by Principle love the Allegiance not less then their Adversaries.122 Finding then by Sad Experience, and a long Tract of Time, That the very Remedies apply’d to cure Dissension increase it; and that the more vigorously an Uniformity is coercively prosecuted, the wider Breaches grow, the more inflamed Persons are, and fixt in their Resolutions to stand by their Principles; which, besides all other Inconveniencies to those that give them Trouble, their very SUFFERINGS beget that ­COMPASSION in the Multitude, which rarely miss of many Friends, and makes a Preparation for not a few Proselytes; so much more Reverend is Suffering, then making men to suffer for Religion, even of those that cannot suffer for Their Religion, if yet they have Any Religion to suffer for: Histories are full of Examples; The Persecution of the Christian Religion made it more Illustrious then its Doctrine: Perhaps it will be deny’d to English Dissenters, that they rely upon so good a Cause, and therefore a

Mark 12:43, Luke 21:2.  119  That is, distraining: seizure of property to satisfy fines. Conventicle Act, 22 Car. II c. 1 (1670). 121 Praemunire originated in attempts to limit papal authority in England, but by the seventeenth century had developed into a more general charge of treason. 122 See Penn et al., A Treatise of Oaths (London, 1675). 118 120

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Vanity in them to expect that Success. Arrianism itself, reputed the foulest Heresie by the Church, was by no Artifice of its Party so disseminated, as the severe Opposition of the Homousians.123 Contests naturally draw Company; and the Vulgar are justified in their Curiosity, if not Pitty, when they see so many Wiser Men busie themselves to suppress a People, by whom they see no other Ill then that for Non-conformity in Matters of Religion, they bear Indignities patiently. To be short; If all the Interruptions, Informations, Fines, Imprisonments, Exiles and Blood, the great Enemy of Nature, as well as Grace, hath ex- [4] cited Man in all Ages to about Matters of Worship, from Cain and Abel’s Time to ours, could furnish us with sufficient Precedents, that the Design proposed by the Inflictors of so much Severity, was ever answered; that they have smother’d Opinions, and not enflamed, but extinguisht Contest, it might perhaps, at least prudentially, give Check to our Expectations, and allay my just Confidence in this Address; But since such Attempts have ever been found Improsperous,124 as well as that they are too Costly, and that they have procured the Judgments of God, the Hatred of Men; to the Sufferers, Misery; to their Countries, Decay of People and Trade; and to their own Consciences, an infinite Guilt; I fall to the Question, and then the Solution of it; in which, as I declare, I intend nothing that should in the least abate of that Love, Honour and Service that are due to you; so I beseech you, do me that Justice, as to make the fairest Interpretation of my Expressions; for, the whole of my Plain and Honest Design is, to offer my Mite for the Increase of your True Honour, and my dear Country’s Felicity. William Penn.

The QUESTION. What is most Fit, Easie and Safe at this Juncture of Affairs to be done, for Composing, at least Quieting Differences; for Allaying the Heat of Contrary Interests, and making them Subservient to the Interest of the Government, and Consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom?

The fourth-century Arian controversy concerned the nature of the Trinity. Arians insisted that the Son was created ex nihilo, while Homousians took their name from the Greek for “of one substance,” contending that Father and Son were consubstantial. 124 Not prosperous; unsuccessful (OED, def. 1). 123

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[5]

Part I: Political Liberties The ANSWER. I. An Inviolable and Impartial Maintenance of English Rights. II. Our Superiours governing themselves upon a Ballance, as near as may be, towards the several Religious Interests. III. A sincere Promotion of General and Practical Religion. I shall briefly discourse upon these Three Things, and endeavour to prove them a sufficient, if not the only best Answer that can be given to the Question propounded.

Of ENGLISH-RIGHTS.

[6]

There is no Government in the World but it must either stand upon Will and Power, or Condition and Contract: The one rules by Men; the other by Laws. And above all Kingdoms under Heaven it is England’s Felicity to have her Constitution so impartially Just and Free, as there cannot well be any thing more remote from Arbitrariness, and jealous of preserving her Laws, by which all Right is maintain’d. These Laws are either Fundamental, and so immutable; or more Superficial and Temporary, and consequently alterable. By Superficial Laws we understand such Acts, Laws or Statutes, as are suited to present Occurrences, and Emergencies of State; and which may as well be abrogated, as they were first made for the Good of the Kingdom: For Instance; those Statutes that relate to Victuals, Cloaths, Times and Places of Trade, &c. which have ever stood whilst the Reason of them was in Force; but when that Benefit, which once redounded, fell by fresh Accidents, they ended according to that old Maxim, Cessante ratione legis, cessat lex.125 By Fundamental Laws I do not only understand such as immediately spring from Synteresis,126 that Eternal Principle of Truth and Sapience, “The law ceases when the reason for the law ceases”: see Coke, Reports, Part VII, 7a (Milborn’s case). Theological analyses of conscience involved two concepts: synderesis (here, synteresis) and conscience. Synderesis denoted a kind of natural knowledge of morality, potentially available to all humans. Conscience, on the other hand, generally referred to the application (aided by revelation) of these general moral principles to specific situations. (See also The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience [Selection 5], ch. 5.) See, e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologica, q. 79; Timothy C. Potts, “Conscience,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Normann Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982); and Paul Strohm, Conscience: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 25.

125

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d more or less disseminated through Mankind, which are as the CornerStones of Humane Structure, the Basis of reasonable Societies, without which all would run into Heaps, and Confusion: namely, Honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, jus suum cuiq[ue] tribuere; that is, To live Honestly, not to Hurt another, and to give every one their Right127 (Excellent Principles, and common to all Nations: Though that it self were sufficient to our present purpose). But those Rights and Priviledges, which I call English, and which are the proper Birth-right of English Men, and may be reduced to these Three: First, An Ownership, and Undisturbed Possession, That what they have, is rightly theirs, and no Body’s else. 2dly, A Voting of every Law that is made, whereby that Ownership or [7] Propriety128 may be maintained. 3dly, An Influence upon, and a real Share in that Judicatory Power that must apply every such Law; which is the Ancient, Necessary and Laudable Use of Juries, if not found among the Britains, to be sure practised by the Saxons, and continued through the Normans to this very day. That these have been the Ancient and Undoubted Rights of English men, as three great Roots, under whose spacious Branches the English People have been wont to shelter themselves against the Storms of Arbitrary Government, I shall endeavour to prove. 1. An Ownership and Undisturbed Possession.129 This relates both to Title and Security of Estate, and Liberty of Person, from the Violence of Arbitrary Power. ’Tis true, the Foot-Steps of the British Government are very much over-grown by Time: There is scarcely any Thing remarkable left us, but what we are beholden to Strangers for; either their own Unskilfulness in Letters, or their Depopulations and Conquests by Invaders, have

Ulpian, in Justinian, Digest, I: 10.  128  Property (OED, def. 3). For the remainder of Part I of England’s Present Interest, as mentioned in the introduction to this part, Penn draws heavily on Nathaniel Bacon’s An Historicall Discourse of the Uniformity of the Government of England (London, 1647). At times he takes whole passages from Bacon; at others he reproduces Bacon’s marginal citations. Where possible, I trace the references Penn takes from Bacon to their original sources, although in many cases Penn merely takes them from Bacon’s text and references them second-hand. Readers wishing to see Penn’s, or Bacon’s, complete marginal citations in their original form should consult online images of both texts, available at Early English Books Online. I also reference the chapters in Bacon’s text to which Penn refers, generally at the end of relevant paragraphs. (Given the multiple editions of Bacon’s Historicall Discourse, I note that the references in this volume are to Wing B349.)

127 129

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Part I: Political Liberties deprived the World of a particular Story of their Laws and Customs in Peace or War: However, Caesar, Tacitus, and especially Dion, say enough to prove their Nature and their Government to be as far from slavish, as their Breeding and Manners were remote from the Education and greater Skill of the Romans. Beda and M. Westminster say as much.130 The Law of Property they observed, and made those Laws that concern’d the Preservation of it. The Saxons brought no Alteration to these two Fundamentals of our English Government; for they were a Free People, govern’d by Laws, of which they themselves were the MAKERS; that is, There was no Law [8] made without the Consent of the People (de majoribus omnes) as Tacitus observeth of the Germans in general:131 They lost nothing by transporting of themselves hither; and doubtless found a greater Consistency between their Laws, then their Ambition: For the Learned Collector of the British Councils tells us, That Ethelston, the Saxon King, pleading with the People, told them, Seeing I, according to your Law, allow what is yours, do ye so with me.132 Whence Three Things are observable, 1st, That something was theirs, that no Body else could dispose of. 2dly, That they have Property by their own Law; therefore they had a Share in making their own Laws. 3dly, That the Law was Umpi[re] between King and People; neither of them ought to infringe; the Law limited them. This Ina, the Great Saxon King, confirmeth; There is no Great Man, saith he, nor any other in the whole Kingdom, that may abolish written Laws.133 It was also a great part of the Saxon Oath, administred to the Kings at their Entrance upon the Government, to maintain and rule according to the Laws of the Nation. Their Parliament they called Micklemote, or Wittangemote; it consisted of King, Lords and People, before the Clergy interwove themselves with the Civil Government. And Andrew Horn in his Mirror of

Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War, book 4; Tacitus, Life of Agricola, chs. 10–13; Dio, Roman History, book 39, chs. 51–53; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book 1, ch. 17; [Matthew Westminster], Flowers of History. (Flowers of History is currently attributed to Roger of Wendover.) See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 1–3. 131 Tacitus, Germania, ch. 11. 132 Sir Henry Spelman, Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Constitutiones, in re Ecclesiarum Orbis Brittanici (London, 1639), p. 397. 133 Laws of Ina, Preface: “that no ealdorman nor subject of ours may from henceforth pervert these our decrees.” In The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. F. L. Attenborough (Cambridge University Press, 1922), 37. Penn’s marginal reference to Ina’s laws, following Bacon, references William Lambarde’s Archaionomia (London, 1644). 130

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Justice, tells us, That the Grand Assembly of the Kingdom in the Saxon time, was to confer of the Government of Gods People, how they might be kept from Sin in quiet, and have Right done them according to the Customs and Laws.134 Nor did this Law end with the Saxon Race: William the Conqueror, as he is usually called, quitting all Claim by Conquest, gladly stoopt to the Laws observ’d by the Saxon Kings, and so became a King by Leave, valuing a Title by Election before that which is founded in Power only: He therefore at his Coronation made a solemn Covenant, to maintain the good, approv’d, and ancient Laws of the Kingdom, and to inhibit all Spoil and unjust Judgment.135 And this Henry the first, his third Son, amongst others his Titles mention’d in his Charter, to make Ely a Bishoprick, calls himself Son of William the Great, who by Hereditary Right succeeded King Edward (call’d the Confessor) in this Kingdom.136 An ancient Chronicle of Liechfield speaks of a Council of Lords that advised William of Normandy, To call together all the Nobles and Wise Men throughout their Counties of England, that they might set down their own Laws and Customs; which was about the fourth year of his Reign:137 Which implies, that they had Fundamental Laws, and that he intended their Confirmation as followeth. And one of the first Laws made by this King, which, as a notable Author saith, may be call’d the first Magna Charta in the Norman Times,138 by which he reserved to himself nothing of the Free-men of this Kingdom, but their Free Service; in the Conclusion of it saith, that The Lands of the Inhabitants of this Kingdom were granted to them in Inheritance of the King, and by the Common Council of the whole Kingdom: which Law doth also provide, That they shall hold their Lands and Tenements well or quietly,

Horn, Mirror of Justices, ch.1, secs. 2, 3; ch. 4, sec. 11. See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 4, 16, 20. 135 Eadmer, History (Eadmeri monachi Cantuariensis Historiae nouorum, ed. John Selden [London, 1623]), p. 13; Matthew of Paris, Life of William the Conqueror, in Abbreviatio Chronicorum Angliae (Epitome of Chronicles). See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 45. 136 Eadmer’s History, p. 211. Penn’s original marginal entry cites Spicileg., an abbreviation for Notae et Spicilegium, appended to Selden’s edition of Eadmer’s History. 137 The Lichfield Chronicle was a fourteenth-century manuscript covering events between 349 and 1388. (see Edward Donald Kennedy, “Lichfield Chronicle,” in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu [Brill, 2016], at https:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-the-medieval-chronicle/ lichfield-chronicle-SIM_00437?s.num=19&s.rows=50). 138 The “notable Author” is Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 46, p. 76. 134

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[9]

Part I: Political Liberties

[10]

and in Peace, from all unjust Tax and Tillage; which is further expounded in the Laws of Henry the first, ch. 2. That no Tribute or Tax should be taken, but what was due in Edward the Confessor’s Time.139 So that the Norman Kings claim no other Right in the Lands, and Possessions of any of their Subjects, then according to English Law and Right. And so tender were they of PROPERTY in those times, that when Justice it self became importunate in a Case, no Distress could issue without publick Warrant obtain’d; nor that neither, but upon Three Complaints first made: Nay, when Rape and Plunder was rife, and men seemed to have no more Right to their own, then they had Power to maintain, even then was this Law sufficient Sanctuary to all Oppressed, by being publickly pleaded at the Bar against all Usurpations, though it were under the Pretence of their Conqueror’s Right it self, as by the Case of Edwin of Sharnbourn appears.140 The like Obligation to maintain this Fundamental Law of Property, with the appendent Rights of the People, was taken by Rufus, Henry the 1st, Stephen, Henry the 2d, Richard the 1st, John, and Henry the 3d; which brings me to that Famous Law, called, Magna Charta, or The Great Charter of England, of which more anon; it being my Design to shew, That nothing of the Essential Rights of English men was thereby de novo granted, as in Civility to King Henry the third, it is termed; but that they are therein only repeated and confirmed: Wherefore I shall return to antecedent Times, to fetch down the remaining Rights.141 The second part of this first Fundamental is, Liberty of Person. The Saxons were so tender in the point of Imprisonment, that there was little or no Use made of it; nor would they so punish their Bond-men, vinculis coercere rarum est:142 In case of Debt or Dammage, the Recovery thereof was either by a Delivery of the just Value in Goods, or upon the Sheriffs Sale of the Goods, in Money; and if that satisfied not, the Land was extended; and when all was gone, they were accustomed to make their last Seizure upon the Party’s Arms, and then he was reputed an Laws of William the Conqueror, ch. 55, in The Laws of William the Conqueror, with Notes and References, ed. Robert Kelham (London, 1779), p. 82; Leges Henrici Primi, ch. 2, reprinted in Lambarde, Archaionomia, p. 176. 140 Laws of William the Conqueror, chs. 42, 45, in Laws, ed. Kelham, pp. 69–70, 734–775; Spelman, Glossarium Archaiologicum (London, 1664), p. 227; William Camden, Brittania (London, 1637), p. 480. See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 44, 46, 49. 141 See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 46, 57. 142 Loosely translated, it was rare to hold them in custody. 139

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Undone Man, and cast upon the Charity of his Friends for Subsistence, but his Person never imprisoned for the Debt, no, nor in the King’s Case:143 And to the Honour of King Alfred be it spoaken, He imprison’d one of his Judges for Imprisoning a Man in that Case. And we find among his Laws this Passage, Qui immerentem Paganum vinculis constrinxerit, decem solidis noxam sarcito: That if a man should imprison a Pagan, or Heathen unjustly, his Purgation of that Offence should be no less than the Payment of Ten Shillings; a Sum very considerable in those days.144 Nor did the Revolution from Saxon to Norman drop this Priviledge; for [11] besides the general Confirmation of former Rights by William, surnamed the Conqueror, his Son Henry the first, particularly took such Care of continuing this part of Property inviolable, that in his Time no Person was to be imprisoned for committing of Mortal Crime it self, unless he were first attainted by the Verdict of Twelve Men.145 Thus much for the first of my Three Fundamentals, Right of Estate, and Liberty of Person; that is to say, I am no man’s Bond-man, and what I possess is inviolably mine own. 2. A Voting of every Law that is made, whereby that Ownership or Propriety may be maintained. That the second Fundamental of our English Government was no Incroachment upon the Kings of more modern Ages, but extant long before the Great Charter made in the Reign of Hen. 3.146 even as early as the Britains themselves; and that it continued to the time of Hen. 3. I shall prove by several Instances. Caesar in his Commentaries tells us, That it was the Custom of the British Cities to Elect their General; and if in War, why not in Peace? Penn here quotes from Bacon, Historicall discourse, ch. 39; the reference appears to be to chapter 20 of The Laws of Edward the Confessor. For a contemporary translation, see O’Brien, God’s Peace and the King’s Peace, pp. 179–180. 144 Marginal note to Laws of King Alfred, c. 1, 31, although those laws do not seem to refer to the topic under discussion (see The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, 63–65, 77). The correct reference appears to be c. 35: “If anyone lays bonds on an unoffending commoner, he shall pay 10 shillings compensation” (p. 79). Alfred’s correction of unjust judges is mentioned by Asser (Life of King Alfred, ch. 106). See also Peoples, pp. 59, 74. 145 Laws of William the Conqueror, chs. 42, 45, 55, in Laws, ed. Kelham, pp. 69–70, 73–75, 82–83; Leges Henrici Primi, ch. 5. See Bacon, Historicall discourse, chs. 39, 53. 146 9 Hen. III c. 1–37 (1225). 143

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Part I: Political Liberties Dion assures us in the Life of Severus the Emperor, That in Britain the People held a Share in Power and Government; which is the modestest Construction his words will bear. And Tacitus saith, They had a Common Council; and that one great Reason of their Overthrow by the Romans was, their not Consulting with, and Relying upon their Common Council.147 Again, Both Beda and Mat. Westminster tell us, That the Britains summon’d a Synod, chose their Moderator, and expell’d the Pelagian Creed: All which supposes popular Assemblies, with Power to order National Affairs.148 And indeed, the learned Author of the British [12] Councils gives some Hints to this Purpose, That they had a Common Council, and call’d it, KYFR-Y-THEN.149 The Saxons were not inferiour to the Britains in this Point, and Story furnisheth us with more and plainer Proofs. They brought this Liberty along with them, and it was not likely they should lose it, by transporting themselves into a Country where they also found it. Tacitus reports it to have been generally the German-Liberty, like unto the Concio of the Athenians and Lacedemonians. They call their Free-men Frilingi, and these had Votes in the Making and Executing the general Laws of the Kingdom.150 In Ethelbert’s time, after Austin’s Insinuations had made his Followers a Part of the Government, the Commune Concilium was tam Cleri quam Populi [both clergy and people].151 In Ina’s time, Suasu & instituto Episcoporum, omnium Senatorum & natu majorum sapientum populi. Alfred after him reform’d the former Laws consulto sapientum.152 Likewise Matters of publick and general Charge, in case of War, &c. we have granted in the Assembly, Rege, Baronibus & Populo.153 And though the Saxon Word properly imports the Meeting of Wise Men; yet all that would come might be present, and interpose, their Like or Dislike of the present Proposition, as that of Ina, in magna servorum Dei f­requentia.154 Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War, books 5 and 6; book 7, ch. 63; Dio, Roman History, book 77, ch. 12; Tacitus, Agricola, ch. 12. 148 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book I, ch. 17; Matthew of Westminster [Roger of Wendover], Flowers of History, entry for 446, pp. 212–214. 149 Attributed to Sir Henry Spelman; see, e.g., The People’s Book; Comprising Their Chartered Rights, and Practical Wrongs, ed. William Carpenter (London, 1831), p. v. 150 Tacitus, Germania, chs. 28–45, esp. chs. 28, 37; Plutarch, Lives (Solon, Lycurgus). 151 Spelman, Concilia, p. 126.  152 Lambarde, Archaionomia, pp. 1, 22. 153 Lambarde, Archeion, pp. 139, 250–253.    154 Lambarde, Archaionomia, p. 1. 147

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Again, Commune Concilium seniorum & populorum totius regni, the Common Council of the Elders and People of the whole Kingdom. The Council of Winton, Ann. 855. is said to be in the Presence of the Great Men, aliorumq[ue] fidelium infinita multitudine; and an infinite multitude of other faithful People, which was nigh Four Hundred Years before the Great Charter was made.155 My last Instance of the Saxon Ages shall be out of the Glossery of the Learned English Knight, H. Spelman: The Saxon Wittangemote or Parliament (saith he) is a Convention of the Princes, as well Bishops as Magistrates, and the free People of the Kingdom; and that the said Wittangemote consulted of the common Safety in Peace and War, and for the Promotion of the common Good.156 William of Normandy chose rather to rely upon the Peoples Consent, then his own Power to obtain the Kingdom. He swore to them to maintain their old Laws and Priviledges; they to him Obedience for his so governing of them: for, as a certain Author hath it, He bound himself to be Just, that he might be Great; and the People to submit to Justice, that they might be Free. In his Laws, c. 55.157 Matters of general Charge upon the whole Body of the People, were settled by this grand Council, by the Commune Concilium, especially in the Charge of Arms impos’d upon the Subject. The Law saith it to have been done by the Common Council of the Kingdom.158 So W. Rufus and Henry the First, were received by the common Consent of the People. And Stephen’s Words were, Ego Stephanus, Dei gratia, Assensu Cleri & Populi in Regno Angliae electus, &c. I Stephen, by the Grace of God, and Consent of the Clergy and People chosen King of England, &c.159 So King John was chosen tam Cleri quam Populi unanimo consensu & favore, by the Favour and unanimous Spelman, Concilia, p. 350 (additional nonspecific marginal reference to Ingulph [presumably Ingulphus’s Chronicle, otherwise known as Historia Monasterii Croylandensis]). See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 4, 18, 20. 156 Spelman, Glossarium Archaiologicum, p. 261. 157 The “certain Author” is Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 45, p. 74, although there Bacon is referring to William’s son, Henry I; Laws of William the Conqueror, ch. 55, in Laws, ed. Kelham, p. 82. 158 Laws of William the Conqueror, ch. 58, in Laws, ed. Kelham, pp. 83–84. See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 45, 46. 159 See William of Malmbesbury, The History of the Kings of England and the Modern History of William of Malmesbury, transl. John Sharpe (London, 1815), p. 562.

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[13]

Part I: Political Liberties Consent of the Clergy and People: And his Queen is said to have been crowned de communi consensu & concordi voluntate Archiepiscoporum, Comitum, Baronum, Cleri & Populi totius Regni, by the common Assent and unanimous Good-Will of the Arch Bishops, Bishops, Counts, Barons, Clergy and People of the whole Kingdom. King Ed. 1 also desired Money of the commune Concilium or Parliament, as they have given in my time, and that of my Progenitors, Kings.160 All which shows, that it was Antecedent to the Great Charter, not the Rights therein repeated and confirm’d, but the Act it self. And King John’s Resignation of the Crown to the Pope, being question’d upon some Occasion in Edward the 3d’s Time, it was agreed upon, that he had no Power to do it without the Consent of the Dukes, Prelates, Barrons and Commons.161 [14] And as paradoxal as any may please to think it, ’tis the great Interest of a Prince, that the People should have a Share in the making of their own Laws; where ’tis otherwise, they are no Kings of Free-men, but Slaves, and those their Enemies for making them so. Leges nulla alia causa nos tenent, quam quod judicio populi receptae sunt; The Laws (saith Ulpian) do therefore obli[g]e the People, because they are allowed of by their Judgment.162 And Gratian, in Dec. distinct. 4. Tum demum humanae leges habent vim suam, cum fuerint non modo institutae, sed etiam firmatae Approbatione Communitatis: It is then (saith he) that human Laws have their due Force, when they shall not only be devised, but confirm’d by the Approbation of the People.163 1. It makes Men diligent, and encreaseth Trade, which advances the Revenue; for where Men are not free, they will never seek to improve, because they are not sure of what they have. 2. It frees the Prince from the Jealousie and Hate of his People;

References to King John and Queen Isabella cite the Charter Rolls for years 1 and 5 of John’s reign, though the specific reference is unclear; for a modern edition, see Rotuli Chartarum in Turri Londinensi, ed. Thoma Duffus Hardy (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1837). An additional marginal reference to Rot. Parl. 24 Edw. I n. 22 is also unclear, as the Parliamentary Rolls for that year have not survived, though Edward I received subsidies from parliaments in both November 1295 (www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/ parliament-rolls-medieval/november-1295) and November 1296 (www.british-history .ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/november-1296). See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 45, 64 161 Rot. Parl. 40. Edw. III. n.78. 162 Ulpian (d. 228), jurist and contributor to Justinian’s Digest. 163 Gratian, Decretum Gratiani; also quoted in book 2, ch. 4 of Walter Raleigh’s History of the World (London, 1652). 160

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d and consequently, the Troubles and Danger that follow; and makes his Province easy and safe. 3. If any Inconveniency attends the Execution of any Law, the Prince is not to be blam’d; ’tis their own Fault that made, at least consented to it. I shall now proceed to the third Fundamental, and by plain Evidence prove it to have been a material part of the Government before the Great Charter was enacted. 3. The People have an Influence upon, and a great Share in that Judicatory Power. &c. That it was a British Custom, I will not affirm, but have some Reason to suppose; for if the Saxons had brought it with them, they would also have left it behind them, and in all likelyhood there would have been some Footsteps in Saxony of such a Law or Custom which we find not. I will not enter the Lists with any about it; This shall suffice, that we find it early among the Saxons in this Country; and if they, a free People in their own Country, setling themselves here as a new planted Colony, did supply what was defective in their own Government, or add some new Freedom to themselves, as all Planters are wont to do[,] which are [15] as those first and Corner Stones, their Posterity with all Care and Skill are to build upon, that will serve my turn, to prove it a Fundamental; that is, such a first Principle in our English Government, by the Agreement of the People diffusively, that it ought not to be violated: I would not be understood of the Number, but of the Way of Tryal; that is to say, that Men were not to be condemned but by the Votes of the Freemen. N. Bacon thinks that in ruder Times the multitude tried all among themselves; and fancies it came from Graecians, that determin’d Controversies by the Suffrage of 34 or the major part of them. Be it as it will, Juries the Saxons had; for in the Laws of King Aetheldred, above 100 Years before the Entrance of the Norman Duke, we find enacted, in singulis Centuriis, &c. thus Englisht, In every Hundred let there be a Court, and let twelve Ancient Free-men, together with the Lord of the Hundred be sworn, that they will not condemn the Innocent, or acquit the Guilty:164 And so strict were they of those Ages in observing this fundamental Way of Judicature, that Alfred put one of his Judges to Death for passing Sentence upon a Verdict corruptly obtain’d, upon the Votes of the Jurors, three of twelve being in the Negative: If the Number was so sacred, what was the Constitution it self? The very same Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 38; Lambarde, Archaionomia, pp. 219–220.

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Part I: Political Liberties King executed another of his Judges for passing Sentence of Death upon an Ignoramus return’d by the Jury; and a third for condemning a Man upon an Inquest taken ex officio, when as the Delinquent had not put himself upon their Tryal. More of his Justice might be mentioned even in this very Case.165 There was also a Law made in the time of Aetheldred, when the Britains and Saxons began to grow tame to each other, and intercommon amicably, that saith, Let there be Twelve Men of Understanding, &c. six English and six Welch, and let them deal Justice, both to English and Welch.166 Also in those simpler times, If a Crime extended but to some shameful Pena[n]ce, as Pillory or Whipping (the last whereof, as usual as it may be [16] with us, was inflicted only upon their Bond-men) then might the Penance be reduc’d to a Ransom, according to the Nature of the Fault; but it must be so assest in the Presence of the Judge, and by the Twelve, that is the Jury of Frilingi, or Free-men.167 Hitherto Stories tell us of Tryals by Juries, and those to have consisted in general Terms of Free-men, but PER PARES came after, occasioned by the considerable Saxons, neglecting that Service, & leaving it to the inferior People (who lost the Bench, their ancient Right, because they were not thought Company for a Judge or Sheriff)[.] And from the growing Pride of the Danes, who slighted such a Rural Judicature, and despised the Fellowship of the mean Saxon Free-men in public Service; for the wise Saxon King perceiving the Dangerous Consequence of submitting the Lives and Liberties of the Inferiour (but not less useful People) to the Dictates of any such superb168 Humour; and on the other hand, of subjecting the Nobler Sort to the Suffrage of the inferiour Rank, with the Advice of his Wittagenmote provides a third Way, most Equal and Grateful, and by Agreement with Gunthurne the Dane, settled the Law of Peers or Equals; which is the Envy of Nations, but the famous Priviledge of our English People, one of those three Pillars the Fabrick of this Ancient and Free Government stands upon.169 This Benefit gets Strength by Time, and is receiv’d by the Norman Duke and his Successors; and not only confirm’d in the Lump of other

Horn, Mirror of Justices, ch. 5, sec. 1, p. 239. See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, chs. 38, 49. Laws of Ethelred, ch. 3; see Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 38. 167 Laws of Ina; Laws of Canute; see Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 39. 168 Abbreviation of superbient: insolent, overbearing, arrogant (OED). 169 See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 38. 165 166

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Priviledges, but in one notable Case for all, that might be brought to prove, that the fundamental Priviledges mention’d in the Great Charter, 9. Hen. 3. were before it. The Story is more at large deliver’d by our Learned Selden; But thus: The Norman Duke having given his half-Brother Odo, a large Territory in Kent, with the Earldom; and he taking Advantage at the King’s being displeas’d with the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, to possess himself of some of the Lands of that See: Landfrank that succeeded the Arch-Bishop, inform’d hereof, petition’d the King for Justice secundum legem terrae, according to the Law of the Land; upon which the King summon’d a County-Court, the Debate lasted three Dayes before the [17] Free-men of Kent in the Presence of Lords and Bishops, and others skillful in the Law, and the Judgment passed for the Arch-Bishop UPON THE VOTES OF THE FREE-MEN.170 By all which it is (I hope) sufficiently and inoffensively manifested, that these three Principles: 1. English Men have individually the alone Right of Possession and Disposition of what they have. 2. That they are Parties to the Laws of their Country, for the Maintenance of that great and just Law. 3. That they have an Influence upon, and a real Share in the Judicatory Power, that shall apply those Laws made, have been the ancient Rights of the Kingdom, and common Basis of the Government; that which Kings under the several Revolutions have sworn to maintain, and History affords us so many Precedents to confirm; So that the Great Charter made in the 9th of Henry the 3d, was not the Nativity, but Restoration of ancient Priviledges from Captivity; No Grant of New Rights, but a New Grant, or Confirmation rather of Ancient Laws and Liberties, violated by King John, and restor’d by his Successor, at the Expence of a long and bloody War, which shewed them as resolute to keep, as their Ancestors had been careful to enact those excellent Laws. And so I am come to the Great Charter, which is comprehensive and repetitious of what I have already been discoursing, and which I shall briefly touch upon with those successive Statutes that have been made in Honour and Preservation of it. I shall rehearse so much of it as falls within the Consideration of the  foregoing Matter, which is a great deal in a little; with something of Eadmer’s History, ed. Selden, p. 197 (original marginal reference to Spicileg.); see Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 48.

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Part I: Political Liberties the Formality of Grant and Curse, that this Age may see, with what ­Reverence and Circumspection our Ancestors govern’d themselves in Confirming and Preserving it. Henry, by the Grace of God King of England, &c. To all Arch-Bishops, [18] Earls, Barons, Sheriffs, Provos[t]Officers, unto all Bailiffs, and our faithful Subjects, who shall see this present Charter, Greeting. Know ye, that we, unto the Honour of Almighty God, and for the Salvation of the Souls of our Progenitors, and our Successors, Kings of England, to the Advancement of Holy Church, and Amendment of our Realm, of our meer and free Will have given and granted to all Arch-Bishops, &c. and to all Free-men of this our Realm, these Liberties underwritten, to be holden and kept in this our Realm of England for evermore.171 Though in Honour to the King, it is said to be out of his meer and free Will, yet the Qualification of the Persons, he is said to grant the ensuing Liberties to, shew, that they are Terms of Formality, viz. To all Free-men of this Realm; for they must be free, because of these Laws and Liberties, since ’twas impossible they could be any Thing but Slaves without them; Consequently, this was not an Infranchising, but confirming to Free-men their just Priviledges. The Words of the Charter are these: “A Free-man shall not be amerced for a small Fault, but after the Quantity of the Fault; and for a great Fault, after the Manner thereof, saving to him his Contenements or Freehold: And a Merchant likewise shall be amerced, saving to him his Merchandize; and none of the said Amercements shall be assessed, but by the Oath of good and honest Men of the Vicinage.” “No Free-man shall be taken or imprison’d, nor be disseized of his Free hold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlaw’d or exiled, or any other wayes destroyed; nor we shall not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but [19] by Lawful Judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land; We shall sell to no Man, we shall deny or defer to no Man either Justice or Right.” I stand amazed, how any Man can have the Confidence to say, These Priviledges were extorted by the Barons Wars, when the King declares, that what he did herein, was freely or that they were New Priviledges, when the very Tenour of the Words prove the contrary; for Freehold, Liberties, or Free Customs are by the Charter it self supposed to be in the Possession 9 Hen. III, Magna Carta of 1225. This preamble, along with chapters 14 (“A Free-man shall not…”) and 29 (“No Free-man shall…”) below, also appear appended to Peoples (Selection 1), pp. 61−62.

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d of the Free-men at the making and publishing thereof. No Free-man shall be taken or imprison’d; then he is free; This Liberty is his Right. Again, No Free-man shall be disseized of his Freehold, Liberties, or free Customs; then certainly he was in Possession of them. And that great Father in the Laws of England, Chief Justice Cook in his Proaem to the 2d Part of his Institutes, tells us, that those Laws and Liberties were gather’d and observ’d among others in an intire Volume by King Edward the Confessor, confirm’d by William, surnamed the Conqueror, which were afterwards ratified by Henry the first; enlarged by Henry the second, in his Constitutions at Clarendon,172 and after much Contest & Blood spilt between King John and the Barons concerning them, were solemnly establish’d at Running-Mead near Stanes, and lastly brought to their former Station, and publisht by this King Henry the third, in the 9th Year of his Reign;173 And though Evil Counsellors would have provoakt him to void his Father’s Act and his own, as if the first had been the Effect of Force, the other of NonAge; yet it so pleased Almighty God, who hath ever been propitious to this Ungrateful Island, that in the 20th of his Reign, he did confirm and compleat this Charter, for a perpetual Establishment of Liberty to all free born English Men and their Heirs forever, ordaining, Quod contravenientes per Dominum Regem cum convicti fuerint, graviter puniantur. i.e. But whosoever should act any Thing contrary to these Laws, upon Conviction should be grievously punish’d by our Lord the King. And in the 22d Year of his Reign, it was confirmed by the Statute of Marleb. c. 5.174 [20] and so venerable an Esteem have our Ancestors had for this Great Charter, and indispensably necessary have they thought it to their own and Posterities Felicity, that it hath been above 30. times ratified, and commanded under great Penalties, to be put in Execution. Here are the 3. Fundamentals comprehended, and exprest to have been the Rights and Priviledges of English Men: 1. Ownership, consisting of Liberty and Property: in that it supposeth English Men to be Free, there’s Liberty; next, that they have Freeholds; there’s Property. 2. That they have the Voting of their own Laws; for that was an ancient free Custom, as I have already prov’d; and all such Customs are expressly confirm’d by this Great Charter; Besides, the People helpt to make it. 1164.  173  Coke, Preamble to The Second Part of the Institutes. Should read “52nd year of his reign”; the Statute of Marlborough is from 52 Hen. III (1267).

172 174

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Part I: Political Liberties 3. An Influence upon, and a real Share in the Judicatory Power, in the Execution and Application of Law. This is a substantial Part, thrice provided for in those 16. Lines of the Great Charter by us rehearsed: 1. That no Amercement shall be assessed, but by the Oath of good and honest Men of the Vicinage. 2. Nor we shall not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by Lawful Judgment of his Peers. 3. Or by the Law of the Land, which is Synonymous, or a Saying of equal Signification with Lawful Judgment of Peers; for, Law of the Land, and Lawful Judgment of Peers, are the Proprium quarto modo, or essential Qualities of these Chapters of our Great Charter, being communicable, Omni soli & semper, to all and every Clause thereof alike. Chief Justice Cook well observes, that per legem terrae, or by the Law of the Land, imports no more then a Tryal by Process, and Writ original at common Law, which cannot be without the Lawful Judgment of Equals, or a common Jury; therefore per legale Judicium parium, by the Lawful Judgment of Peers, and per legem Terrae, by the Law of the Land, plainly signifie the same Priviledge to the People: So that it is the Judgment of the Free-men of England, which gives the Cast, and turns the Scale of English Justice.175 These Things being so evidently prov’d by long Use and several Laws, [21] to have been the first Principles of Fundamentals to the English free Government; I take leave to propose this Question; May the free People of England be justly disseized of all or any of these fundamental Principles, without their Individual Consent? Answ. With Submission to better Skill, I conceive, Not; for which I shall produce first my Reasons; then Authorities. 1. Through the British Saxon and Norman Times, the People of this Island have been reputed and call’d Free-men by Kings, Parliaments, Records and Histories; and as a Son supposes a Father, so Free-men suppose Freedom. This Qualification imports a supream Right, such a Right as beyond which there is none on Earth to disfree them, or deprive them of it; therefore an unalterable fundamental Part of the Government. 2. It can never be thought, that they intrusted any Legislators with this Capital Priviledge further then to use their best Skill to secure and maintain it, that is, so far as they were a Part of the English Government; They never delegated or impower’d any Men, that de jure they could deprive them of that Qualification: and a Facto ad Jus non valet Argumentum,176 for the Question is not, What MAY be done? But, What OUGHT to be done? Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, p. 50. From the fact to the law is not a valid argument.

175 176

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Overseers and Stewards are impower’d, not to Alienate, but Preserve and Improve other Mens Inheritances. No Owners deliver their Ship and Goods into any Man’s Hands, to give away, or run upon a Rock; neither do they consign their Affairs to Agents or Factors177 without Limitation. All Trusts suppose such a Fundamental Right in them for whom the Trusts are, as is altogether indissolvable by the Trustees. The Trust is the Liberty & Property of the People; the Limitation is, that It should not be invaded, but inviolably preserved, according to the Law of the Land. 3. If Salus Populi be suprema Lex, the Safety of the People the highest Law, as say several of our ancient famous Lawyers and Law-Books; then since the aforesaid Rights are as the Sinnews of this free Body politick or that soveraign Cordial without which this free People must needs consume [22] and pine away into utter Bondage; it follows, they are the highest Law, and therefore ought to be a Rule and Limit to all subsequent Legislation. 4. The Estate goes before the Steward, the Foundation before the House, People before their Representatives, and the Creator before the Creature. The Steward lives by preserving the Estate; The House stands by Reason of its Foundation; the Representative depends upon the People, and the Creature subsists by the Power of its Creator. Every Representative in the World, is as the Creature of the People; for the People make them, and to them they owe their Being: Here is no Transessentiating or Transubstantiating of being from People to Representative, no more then there is an absolute transferring of a Title in a Letter of Attorney; The very Term Representative is enough to the contrary: Wherefore as the House cannot stand without its Foundation, nor the Creature subsist without its Creator; so can there be No Representative without a People, nor that People free, which all along is intended (as inherent to, and inseparable from the English People) without Freedom; nor can there be any Freedom without something be Fundamental. In short, I would fain know of any Man, how the Branches can cut up the Root of the Tree that bears them? How any Representative that is not only a meer Trust to preserve Fundamentals, the Peoples Inheritance; but, that is a Representative, that makes Laws by Virtue of this Fundamental Law, that the People hath a Power in Legislation (the 2d Principle prov’d by me) can have Power to remove or destroy that Fundamental? The Fundamental makes the People free, this free People make a Representative; Can this Creature unqualifie its Creator? What Spring ever rose higher then its An agent who transacts business on behalf of someone else (OED, def. 1a).

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Part I: Political Liberties Head? The Representative is at best but a true Copy, an Exemplification; the free People are the Original, not cancellable by a Transcript: And if that Fundamental that gives to the People a Power of Legislation, be not annullable by that Representative, because it makes it what it is; much less can that Representative disseize Men of their Liberty and Property, the [23] first Great Fundamental, that is the Parent of this other, which entitles to a Share in making Laws for the Preservation of the first inviolably. Nor is the third other than the necessary Production of the two first, to intercept Arbitrary Designs, and make Power legal; for where the People have not a Share in Judgment, that is, in the Application, as well as making of the Law; the other two are imperfect, open to daily Invasion, should it be our Infelicity to have a violent Prince: for as Property is every day expos’d, where those that have it are destitute of Power to hedge it about by Lawmaking; so those that have both, if they have not the Application of the Law, but the Creatures of another Part of the Government, how easily is that Hedge broaken down? And indeed, as it is a most just and necessary, as well as ancient and honourable Custom, so it is the Prince’s Interest; for still the People are concern’d in the Inconveniencies with him, and he is freed from the Temptation of doing Arbitrary Things, and their Importunities, that might else have some Pretence for such Addresses, as well as from the Mischiefs that might ensue such Actions. It might be enough to say, that there are above 50 Statutes now in Print, beside its venerable Antiquity, that warrant and confirm this Legale judicium parium suorum, or the Tryal of English Men by their Equals.178 But I shall hint at a few Instances: The first is, Tho[mas] Earl of Lancaster in the 14th of Edw. 2. adjudged to dye without Lawful Trial of his Peers; and afterwards Henry Earl of Lancaster, his Brother, was restored: The Reasons given were two; 1. Because the said Thomas was not arraigned and put to Answer; 2. That he was put to Death without Answer, or Lawful Judgment of his Peers.179 The like Proceedings were in the Case of John of Gaunt, p. 39. coram Rege.180 And in the Earl of Arundel’s Case, A marginal note invokes a number of sources, including 5 Edw. III c. 9 (1331), likely a reference to 5 Edw. III c. 10; 25 Edw. III c. 4 (perhaps intending to refer instead to 25 Edw. I [1297], Confirmation of Charters); 17 R. (presumably Richard II) c. 6 (1393); Rot. Parl. 42 Edw. III c. 3 (1368); Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 27, p. 43; and Stamf, pl. cor. p. 150, an apparent reference to William Stanford, Les Plees del Corone (London, 1607). 179 Thomas Plantagenet, 2nd earl of Leicester and Lancaster (1278–1322); Henry Plantagenet, 3rd earl of Lancaster (1281–1345). Title restored in 1327. 180 John of Gaunt (1340–99), son of Edward III and founder of the second House of Lancaster. “Coram rege” rolls refer to matters ostensibly before the king himself. 178

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Rot. Parl. 4 Edw. 3. n. 13.181 And in Sr. John Alee’s Case, 4 Edw. 3. n. 2.182 Such was the Destruction committed on the Ld. Hastings in the Tower of London by Richard the 3d.183 But above all, that Attainder of Thomas Cromwel, Earl of Essex, who was attainted of High Treason, as appears Rot. Parl, 32. Hen. 8. of which saith Chief Justice Cook, as I remember, Let Oblivion take away the Memory of so foul a Fact, if it can; if not, how- [24] ever, let Silence cover it.184 ’Tis true, there was a Statute obtained in the 11th of Henry the 7th, in Defiance of the Great Charter, which authoriz’d several Exactions contrary to the free Customs of this Realm; particularly in the Case of Juries, both sessing and punishing by Justices of Assize and of the Peace, without the fining and Presentment of 12 Free-men; Empson and Dudley were the great Actors of those Oppressions, but they were hanged for their Pains, and that illegal Statute repealed in the 1st of Henry the 8th c. 6.185 The Consequence is plain; That Fundamentals give Rule to Acts of Parliament, else, why was the Statute of the 8th Edw. 4. c. 2. of Liveries and Information by the Discretion of the Judges to stand as an Original; and this of the 11th of Henry the 7th repealed as illegal? for, therefore any Thing is unlawful, because it transgresseth a Law: But what Law can an Act of Parliament transgress, but that which is Fundamental? Therefore Tryal by Juries or Lawful Judgment of Equals, is by Acts of Parliament confessed to be a Fundamental Part of our Government. And because Chief Justice Cook is generally esteem’d a great Oracle of Law, I shall in its proper Place present you with his Judgment upon the whole Matter. 5. These Fundamentals are Unalterable by a Representative, which were the Result and Agreement of English Free-men individually, the ancienter Times not being acquainted with Representatives; for then the Free-men met in their own Persons: In all the Saxons Story we find no Mention of any such Thing; for it was the King, Lords and Free-men, the Elders and Referring to the successful appeal to Edward III for the restoration of the goods and good name of Edmund FitzAlan, the earl of Arundel, made by his son in November 1330. Parliamentary Rolls, Edward III: November 1330, n. 13. 182 Penn’s reference to the Parliamentary Rolls for 4 Edw. III seems in error here, as n. 2 in the November 1330 roll refers to the judgment of Simon de Bereford, although Penn might be referring to the March 1330 parliament, the rolls from which have not survived (www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/march-1330). 183 William, 1st baron Hastings (1431–83), executed by Richard III. 184 The attainder of Cromwell is 32 Hen. VIII c. 62; quotation from Coke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes, ch. 1, p. 37. 185 Coke discusses Empson and Dudley in The Fourth Part of the Institutes, ch. 1, pp. 39–41. See also Peoples (Selection 1), pp. 75−77. Sessing: determining amount of tax or fine (OED). 181

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Part I: Political Liberties People; and at the Counsel of Winton, in 855. is reported to have been present the Great Men of the Kingdom, and an INFINITE MULTITUDE of other faithful People. Also that of King Ina, the common Council of the Elders & PEOPLE of the WHOLE Kingdom.186 It is not to be doubted but this continued after the Norman Times; and that at Running Mead by Stanes the Free men of England were personally present at the Confirmation of that great Charter in the Reign of King John.187 [25] But as the Ages grew more humane, with respect to Villains and Retainers, and the Number of Free-men encreas’d, there was a Necessity for a Representative, especially, since Fundamentals were long ago agreed upon, and those Capital Priviledges put out of the Reach and Power of any little Number of Men to endanger: And so careful were their Representatives in the time of Edward the Third, of suffering their Liberties & free Customs to be infring’d, that in Matters of extraordinary Weight they would not determine, till they had first return’d and conferr’d with their several Counties or B[or]oughs that delegated them.188 Several Authorities in Confirmation of the Reasons. So indubitably are these Fundamentals the Peoples Right, and so necessary to be preserved, that Kings have successively known no other safe or legal Passage to their Crown & Dignity, than their solemn Obligation inviolably to maintain them. So sacred were they reputed in the Dayes of Henry the 3d, that not to continue or confirm them, were to affront God, and damn the Souls of his Progenitors and Successors; to Depress the Church, and Deprave the Realm:189 That the Great Charter comprehensive of them should be allowed as the common Law of the Land, by all Officers of Justice;190 that is the Lawful Inheritance of all Commoners: That all Statute-Laws or Judgments whatsoever, made in Opposition thereunto, should be null and void: That all the Ministers of State and Officers of the Realm, should constantly be sworn to the Observation thereof: and so deeply did after-Parliaments reverence it, and so careful were they to preserve it, that they both Lambarde, Archaionomia, p. 1; Spelman, Concilia, p. 219; nonspecific marginal reference to Ingulphus’s Historia Monasterii Croylandensis. See Bacon, Historicall Discourse, ch. 20. 187 The field at Runnymede was the setting for King John’s sealing of Magna Carta in 1215. 188 Rot. Parl. 13 Edw. III n. 8 (October 1339); Coke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes, ch. 1, pp. 14, 34. 189 9 Hen. III; 25 Edw. I c. 1 (1297). 190 25 Edw. I c. 1 (1297); 42 Edw. III c. 1 (1368); Rot. Parl. 15 Edw. III (April 1341), nn. 10, 37. 186

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d confirm’d it by 32. Several Acts, and enacted Copies to be taken and lodg’d in each Cathedral of the Realm, to be read four times a Year publicly before the People; as if they would have them more obli[g]ed to their Ancestors for redeeming and transmitting those Priviledges, then for begetting them:191 And that Twice every Year the Bishops, apparell’d in their Pontificials, with Tapers burning, and other Solemnities, should pronounce the [26] greater Excommunication against the Infringers of the Great Charter, though it were but in Word or Counsel; for so saith the Statute. I shall, for further Satisfaction, repeat the Excommunication or Curse, pronounced both in the dayes of Henry the Third, and Edward the First. The Sentence of the Curse given by the Bishops, with the King’s ­Consent, against the Breakers of the Great Charter.192 In the year of our Lord 1253. the third day of May, in the great Hall of the King at Westminster, in the Presence, and by the Consent of the Lord Henry, by the Grace of God King of England, and the Lord Richard, Earl of Cornwal, his Brother; Roger [Bigod], Earl of Norfolk, Marshal of England; Humphry, Earl of Hereford; Henry, Earl of Oxford; John, Earl [of] Warren; and other Estates of the Realm of England; We Boniface, by the Mercy of God, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, Primate of England, E. of London, H. of Ely, S. of Worcester, E. of Lincoln, W. of Norwich, P. of Hereford, W. of Salisbury, W. of Durham, R. of Ex[e]ter, M. of Carlile, W. of Bath, E. of Rochester, T. of St. Davids, Bishop, apparell’d in Pontificials, with Tapers burning, against the Breakers of the Churches Liberties, and of the Liberties and other Customs of this Realm of England, and namely these which are contained in the Charter of the Common Liberties of England, and Charter of the Forrest, have denounced Sentence of Excommunication in this Form, By the Authority of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, &c. of the blessed Apostle Peter and Paul, and of all Apostles and of all Martyrs, of blessed Edw. King of England, and of all the Saints of Heaven, We Excommunicate and Accurse, and from the Benefit of our Holy Mother, the Church, we sequester all those that hereafter willingly and maliciously deprive or spoil the Church of her Right; and all those that by any Craft or Willingness, do violate, break, diminish, or change the Churches Liberties, and free Coke, The First Part of the Institutes, sec. 108, p. 81; The Second Part of the Institutes, ch. 1, pp. 525, 526; 25 Edw. I cc. 3, 4 (1297); 28 Edw. I c. 1 (1300). 37 Hen. III (1253).

191

192

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[27]

Part I: Political Liberties Customs contained in the Charters of the Common Liberties, & of the Forrest, granted by our Lord the King, to Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and other Prelates of England, and likewise to the Earls, Barons, Knights and other Free-holders of the Realm; and all that secretly and openly, by Deed, Word or Counsel do make Statutes, or observe them being made, and that bring in Customs to keep them, when they be brought in, against the said Liberties, or any of them, and all those that shall presume to judge against them; and all and every such Person before-mention’d, that wittingly shall commit any thing of the Premises, let them well know, that they incur the aforesaid Sentence, ipso facto. The Sentence of the Clergy against the Breakers of the Articles above-mentioned.193 In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen: Whereas our Soveraign Lord the King, to the Honour of God, and of holy Church, and for the common Profit of the Realm, hath granted for him and his Heirs forever these Articles above-written, Robert Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, Primat[e] of all England,194 Robert Winchelsey (1245−1313), Archbishop of Canterbury 1294−1313. admonished all his Province once, twice and thrice, because that Shortness will not suffer so much delay as to give Knowledge to all the People of England, of these Presents in writing: We therefore enjoyn all Persons, of what Estate soever they be, that they, [28] and every of them, as much as in them is, shall uphold and maintain these Articles granted by our Soveraign Lord the King, in all Points: And all those that in any Point do resist or break, or in any manner hereafter Procure, Counsel, or in any wise Assent to, Testifie or Break those Ordinances, or go about it, by Word or Deed, Openly or Privily, by any manner of Pretence or Colour; We, the aforesaid Arch-Bishop, by our Authority in this Writing expressed, do Excommunicate & Accurse, and from the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and from all the Company of Heaven, and from all the Sacraments of Holy Church do sequester and exclude. We may here see, that in the obscurest Time of Popery they were not left without a Sense of Justice; and the Papists, whom many think no Friends to Liberty and Property, under dreadful Penalties injoyn an inviolable Observance of this Great Charter, by which they are confirm’d. And though I am no Roman Catholick, and as little value their other Curses pronounc’d upon Religious Dissents, yet I declare ingenuously, I 25 Edw. I (1297). Reference text: Robert Winchelsey (1245–1313), Archbishop of Canterbury 1294–1313.

193 194

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d would not for the World incur this Curse, as every Man deservedly doth, that offers Violence to the Fundamental Freedoms thereby repeated and confirmed: And that any Church or Church Officers in our Age, should have so little Reverence to Law, Excommunication or Curse, as to be the Men that either vote or countenance such Severities, as bid Defiance to the Curse, and rend this memorable Charter in pieces by disseizing Freemen of England of their Freeholds, Liberties and Properties, meerly for the Inoffensive Exercise of their Conscience to God in Matters of Worship, is a Civil sort of Sacriledge. I know it is usually Objected, that a great Part of the Charter is spent on the Behalf of the Roman Church, and other Things now abolished; and if one Part of the Great Charter may be repeal’d or invalidated, why not the other? To which I Answer; this renders nothing that is Fundamental in the Charter the less valuable; for they do not stand upon the Legs of that Act, though it was made in Honour of them, but the Ancient and primitive Institution of the Kingdom. If the Petition of Right195 were repeal’d, the great Charter were never the less in Force, it being not the Original Establishment, but a Declaration and Confirmation of that Establishment. But those Things that are abrogable or abrogated in the great Charter, were never a Part of Fundamentals, but hedg’d in then for present Emergency or Conveniency. Besides, that which I have hitherto maintained to be the Common and Fundamental Law of the Land, is so reputed, and further ratified by the Petition of Right, 3 Car. 1. which was long since the Church of Rome lost her Share in the Great Charter. Nor did it relate to Matters of Faith and Worship, but Temporalities only; the Civil Interest or Propriety of the Church. But with what Pretence to Mercy or Justice, can the Protestant Church null the Romish, that she may retain the English Part without conforming to Rome, and yet now cancel the English Part it self to every free-born English Man that will not conform to Her? But no more of this at this Time; only give me leave to remind a Sort of active Men in our Times, that the cruel Infringers of the Peoples Liberties, and Violaters of these Noble Laws, did not escape with bare Excommunications and Curses; for such was the venerable Esteem our Ancestors had for these great Priviledges, & deep Sollicitude to preserve them from the Defacings of Time, or Usurpation of Power, that King Alfred executed 40. Judges for warping from the ancient Laws of the Realm. Hubert de Burgo, Chief Justice of England in the Time of Edw. 1. was sentenced 3 Car. I c. 1 (1628).

195

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[29]

Part I: Political Liberties by his Peers in open Parliament for advising the King against the Great Charter. Thus Spencers, both Father and Son, for their Arbitrary Rule and Evil Counsel to Edw. 2. were exiled the Realm. No better Success had the Actions of Tr[e]silian & Belknap: And as for Empson and Dudley, though Persons of some Quality in the Time of King Henry the 7th, the most ignominious Death of our Country, such as belongs to Theft and Murder, was scarce Satisfaction enough to the Kingdom for their Illegal Courses. I shall chuse to deliver it in the Words of Chief Justice Cook, a Man, whose Learning in Law hath not without Reason obtained a venerable Character of our English Nation.196 “There was (saith he) an Act of Parliament, made in the 11th Year of King Hen. 7. which had a fair flattering Preamble, pretending to avoid [30] divers Mischiefs, which were (1st) To the high Displeasures of Almighty God. (2dly) The great Let of the Common Law. And (3dly) The great Let of the Wealth of this Land. And the Purven of that Act, tended in the Execution contrary, EX DIAMETRO, viz. To the high Displeasure of Almighty God, and the great Let, nay, the utter Subversion of the Common Law, and the great Let of the Wealth of this Land, as hereafter shall appear; the Substance of which Act follows in these Words. That from thence forth, as well Justices of Assize, as Justices of the Peace, in every County, upon Information for the King before them made, without any Finding or Presentment by Twelve Men, shall have full Power and Authority, by their Discretion; and to hear and determine all Offences, as Riots, unlawful Assemblies, &c. committed and done against any Act or Statute made, and not repeal’d, &c. “By Pretext of this Law, Empson and Dudley did commit upon the Subjects insufferable Pressure and Oppressions; and therefore this Statute was justly, soon after the Decease of Hen. 7. Repeal’d at the next Parliament, by the Statute of 1 Hen. the 8. chap. 6. “A good Caveat to Parliaments to leave all Causes to be measured by the Golden and strait Metwand of the Law, and not to the incertain and crooked Cord of Discretion. “It is almost incredible to foresee, when any Maxim, or Fundamental Law of this Realm is altered (as elsewhere hath been observed) what dangerous Inconveniencies do follow; which most expressly appears by this MOST UNJUST and strange Act of the 11th of Hen. 7. For hereby not These references repeat those offered in Peoples (Selection 1), pp. 74–75, where Penn also quotes the passage from Coke that follows.

196

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d only Empson and Dudley themselves, but such Justices of Peace (corrupt Men) as they caused to be authorised, committed most grievous and heavy Oppressions & Exactions, grinding the Faces of the poor Subjects by penal Laws (be they never so obsolete, or unfit for the Time) by Information only, without any Presentment or Tryal by Jury, being the ANCIENT BIRTH-RIGHT of the Subject; but to hear and determine the same, by their Discretions, inflicting such Penalty as the Statute not repealed, imposed. These, and other like Oppressions and Exactions by the Means of Empson and Dudley, and their Instruments, brought infinite Treasure to the King’s Coffers, whereof the King himself, at the End, with GREAT GRIEF and COMPUNCTION REPENTED, as in another Place we have observ’d. “This Statute of the 11th of Hen. 7. we have recited, and shewed the just Inconveniencies thereof, to the End that the like should NEVER hereafter be attempted in any Court of Parliament; and that others might avoid the FEARFUL END of those two Time-Servers, Empson and Dudley, Qui eorum vestigiis insistant, exitus per horrescant.”197 I am sure, there is nothing I have offer’d in Defence of English-Law Doctrine, that riseth higher then the Judgment and Language of this great Man, the Preservation and Publication of whose Endeavours became the Care of a great Parliament. And it is said of no inconsiderable Lawyer, that he should thus express himself in our Occasion, viz. The Laws of England were never the Dictates of any Conqueror’s Sword; or the Placita of any King of this Nation; or (saith he) to speak impartially and freely, the Results of any Parliament that ever sate in this Land.198 Thus much of the Nature of English Rights, and the Reason and Justice of their inviolable Maintenance. I shall now offer some more general Considerations for the Preservation of Property, and hint at some of those Mischiefs that follow spoiling it for Conscience sake, both to Prince and People. 1. The Reason of the alteration of any Law, ought to be the Discommodity of Continuing it; but there can never be so much as the least Inconveniency in continuing of Liberty and Property; therefore there can be no just Ground for infringing, much less abrogating the Law that gives and secures them. Coke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes, ch. 1, pp. 39–41. Attributed to John Vaughan, who, as chief justice, ruled in favor of the Penn–Mead jurors in Bushel’s Case (1670); see Walter Honywood Yate, Political, Historical, and Analytical Arguments, 2nd edn. (London, 1825), vol. I: p. 86.

197 198

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[31]

Part I: Political Liberties 2. No Man in these Parts is born Slave to another; neither hath one Right to inherit the Sweat of the others Brow, or reap the Benefit of the others Labour, but by Consent; therefore no Man should be deprived of Property, unless he injure another Man’s. 3. But certainly, nothing is more unreasonable then to sacrifice the Liberty and Property of any Man (being his Natural and Civil Rights) for Religion, where he is not found breaking any Law relating to Natural & Civil [32] Things. Religion, under any Modification is no Part of the old English Government; Honeste vivere, alterum non ladere, jus suum cui[que] trib[ue] re, are enough to entitle every Native to English Priviledges:199 A Man may be a very good English Man, and yet a very indifferent Church-man. Nigh 300 Years before Austine set his Foot on English Ground, had the Inhabitants of this Island a free Government.200 It is Want of distinguishing between It and the Modes of Religion, which fills every Clamorous Mouth with such impertinent Cryes as this; Why do not you submit to the Government? as if the English Civil Government came in with Luther, or were to go out with Calvin. What Prejudice is it for a Popish Landlord to have a Protestant Tennant; or a Presbyterian Tennant to have a Protestant Landlord? Certainly, the Civil Affairs of all Governments in the World may be peaceably transacted under the different Trims of Religion, where Civil Rights are inviolably observ’d. Nor is there any Interest so inconsistent with Peace and Unity, as that which dare not solely rely upon the Power of Perswasion, but affects Superiority, and impatiently seeks after an Earthly Crown: This is not to act the Christian, but the Caesar; not to promote Property, but Party, and make a Nation Drudges to a Sect. Be it known to such Narrow Spirits, we are a Free People by the Creation of God, the Redemption of Christ, and careful Provision of our (never to be forgotten) honourable Ancestors: So that our Claim to these English Priviledges rising higher than the Date of Protestancy, can never justly be invalidated for any Non-conformity to it. This were to lose by the Reformation, which God forbid; I am sure ’twas to enjoy Property with Conscience that promoted it: Nor is there any better Definition of Protestancy, then protesting against Spoiling Property for Conscience. I must therefore take Leave to say, that I know not how to reconcile what a Great Man lately deliver’d in his Eloquent Harangue to the House of Lords: His Words are these, See above, p. 89; Ulpian, cited in Justinian, Digest, I: 10. Augustine of Canterbury (d. c. 605), Italian missionary and first archbishop of Canterbury.

199 200

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d “For when we consider Religion in Parliament, we are supposed to consider it as a Parliament should do, and as Parliaments in all Ages have done, that is, as it is a Part of our Laws, a Part, and a necessary Part of our Government: For as it works upon the Conscience, as it is an INWARD PRINCIPLE of the DIVINE LIFE, by which good Men do govern all their Actions, the State hath nothing to do with it, it is a Thing, which belongs to another kind of Commission, than that by which we sit here.”201 I acquiesce in the latter Part of this Distinction, taking it to be a venerable Truth, and would to God Mankind would believe it, and live it; but how to agree it with the former, I profess Ignorance; for if the Government hath nothing to do with the Principle it self, what more can she pretend over the Actions of those Men that live that good Life? Certainly, if Religion be this Principle of Divine Life, exerting it self by Holy Living, and that as such, it belongs not to the Commission of our Superiours, I do with Submission conceive, that there is very little else of Religion left for them to have to do with; the rest merits not the Name of Religion, and less doth such a Formality deserve Persecution: I hope such Circumstances are no necessary Part of English Government, that can’t reasonably be reputed a necessary part of Religion; and I dare believe, that he is too great a Lawyer, upon second Thoughts, to repute that a Part of our Laws, a Part & a necessary Part of our Government, that is such a Part of Religion as is neither the Divine Principle, nor yet the Actions immediately flowing from it, since the Government was most compleat and prosperous many Ages without it, and hath never known more perplext Contests and troublesom Interruptions, then since it hath been receiv’d and valu’d as a Part of the English Government; and God, I hope, will forbid it in the Hearts of our Superiours, that English Men should be deprived of their Civil Inheritance for their Non-conformity to Church-Formality: For no Property out of the Church; the plain English of publick Severity, is a Maxim that belongs not to the holy Law of God, nor Common Law of the Land. 4. If Liberty and Property must be the Forfeit of Conscience for Non conformity to the Princes Religion, the Prince and his Religion shall only be lov’d as the next best Accession to other Mens Estates, and the Prince perpetually provoakt to expose many of his Inoffensive People to Beggary. Sir Heneage Finch, Lord Keeper’s Speech to the House of Lords, April 13, 1675, in Journal of the House of Lords: Volume 12, 1666–1675 (London, 1767–1830), p. 654.

201

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[33]

Part I: Political Liberties 5. It is our Superiours Interest, that Property be preserved, because it is their own Case: None have more Property then themselves; But if Property be exposed for Religion, the Civil Magistrate exposes both his Conscience and his Property to the Church, and disarms himself of all De[34] fence upon any Alteration of Judgment. This is for the Prince to fall down at the Prelate’s Foot, and the State to suffer it self to be rid by the Church. 6. It obstructs all Improvement of Land and Trade; for who will labour that hath no Propriety, or hath it exposed to an unreasonable Sort of Men for the bare Exercise of his Conscience to God, and a poor Country can never make a Rich and Powerful Prince. Heaven is therefore Heaven to Good and Wise Men, because they have an Eternal Propriety therein. 7thly, This Sort of Procedure hitherto oppugn’d to the behalf of Property, puts the whole Nation upon miserable Uncertainties that are follow’d with great Disquiets and Distractions, which certainly it is the Interest of all Governments to prevent: The Reigns of Henry 8. Edw. 6. Q. Mary and Q. Eliz. both with relation to the Marriages of the first, and the Religious Revolutions of the rest, are a plain Proof in the Case. King Henry voids the Pope’s Supremacy, and assumes it himself. Q. Mary his Daughter by his first Wife Katharine, repeals all those Acts made since the 12th of Henry 8. in Disfavour of the Pope; Oaths taken on both sides to maintain those Laws. Edw. 6. Enacts Protestancy with an Oath to maintain it. 1 Q. Mary, c. 1. This is abrogated; Popery solemnly restored, and an Oath inforc’d to defend it. Comes Q. Elizabeth and repeals that Law, calls back Protestancy, ordains a new Oath to unOath Q. Mary’s Oath. and all this under the Penalty of losing Estate, Liberty, and sometimes Life it self; which Thousands to avoid, lamentably perjur’d themselves four or five times over within the space of 20. Years: in which Sin the Clergy transcended, not an Hundred for every Thousand but left their Principles for their Parishes. Thus hath Conscience been debaucht by Force, and Property toss’d up & down by the impetuous Blasts of ignorant Zeal, or sinister Design. 8. Where Liberty & Property are violated, there must alwayes be a State of Force: And (though I pray God that we never need those Cruel Remedies, whose Calamitous Effects we have too lately felt) yet certainly, SELF-Preservation is of all Things dearest to Men, insomuch, that being conscious to themselves of not having done an ill thing to defend their unforfeited Priviledges, they cheerfully hazard all they have in this World;

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d so strangely vindictive are the Sons of Men in Maintenance of their Rights: And such are the Cares, Fears, Doubts and Insecurities of that [35] Administration, as render Empire a Slavery, and Dominion the worst Sort of Bondage: on the contrary, nothing can give greater Cheerfulness, Confidence, Security and Honour to any Prince, then ruling by Law; for it is both a Conjunction of Title with Power, and attracts Love, as well as it requires Duty. Give me Leave without any Offence, for I have God’s Evidence in my own Conscience, I intend nothing but a respectful Caution to my Superiours, to confirm this Reason with the Judgment and Example of other Times. The Governours of the Eleans held a strict Hand over the People, they being in Despair, call’d in the Spartans for Relief, and by their Help freed all their Cities from the sharp Bondage of their Natural Lords.202 The State of Sparta was grown Powerful, and opprest the Thebans, they, though but a weak People, yet whetted the Despair, and the Prospect of greater Miseries, by the Athenians delivered themselves from the Spartan Yoak.203 Nor is there any other considerable Reason given for the Ruin of the Carthagenian State, then Avarice and Severity. More of this is to be found in W. [Raleigh’s] History of the World, lib. 3. who hath this witty Expression in the same Story, l. 5. of a severe Conduct, “When a forced Government,” saith he, “shall decay in Strength, it will suffer, as did the old Lion, for the Oppression done in his Youth, being [pinched] by the Wolf, goar’d by the Bull, and kickt also by the Ass.”204 This lost Caesar Borgia, his New and Great Conquests in Italy: No better Success attended the severe Hand held over the People of Naples by Alphonso and Ferdinand.205’ Twas the undue Severity of the Sicilian Governours, that made the Syracusans, Leontines and Messenians so easie a Conquest to the Romans.206 An harsh Answer to a petitioning People The Spartan invasion of Elis, c. 401 BCE, is recounted in Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, book 14, ch. 17; and Xenophon’s History, book 2, although the reasons for the Spartan invasion remain in dispute. 203 Penn’s specific reference is unclear, but he may be referring to the Theban coup of 378 BCE. 204 Raleigh, History of the World, book 5, ch. 4. 205 Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), duke of Valentino and son of Pope Alexander VI; King Alfonso I (1396–1458) and Ferdinand I of Naples (1423–94). 206 Likely references to the Battle of Messana (264 BCE) and Syracusan campaign (264–263 BCE), for which see Polybius, Histories, book 1, chs. 11, 12; and the Roman conquest of Leontini, 214 BCE (see Livy, History, book 24, chs. 29. 30). 202

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Part I: Political Liberties lost Rehoboam Ten Tribes.207 On the contrary, in Livy, Dec. 1 l. 3. we find that Petilia, a City of the Brutians in Italy, chose rather to endure all Extremity of War from Hannibal, then upon any Condition to desert the Romans, who had governed them moderately, and by that gentle Conduct procur’d their Love, even then, when the Romans sent them Word, they were not able to relieve them, and wisht them to provide for their own Safety.208 [36] N. Machiavel, in his Discourses upon Livy, p. 542. tells us, that one Act of Humanity was of more Force with the Conquer’d Falisci, then many violent Acts of Hostility; which makes good that Saying of Seneca, Mitius imperanti melius paretur, They are best obeyed, that govern most mildly.209 9. And lastly, If these ancient Fundamental Laws so agreeable with Nature, so suited to the Disposition of our Nation, so often defended with Blood and Treasure, so carefully and frequently ratified, shall not be to our great Pilots, as Stars or Compass for them to steer the Vessel of this Kingdom by, or Limits to their Legislation, no Man can tell how long he shall be secure of his Coat, enjoy his House, have Bread to give his Children, Liberty to work for Bread, and Life to eat it: Truly, this is to justifie what we condemn in Roman-Catholiks. It is one of our main Objections, that their Church assumes a Power of assuring People what is Religion, thereby denying Men the Liberty of walking by the Rules of their own Reason, or Precepts of Holy Writ. To which we oppose both: We say, the Church is tyed to act nothing contrary to Reason; and that Holy Writ is the declar’d fundamental Law of Heaven, to maintain, and not to usurp upon which, Power is given to the true Church. Now let us apply this Argument to our Civil Affairs, and it will certainly end in a reasonable Limitation of our Legislators, that they should not impose that upon our Understandings, which is inconsistent with them to embrace; nor offer any the least Violation upon the Fundamental Law of the Land, from whence they derive their Power, to prosper such Attempts: Do the Romanists say, Believe as the Church Believes; Do not the Protestants, and which is harder, Legislators say so too? Do we say to the Romanists, at this rate, Your Obedience is blind, and your Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion; Is it not also true Rehoboam, son of and successor to King Solomon, faced the rebellion of the ten northern tribes of Israel; see 1 Kings 12; 2 Chronicles 10–12. 208 Livy, History of Rome, book 23, ch. 30. 209 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, book 3, ch. 20; Seneca, On Clemency, sec. 24; Seneca also quoted in Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes, ch. 105, p. 223. 207

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d of our selves? Do we object to them; This makes your Religion fluid as the Rivers, one Thing to Day, and another to morrow, any Thing the Church saith or doth? Doth not our own Case submit us to the like Variation in Civils? Have we not long told them, that under Pretence of obeying the Church, and not controling her Power, she hath raised [a] Superstructure inconsistent with that Foundation she pretends to build upon? And are not we the Men in Civils, that make our grand Priviledges to depend upon Men, not Laws, as she doth upon Councils, not Scripture? If this be not Popery in Temporals, what is? It is humbly beseecht of those Superiours, that it would please them [37] to consider what Reflection such severity justly brings upon their Proceedings; and remember, that in their ancient Delegations, it was not to define, resolve and impose Matters of Religion, and sacrifice Civil Priviledges for it; but, to maintain the Peoples Properties, according to the ancient Fundamental Laws of the Land, and to super-add such Statutes only, as were consistent with, and preservative of those Fundamental Laws. To conclude this Head; My plain and honest Drift has all along been neither more nor less than this, to show that Church Government is no real Part of the old English Government; and to disintangle Property from Opinion, the untoward Knot the Clergy for several Ages have tyed; the which, it is not only the Peoples Right, but our Superiours Interest to undo: for it gauls both People and Prince. For, where Property is subjected to Opinion, the Church interposes, and makes something else requisite to enjoy Property, then belongs to the Nature of Property; and the Reason of our Possession is not our Right by & Obedience to the common Law, but Conformity to Church-Law; a thing dangerous to Civil Government; for ’tis an Alteration of old English Tenure, a suffering the Church to trip up & supplant the State, & a making People to owe their Protection not to the Civil, but Ecclesiastical Authority: For let the Church be my Friend, and all is well; make her my Foe, and I am made her Prey; Let Magna Charta say what she will for me, my Horses, Cows, Sheep, Corn, Goods go first, my Person to Jail next; and here’s some Church Trophys made at the Conquest of a peaceable Dissenter: This is that anxious Thing; May our Superiours please to weigh it in the equal Scale of Doing as they would be done by. Let those Common Laws that fix and preserve Property be the Rule and Standard. Make English Men’s Rights as inviolable as English Church Rights: Disintangle and distinguish them; And let not Men sustain Civil Punishments for Ecclesiastical Faults, but for Sins against the ancient establisht Civil Government only, that the Natures of Acts and 

Part I: Political Liberties Rewards may not be confounded; so shall the Civil Magistrate preserve Law, secure his Civil Dignity and Empire, and make himself Belov’d of English Men, whose Cry is, and the Cry of whose Laws has ever been, Property more sacred then Opinion, Civil Right not concerned with Ecclesiastical Discipline, nor forfeitable for Religious Non-conformity. [38] But though an inviolable Preservation of English Rights of all things best secureth to our Superiours the Love and Allegiance of the People; yet there is something further, that with Submission I offer to their serious Consideration, which in the second place concerns their Interest, and the Peoples Felicity; and that is their Discord about Religion, notwithstanding their unanimous Cry for Property, a prudent Management of which may return to the great Quiet, Honour and Profit of the Kingdom. II. Our SUPERIOURS governing themselves upon a BALLANCE, as near as may be, towards the several Religious INTERESTS. To perform my part in this Point, I shall not at this time make it my Business to manifest the Inconsistency that there is between the Christian Religion, and a forc’d Uniformity; not only because it hath been so often and excellently done by Men of Wit, Learning and Conscience, and that I have else-where largely delivered my Sense about it;210 but because Every free and impartial Temper hath of a long time observ’d, that such Barbarous Attempts were so far from being indulg’d, that they were most severely prohibited by Christ himself, who instructed his Disciples, to love their Enemies, not to persecute their Friends for every Difference in Opinion; That the Tares should grow with the Wheat; That his Kingdom is not of this World; That Faith is the Gift of God, That the Will and Understanding of Man are Faculties not to be workt upon by Corporal Penalties; That TRUTH is all-sufficient to her own Relief; That ERROR and ANGER go together; That base Coyn only stands in need of Imposition to make it current, but that True Metal passeth for its own intrinsick Value; with a great deal more of that Nature:211 I shall therefore chuse to oppose my self at this time to any such Severity upon meer Prudence; that such as have No Religion, and certainly They that persecute for Religion, have as little as need to be, may be induc’d to Tolerate THEM that have. In The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Selection 5). On loving enemies, see Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27, 35; on the tares and wheat, Matthew 13:24–30; on Christ’s kingdom being not of this world, John 18:36; on faith, Ephesians 2:8; on the truth, John 8:22, 16:13; on anger, Matthew 5:21–22. “True metal” may refer to 1 Peter 1:6–7.

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d First, However advisable it may be in the Judgment of some wise [39] Men, to prevent even by Force, the arising of any New Opinions, where a Kingdom is universally of another Mind; especially, if it be odious to the People, and inconsistent with the Interest of the Government; it cannot be so, where a Kingdom is of many Minds, unless some One Party have the Wisdom, Wealth, Number, Sober Life, Industry and Resolution of its side, which I am sure is not to be found in England; So that the Wind hath plainly shifted its Corner, and consequently obligeth to another Course; I mean, England’s Circumstances are greatly chang’d, and they require New Expedients, and other sorts of Applications. Physicians vary their Medicines according to the Revolution and Commixture of Distempers. They that seek to tye the Government to obsolete and inadequate Methods (supposing them once apt, which Cruelty in this Case never was) are not Friends to its Interest, whatever they may be to their own. If our Superiours should make it their Business so to prefer One Party, as to depress the Rest, they insecure themselves by making [their] Friends to be their Enemies, who before were one anothers: To be sure, it createth Hatred between the Party advanc’d, and those deprest; Jacob’s preferring Joseph, put his Brethren upon that Conspiracy against him.212 I will allow that they may have a more particular Favour for the National Religion (if they can think She deserves it) then for any other Perswasion, but not more then for all other Parties in England: that would break the Ballance, the keeping up of which will be, to make every Party to owe its Tranquillity to their Prudence and Goodness, which will never fail of Returns of Love and Loyalty; for since we see each Interest looks jealously upon the other, ’tis reasonable to believe, They had rather the Dominion should lodge where it is, while universally impartial in their Judgment, then to trust it with any one Sort of themselves. Many inquisitive Men into human Affairs, have thought, that the Concord of Discords hath not been the infirmest Basis Government can rise or stand upon: It hath been observed, that less Sedition and Disturbance attended Hannibal’s Army, that consisted of many Nations, than the Roman Legions, that [40] were of one People; It is Marvelous, how the Wisdom of that General secured them to his Designs: Livy saith, “that his Army for Thirteen Years, that they roaved213 up and down the Roman Empire, made up of Genesis 37. Archaic spelling of “rove”: To traverse (a wide area), often in search or pursuit of something; to wander over or through a place (OED, def. II. 6.b).

212 213

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Part I: Political Liberties many Countries, divers Languages, Laws, Customs, Religions, under all their Successes of War and Peace, never Mutined”: Malvetzy as well as Livy a[s]cribes it to that Variety, well mannaged by the General.214 By the like Prudence Jovianus and Theodosius Magnus brought Tranquillity to their Empire, after much Rage and Blood for Religion.215 In Nature we also see, all Heat consumes, all Cold kills; that three Degrees of Cold, to two of Heat, allay the Heat; but introduce the Contrary Quality, and over-cool by a Degree; but two Degrees of Cold to two of Heat, make a Poyz216 in Elements, and a Ballance in Nature. The like in Families: It is not probable, that a Master should have his Work so well done, at least with that Love and Respect, who continually smiles upon one Servant, and severely frowns upon all the rest; on the contrary, ’tis apt to raise Feud amongst Servants, and turn Duty into Revenge, at least Contempt. In fine: It is to make our Superiour Dominion less then God made it; and to blind their Eyes, stop their Ears and shut up their Breasts from beholding the Miseries, hearing the Cries, and redressing the Grievances of a vast number of People, under their Charge, vext in this World for their Belief, and inoffensive Practice about the next. Secondly, It is the Interest of Governours to be put upon no Thankless Offices, that is, to blow no Coales in their own Country (especially when it is to consume their People, and it may be, themselves too) not to be the Cat’s Foot,217 not to make Work for themselves, or fill their own Hands with Trouble, or the Kingdom with Complaints: It is to forbid them the Use of Clemency, wherein they ought most of all to imitate God Almighty, whose Mercy is above all his Works;218 and renders them a sort of Extortioners to the People, the most remote from the End and Goodness of their Office. In short; It is the best [Recipe] that their Enemies can give, to make them uneasie to the Country. [41] Thirdly, It not only makes them Enemies, but there is no such Excitement to Revenge, as a rap’d Conscience: He that hath been forc’d to break his Peace, to gratifie the Humor of another, must have a great share of Mercy and Self-denyal to forgive that Injury, and forbid himself On Hannibal’s army, see Livy, History of Rome, book 28, ch. 12; Virgilio Malvezzi, Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus, transl. Sir Richard Baker (London, 1642), Discourse 49, pp. 475–477. 215 Jovian (reigned 363–4); Theodosius Magnus (reigned 379–95). 216 Equality of weight; balance (OED, def. II). 217 Person used as a tool by another to accomplish a purpose (OED, def. 2 of “cat’s paw”). 218 Psalm 145:9. 214

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d the Pleasure of Retribution upon the Authors of it: For Revenge, in other Cases condemnable of all, is here lookt upon by too many to be the next way to their Expiation. To be sure, whether the Grounds of their Dissent be rational in themselves, such Severity is unjustifiable with them; for this is a Maxim with Sufferers, Whoever is in the Wrong, the Persecutor is never in the Right. Men, not conscious to themselves of Evil, and harshly treated, not only resent it unkindly, but are bold to shew it. Fourthly, Suppose the Prince, by his Severity, conquers any into a Compliance, he can upon no prudent Ground assure himself of their Fidelity whom he hath taught to be Treacherous to their own Convictions. Wise Men rarely confide in those whom they have debaucht from Trust, to serve themselves: At best it resembleth but forc’d Marriages, that seldom prove happy to the Parties. In short: Force makes Hypocrites; ’tis Perswasion only that makes Converts. Fifthly, This Partiality, of sacrificing the Liberty and Property of all Dissenters, to the Promotion of a single Party, as it is the lively Representation of J. Calvin’s Horrendum Decretum219 of Predestination, so the Consequences of the one belong unto the other, it being but that Ill-natured Principle, practised; Men are put upon the same desperate Courses, either to have no Conscience at all, or to be Hang’d for having a Conscience not fashionable; for, let them be Virtuous, let them be Vitious, if they fall not in with that Mode of Religion, they must be reprobated to all Civil and Ecclesiastical Intents and Purposes. Strange! that men must either Deny their Faith and Reason, or be destroyed for acting according to them, be they otherwise never so Peaceable. What Power is this? But that men are to be protected upon Favour, not Right or Merit; and that no Merit out of the English Church-Dress should find Acceptance, is severe. That Father we justly blame, that narrows his Paternal Love [42] to some one of his Children, though the rest be not one jot less Virtuous then the Favourit[e]: Such Injustice can never flow from a Soul acted by Reason; but a Mind govern’d by Fancy, and enslaved to Passions. Sixthly, consider Peace, Plenty and Safety, the three grand Inducements to any Country to honour the Prince, and love the Government, and the best Allurements to Forreigners to trade with it, and transport themselves to it, are utterly lost by such Intestine Jars; for instead of Peace, Love and good Neighbourhood, behold Animosity and Contest! One Neighbour watcheth another, and makes him an Offender for his C ­ onscience; Horrible decree.

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Part I: Political Liberties this divides them, their Families and Acquaintance: Perhaps with them, the Towns and Villages where they live, most commonly the Sufferer hath the Pitty, and the Persecutor the Odium of the Multitude; and when People see Cruelty practised upon their Inoffensive Neighbours by a Troublesom Sort of Men, and those countenanced by a Law, it breedeth Ill Blood against the Government. Certainly, haling People to Jails, breaking open their Houses, seizing of their Estates, and that without all Proportion, leaving Wives without their Husbands, and Children without their Fathers, their Families, Relations, Friends and Neighbours under Amaze and Trouble, is almost as far from the Peace of a wellgovern’d Kingdom, as it is from the Meekness of Christianity. Plenty will be hereby exchang’d for Poverty, by the Destruction of many Thousand Families within this Realm, who are greatly Instrumental for the carrying on of the most Substantial Commerce therein, Men of Virtue, good Contrivance, great Industry, whose Labours not only keep the Parishes from the Trouble & Charge of maintaining them and theirs, but help to maintain the Poor, and are great Contributors to the Kings Revenue by their Traffick: This very Severity will make more Bankrupts in the Kingdom of England in seven Years then have been in it upon all other Accounts in seven Ages; which Consequence, how far it may consist with the Credit and Interest of the Government, I leave to better Judgments. This Sort of great Severity that hath been lately, and still is used [43] amongst us, is like to prove a great Check to that Readiness, which otherwise we find in Forreigners to trade with the Inhabitants of this Kingdom; for if Men cannot call any Thing their own under a different Exercise of Conscience from the National Way of Religion, may their Correspondents prudently say, We will not further concern our selves with Men that stand upon such tickling Terms; what know we but such Persons are ruin’d in their Estates by Reason of their Non-Conformity, before such Time as we are reimburst for Money paid, or Goods delivered: Nay, we know not how soon those who are Conformists may be Non-Conformists, or what Revolution of Councils may happen, since the Fundamental Laws, so jealous of the Peoples Property, are so little set by with some of their own Magistrates; for though we are told of very worthy and excellent Laws for the Security of the Peoples Rights, yet we are also told, that they all hang at the Churches-Ears; and no Church-Conformity, no Property; which is, no Church-Man, no English Man; so that in Effect the Rights of their Country depend upon the Rites of their Church; and those Churches are so numerous, and have taken their Turns so often, that a Body knows not how to mannage one’s self securely to one’s 

Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d own Affairs in a Correspondence with any of them: For in King Henry the 8th’s Dayes Popery was the only Orthodox Religion, and Luther, Melanchton,220 Oecolampadius,221 Calvin, &c. were great Hereticks: In Edward the sixth’s Time, they were Saints, and Popery Idolatry: A few Years after, Q Mary makes the Papists Holy Church, and Protestancy Heresie: About six Years compleats her Time, and Q. Elizabeth enters her Reign, in which Protestants are good Christians, and the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon: In her Reign, and King James’s, and Charles the first’s, sprung the Puritans, who divided themselves into Presbyterians and Independents; the Bishops exclaimed against them for Schismaticks, and they against the Bishops for Papistical and Anti christian: In the Long Parliament’s Time the Presbyterian drives out the Bishop; O[liver] Cromwel defeating them, and sending the Presbyterian to keep Company with the Bishop, confers it mostly upon the Independent and Anabaptist, who kept it through the other Fractions of Government, till the Presbyter and Bishop got it from them, and the Bishop now from the Presbyter; but how long it will rest there, who knows? Nor is my Supposition idle or improbable, unless Moderation take [44] Place of Severity, and Property the room of Punishment of Opinion; for that must be the lasting Security, as well as that it is the Fundamental Right of English People. There is also a further Consideration, and that is The rendering just and very good Debts desperate, both at home and abroad, by giving Opportunity to the Debtors of Dissenters to detain their Dues. Indeed it seems a natural Consequence with all but Men of Mercy and Integrity, What should we pay them for, may they say, that are not in a Capacity to demand or receive it; at least to compel us? Nay, they may plead a sort of Kindness to their Creditors, and say, We had as good keep it; for, if we pay it them, they will soon lose it; ’Tis better to remain with us, than that they should be pillaged of it by Informers; though Beggary and Want should in the mean time overtake the right Owners and their Families. Nor is it unworthy of the most deliberate Thoughts of our Superiours, that the Land already swarms with Beggars, and that there is no so ready Course to encrease their Number, as the severe Prosecution of Dissenters; so that though they immediately Suffer, the Kingdom in the End must be the Loser: For besides a Decay of Trade, &c. this driving away of Flocks of Sheep, and Herds of Cattel, seizing of Barns full of Corn, breaking open of Doors and [Chests], taking Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), German theologian and ally of Martin Luther. Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531), German Protestant theologian and humanist.

220 221

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Part I: Political Liberties away the best Goods those Instruments of Cruelty can find, sometimes All, even, to a Bed, a Blanket, wearing Apparel, and the very Tools of Trade, by which People honestly labour to get their Bread, till they leave Men, Women and Chi[l]dren destitute of Subsistence, will necessitate an extreme Advance of the Poors Rate in every Parish of England, or they must be starv’d.222 Oh! that it would please them that are in Authority to put a Stop to this Inhuman Usage, lest the Vengeance of the Just God break forth further against this poor Land. Safety, Another Requisite to an happy Government, must needs be at an End, where the Course oppugn’d is followed: And it is but some prudent Forreigners proclaiming Liberty of Conscience within their Territories, and a Door is open’d for a Million of People to pass out of their Native Soil, which is not so extremely improved, that it should not want two or three hundred thousand Families more then it hath, to advance it, especially at this Time of Day, when our Forreign Islands yearly take [45] off so many necessary Inhabitants from us: And as of Contraries there is the same Reason; so let the Government of England but give that prudent Invitation to Forreigners, and she maketh her self Mistress of the Arts and Manufactures of Europe: Nothing else hath hindred Holland from truckling under the Spanish Monarchy, and being ruined above three score Years ago, and given her that Rise to Wealth and Glory. Se[v]enthly, Nor is this Severity only Injurious to the Affairs of England, but the whole Protestant World: For besides that it calls the Sincerity of their Proce[e]dings against the Papists into Question, it furnisheth them with this sort of unanswerable Interrogatory: “The Protestants excla[im] against us for Persecutors, and are they now the very men themselves? Was Severity an Instance of Weakness in our Religion, and is it become a valid Argument in theirs? Are not our Actions (once void of all Excuse with them) now defended by their own Practice? But if men must be restrained upon prudential Considerations from the Exercise of their Consciences in England, why not the same in France and Germany, where matters of State may equally be pleaded?” Certainly whatever Shifts Protestants may use to palliate these Procedings, they are thus far condemnable upon the Foot of Prudence. Eighthly, Such Procedure is a great Reflection upon the Justice of the Government, in that it enacts Penalties inadequate to the Fault committed, viz. That I should lose my Liberty and Property, Natural The poor rate was a form of property tax levied at the parish level, to provide poor relief.

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Endowments, and confirmed Civil Priviledges, for some Error in Judgment about Matters of Religion; as if I must not be a Man, because I am not such a sort of religious Man as the Government would have me, but must lose my Claim to all Natural Benefits, though I harmonize with them in Civil Affairs, because I fall not in with the Judgment of the Government in some Points of a supernatural Import; though no real Part of the ancient Government. Perhaps instead of going to the Left Hand, I go to the Right: and whereas I am commanded to hear A. B. I rather chuse to hear C. D. my Reason for it, being the more Religious Influence the latter hath over me, then the former; and that I find by Experience, I am better affected, and more Religiously edified to Good Living. What Blemish is this to the Government? What Insecurity to the Civil Magistrate? Why may not this Man Sell, Buy, Plow, pay his Rent, be as good a Subject, and as true an English-man, as any Conformist in the Kingdom? Howbeit, Fines and Jails are very ill Arguments to convince sober Mens Understandings, and disswade them from the Continuance of so harmless a Practice. Lastly, But there is yet another Inconveniency that will attend this Sort of Severity, that so naturally follows upon our Superiors making Conformity to the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of England, the sine qua non, or Inlet to all Property, and Ground of Claim to all English Civil Priviledges, to wit, that they make a Rod, for ought they know, to whip their own Posterity with; since it is Impossible for them to secure their Children to the English Church; and if it happen that any of them are never so conscientiously of another Perswasion, they are lyable to all the Miseries that may attend the Execution of those Laws: Such a King must not be King; such Lords and Commons must not sit in Parliament; nay, they must not administer any Office, be it never so inferiour, within the Realm, and they never so virtuous and capable; their very Patrimony becomes a Prey to a Pack of lewd Informers, and their Persons exposed to the Abuse of Men, Poor or Malicious. But there are three Objections that some make against what I have urged, not unfit to be consider’d. The first is this: If the Liberty desired be granted, what know we but Dissenters may employ their Meetings to insinuate against the Government, inflame People into a Dislike of their Superiours, and thereby prepare them for Mischief. Answ. This Objection may have some Force, so long as our Superiours continue Severity; because it doth not only sharpen and excite Dissenters, but it runs many of them into such Holes and Corners, that if they were disposed to any such Conspiracies, they have the securest Places and 

[46]

Part I: Political Liberties Opportunities to effect their Design. But what Dissenter can be so destitute of Reason and Love to common Safety, as to expose himself and [47] Family, by plotting against a Government that is kind to him, and gives him the Liberty he desires, and could only be supposed in common sense to plot for. To be sure, Liberty to Worship God, according to their several Professions, will be, as the Peoples Satisfaction, so the Governments greatest Security; For if men enjoy their Property and their Conscience, which is the noblest part of it, without Molestation, what should they object against and plot for? Mad Men only burn their own Houses, kill their own Children & murder themselves. Doth Kindness or Cruelty most take with men that are but themselves? H. Grotius with Campanella, well observ’d, that a fierce and rugged Hand was very improper for Northern Countries. English men are gain’d with Mildness, but inflamed by Severity:223 And many that do not suffer, are as apt to compassionate them that do. And if it will please our Superiours to make Tryal of such an Indulgence, doubtless they will find Peace and Plenty to ensue. The Practice of other Nations, and the Trade, Tranquillity, Power and Opulency that have attended it, is a Demonstration in the Case, and ought not to be slighted by them that aim at as high and honourable things for their Country: And if we had no other Instance then our own Intervals of Connivance, they were enough to satisfie reasonable men, how much more Moderation contributes to publick Good, than the Prosecution of People for their Religious Dissent; since the one hath ever produced Trade and Tranquillity; the other, greater Poverty and Dissension. The second Objection, and by far the more weighty, runs thus: Obj. The King and Parliament are sworn to maintain and protect the Church of England, as establisht, &c. therefore to tolerate other Opinions, is against their Oath. Answ. Were the Consequence true, as it is extremely false, it were highly unreasonable to expect Impossibilities at their Hands. Kings and Parliaments can no more make Brick without Straw, then Captives:224 They have not sworn to do things beyond their Ability. Had it been in His and their Time and Choice, when the Church of England had been first disturbed with dissenting Opinions, it might have reflected more colourably a kind of Neglect upon them: But since the Church of England Hugo Grotius, Politick Maxims and Observations (London, 1654), pp. 43–45; Tommaso Campanella, A Discourse Touching the Spanish Monarchy (London, 1653), ch. 5. Exodus 5:18.

223

224

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d was no sooner a Church, then she found some sort of Dissenters; and that [48] the utmost Policy and Severity of Q. Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles the 1st, were not successful towards an absolute Uniformity; Why should it reflect upon them, that the Church of England hath not yet rid her self of Dissenting Parties? Besides, it is Notorious, that the late Wars gave that Opportunity to Differing Perswasions to spread, that it was utterly impossible for them to hinder, much less during the several Years of the King’s Exile, at what time the present Parliament was no Parliament, nor the generality of the Members of it scarce of any Authority. Let it be considered, that ’twas the Study of the Age to make People Anti-Papistical and Anti-Episcopal, and that Power and Preferment went on that side: Their Circumstances therefore and their Ancestors are not the same; They find the Kingdom Divided into several Interests, and it seems a Difficulty insurmountable to reduce them to any one Perswasion; wherefore to render themselves Masters of their Affections, they must necessarily govern themselves towards them on a Ballance, as before exprest; otherwise, they are put upon the greatest Hazards, and extreamest Difficulties to themselves and the Kingdom, and all to perform the Uncharitable Office of suppressing many Thousands of Inoffensive Inhabitants for the different Exercise of their Conscience to God: This is not to make them resemble Almighty God, the Goodness of whose Nature extends it self universally, thus to narrow his Bowels, and confine his Clemency, to one single Party of Men: It ought to be remember’d, that Optimus went before Maximus of old,225 and that Power without Goodness is a frightful Sort of a Thing. But Secondly, I deny the Consequence, viz. That the King is therefore obliged to persecute Dissenters, because he or the Parliament hath taken an Oath to maintain the Church of England: For it cannot be supposed or intended, that by maintaining Her, they are to destroy the Rest of the Inhabitants: Is it impossible to protect her without knocking all the rest on the Head? Do they allow any to Supplant her Officers, Invade her Livings, Possess her Emoluments, Exercise her Authority? What would she have? Is she not Church of England still, in the same Regency, invested with the same Power, bearing the same Character? What Grandeur or Interest hath she lost [49] by them? Are they not manifestly her Protector? Is she not National Church still? And are not the greatest Offices, Civil, Military and Mariti[m]e E.g., Jupiter Optimus Maximus (the temple of Jupiter in Rome). In Pro Domo Sua, sec. 6, for example, Cicero refers to “all-good and all-powerful Jupiter.”

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Part I: Political Liberties conferr’d upon her Sons? And can any of her Children be so insensible as either to challenge her Superiours with Want of Integrity, because they had not perform’d Impossibilities? or to excite them to that Harshness, which is not only destructive of many Thousands of Inhabitants, but altogether injurious to their own Interest, and dishonourable to a Protestant Church? Suppose Dissenters not to be of the visible Church, are they therefore unfit to live? Did the Jews treat Strangers so severely that had so much more to say then her self? Is not the King Lord of Wastes and Commons as well as Inclosures? Suppose God hath elected some to Salvation, doth it therefore follow he hath reprobated all the rest? And because he was God of the Jews, was he not therefore God of the Gentiles? or were not the Gentiles his People, because the Jews were his peculiar People? To be brief; They have answer’d their Obligation, consented to severe Laws, and commanded their Execution, in that they have still preferr’d her above Every Interest in England, to render her more Powerful and Universal, till they have good Reason to be tired with the Lamentable Consequences of those Endeavours, and to conclude, that the Uniformity thereby intended, is a thing Impracticable. And I wonder that these men should so easily forget that great Saying of King CHARLES the 1st (whom they pretended so often and with so much Honour to remember) in his Advice to the present King: where he saith, Beware, of Exasperating any Factions, by the Crossness and Asperity of some Mens Passions, Humours, or Private Opinions, imployed by You, grounded only upon their Differences in Lesser Matters, which are but the [50] Skirts and Suburbs of Religion, wherein a Charitable Connivance and Christian Toleration often Dissipates their Strength, whom Rougher Opposition Fortifieth, and puts the Despised and Oppressed Party into such Combinations as may most Enable them to get a Full Revenge upon Those they count their Persecutors; who are commonly Assisted with that Vulgar Commiseration, which attends all that are said to Suffer under the Common Notion of Religion.226 So that we have not only the King’s Circumstances, but his Father’s Counsel, who saw not the End of one half of them defending a Charitable Connivance, and Christian Toleration of Dissenters. [Charles I], Eikon Basilike, The Portraiture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitude and Sufferings (London, 1649), pp. 231–232.

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Obj. 3. But it may be further alledged, This makes way for Popery or Presbytery to undermine the Church of England, and mount the Chair of Power and Preferment, which is more then a Prudential Indulgence of Different Opinions. And yet there is not any so probable an Expedient to vanish those Fears, and prevent any such Design, as keeping all Interests upon the Ballance; for so the Protestant makes at least six Parties against Popery, and the Church of England at least five against Presbytery; and how either of them should be able to turn the Scale against five or six, as free and thriving Interests as either of them can pretend to be, I confess I cannot understand: But if one only Interest must be tolerated, which implies a Resolution to suppress the Rest, plain it is, that the Church of England ventures her single Party against six growing Interests, and thereby gives Presbytery and Popery by far an easier Access to Supremacy, especially the latter, for that it is the Religion of those Parts of Europe, which neither want Inclination, nor Ability to prosper it. So that besides the Consistency of such an Indulgence with the Nature of a Christian Church, there can be nothing more in Prudence advisable for the Church of England, then to allow of the Ballance propounded; In that first, no Person of any real Worth will ever the sooner decline her; on the contrary, it will give Her a greater Reputation in a Country so hating Severity: and next, it gives Her Opportunity to turn the Scale against any one Party that may aspire after her Power and Endowments; and she never need to fear the Agreement of all of them to any such Design, Episcopacy not being more intolerable than Presbytery in Power, even to an Independency it self; and yet between them lies the narrowest Difference that is among the Dissenting Interests in this Kingdom. But this seems too large and yielding; and therefore to find a Medium, something that may compass the happy End of good Correspondence and Tranquillity, at least so to fortifie the Church of England, as that she may securely give Law to all other Religious Interests, a Comprehension is pitcht upon, and diligently pursued by both Episcopalians and Presbyterians, at least some of each Party.227 But if it becomes wise men to Look before they Leap, it will not be unadvisable for them to weigh the Consequences of such an Endeavour: For, In addition to what follows, see The Proposed Comprehension (Selection 6).

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[51]

Part I: Political Liberties in the first place, there is no one People I know in England, that stands at a greater Distance from her Doctrine as it is maintain’d by her present Sons, than the Presbyterians, particularly about absolute Reprobation, the Person of Christ, Satisfaction and Justification; and he must be a Stranger in the Religious Contests of our times that knows not this. In the next place, None have govern’d themselves with a plainer Denial and more peremptory Contempt of Episcopacy, and the whole Discipline and Worship of the Church of England, then the Presbyterians have ever done; let them put me to prove it, if they please, even of their most reverend Fathers. [52] 3dly, Who knows not that their reciprocal Heats about these very things, went a great way towards our late lamentable Troubles? Now if the same Principles remain with each Party, and that they are so far from repenting of their Tenaciousness, that on the contrary they justifie their Opposition to one another in these matters, how can either Party have Faith enough to rely upon each other’s Kindness, or so much as attempt a Comprehension? What must become of the Labours of Bp. Witgift, R. Hooker, Bp. Banckroft, Bp. Lawd, &c. in Rebuke of the Presbyterian Separation;228 and the Names of those leading Dissenters, as Cartwright, Dode, Bradsh[a]w, Rut[h]erford, Galaspee, &c.229 so famous among the present Presbyterians, and that for their Opposition to the Church? This considered, what Reason can any render, why the Episcopalians should so singularly Provide for, and Confide in an Interest that hath already been so Destructive to theirs? On the other hand, With what Prudence may the Presbyterians imbrace the others Offer that intended it not in Kindness to them, and who they must needs think, cannot but owe Revenge, and retain deep Grudges for old Stories? But 4thly, The very Reason given for a Comprehension is the greatest that can be urged against it; namely, The Suppression of other dissenting Perswasions. I will suppose a Comprehension, and the Consequences of it, to be an Eradication of ALL Interests, the Thing desired: But if the two remaining Parties shall fall out, as it is not likely that they will long agree, what can the Presbyterian have to Ballance himself against the Ruling John Whitgift (1530–1604), archbishop of Canterbury 1583–1604; Richard Hooker (1554–1600), English theologian and author of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Politie; Richard Bancroft (1544–1610), archbishop of Canterbury 1604–10; William Laud (1573–1645), archbishop of Canterbury 1633–45. 229 Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603); John Dod (1549–1645); William Bradshaw (1571– 1618); Samuel Rutherford (1600–61); George Gillespie (1613–48). 228

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Power of Episcopacy? or the Episcopalian to secure himself against the Aspirings of Presbytery? They must either all become Episcopalians, or Presbyterians, else they will commix as Iron and Clay, which made ill Leggs for the Image in Daniel;230 Nor, is it to be thought, that their Leggs should stand any better. But some are ready to say, that Their Difference is very minute. Grant it; Are they ever the more tolerable for that? Certainly, Forbearance should carry some Proportion with the Greatness of the Difference, by how much it is easier to comply in smaller Matters: He that dissents fundamentally, is more excusable then those that sacrifice the Peace and Concord of a Society about little Circumstances; for there cannot be the same Inducement to suspect men of Obstinacy in an Essential as Circumstantial Non-Conformity. Besides, How far can this Accommodation extend with Security to the Church of England? Or, on what better Terms will the Presbyterians conform to her Discipline and formal Acts of Devotion, than those upon which Peter du Moulin offer’ed to preach the Gospel at Rome? viz. That if the Pope would give him Leave to preach at Rome, he would be contented to preach in a Fool’s Coat.231 I question if the Presbyterian can go so far, I am sure he could not; and as sure, that Peter du Moulin hop’t by preaching there in a Fool’s Coat, to inculcate that Doctrine which should un-Mitre the Pope, and alter his Church, the very Thing the Church of England ought to fear: For Peter du Moulin intended to preach in a Fool’s Coat no longer, but till he had preacht the People Wise enough to throw it off again. So the Presbyterians, they may conform to certain Ceremonies (once as sinful to them, as a Fool’s Coat could be ridiculous to Peter du Moulin) that they may the better introduce their Alterations both in Doctrine and Discipline.

Daniel 2:31–35. Pierre du Moulin (1568–1658), renowned Huguenot cleric and author. Penn likely took the anecdote from A Second Letter to a Member of This Present Parliament, against Comprehension (London, 1668), p. 8. It also appeared in the introductory “Author’s Life” in the English edition of du Moulin’s The Novelty of Popery Opposed to the Antiquity of Christianity (London, 1662), which was translated by his son, also named Peter du Moulin. The younger Moulin recounted the anecdote slightly differently, as a willingness to preach in a friar’s hat if the queen regent of France gave him leave to preach in Paris, and claimed to have heard it from his father firsthand. (He also recounted that an English visitor had added the words “in a fool’s coat” [n.p.]). The story also appears in Thomas Wooley’s A Collection of Private Devotions (London, 1670), where it is the king offering leave to preach in Paris, “though it were in a fools coat” (p. 106).

230 231

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[53]

Part I: Political Liberties But that which ought to go a great Way with our Superiours in their Judgment of this Matter, is not only the Benefit of a Ballance against the Presumption of any one Party, and the Probability, if not Certainty of their never being over-driven by any one Perswasion whilst they have others to more than poiz[e] against the growing Power of it; but the Conceit it self, if not altogether impracticable, is at least very difficult to the Promotors, and an Office as thankless from the Parties concern’d. This appears in the Endeavours used for a Comprehension of Arrians and Homousians under one Orthodoxy, related not only in our common Ecclesiastical History, but more amply in the Writings of Hilary, an Enemy to the Arrians, and Mariana’s Spanish History.232 These publick Tests, or comprehensive Creeds were many, Nice, Ariminum, Sirmium, &c. in order to agree both Parties, that neither might stigmatize the other with the odious Crime of Heresie; but the Consequence of all this Convocation and prolix Debate was, that neither Party could be satisfied, each continuing their former Sentiments, and so grew up into stronger Factions to the Division, Distraction, and almost Destruction of the whole Empire; recover’d a little by the prudent Moderation of Jovianus, and [54] much improved, not by a Comprehension, but Restauration of a Seasonable Liberty of Conscience by Theodosius Magnus. Also in Germany about the Time of the Reformation, nothing seem’d more sincere then the Design of Union between the Lutherans and Zwinglians: For Luther and Zwinglius themselves by the earnest Endeavours of the Landgrave of Hessen, came together; but the Success was so small, notwithstanding the Grave’s Mediation, that they parted scarcely Civil; to be sure, as far from Unity as Controversie is.233 Luther and Cardinal Cajeten met for a Composure of the Breach betwixt the Protestants and the Pope; but they were too wide for those Conferences to reconcile, no Comprehension could do the Business.234A second Essay to the same Purpose was by Melanchton, Cassander and others;235 the Consequence of it was, that the Parties were displeased, and the Heads suspected, if Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book 1, ch. 8; book 4, ch. 17; Hilary of Poitiers (c. 301–68), Contra Auxentium Arrianum; and Juan Mariana, General history of Spain (Toledo, 1592), book 4, ch. 6. 233 The Marburg Colloquy of 1529 foundered on the question of the nature of the Eucharist, with especially deep divisions between Luther and Zwingli. 234 Luther and Cardinal Thomas Cajetan met at Augsburg in 1518. 235 Both Melanchthon and Georg Cassander (1513–66) supported efforts at reunification, but those efforts ultimately went nowhere. 232

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d not hated of their Followers: Nor had Bucer’s Meeting with Julius Pflugg any better Success;236 And how fruitless their Contrivances have been, that with greatest Art and Industry have of a long Time endeavour’d a Reconciliation of Lutherans and Calvinists, is well known to those that are acquainted with the Affairs of Germany; and such as are not, may furnish themselves from those publick Relations given by those that are employed about that Accommodation; where besides a dull & heavy Progress, the Reader may be a Witness of their Complaint, not only that both Parties are too tenacious, but that they suffer Detraction for their good Endeavours, each Side grudging every Tit[t]le they yield, and murmuring as if they were too hardly born[e] upon. And if Persons so disinterested, and worthy in their Attempts have had no better Issue, I cannot see how those who seem compell’d by Worldly Interest more than Conscience, to seek and propagate a Comprehension, especially, when it determin[e]s in the Persecution of the rejected Perswasions, can with any Reason expect from God or Good Men any better Success to their Design. Lastly, there is nothing any Man toucht with Justice and Mercy, can alledge for a Comprehension, that may not be much better urg’d to procure a Toleration; they are Men as well as those of other Perswasions, their Faith is as Christian, they believe as sincerely, live as conscientiously, are as useful in the Kingdom, and mannage their Dissent with [55] as much Modesty & Prudence, the Church of England her self being in a great Measure Judge, as those on whose Account a Comprehension may be intended: To be sure they are English Men, and have an Equal Claim to the Civil Rights of their Native Country, with any that live in it, whom to persecute, whilst others, and those no better Men, are tolerated, is, as I have already said, The Unreasonable and Unmerciful Doctrine of absolute Election and Reprobation put in Practice. III. A SINCERE PROMOTION of General & Practical RELIGION. I am now come to the last, which to be sure, is not the least Part of my Answer to the Question propounded, viz. The Sincere Promotion of general and practical Religion, by which I mean the Ten Commandments, or Moral Law, and Christ’s Sermon upon the Mount, with other Heavenly Sayings, excellently improved, and earnestly recommended by several Passages in the Writings of his Disciples, which forbid Evil not only in Deed, but Martin Bucer (1491–1551), German Protestant Reformer, and Julius von Pflug (1499– 1564), Catholic bishop of Naumberg, attended the Diet of Regensburg (1541).

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Part I: Political Liberties Thought; and injoyn Purity & Holiness, as without which no Man, be his Pretences what they will, shall ever see God.237 In short, General, True and Requisite Religion in the Apostle James’s Definition, is, To visit the Widow and the Fatherless, and to keep our selves, through the Universal Grace, unspotted of the World:238 This is as the most sacred, so the most easie & probable Way to fetch in all Men professing God & Religion; for that every Perswasion acknowledges this in Words, be their Lives never so incongruous with their Confession; And this being the Unum necessarium, that One Thing only requisite to make Men happy here and hereafter, why should Men sacrifice their Accord in this great Point for an Unity in minute or circumstantial Things, that perhaps is inobtainable, & if it were not, would signifie little or nothing, either to the Good of Humane Society, or the particular Comfort of any individual in that World which is to come? No one Thing is more senseless and condemnable among Men, then their Uncharitable & Mutinous Clamours and Contests about [56] Religion, indeed about Words & Phrases, whilst they all verbally meet in the most, if not only necessary Part of Christian Religion: For nothing is more certain, then if Men would but live up to one half of what they know in their own Consciences they ought to practise, their Edge would be taken off, their Blood would be sweetned by Mercy and Truth, and this unnatural Sharpness qualified; they would quickly find Work enough at home; each Man’s Hands would be full by the Unruliness of his own Passions, and in Subjection of his own Will; and instead of devouring one another’s Good Name, Liberty, or Estate, Compassion would rise, and mutual Desires to be assistent to one another in a better Sort of Living. Oh how decent, how delightful would it be, to see Mankind (the Creation of one God that hath upheld them to this Day) of one Accord, at least in the weighty Things of God’s practical Law! ’Tis Want of Practice, and too much Prate, that hath made Way for all the Incharity and ill living that is in the World. No Matter what Men say, if the Devil keep the House: Let the Grace of God, the Principle of Divine Life (as a great Man lately called it in his Speech)239 but be heartily and reverently entertained of men, that teaches to deny Ungodliness, and converse Soberly, Righteously and Godlily in this present evil World; and it is not to be doubted but Tranquillity, and a very amicable Correspondence will follow.240 Hebrews 12:14.  238 James 1:27. Finch, Lord Keeper’s Speech to the House of Lords; see p. 113. 240 Inserted paragraph break here. 237 239

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d Men are not to be reputed Good by their Opinion; nor is that, nor ought it to be offensive to the Government; but Practice is what must save or damn, temporally or eternally. Christ in his Representation of the Great Day, doth not tell us that it shall be Well SAID, or Well TALKT, but Well DONE good and faithful Servant: neither is the Depart from me YOU, directed to any but the Workers of Iniquity.241 Error now is brought from the Signification of an Evil Life to an unsound Proposition, as Philosophy is from Mortification, and well-living, to an Unintelligible Way of Wrangling. And a man is more bitterly harra[ssed] for an Erroneous Proposition, though the Party holding it thinks not so, and the Party charging it denies all Infallible Judgment in this World (so that it may as well be true as false for all him) then for the most dissolute Life. And truly it is high Time, that Men should give better Testimony of their Christianity; for Cruelty hath no Share in Christ’s Religion, and Coertion upon Conscience is utterly inconsistent with the very Nature of his Kingdom: He rebuked that Zeal, which would have Fire from Heaven to devour Dissenters, though it came [57] from his own Disciples; and forbad them to pluck up the Tares, though none had a more gentle or infallible Hand to do it by:242 He preferred Mercy before Sacrifice;243 and therefore we may well believe, that the Unmerciful Sacrifices some Men now offer, I mean, Imprisoning Persons, spoiling of Goods, and leaving whole Families destitute of common Subsistence, are far from being grateful to him, who therefore came into the World, and preacht that Heavenly Doctrine of Forbearing, and Loving of Enemies, and laid down his most Innocent Life for us, whilst we were Rebels, that by such peaceable Precepts and so patient an Example the World might be prevail’d upon to leave those Barbarous Courses: And doubtless, very lamentable will their Condition be, who at the Coming of the great Lord shall be found Beaters of their Fellow-Servants.244 In vain do Men go to Church, pray, preach, and style themselves Believers, Christians, Children of God, &c. whilst such Acts of Severity are practised, and any Disposition to molest harmless Neighbours for their Conscience, so much as countenanc’d. A Course quite repugnant to Christ’s Doctrine and Example. In short; The Promoting of this General Religion by a severe Reprehension and Punishment of Vice, and Encouragement of Virtue, is the Interest of our Superiours several Wayes. Matthew 25:21–23; Luke 19:17; Matthew 7:23; and Luke 13:27. Matthew 13:24–30; Luke 9:51–56. Matthew 9:13, 12:7; see also Hosea 6:6.  244 Matthew 18:21–35.

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Part I: Political Liberties

[58]

1. In that it meets with, and takes in all the Religious Perswasions of the Kingdom; Penal Laws for Religion is a Church with a Sting in her Tail; take that out, and there is no Fear of the Peoples Love and Duty: And what better Obligation or Security can the Civil Magistrate desire? Every Man owns the Text; ’tis the Comment that’s disputed: Let it but please him to make the Text only sacred and necessary, and so leave Men to keep Company with their own Meanings and Consequences, and he not only prudently takes in all, but suppresseth nice Searches, fixes Unity upon Materials, quiets present Differences about Things of lesser Moment, retri[e]ves Humanity and Christian Clemency, and fills the Kingdom with Love and Respect to their Governours. 2. Next, A Promotion of general Religion, it being in it self practical, brings back again ancient Virtue: Good Living will thrive in this Soil; Men will grow Honest, Trusty and Temperate; we may expect good Neighbourhood and Cordial Friendship; one may depend more upon a Word, then now upon an Oath. How lamentable is it to see People afraid of one another; Men made and provided for of one God, and that must be judged by that One Eternal God, yet full of Diffidence in what each other sayes, and most commonly interpret as People read Hebrew, all Things that are spoaken backward? 3. The third Benefit is, that Men will be more industrious; more diligent in their lawful Callings, which will encrease our Manufacture, set the Idle and Poor to work for their Livelihood, and enable the several Countries with more Ease and Decency to maintain the Aged and Impotent among them. Nor will this only make the Lazy conscientiously industrious, but the Industrious and Conscientious Man Cheerful at his Labour, when he is assured to keep what he works for, and that the Sweat of his Brows shall not be made a Forfeit for his Conscience. 4. It will render the Magistrates Province more facil[e], and Government a safe as well as easie Thing; for, as Tacitus sayes of Agricola’s instructing the Britains in Arts and Sciences, and using them with more Humanity than other Governours had done, that it made them fitter for Government:245 So, if that Practical Religion, and the Laws made to maintain it, were duely regarded, the very Natures of Men now wilde & froward by Cross and Jealous Interests, would learn Moderation, and

Tacitus, Agricola, chs. 19–22.

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Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d see it to be by far their greatest Interest to pursue sober and amicable Conversation, which would rid the Magistrate of much of his present Trouble: And the Truth is, ’tis a Piece of Slavery to have the Regiment of Ignorants and Ruffains; but there is true Glory and Royalty in having the Government of Men instructed in the Justice and Prudence of their own Laws and Country. Lastly, Heaven will prosper so Natural, so Noble, and so Christian an Essay, which ought not to be the least Consideration with a good Magistrate; and the rather, because the Neglect of this practical Religion hath been the Ruin of Kingdoms and Common Wealths among Heathens, Jews and Christians. This laid Tarquin low, and his Race never rose more.246 How puissant was Lacedaemon and Athens in Greece, till Luxury had eaten out their Severity, and a pompous Living, contrary to their Excellent Laws, render’d their Execution intolerable? And was not Hannibal’s Army a Prey to their own Idleness and Pleasure, which by effeminat- [59] ing their Natures conquer’d them, when the whole Power of Rome could not do it?247 What else betray’d Rome to Caesar’s Ambition, and made way for the after Rents and Divisions of the Empire? The Conquest and ­Inheritance of a well govern’d People for several Ages, as long as their Manners lasted. The Jews in like Manner were prosperous while they kept the Statutes and Judgments of their God; but when they became Rebellious and dissolute, the Almighty either visited them from Heaven, or exposed them to the Fury of their Neighbours. Nothing else sent Zedekiah to Babylon, and gave him and the people a Prey to Nebuchad­ nezzar and his Army.248 Neglect of Laws and Dissolute Living, Andrew Horn (that liv’d in the Time of Edw. the 1st, as before cited) tells us, was the Cause of the miserable Thraldom and Desolation the Brittains sustained by Invaders and Conquerers.249 And pray, what else hath been the English of our sweeping Pestilence and dreadful Fires of late Years?250 Hundreds of Examples might be brought in this Case; but their Frequency shall excuse me. Tarquin (Lucius Tarquinius Superbus), king of Rome, overthrown and exiled in 509 BCE. 247 Hannibal wintered his troops in Capua in 216 BCE. For the notion that the city’s luxury enervated his troops and led to his defeat, see Livy’s History of Rome, book 23, esp. 23.45. 248 Jeremiah 52; 2 Kings 24–25.  249 Horn, Mirror of Justices, ch. 1, sec. 2. 250 Penn had lived through the Great Plague in 1665, and would have had knowledge of the Great Fire of London in 1666 (from his father, who was instrumental in fighting the flames), although he himself had been in Ireland during the conflagration. 246

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Part I: Political Liberties Thus have I honestly and plainly clear’d my Conscience for my Country, and answer’d, I hope, modestly, and though briefly, yet fully the Import of the Question propounded, with Honour to the Magistrate, and Safety to the People by an happy Conjunction of their Interests. I shall conclude, That as greater Honour and Wisdom cannot well be attributed to any Sort of Men, then for our Superiours, under their Circumstances, to be sought to by all Perswasions, confided in by all Perswasions, and obey’d by all Perswasions; and to make those Perswasions know, that it is their Interest so to do, as well as that it is the Interest of our Superiours, they should, which the Expedients propos’d naturally tend to; So, for a further Inducement to imbrace them, let it be constantly remembred, that the Interest of our English Governours is like to stand longer upon the Legs of the English People, then [60] of the English Church; since the one takes in the Strength of all Interests, the other leaves out all but her own; and it may happen that the English Church may fail, or go travail again, but it is not probable that English People should do either, while Property is preserved, a Ballance kept, General Religion propagated, and the World continues. May all this prevail with our Superiours to make the best Use of their little Time, remembring in the midst of all their Power and Grandeur that they carry Mortality about them, and are equally liable to the Scrutiny and Judgment of the last Day with the poorest Peasant, and that they have a great Stewardship to account for; that Moderation and Virtue being their Course, they for the future shall steer, after having faithfully discharg’d that Grand Trust repos’d in them by God and this Free-­People, they may with Comfort to their Souls, and Honour to their Names and Actions, safely anchor in the Haven of Eternal Blessedness: So prayes with much Sincerity, An English-Christian-Man, William Penn. [61]

A Corollary. That the People are under a great Dissatisfaction. That the Way to quiet Differences, and render contrary Interests subservient to the Interest of the Government, is, First, To maintain inviolably the Rights of it, viz. Liberty and Property, Legislation & Juries, without Neglect. That slighting and Infringing them hath been the Injury of Prince and People, and early or late the Ruin of the Contrivers of so ill Designs; and when all has been done, the only E ­ xpedient 

Selection 2: England’s Present Interest Discover’d has been, to come back again to English Law: This takes in all, pleases all, because it secures and profits all; sacrificing Priviledges for the sake of Conformity, makes a Breach upon the Civil Government, alienates the People’s Affections from their Prince, lodges Property in the Church, so as none can come at it, but through Obedience to her Rites; for she at this Rate has the keeping of it, a Thing Unknown, as well as Unsafe to the Ancient English Government. 2dly, That the Prince govern himself upon a Ballance towards all Religious Interests; that this best poizes Parties to his Security, renders him Master of an universal Affection, and makes him truly and safely Prince of all his Country; but the contrary Course narrows his Justice and Mercy, makes the Government to shine but upon one Patch of the Kingdom; to be Just but to one Party, and disinherit the rest from their Birthright; that this Course ends in great Disadvantage to the Peace, Plenty and Safety of Prince and People. 3dly, And lastly, Instead of being Uncharitable, Severe and Cruel for Modifications, let them sleep, and General and Practical Religion be promoted, that which receives an Amen in every Man’s Conscience, from the Principle of Divine Life (as the Lord Keeper well call’d it),251 in every Breast: That all agree in the most weighty Doctrines, and that nothing will sooner sweeten Men’s Blood, and mollifie their Natures, than employing that Time & Pains they bestow on fruitless Contests, in Living up to what they both Know, Believe and Accord in; that this leaves Men to keep Company with their own Comments, and makes the Text only Sacred, and Holy Living necessary, not only to heavenly, but earthly Places, I mean, Preferments, whence Virtue becomes the Door to Favour, and Conscience (now smother’d in the Crowd of Sinister Interests) the Noble Rule of Living. God Almighty, if it please him, beget Noble Resolutions in the Hearts of our Superiours, to use these plain & safe Expedients, that Charity may supplant Cruelty, Contest yield to Good Life, and present Distances meet in a Just and Kind Neighbourhood. Great and Honourable is that Prince, Free and Happy that People, where these Things take Place.

W. P.

Finch, Lord Keeper’s Speech to the House of Lords, see pp. 113, 134.

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[62]

3. ENGLAND’s Great Interest in the CHOICE of this New Parliament; Dedicated to All Her FREEHOLDERS and ELECTORS. [1]

SINCE it hath pleased God and the King to begin to revive and restore to us our Ancient Right of Frequent Parliaments, it will greatly concern us, as to our present Interest, and therein the Future Happiness of our Posterity, to act at this time with all the Wisdom, Caution and Integrity we can. For besides, that ’tis our own Business, and that if by a neglect of this singular Opportunity we desert our selves, and forsake our own Mercies, we must expect to be Left of God and Good Men too. It may be there has never happened, not only in the memory of the living, but in the Records of the dead, so odd and so strange a Conjuncture as this we are under: It is made up of so many unusual and important Circumstances (all affecting us to the very Heart) that whether we regard the long sitting of the late Parliament, or its abrupt and most unexpected Dissolution, or the Prorogation of the last and its surprising Dissolution,252 or the strong Jealousies of the People, and that universal agitation, that is now upon the spirit of the Nation, and the Reasons and Motives thereof (so far as we can reach them) there seems never to have been a time, wherein this Kingdom ought to shew it self more serious and diligent in the business of its own safety. To be plain with you, All is at Stake: and therefore I must tell you, That the Work of this Parliament is, The Cavalier Parliament sat from May 1661 until January 1679; its successor, for just four months. England’s Great Interest appeared during the ensuing spring/summer 1679 election season.

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Selection 3: England’s Great Interest First, To pursue the Discovery and Punishment of the Plot: for that has been the old Snake in the Grass, the Trojan Horse with an Army in the Belly of it.253 Secondly, To remove and bring to Justice those Evil Counsellors, and Corrupt and Arbitrary Ministers of State, that have been so Industrious to give the King Wrong Measures, to turn Things out of their Antient and Legal Channel of Administration, and Alienate his Affections from his People. Thirdly, To Detect and Punish the Pensioners of the former Parliament, in the Face of the Kingdom. Fourthly, To secure to us the Execution of our Antient Laws by New ones, and, among the rest such, as relate to Frequent Parliaments, the only True Check upon Arbitrary Ministers, and therefore feared, hated, and opposed by them. Fifthly, That we be secur’d from Popery and Slavery; and that ­Protestant-Dissenters be eased. Sixthly, That in case this be done, the King be released from his burdensom Debts to the Nation, and eas’d in the business of his Revenue. And let me be free with you, if you intend to save poor England, You must take this General Measure, viz. To guide and fix your Choice upon Men, that you have reason to believe are Well-Affected, Able and Bold to serve the Country in these Respects. The Words of the Writ (at least, the Import of them) is, To chuse Wise Men, fearing God, and hating Covetousness:254 and what to do? says the same Writ, To Advice the King of the Weighty Matters of the Kingdom. Let us not then play the Fools or Knaves, to Neglect or Betray the Common Interest of our Country by a Base Election: Let neither Fear, Flattery, nor Gain Byass us. We must not make our Publick Choice the Recompence of Private Favours from our Neighbours; they must excuse us for that: the Weight of the Matter will very well bear it. This is our Inheritance; all depends upon it: Men don’t use to lend their Wives, or give their Children to satisfie Personal Kindnesses; nor must we make a Swop of our Birth-Right, (and that of our Posterities too) for a Mess of Pottage,255 a Feast or a Drinking-bout; there can be no Proportion here: and therefore

The story of the Trojan horse appears in Virgil, Aeneid, book 2. On the Popish Plot, see John Kenyon, The Popish Plot (Phoenix Press: London, 2000 [1972]). 254 The words of the writ here echo Jethro’s instructions to Moses in Exodus 18:21. 255 Genesis 25:29–34. 253

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[2]

Part I: Political Liberties none must take it Ill, that we use our Freedom about that, which in its Constitution is the Great Bull wark of all our Antient English Liberties. Truly, our not Considering what it is to Chuse a Parliament, and how much All is upon the Hazard in it, may at last Loose us fatally by our own Choice. For I must needs tell you, If we miscarry, it will be our own Fault; we have no Body else to blame: For such is the Happiness of our Constitution, That we cannot well be destroy’d, but by our selves: and what Man in his Wits would Sacrifice his Throat to his own Hands? We, the Commons of England are a great Part of the Fundamental Government of it, and Three Rights are so peculiar and inherent to us, that if we will not throw them away for Fear or Favour, for Meat and Drink, or those other little present profits, that Ill Men offer to tempt us with, they cannot be altered or abrogated. And this I was willing to give you a brief hint of, that you may know, what Sort of Creatures you are, and what your Power is, lest through Ignorance of your own Strength and Authority, you turn Slaves to the Humors of those, that properly and truly are but your Servants, and ought to be used so. The First of these Three Fundamentals is Property, that is, Right and Title to your own Lives, Liberties and Estates: in this every man is a sort of little Soveraign to himself: No Man has power over his Person to Imprison or hurt it, or over his Estate to Invade or Usurp it: only your own Transgression of the Laws, (and those of your own making too) lays you open to Loss; which is but the Punishment due for your Offences, and this but in Proportion to the Fault committed. So that the Power of England is a Legal Power, which truly merits the Name of Government: that which is not Legal, is a Tyranny, and not properly a Government. Now the Law is Umpire between King, Lords and Commons, and the Right and Property is One in Kind through all Degrees and Qualities in the Kingdom, Mark that.256 The Second Fundamental, that is, your Birth-right and Inheritance, is Legislation, or the Power of making Laws; No Law can be made or abrogated in England without you. Before Henry the Third’s Time, your Ancestors, the Free-men of England met in their own Persons, but their Numbers much encreasing, the Vastness of them, and the Confusion that must needs attend them, making such Assemblies not practicable for Business, this Way of Representatives was first pitch’t upon as an Expedient, both to Marginal note alongside this paragraph: We see it daily in Westminster-hall, as well in Parliamentary Transactions.

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Selection 3: England’s Great Interest Maintain the Commons Right, and to avoid the Confusion of those mighty Numbers. So that now, as well as then, No Law can be made, no Money levied, nor not a Penny legally demanded (even to defray the Charges of the Government) without your own Consent: then which, tell me, what can be freer, or what more secure to any People? Your Third Great Fundamental Right and Priviledge is Executive, and holds proportion with the other two, in order to compleat both your Freedom & Security, & that is Your share in the Judicatory Power, in the Execution and Application of those Laws, that you agree to be made. Insomuch as No Man according to the ancient Laws of this Realm can be adjudg’d in matter either of Life, Liberty or Estate, but it must be by the Judgment of his Peers, that is, Twelve men of the Neighbourhood, commonly called a JURY; though this hath been infringed by two Acts made in the late long Parliament, one against the Quakers in Particular, and the other against Dissenters in General, called, An Act against seditious Conventicles,257 where persons are adjudged Offenders and punishable without a Jury; which ’tis hoped, this ensuing Parliament will think fit in their Wisdom to repeal, though with less Severity, then one of the same Nature (as to punishing men without Juries) was by Henry the Eighth, who for executing of it hang’d Empson and Dudly. Consider with your selves, that there is nothing more [in] your Interest, then for you to understand your Right in the Government, and to be constantly Jealous over it; for your Well-Being depends upon its Preservation. In all Ages there have been Ill Men, and we to be sure are not without them now, such as being conscious to themselves of ill things, and dare not stand a Parliament, would put a Final Dissolution upon the very Constitution it self to be safe, that so we might never see another. But this being a Task too hard to compass, their next Expedient is To make them for their Turn, by directing and governing the Elections; and herein they are very Artificial & too often Successful: which indeed is worse for us than if we had none. For thus the Constitutions of Parliaments may be destroy’d by Parliament, and we, who by Law are Free, may hereby come to be made Slaves by Law. If then you are Free, and resolve

“An Act for preventing the…Dangers that may arise by…Quakers and others refusing to take lawfull Oaths,” 14 Car. II c. 1. (1662); Conventicle Act, 22 Car. II c. 1 (1670). See also The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Selection 5).

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Part I: Political Liberties to be so, if you have any Regard to God’s providence in giving you a claim to so excellent a Constitution, if you would not void your own Rights, nor lay a Foundation of Vassallage to your unborn Followers, the poor Posterity of your Loyns, for whom God and Nature, and the Constitution of the Government have made you Trustees, then seriously weigh these following Particulars. I. In your present Election Receive no Man’s Gift or Bribe to Chuse him; but be assured, that he will be false to you, that basely tempts you to be false to your Country, your self and your Children. How can you hope to see God with peace, that turn Mercenaries in a matter, on which depends the Well-Being of an whole Kingdom for present & future times? since at a pinch One good Man gains a Vote & saves a Kingdom; and what does any County or Burgess Town in England know, but all may depend upon their making a good Choice? But then to sell the Providence of God, and the dear-bought purchase of your painful Ancestors for a little Money (that after you have got it, you know not how little a while you may be suffered to keep it) is the mark of a Wretched Mind: Truly such ought not to have the Power of a Free-man, that would so abuse his own and hazard other mens Freedom by it: he deserves to be cast over Board, that would Sink the Vessel, and thereby drown the Company. Honest Gentlemen will think they give enough for the Choice, that pay their Electors in a constant, painful and chargeable Attendance; but Such as give Money to be chosen, would get Money by being chosen; they design not to serve you, but themselves of you; and then fare you well. As you will answer it to Almighty God, I entreat you to shew your Abhorrence of this Infamous Practice: It renders the very Constitution contemptible, that any should say, I can be chosen, if I will spend Money or give them Drink enough; and this is said not without Reason, Elections, that ought to be serious things, and gravely and reasonably perform’d, being generally made the occasions of more Rudeness and Drunkenness, than any of the Wild May-games in use among us. Thus by making Men Law-breakers, they are it seems made fit to Chuse Law-makers, their Choice being the purchase of Excess. But must we alwayes owe our Parliaments to Rioting and Drunkenness? and must men be made Uncapable of all Choice, before they chuse their Legislators? I would know of any of you all, if in a difference about a private property, an Horse or a Cow, or any other thing you would be as easie, indifferent and careless in chusing your Arbitrators? Certainly you would not; with what reason then can you be unconcern’d in the Qualifications of Men, 

Selection 3: England’s Great Interest upon whose fitness and Integrity depends all you and your Posterity may enjoy? Which leads me to the other Particulars. II. Chuse no Man that has been a Reputed Pensioner; ’tis not only against your Interest, but it is disgraceful to you and the Parliament you chuse. The Representative of a Nation ought to consist of the most Wise, Sober, and Valiant of the People, not Men of mean Spirits or sordid Passions, that would sell the Interest of the People that chuse them, to advance their own, or be at the Beck of some great Man, in hopes of a Lift to a good Employ: pray beware of these. You need not be streightned,258 the Country is wide and the Gentry numerous. III. By no means chuse a Man that is an Officer at Court, or whose Employment is durante bene placito, that is, at Will and Pleasure; nor is this any Reflection upon the King, who being one Part of the Government, should leave the other free, and without the least awe or influence to bar or hinder its proceedings. Besides, an Officer is under a Temptation to be byast; and to say true, An Office to a Parliament man, is but a softer and safer word for a Pension: the Pretence it has above the other, is the danger of it. IV. In the next Place, Chuse no Indigent Persons, for those may be under a temptation of abusing their Trust to gain their own ends: for such do not Prefer you, which should be the end of their Choice, but Raise themselves by you. V. Have a care of Ambitious men and non-Residents, such as live about Town and not with their Estates, who seek honours and preferments above, and little or never embetter the Country with their Expences or Hospitality, for they intend themselves and not the Advantage of the Country. VI. Chuse no Prodigal or Voluptuous Persons, for besides that they are not Regular enough to be Law-makers, they are commonly Idle; and though they may wish well to your Interest, yet they will lose it rather than their Pleasures; they will scarcely give their Attendance, they must not be relied on. So that such Persons are only to be preferred before those, that are Sober to do mischief: whose debauchery is of the mind; men of Injust Mercimony259 and sinister Principles, who, the soberer they be to themselves, the worse they are to you.

Bound stringently, or constrained (OED, def. 6). Merchandise, goods (OED, def. 2).

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Part I: Political Liberties VII. Review the Members of the last Parliaments, and their Inclinations and Votes, as near as you can learn them, and the Conversation of the Gentlemen of your own Country, that were not Members, and take your measures of both, by that which is your True and Just Interest at this Critical time of the day, and you need not be divided or distracted in your Choice. VIII. Rather take a Stranger, if recommended by an unquestionable Hand, than a Neighbour Ill Affected to your Interest. ’Tis not pleasing a Neighbour, because rich and powerful, but Saving England, that you are to eye: Neither pay you private Obligations at the cost of the Nation; let not such Engagements put you upon dangerous Elections, as you love your Country. [4] IX. Be sure to have your Eye upon Men of Industry and Improvement. For those that are Ingenuous and Laborious to Propagate the Growth of the Country, will be very tender of weakening or impoverishing it: you may trust such. X. Let not your Choice be flung upon Men of Fearful Dispositions, that will let good Sense, Truth and your real Interest in any point sink, rather than displease some one or other great Man. If you are but sensible of your own Real Great Power, you will wisely chuse those, that will by all just and legal ways keep and promote it. XI. Pray see, that you chuse Sincere Protestants; men that don’t play the Protestant in Design, and are indeed Disguis’d Papists, ready to pull off their Mask, when time serves: You will know such by their Laughing at the Plot, Disgracing the Evidence, Admiring the Traytors Constancy, that were forc’d to it, or their Religion and Party were gone beyond an Excuse or an Equivocation. The contrary are men that thank God for this Discovery, and in their Conversation zealously direct themselves in an Opposition to the Papal Interest, which indeed is a Combination against good Sense, Reason and Conscience, and to introduce a blind Obedience without (if not against) Conviction. And that Principle which introduces Implicit Faith and Blind Obedience in Religion, will also introduce Implicit Faith and Blind Obedience in Government: so that it is no more the Law in the one than in the other, but the Will and Power of the Superior, that shall be the Rule and Bond of our Subjection. This is that fatal Mischief Popery brings with it to Civil Society, and for which such Societies ought to beware of it, and all those that are Friends to it. XII. Lastly, Among these be sure to find out and cast your favour upon Men of large Principles, such, as will not sacrifice his Neighbour’s Property 

Selection 3: England’s Great Interest to the frowardness260 of his own Party in Religion: Pick out such men, as will Inviolably maintain Civil Rights for all that will live soberly and civilly under the Government. Christ did not revile those that reviled him, much less did he persecute those, that did not revile Him; he rebuk’t his Disciples, that would have destroyed those that did not follow and conform to them, saying; Ye know not what Spirit ye are of; I came not to destroy mens Lives, but to save them. Which made the Apostle to say, that the Weapons of their Warfare were not Carnal, but Spiritual.261 This was the Ancient Protestant Principle; and where Protestants persecute for Religion, they are false to their own profession, and Turn Papists even in the worst sense, against whom their Ancestors did so stoutly exclaim: Read the Books of Martyrs of all Countries in Europe, and you will find I say true: Therefore beware also of that Popery. Consider, that such Partial Men don’t love England, but a Sect; and prefer Imposed Uniformity before Virtuous and Neighbourly Unity. This is that Disturber of Kingdoms and States, and till the Good Man, and not the Opinionative262 Man be the Christian in the Eye of the Government, to be sure, while force is used to propagate or destroy Faith, and the outward Comforts of the Widow and Fatherless are made a Forfeit for the peaceable Exercise of their Consciences to God, he that Sits in Heaven, and judgeth Righteously, whose Eye pities the Oppressed and Poor of the Earth,263 will with-hold his Blessings from us. O lay to heart the grievous Spoils and Ruins that have been made upon your harmless Neighbours for near these twenty years, who have only desired to enjoy their Consciences to God according to the best of their understandings, and to eat the Bread of honest Labour, and to have but a Penny for a Penny’s Worth among you. Whose Ox or Ass have they taken? whom have they wronged? or when did any of them offer you Violence? yet Sixty Pounds has been distrained for twelve, two hundred pounds for sixty pounds. The Flocks been taken out of the Fold, the Herd from the Stall; not a Cow left to give Milk to the Orphans, nor a Bed for the Widow to lie on; whole Barns of Corn swept away, and not a penny return’d; & thus bitterly prosecuted mostly by Laws made against Papists. And what is all this for? unless their worshipping of God according to their Conscience; for they injure no man, nor have they offered the least Molestation to the Government. Unreasonability (OED).  261 Luke 9:56–57; 2 Corinthians 10:4. Opinionated (OED, def. 1a).  263 Psalm 9:4, Psalm 72:13–14.

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Part I: Political Liberties Truly, I must take liberty to tell you, If you will not endeavour to redress these Evils in your Choice, I fear, God will suffer you to fall into great Calamity by those you hate. You are afraid of Popery, and yet many of you practice it; for why do you fear it, but for its Compulsion and Persecution? and will you compel or persecute your selves, or chuse such as do? If you will, pray let me say, You hate the Papists, but not Popery. But God defend you from so doing, and direct you to do, as you would be done by; that chusing such as love England, her People and their Civil Rights, Foundations may be laid for that Security and Tranquillity, which the Children unborn may have cause to rise up and bless your Names and Memories for. Take it in good part, I mean nothing but Justice and Peace to all; and so conclude my self Your Honest Monitor and England’s True Friend, PHILANGLUS. FINIS.



4. THE Great and Popular OBJECTION Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests BRIEFLY Stated and Consider’d, AND WHICH May serve for Answer to several late PAMPHLETS upon that Subject. By a Friend to Liberty for Liberties sake Licensed February the 4th 1687. LONDON, Printed, and Sold, by Andrew Sowle, at the ThreeKeys, in Nags-Head-Court, in Grace-Church-Street, over against the Conduit, 1688. THE Great and Popular OBJECTION Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests, &c.264 IF the Consequences that are imagin’d to follow the Repeal of the Penal Statutes and Tests (and which so many give for the reason of their dislike to the Liberty that is sought by it) were indeed so Terrible as they are industriously represented, I should readily fall in with the common Jealousie, and help to augment the number of those that are for their Continuance; but when I consider how long our Government was Happy without Them, how much of Heat and Partial[i]ty prevail’d in their Constitution, and how troublesome and impracticable their Execution “Penal Laws” refers to legislation levying punishments on those who absented themselves from Church of England services or attended unauthorized religious gatherings. The Test Acts (25 Car. II c. 2 [1673], 30 Car. II st. 2 [1678]) required public officeholders to swear oaths of allegiance to the monarch, as well as to renounce Catholic doctrine and papal supremacy, and to receive Communion in an Anglican church, as a condition of holding office.

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Part I: Political Liberties [4]

[5]

[6]

are, and that, in our present Circumstances,  They appear a plain Barriere to our Happiness, instead of a Bulwark to our Religion, I cannot but lament the misfortune of the Publick, that those Gentlemen are yet under the fatal mistake of thinking Them necessary to our Safety, that with more Reason and Charity, in my opinion, should Endeavour to save us from the Inconveniences of them. For the Question being gain’d against Coertion in Religion, and the impiety & impolicy of Persecution, agreed on all hands, all that is said by the most averse to the extent of the Repeal desired, issues here, If the Papists should happen to have Power or Ease, they are sure to use it to the prejudice of the rest, and therefore it is the Interest of the rest to oppose all their attempts to get it. The Consequence of which is this, It were better the Power of Persecution rested where it is, then to come into hands that would use it more Rigorously. I say, All Arts and Rhetorical Declamations set aside, This is the Center and Substance of all that’s said, by Any Body, against the Repeal of the Penal Laws, and more especially the Tests: And to this I would modestly offer what follows. I can by no means imagin[e] there should be so much Danger where there is so little Trust: indeed none: And where one does not Trust one cannot be Deceived: Now there is no Trust, where there is a Law that puts all Parties out of the Power of one another: For therefore is a Law desired, that the hazard of Trusting may be out of Doors. And as this Law may be fram’d, I humbly conceive, it will not be impossible to secure every Party from the bigottry of the rest, else, I must acknowledge, nothing will save us from the mischief of Relapses. And whatever may be said against a Legal Security now, is as strong and reasonable against the hopes of any, whoever has the Chair: For Ambition, we see, is but too apt to creep into all Parties, and worldly Dominion has been an old and powerful Baite: If Law cannot secure us against it, we shall ever be to seek for the assurance we desire in this World. It will yet be said, That the best Law Men can make, is nothing without Execution, and That being in the Power of Those whose Principles or Interests may lead them to Evade or Pervert it, the Insecurity is the same; yet with their leave that think so, it is one thing to dispence with a Penal Law against a thing, not evil in it self, and another to violate a Law of common Right and Safety, which is evil in it self;265 for On the distinction between malum prohibitum and malum in se, and the ways in which the terms functioned in the context of 1688, see Goldie, “The Political Thought of the Anglican Revolution.” See also Peoples (Selection 1), p. 72.

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Selection 4: The Great and Popular Objection this were both to Repeal and Make Laws without a Parliament, which the Judges of no Raign have ever attempted to deliver for Law. If the Law propos’d, Repeal Penal Laws for Religion (and surely ’tis propos’d for that end) the Prince of himself cannot Enact a Penal Law to hurt any body, whatever be his Religion, and we are so far safe from the Misch[ie]f of Persecution, tho our security went no farther. But that we should be less safe, because the King, we so much Fear, is ready to Consent to a GREAT CHARTER for Liberty of Conscience, by which, it shall be Declared the RIGHT of Mankind to make a free and open choice and profession of Faith and Worship towards GOD, and that any Constraint or Interruption upon that Freedom, is Impiety, and an Evil in it self, and that Law, therefore Indispensible, Is, I must confess, a Notion very Extraordinary. However, It is not hard to Execute a Law, when it is best Executed by doing nothing, for letting men alone complies best with such an One, and the Common Law secures them, as well as this, from those that meddle with them. I know it is further Objected, that tho this were done, it would not rest here, A Parliament might quickly be Packt to over-throw this Establishment, and then we should be all ruin’d; for we should not only have Laws of the severest Nature, but force to execute them. But as Grave as the Objection looks, permit me to say, there is more of Art then Truth or Force in it: For don’t we see that Wagers are every where laying by the present Enemies of Liberty, That the King can’t, even with the help of his Dissenters, get a Parliament that will Repeal the Penal Laws and Tests, and yet that they should pretend to fear he may get One to Repeal Liberty of Conscience, and Enact the Bloodiest Laws in lieu of it (to which to be sure the Dissenters will never assist) is a contradiction, like that of  Magnifying the Prerogative, and Rayling at the Declaration, Crying down Common Wealths Men, and Opposing the Monarchy constantly with their Arguments; Fighting against the distinction of the Natural and Political Capacity of the King,266 and making it every day to serve their own turn, and upon the worst terms too, Persecution, I mean. But waving the Humour, let us examine the Fear: In my opinion ’tis Groundless; for since their Master-piece, the Letter to a Dissenter tells us, that there can be no danger of the Bet, where the Odds are so great as Two Hundred to One,267 On this distinction, see the classic treatment of Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton University Press, 1957). George Savile, marquis of Halifax, A Letter to a Dissenter (London, 1687), pp. 16–17.

266

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[9]

[10]

we must conclude that Objection is of no weight against our Liberty: For Number being the Natural Power of a Kingdom, the Artificial (which is the Executive part of the Government) must needs move heavily and dangerously when it works against it. But if a Law be no security, because of the fear of a Packt Parliament, and Force to back it, what security, after all, can the Penal Statutes and Tests be? are they any more then Law?  If it be said, they caution and awe the Roman Catholicks. I say the Violation of a Great Charter for Liberty of Conscience will do it much more, because the Penalty may be Greater, and better fixt and applyed. And since we only fear the Repeal of the One by a Packt Parliament, as well as the Other, the Authority which abolishes either, is equally Invalid, and therefore the Caution and Fear of Violating the one, must needs be as Great as of Overthrowing the other. This would be less difficult to us to apprehend, If we made the equal Reflections that become our present Condition. We look on France till we frighten our selves from the best means of our worldly Happiness,268 but will not look at home upon greater Cruelties, if we consider Theirs were exercised against those of another Religion, but Ours upon the People of our own; tho when we observe their Conduct elsewhere, it is easie to see, it must have something very particular in it. But at the same time we will take no notice of the greatest Tranquility in Germany and Switzerland under a compleat Liberty. Is this any thing but the Fruit of Law, The Agreement of Princes and States, The Great Charter of those Countries inviolably kept these forty years,269 The Thing his Majesty, with so much Zeal and Goodness presses to establish in his Dominions? Why then may not that be done here that has been so happily acted elsewhere? Are our Papists and Protestants worse here then there? Or are our Differences greater? Or are our Numbers more dangerously unequal, that we dare not trust a Law that others in our very Circumstances are so happy under? They don’t only endure one anothers Religion, but take their Turns the same Days in the same Churches or Places for Divine Worship; and will not the same Kingdom serve us? we must then have the worst of Natures, or be the worse for our Religion. And tho many good reasons have been given, and may be elsewhere in evidence of this Notion, I will venture to offer a few at this In October 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed limited toleration to French Protestants since 1598. Thousands of Huguenot refugees soon made their way to England. 269 An apparent reference to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). 268

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Selection 4: The Great and Popular Objection time that never saw Light yet, that I know of, and which may happen to give some, to those that labour under the disbelief of it. I say then, a GREAT CHARTER for Liberty of Conscience, to be  made and kept, is not only the true Interest of the Roman Catholicks, but they think so, because they must think so: For if the Destruction of Protestancy, by a way of Violence, had been their Project, as much as it is our Fear, they had but one way in the World to have brought it to pass, and that was, to have made the utmost use of the Church of Englands Penal Laws, which they found ready to their Hands, for the Destruction of the Protestant Dissenters, and to which she could not refuse her assistance, upon her [11] principles of Obedience, if there were no Inclination left in her to that Fierce and Inhumane chase. By this, one Party of Protestants, had been easily made the Means of the others Extirpation, and how far Pleasures, Honours, Offices and Fear would have gone to have made an entire Conquest, easie upon her, is not the hardest thing in the World to apprehend, when the Bodies of her Dissenters had been thus cruelly dissolved by her. And if this have any sense in it, we must conclude, that delivering one Party of Protestants from the Rage and Power of the other, cannot be a way to bring in Popery. I own, it may affect the present Ecclesiastical Policy of the Church of England, but I never took that for Protestancy: On the contrary, it has evidently weaken’d the better part of the Protestant Interest in General, in these Kingdoms, ever since the Reformation. But besides this, ’tis one thing to Constrain270 a Law from the Prince, and another to have it offer’d by the Prince: The one, to be sure, he thinks against his Interest, and the other he takes to be as certainly for it. And if he thinks it is his Interest to preserve such a Law, we are sure of our Safety by it. That [12] which moves him to it, must oblige him to maintain it; and if he does not heartily intend to support this Liberty, his giving it, must needs increase the Power and Interest he would suppress: An Error too gross to be made with so much Preparation and Art. Nor is this all, in my opinion it is much more reasonable to believe that a Law for Liberty of Conscience should preserve us against the thing we apprehend so much, viz. Popery, because ’tis easier to fall from one Extream to another, then from a Mean to an Extream: And ’tis certain, there are more Parties concern’d to support such a Law for Liberty, then to maintain those of Severity; for the Church of England only appears to uphold these, but all Parties besides agree to maintain That. And if it was the Interest of the Roman Force, compel (OED, def. 1a).

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[13]

[14]

Catholicks to divide the Dissenters from the Church of England, to be sure they cannot think it safe to unite Them: They have divided Them by the Liberty, But any attempts to take it away will infallibly joyn them. And when I consider how much more the Roman Catholicks will in all probability want Liberty in after Raigns, then the Dissenters in this, I am also led to Conclude, that they are not so secure in the Repeal of the Penal Laws and Tests themselves, as in their own Moderation in the use of the Liberty that follows: For a Parliament in after Raigns may easily return them, and worse, if that can be, and will certainly do it, if they use their present opportunity too Eag[er]ly and Partially; but no Parliament will ever think so harsh a Constitution fit to be reviv’d, when the Moderation of the Gentlemen against whom it was made, hath prov’d it Useless, Unreasonable and Unsafe. This consideration is a reciprocal Caution to Us, not to refuse them the Rights of English Men, and to Them, not to mis-use them. And since hitherto we seem not so angry at the Liberty, as at the Manner of its being granted;271 if we are sincere in this, we cannot refuse the King in our own way, I mean, by Law. And in my Opinion, ’tis a point gain’d, not to have this ease Precarious from the Crown, as well as that it shews the Kings sincerity beyond a doubt, that he is Solicitous to assure so great a Good to us in our own method. Let it not then be thought a Crime, that he does so, or that he takes the next and plainest ways to discriminate Persons for that end; for if the Consequence of his Endeavours were to ruin others for a Party, it might be thought Packing indeed; but when it is to open Enclosures and Level Interests, and by Law, to secure Them from the Ambition of one another, it seems to me to be Unpacking for the Good of the Whole, that which hath been so long Packt for the sole Good of a Party.272 And truly if we will yet scruple the Sincerity of the Prince, I know not an easier and better way to assure our selves, then by chusing such Persons to serve in Parliament, whose Love and Sincerity for this Liberty we have the greatest Confidence in; For as that will certainly help to facilitate the Work, so where two Parties seem to conspire one end, nothing discovers the Insincerity of one side, like the Truth and Integrity of the other in preserving it. Let us not then dislike Liberty in the Kings way, and refuse it in our own, That is, by James’s extensive use of royal dispensing and suspending powers. Although James’s methods were upheld in the 1686 Godden v Hales decision, they were deeply unpopular. 272 On Penn’s role in James’s ill-fated scheme to pack parliament, see Sowerby, Making Toleration, ch. 3. 271

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Selection 4: The Great and Popular Objection because he would make it his; for that would justly question our Truth and Charity, without which, our pretence of Religion or Safety is vain. We have heard it said, that the Persecution of the last Raign came from [15] the Papists, and therefore we cannot expect they should be sincere for Liberty in this; but if that were true, (tho it could not be the Roman Catholicks that forc’d the late King to cancel his Declaration for Liberty, or that  couzn’d the Dissenters of a Law for it)273 yet there is this use to be made of the trick, that now the Roman Catholicks are for Liberty, the Church of England cannot, with any credit, be against it. On the contrary, it shows, if they did Move those Storms of Persecution, it was to constrain the Dissenters to joyn with them in the Repeal of the Laws that rais’d Them, that so they might be allow’d to share in the Calm: People are most apt to see the Necessity and Benefit of Liberty by the want of it. It is a Misfortune to be lamented, the Church of England should always be against Liberty, when the Court is for it, because the Court, in her opinion, is not Sincere; when at the same time, she knows, it is at no time to be had without them: A way for poor Dissenters, never to hope for such a thing as Liberty of Conscience at her hands: For without offering any Violence to the rules of Charity, she seems to excuse her un- [16] willingness by their Insincerity. But with her favour, They must be sincere when their Interest will have them so. And tho it is Imagin’d the Dissenter has no other bottom for his Confidence and Conjunction then the Roman Catholicks Faith and Truth, ’tis too mean an Insinuation against his understanding, that I assure that Author is yet Good and Jealous enough, not to depend upon either the Councel of Trent, or the Thirty Nine Articles for his safety.274 By no means; those Spiritual Mortgages, Folks give of their Souls, are too uncertain securities about worldly Matters, unless Men had, at least, a better Practice. Nothing, humanely speaking, fixes any Man like his Interest; And tho this Agreement were only Hobson’s choice275 in Roman Catholick and Dissenter, the security is not the less: For what-ever be the Morality of any Party, if I am sure of them by the side of Interest and Necessity, I will never seek or value an Ensurance by Parliamentary resistance had forced Charles II to withdraw Declarations of Indulgence in 1662 and 1672; see Jacqueline Rose, Godly Kingship in Restoration England: The Politics of the Royal Supremacy, 1660–1688 (Cambridge University Press, 2011). 274 The Council of Trent (1545–63) condemned Protestantism; the Thirty-Nine Articles laid out the doctrinal basis of Anglican theology. 275 An ostensibly free choice in which there is in fact only one option. 273

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Part I: Political Liberties Oaths and Tests. Interest is the choice Men Naturally make, and Necessity compels Submission from the unhappy Subjects of her Power. [17] And tho some do Insinuate that better terms are to be hop’d from the Church of England hereafter, then now from the Roman Catholicks,276 I take leave to say, that it is an unwarrantable use of Providence, for them to neglect the present Certain Overtures (tho they were the effects of Necessity) out of hopes the Church of England will use them better, when she has Power, not to do it, and not to care: when all Parties show their abuse of Power in their turns, ’tis reason enough to embrace the Benefit of Necessity from the first that offers: And nothing else, I fear, moves the Church of England to promise; And if so great a number may lie under such a Necessity, a less number cannot but be under a greater, and that I take to be the Roman Catholicks Case, and our Assurance. If the Church of England could secure the Dissenters without that compliance she fears, ‘twere something, if not, they are under an equal necessity to accept what the Roman Catholiks are under to offer: And for this reason, I cannot but think her joyning in the Liberty more reasonable, then their refusing it for her sake. If she affects an Union, why should she uphold the Means of Division? Ought not the Dissenters to [18] suspect her Integrity, in refusing a good Understanding, in the very way that must save those she would gain? And since she is sure They won’t turn Papists, how does she lose Them in that way, in which she can only pretend to have Them, viz. as Protestants; for otherwise they will as little conform to her. And if the Price of her Good Will must be to uphold the Brand of her Conduct, and Means of their own Ruin, It is what they can never give, and she in Conscience and Wisdom should never ask. And what ever is suggested, it is too unwarily thought of any, that the Dissenters intend only their security against the Power of the Church of  England, ’tis against the Spirit of Persecution in all Churches, they must all seek to be safe; that, which so ever of them happens to have the Government, the Rest may be secure under it; Else, ’tis but shutting one Door against an Evil, and opening another to let it in. If she will please but to tell me what way she can secure the Dissenters against her own Ambition, when one of her Communion Ascends the Throne, I will undertake [19] to tell her, how she and the Dissenters may be safe from the Danger of Popery in the Raign of a King of that Religion. For the Spirit of Persecution being the same every where, it must have the same Remedy. She can’t This is the gist of Halifax’s Letter to a Dissenter.

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Selection 4: The Great and Popular Objection think we ought to Trust Her, That won’t Trust, and That makes Trusting Dangerous. And what-ever the Gentlemen of her Communion are pleas’d to suggest of the present good understanding, between the Roman Catholicks and Dissenters, to blow their Interest with the People, Men must be greatly Impos’d upon, to Imagine the present Affinity between them, can regard any thing but their common Safety; and common Danger makes that every where, reasonable and necessary. If this were not the case, I should hold my self concern’d to act another Part in this affair; And if this be the case, it plainly answers all the Jealousie and Objection of the Times: For ’tis as lawful for them to joyn in this as in any Society of Trade, and more requisite. I say, It can be no just Reflection from the Church of England, when they must be ill read, that don’t know, that she is the Halfway House between the two Dissenters, and that the Protestant Dissenter [20] is a refine upon her, as she is upon the Church of Rome. So that tho it be true that they joyn with the Papists, it is as true that it is not with Popery, but for Liberty, which the same Author tells us, is such a contradiction to Infallibility, which is his dangerous Popery:277 Tho I must tell him, I think it a greater to Persecute People upon a professed fallible Principle. Let it satisfie that Gentleman and his Followers, whose main drift, is Rallying Dissenters for relying on Romish Faith for security, that tho They joyn with Roman Catholicks to get Liberty, They will trust them, and every body else, as little as they can to keep it, and less joyn with them to take it away. On the contrary, in case of such attempts, ’tis reasonable to believe they will sooner unite with the Church of England to Preserve, what they now so freely oppose Her to obtain. But it may be said, It will then be too late, and therefore now too dangerous, to give that Interest, in the mean while, so much Play and Progress. This were an Hazard indeed, if the Roman Catholicks could do any thing then, that they cannot do now, or if the Dissenters were to be less Numerous, less Sensible, or less Free [21] and Able to resent it. I cannot see how the Roman Catholicks can be in a better Condition to Hurt us, if the Dissenters are not in a worse to Help us. Certainly their numbers must have the odds. On the other hand, the Dissenters, under Persecution, can do nothing, and while the Liberty is Precarious they dare do nothing; so that the way to render them useful to oppose the Violence fear’d, is to make their Interest in the Liberty Legal, as well as that a Legal Freedom is the best way Halifax, Letter to a Dissenter, p. 3.

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Part I: Political Liberties to prevent all violent attempts in the Roman Catholicks. For when the Law supports their Joynt Interest, that will naturally joyn and lead Them to maintain the Law that defends it. I shall be heartily sorry if the Church of England cannot tell how to venture her self with those under Liberty, who have liv’d so well with her under her Persecution: Tho, as I have said before, there is no Trust in the case, since, therefore, a Law is desired, that we may not rely on so frail a Security: And where a Law puts all Parties upon  one Bottom, I cannot help thinking all Parties are oblig’d in Example and Interest carefully to preserve it. And if we would but reflect [22] how much more Law in all Ages hath preserv’d Mankind then Force, we would less argue the Insecurity of Law; but ’tis utterly Inconsistant at a time, when we plead the Almightiness of present Laws for our Safety. In short, If she only seeks to be Safe, let her not refuse the Security that Others are ready to take, and if she desires more, ’tis an unhappy Instance of her love to Dominion, and they can never be safe that Grant it. Let her not then be Fond but Wise; and remember, that the Security is not destroy’d, but Chang’d and Enlarg’d: For from a Single, it becomes  more then a Double Bond, and They that reject such a Security, cannot be thought sincere in asking of any. But, be that as it will, If we can but once see A MAGNA CHARTA for Liberty of Conscience, Establish’d in these Kingdoms by the wisdom of a Parliament, They will be very Hardy, indeed, who Dare, at any time, Attempt to Shake It, That has the Jealousie, Union and Resolution of so many Great, Serious and Wealthy Interests to support It. I will not say, what this Charter shall be, for it does not become me, [23] nor is it yet time; but I dare say, that it may be, and in such terms too, as all Parties shall find their Account: And unless that be the Reason why any will oppose it, It can neither miss to be, nor to be kept; and if such a Dissenter be to be found to this common Good, his opposition makes him a Common Enemy. I say, nothing can oppose such a Charter, but State Religion, and that which can Govern the rest, will Hazard the rest. A National Religion by Law, where it is not so by Number and Inclination, is a National Nusance; for it will ever be matter of Strife. If she seeks to be Safe, but not to Rule, that which preserves the rest, secures her; If more is expected, ’tis less reasonable, in my opinion, for the Rest to Sacrifice their Safety to her Authority, then only to subject her Rule to their Security. FINIS. 

Part II Toleration and ­ iberty of Conscience L

Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience The texts in Part II present Penn’s theory of toleration and liberty of conscience as it developed through the 1670s and into the 1680s. Over the course of his first decade as a public figure, William Penn played an increasingly prominent role not only in defending Quakers from their critics, but also in promoting the toleration of Dissenters more generally. Although his efforts to end persecution in England ultimately proved unsuccessful, they produced an extensive corpus of tolerationist political theory, and paved the way for his later attempts to put theory into practice in Pennsylvania (Part III). Penn’s alliance with James II (1686–8) pushed him to the center of a controversial political campaign championed by a controversial monarch, who sought liberty of conscience for both Protestants and Catholics, and ultimately proved the catalyst for his spectacular fall from grace after 1688. Part II opens with what is arguably the most systematic justification of liberty of conscience that Penn ever wrote: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Selection 5). The first edition of The Great Case appeared in Dublin, early in 1670, while Penn was traveling in Ireland.1 The text was then revised and enlarged during his 1671 imprisonment in Newgate Prison, London, where it received a new dedication, dated “the 7th of the 12th Moneth, 1670” (in other words, February 7, 1671). The third edition (P1299 var.), which corrected errata from the first and second editions, is included here. I indicate, in footnotes, areas of divergence between the Dublin (first) and London (second, and subsequent) editions. The Great Case contains all the major components of tolerationist discourse that had been emerging over the course of the seventeenth century. It amassed Scriptural, theological, pragmatic, epistemological, political, historical, and economic arguments. Over the course of six chapters, it denounced persecution as contrary to Christian principles, antithetical to nature and reason, imprudent, and false to the historical precedents laid down by enlightened rulers and statesmen across time. But it was a systematic treatise animated by a specific set of events, produced against the backdrop of a fervent and often turbulent campaign against the 1670 Conventicle Act. The Restoration religious settlement had clearly failed to resolve the religious contention of the previous two

See Olive C. Goodbody and M. Pollard, “The First Edition of William Penn’s Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 1670,” The Library XVI: 5 (June 1961): 146–149; and my “The Roads to and from Cork: The Irish Origins of William Penn’s Theory of Religious Toleration,” in Murphy and Smolenski (eds.), The Worlds of William Penn, 139–152.

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Part II: Toleration of Liberty of Conscience decades, and despite the best efforts of Parliament and Anglican officials, Dissent was ever more firmly intertwined in everyday life. Penn’s task involved – along with his fellow tolerationists – convincing skeptical authorities that “conventicles” were not dark places filled with revolutionary plotters, but sites where politically loyal, conscientious Christians met to work out their responsibilities to God. Published in the wake of the king’s 1672 Declaration of Indulgence – and its subsequent revocation a year later, due to intense parliamentary opposition – The Proposed Comprehension Soberly, and Not ­Unseasonably, Considered (1673, Wing P1344, Selection 6) further exemplifies the p ­ ractical, engaged aspect of Penn’s political thinking. Calls for “comprehension” and “indulgence” (or toleration) were frequent in Restoration England, with the former aiming to broaden the parameters of the Church of England to allow moderate, theologically orthodox Nonconformists (Presbyterians, chiefly) a place within the established church, and the latter granting liberty of worship to groups outside the established church. Quakers had long (sensibly) considered comprehension a dangerous prospect, since it offered the appearance of moderation, while providing an ideological justification for persecuting those sects that remained outside the mainstream. Penn reflects that skepticism, asking, “What ground can there be why some, and not all, should be tolerated?”2 One Project For the Good of England (1679, Wing P1334, Selection 7) followed shortly after the publication of England’s Great Interest (Selection 3), against the backdrop of rumors about popish plotting and the turmoil that surrounded the prospect of a Catholic on the throne of Protestant England. Although one might hope for a religiously unified society, Penn acknowledged, a more realistic prospect would be to “recur to some lower but true principle for the present”: in other words, civil interest. Both terms are important here: the principle of civil interest may be “lower,” falling short of aspirations for religious uniformity, but it was nonetheless “true,” in that it represented “the foundation and end of civil government.”3 Civil interest plays a key role in Penn’s arguments about liberty of conscience and legitimate government; it invokes territorial integrity, national security, and the shared benefits of peace and prosperity

See p. 207. One Project For the Good of England, p. 213 below.

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience that accrue to the entire political community. This understanding of civil interest echoed an argument that Penn had made, and would continue to make, throughout his career: that civil unity could coexist with religious difference, and that an excessive focus on the things that divided the nation religiously played into the hands of those who sought to undermine the common good. Not only did the idea of civil interest respect the religious and political liberties of the English people, in Penn’s view, but it also redounded to rulers’ own advantage. The final selection in this part is A Perswasive To Moderation (Selection 8), Penn’s most extensive contribution to the debates that followed the publication of the duke of Buckingham’s Short Discourse Upon the Reasonableness of Men’s Having a Religion.4 Penn initially came to the duke’s defense in two shorter pieces,5 and would later attempt to recruit the aging duke into James’s pursuit of toleration, visiting Buckingham while touring Friends’ meetings in the north of England late in 1686. A Perswasive To Moderation combined a plea for liberty of conscience with a clear sense of the limits of such toleration. The bulk of A Perswasive addresses two main criticisms of toleration: 1) its political impact (the claim by antitolerationists that granting liberty of conscience endangers the state); and 2) its religious implications (the claim that toleration abandons erroneous individuals to their errors and perpetuates disunion). This volume reprints the third edition (Wing P1338), which appeared in 1686 and incorporated corrections from the first and second editions of 1685. I also include, as an appendix, the preface from the first edition (Wing P1337A), which departed in several regards from that in subsequent editions. For details of the dating of these various editions, see PWP V: 317–319.

London, 1685. A Defence of the Duke of Buckingham’s Book of Religion and Worship (London, 1685); Animadversions on the Apology of the Clamorous Squire (London, 1685).

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5. THE GREAT CASE OF ­Liberty of ­Conscience Once more Briefly ­Debated & ­Defended, BY THE Authority of Reason, ­Scripture, and Antiquity: Which may serve the Place of a General ­Reply to such late Discourses, as have Opposed a ­Tolleration. The Authour W. P. For whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, that do you unto them, Matth. 7. 22. Render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesars; and to God, the things that are Gods, Matth. 12. 27. Printed in the Year, 1670.6 TO THE Supream Authority OF ENGLAND.7

[p.b.]

TOLLERATION (for these ten years past) has not been more the Cry of some, then PERSECUTION hath been the practice of others, though not on Grounds equally rational. The present cause of this Address, is to solicite a Conversion of that Power to our Relief, which hitherto hath been imploy’d to our depression; that after this large experience of our Innocency, and long since expir’d Apprentiship of Cruel Sufferings, you will be pleas’d to cancel all our Bonds, and give us a Possession of those Freedoms to which we are entituled by English Birthrigh[t]. This has been often Promised to us, and we as earnestly have expected [p.b.] the Performance; but to this time we labour under the unspeakable pressure of nasty Prisons, and daily Confiscation of our Goods, to the apparent ruine of intire Families. We would not attribute the whole of this severity to Malice, since not a little share, may justly be ascrib’d to Misintelligence: On the title page of the first edition (Dublin, 1670), “DEBATED & DEFENDED” is followed by “With some brief Observations on the late Act, Presented to the KINGS Consideration”; the author’s name appears as “W:P:j” indicating that Penn’s father was still alive at the time of publication (March 1670). The same two Scriptural references are included. 7 The first edition’s dedication, “To the King,” is appended here. The first edition does not contain a preface. 6

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience For ’tis the infelicity of Governours to see and hear by the Eyes and Ears of other men; which is equally unhappy for the People. And we are bold to say, that Suppositions and meer Conjectures, have been the best Measures, that most have taken of Us, and of our Principles; for whilst there have been none more inoffensive, we have been marked for Capital Offenders. ’Tis hard that we should alwayes lie under this undeserved imputation; and which is worse, be Persecuted as such, without the Liberty of a just Defence. In short, if you are apprehensive, that our Principles are inconsistent with the Civil Government, grant us a free Conference about the Points in Question, and let us know, what are those Laws, essential to preservation, that our Opinions carry an opposition to? And if upon a due enquiry we [p.b.] are found so Hetrodox, as represented, it will be then but time enough to inflict these heavy penalties upon us. And as this Medium seems the fairest, and most reasonable; so can you never do your selves greater Justice, either in the vindication of your proceedings against us, be we Criminal, or if Innocent, in disingaging your service of such, as have been Authours of so much Mis-information. But could we once obtain the favour of such debate, we doubt not to evince a clear consistency of our Life and Doctrine with the English Government; and that an indulging of Dissenters in the Sence defended, is not only most Christian and Rational, but prudent also. And the contrary (how plausibly soever insinuated) the most injurious to the Peace, and destructive of that discreet Ballance, which the Best and Wisest States, have ever carefully Observ’d. But if this fair and equal Offer, find not a place with you, on which to [p.b.] rest its Foot; much less that it should bring us back the Olive Branch of TOLLERATION; We heartily embrace and bless the Providence of God; and in his Strength resolve, by Patience, to outweary PERSECUTION, and by our constant Sufferings, seek to obtain a Victory more glorious, than any our Adversaries can achieve by all their Cruelties. Vincit qui patitur.8 Newgate, the 7th of the 12th Moneth, 1670.9 From a Prisoner for Conscience Sake, W. P. He conquers who endures (attrib. Persius). February 12, 1671. After his release in September 1670 following his trial with Mead (Penn allowed his fines to be paid so he could be with his dying father), he was arrested again for preaching at a Quaker meeting in Wheeler Street, Spitalfields (London). He remained in Newgate until early August 1671.

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The PREFACE. Were some as Christian, as they boast themselves to be, ‘twould save us all the Labour we bestow in rendring Persecution so unchristian, as it most truly is: Nay were they those men of Reason they Character themselves, and what the Civil Law stiles good Citizens, it had been needless for us to tell them, that neither can any external Coercive Power convince the understanding of the poorest Idiot, nor Fines and Prisons be judg’d fit, and adequate Penalties for Faults purely intellectual; as well as that they are destructive of all civil Government. But we need not run so far as beyond the Seas, to fetch the sence of the Codes, Institutes, and Digests, out of the Corpus Civile10 to adjudge such practices, incongruous with the good of civil society, since our own good, old, admirable Laws of England, have made such excellent provision for its Inhabitants, that if they were but thought as fit to be executed by this present Age, as they were rightly judg’d necessary to be made by our careful Ancestors: We know how great a Stroak they would give such, as venture to lead away our Property in Triumph (as our just Forfeiture) for only Worshipping our God in a differing Way, from that which is more generally Profest and Establisht. And indeed it is most truly lamentable, That above others (who have been found in so Un-natural and Anti-christian an Imployment) those, that by their own frequent Practices and voluminous Appologies, have defended a Separation from the Papacy should now become such earnest Persecuters for it, not considering, that the Enaction of such Laws, as restrain Persons from the free Exercise of their Consciences, in matters of Religion, is but a knotting Whipcord to lash their own Posterity; whom they can never promise to be conformed to a national Religion. Nay, since Mankind is subject to such Mutability, they can’t ensure themselves, from being taken by some Perswasions, that are esteemed Hetrodox, and consequently ketch themselves in Snares of their own providing. And that men thus lyable to change, and no wayes certain of their own Belief to be the most infallible, (as by their multiply’d Concessions, may appear) to enact any Religion, or prohibit Persons from the free Exercise of theirs, sounds harsh in the Ears of all modest and unbyas[t] men. We are bold to say our Protestant Ancestors thought of nothing less, than to be succeeded by Persons Vain-glorious of their Reformation, and yet Adversaries to Liberty of Conscience; for to People in their Wits, it seems a Paradox.

Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis appeared between c. 529 and 534.

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[3]

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[5]

Not that we are so ignorant, as to think it is within the reach of humane Power to fetter Conscience, or to restrain its Liberty strictly taken: But that plain English, of Liberty of Conscience, we would be understood to mean, is this; namely, The Free and Uninterrupted Exercise of our Consciences, in that Way of Worship, we are most clearly perswaded, God requires us to serve him in (without endangering our undoubted Birthright of English Freedoms) which being matter, of FAITH, we Sin if we omit, and they can’t do less, that shall endeavour it. To tell us, we are Obstinate and Enemies to Government, are but those Groundless Phrases, the first Reformers were not a little pestered with; but as they said, so say we, The being call’d this, or that, does not conclude us so; and hitherto we have not been detected of that Fact, which only justifies, such Criminations. But however free we can approve our selves of Actions prejudicial of the Civil Government; ’tis most certain we have not suffered a little, as Criminals, and therefore have been far from being free from Sufferings; indeed, in some respect, Horrid Plunders: Widdows have lost their Cows, Orphans their Beds, and Labourers their Tooles. A Tragedy so sad that methinks it should obli[g]e them to do in England, as they did at Athens; when they had sacrificed their Divine Socrates to the sottish fury of their lewd and commical Multitude, they so regre[tt]ed their hasty Murder, that not only the Memorial of Socrates was most venerable with them, but his Enemies they esteem’d so much theirs, that none would Trade or hold the least Commerce with them; for which some turned their own Executioners, and without any other Warrant than their own Guilt, Hang’d themselves.11 How neer a kin the wretched Mercenary Informers of our Age are to those, the great resemblance that is betwixt their Actions manifestly shews. And we are bold to say, the grand Fomenters of Persecution, are no better Friends to the English State, then were Anytus and Aristophanes of old to that of Athens, the case being so nearly the same, as that they did not more bitterly envy the Reputation of Socrates amongst the Athenians for his Grave and Religious Lectures (thereby giving the Youth a diversion from frequenting their Plays) than some now emulate the true Dissenter, for his Pious Life, and great Industry.12 See Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, book 2, sec. 43. Anytus was one of Socrates’ prosecutors (Apology); Aristophanes satirized Socrates in The Clouds.

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience And as that famous Common-wealth was noted to decline, and the most observing Persons of it, dated its decay from that illegal and ingrateful Carriage towards Socrates (witness their dreadful Plagues, with other multiply’d Disasters) So is it not less worthy Observation, that Heaven hath not been wholly wanting to scourge this Land, for, as well as their Cruelty to the Conscientious, as their other multiplied Provocations. And when we seriously consider the dreadful Judgments that now impend the Nation (by reason of the Robbery, Violence, and unwonted Oppression, that almost everywhere, hath not only been committed, upon the Poor, the Widdow, and the Fatherless; but most tenaciously justified, and the Actors manifestly encourag’d) in meer pitty, and concern, for the everlasting welfare of such as have not quite sinn’d away their Visitation (for some have) we once more bring to publick view, our Reasons against Persecution, backt with the plainest Instances, both of Scripture and Antiquity. If but one may be perswaded, to desist from making any farther progress in such an Antiprotestant, and truly Anti-christian Path, as that of Prosecuting honest and vertuous English-men, for only worshipping the God that made them, in the Way they judge most acceptable with him. But if those, who ought to think themselves obli[g]’d to weigh these affairs with the greatest deliberation, will obstinately close their Eyes to these last Remonstrances; and slightly over-look the pinching Case of so many thousand Families, that are by these Severities expos’d for Prey, to the unsatiable appetites of a Villanous Crew of broken Informers (daubing themselves with that deluding Apprehension of pleasing God, or at least, of profiting the Country; whilst they greatly displease the one, and evidently ruin the other) as certain as ever the Lord God Almighty destroy’d Sodom, and lay’d waste Gomorah, by the consuming Flames of his just Indignation; will he hasten to make desolate this wanton Land, and not leave an Hiding-place for the Oppressor.13 Let no man therefore think himself too bigg to be admonish’d, nor put too slight a value upon the Lives, Liberties, and Properties of so many thousand free-born English Families, Embarqu’d in that one concern of Liberty of Conscience. It will become him better to reflect upon his own Mortallity, and not forget his Breath is in his Nostrils,14 and that every Action of his Life the everlasting God will bring to Judgment, and him for them. W. P. Genesis 19.  14  Isaiah 2:22.

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[6]

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The CONTENTS.15

[7]

[8]

CHAPTER I. What is meant by Liberty of Conscience. What by Persecution, &c. The Question Stated. That Gods Prerogative is Invaded by Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution: 1. They robb God of his Right of Creation: 2. They suppose infallibility in man, contrary to Protestant-Principles: 3. Man attributes all to himself, and takes Gods share and his own too: 4. It defeats the Work of his Grace: 5. They assume the Judgment Seat. CHAP. II. They overturn the Christian Religion; 1. In the Nature of it; which is Meekness; 2. In the Practice of it, which is Suffering; 3. In the Promotion of it, since all further Discoveries are prohibited; 4. In the Rewards of it, which are Eternal. CHAP. III. They oppose the plainest Testimonies of Divine Writ that can be, which condemn all Force upon Conscience. CHAP. IV. They are Enemies to the Priviledge of Nature; 1. as rendring Some more, and Others less than Men; 2. as subverting the universal Good that is Gods Gift to men; 3. as destroying all natural Affection. Next, they are Enemies to the noble Principle of Reason, as appears in many great Instances. CHAP. V. They carry a Contradiction to Government; 1. In the ­Nature of it, which is Justice; 2. In the Execution of it, which is prudence; 3. In the End of it, which is Felicity. Seven Common, but Grand Objections, fairly stated, and briefly answered. CHAP. VI. They reflect upon the sense and practice of the Wisest, Greatest, and Best States, and Persons of Ancient and Modern Times; as of the Jews, Romans, Aegyptians, Germans, French, Hollanders, nay Turks and Persians too. And Cato, Livy, Tacitus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Jovianus, Chaucer, Dominicus Soto, Malvetzy, Grotius, Raleigh, Doctor and Student, French and Du[t]ch Protestants in England, Dr. Hamond, Dr. Tayler, A nameless but great Person, Lactantius, Hillary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Polish and Bohemian-Kings, King James, and King Charles the first. A Postscript to the whole; explaining the Tearms of the Act, and Vindicating Peaceable Meetings from Sedition, &c.

With the exception of adding “What is meant…The Question Stated” to ch. 1, the seven “Common, but Grand” objections to ch. 5, and Lactantius, Hilary, Jerome, and Chrysostom to ch. 6, the Tables of Contents in the two editions are identical.

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CHAP. I.

[9]

That Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution for Conscience sake, highly Invade divine Prerogative, and Divest the Almighty of a Right, due to none besides himself, and that in five eminent Particulars. The great Case of Liberty of Conscience, so often Debated and Defended (however dissatisfactorily to such as have so little Conscience as to Persecute for it) is once more brought to publique view, by a late Act against Dissenters,16 and Bill of an additional one,17 that we all hop’d the wisdom of our Rulers had long since laid aside, as what was fitter to be pass’d into an Act of perpetual Oblivion. The Kingdoms are alarum’d at this procedure, and Thousands greatly at a stand, wondring what should be the meaning for such hasty Resolutions, that seem as fatal as they were unexpected: Some ask, What Wrong they have done? Others, What Peace they have broken? And all, What Plots they have formed, to prejudice the present Government; or Occasions given, to hatch new Jealousies of them and their Proceedings, being not conscious to themselves of Guilt in any such respect. For mine own part, I publickly confess my self to be a very hearty Dissenter from the establish’t Worship of these Nations, as believing Protestants [10] to have much degenerated from their first Principle, and as owning the poor dispised Quakers in Life and Doctrine, to have espoused the Cause of God, and to be undoubted Followers of Jesus Christ, in his most Holy, Straight, and Narrow Way, that leads to the eternal Rest; In all which I know no Treason, nor any Principle that would urge me to a Thought injurious to the Civil Peace. If any be defective in this particular, ’tis equal, both Individuals, and whole Societies, should answer for their own Defaults, but we are clear. However, all conclude that Union very Ominous, and Unhappy, which makes the first discovery of it self, by a John Baptists Head in a Charger,18 They mean that Feast some are desi[g]n’d to make upon the Liberties and Properties of Free-born English-men, since to have the Intail of those undoubted hereditary Rights cut off (for matters purely relative of another World) is a severe Beheading in the Law; which must be obvious to all, but

Conventicle Act, 22 Car. II c.1 (1670). First edition: “a late Act for persecution” in place of “a late Act against Dissenters, and Bill of an additional one.” 18 Matthew 14:1–12; Mark 6:14–29. 16 17

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[11]

such as measure the justice of things only by that proportion they bear with their own interest. A sort of men that seek themselves, though at the apparent loss of whole Societies, like to that barbarous Fancy of old, which had rather that Rome should burn, than it be without the satisfaction of a Bone-fire. And sad it is, when men have so far stupified their Understandings with the strong doses of their private interest, as to become insensible of the Publicks. Certainly, such an Over-fondness for self, or that strong inclination, to raise themselves in the ruin of what doth not so much oppose them, as that they will believe so, because they would be persecuting, is a malignant Enemy to that Tranquility, which all dissenting Parties seem to believe, would be the consequence of a Tolleration. In short, We say there can be but two ends in Persecution, the one to satisfie (which none can ever do) the insatiable appetites of a decimating Clergy (whose best Arguments are Fines and Imprisonments) and the other, as thinking therein they do God good Service; but ’tis so hateful a thing upon any account, that we shall make it appear by this ensuing Discourse, to be a declared Enemy to God, Religion, and the good of Humane Society. The whole will be small, since it is but an Epitomy of no larger a tract then 14. Sheets;19 yet divides it self into the same particulars, every of which we shall defend against Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, though not with that scope of Reason (nor consequently Pleasure to the Readers) being by other contingent Disappointments, limited to a narrow stint. The Tearms Explained, and the Question stated.20 First, By Liberty of Conscience, we understand not only a meer Liberty of the Mind, in believing or disbelieving this or that Principle or Doctrine, but the exercise of our selves in a visible Way of Worship, upon our believing it to be indispensibly required at our hands, that if we neglect it for Fear or Favour of any Mortal Man, we Sin, and incur divine Wrath: Yet we would be so understood to extend and justifie the lawfulness of our so meeting to Worship God, as not to contrive, or abet any Contrivance distructive of the Government and Laws of the Land, tending to matters of an external nature, directly, or indirectly; but so far only, as it may refer to Religious First edition: “ten sheets.” The first edition lacks this section: “First, then, we say”, p. 171 immediately follows “a narrow stint.”

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Matters, and a Life to come, and consequently wholly independent of the secular Affairs of this, wherein we are supposed to Transgress. Secondly, By Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, we don’t only mean, the strict requiring of us to believe this to be true, or that to be false; and upon refusal, to incur the Penalties enacted in such Cases; but by those terms we mean thus much, Any coercive Let or Hindrance to us, from meeting together to perform those Religious Exercises, which are according to our Faith and Perswasion.

[12]

The Question Stated. For Proof of the aforesaid Tearms thus given, we singly state the Question thus. Whether Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, upon persons for Exercising such a Liberty of Conscience, as is before expressed, and so circumstantiated, be not to impeach the Honour of God, the Meekness of the Christian Religion, the Authority of Scripture, the Priviledge of Nature, the Principles of common Reason, the Well-being of Government, and Apprehensions of the greatest Personages of former and latter Ages. First, Then we say, That Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, for matters relating to Conscience, directly invade divine Prerogative, and divest the Almighty of a Due, proper to none besides himself. And this we prove by these five Particulars. 1. First, If we do allow the honour of our Creation, due to God only, and that no other besides himself has endow’d us with those excellent Gifts of Understanding, Reason, Judgment, and Faith; and consequently, that he only is the Object as well as Author, both of our Faith, Worship, and Service; then whoever shall interpose their Authority, to enact Faith and Worship, in a way that seems not to us congruous with what he has discover’d to us, to be Faith, and Worship (whose alone property it is to [13] do it) or to restrain us from what we are perswaded is our indispensible duty, they evidently usurp this Authority and invade his incommunicable Right of Government over Conscience: For the Inspiration of the Almighty gives understanding: And Faith is the Gift of God, says the divine Writ.21 2. Secondly, Such Magisterial determinations carry an evident claim to that infallibility, which Protestants have been hitherto so jealous of owning, that to avoid the Papists, they have denied it to all, but God himself.

Job 32:8; Ephesians 2:8.

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[14]

Either they have forsook their old Plea; or if not, we desire to know when, and where they were invested with that divine excellency; and that Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, were deem’d by God ever the Fruits of his Spirit: However, that it self were not sufficient; for unless it appears as well to us that they have it, as to them who have it, we cannot believe it upon any convincing Evidence, but by Tradition only; an AntiProtestant way of believing. 3. Thirdly, It enthrones man as King over Conscience, the alone just claim and priviledge of his Creator, whose Thoughts are not as mens Thoughts, but has reserv’d to himself that Empire, from all the Caesars on Earth; for if men, in reference to souls and bodies, things appertaining to this and t’other World, shall be subject to their Fellow-Creatures, what follows? but that Caesar (however he got it) has all, Gods share, and his own too; and being Lord of both, both are Caesars, and nothing Gods.22 4. Fourthly, It defeats the Work of his Grace, and the invisible Operation of his eternal Spirit, which can alone beget Faith, and is only to be obey’d, in and about Religion and Worship, & attributes mens conformity to outward force and corporal punishments. A Faith subject to as many revolutions, as the Powers that enact it. 5. Fiftly and lastly, Such persons assume the Judgment of the great Tribunal unto themselves; for, to whomsoever men are imposedly or restrictively subject and accountable in matters of Faith, Worship, and Conscience; in them alone must the power of Judgement reside; but it is equally true, that God shall judge all by Jesus Christ, and that no man is so accountable to his Fellow-Creatures, as to be impos’d upon, restrain’d, or persecuted for any matter of Conscience whatever. Thus, and in many more particulars, are men accustom’d to entrench upon divine Property, to gratifie particular Interests in the world (and at best, through a misguided Apprehension, to imagine they do God good service), that where they cannot give Faith, they will use Force; which kind of Sacrifice is nothing less Unreasonable, then the other is Abominable: God will not give his honour to another; and him only that searches the heart, and tries the reins, it is our duty to ascribe the Gifts of Understanding and Faith, without which none can please God.

On God’s and men’s thoughts, see Isaiah 55:8–9; on rendering to Caesar and God, Matthew 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26.

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CHAP. II. The next great evil which attends External Force in matters of Faith and Worship, is no less then the overthrow of the whole Christian Religion, and this we will briefly evidence in these four particulars. 1. First, That there can be nothing more remote from the Nature 2. Secondly, The practice. 3. Thirdly, The Promotion. 4 Fourthly, The Rewards of it. 1. First, It is the Priviledge of the Christian Faith above the dark suggestions of Antient and Modern Superstious Traditions, to carry with it a most Self-evidencing verity, which ever was sufficient to proselite23 Believers, without the weak Auxilaries of external power: The Son of God, and great Example of the world, was so far from calling his Father’s Omnipotency in legions of Angels to his defence, that he at once Repeal’d [15] all Acts of force, and defin’d unto us the nature of his Religion in this one great saying of his, MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD.24 It was spiritual, not carnall, accompanied with weapons, as heavenly as its own nature, and design’d for the good and salvation of the soul, and not the injury and destruction of the body: no Jails, Fines, Exil[e]s &c. but sound reason, cleer truth, and a strict life. In short, the Christian Religion intreats all, but compels none. 2. Secondly, that Restraint and Persecution overturn the practise of it; I need go no further then the allow’d Martyrologies of several ages, of which the Scriptures claim a share; begin with Abel, go down to Moses, so to the Prophets, and then to the meek example of Jesus Christ himself; How patiently devoted was he, to undergo the Contradictions of men? and so far from persecuting any, that he would not so much as revile his Persecutors, but pray’d for them;25 thus liv’d his Apostles, and the true Christians of the first three hundred years: Nor are the famous Stories of our first Reformers silent in the matter; witness the Christian practises of the Waldenses, Lollards, Hussites, Lutherans, and our noble Martyrs, who, as became the true followers of Jesus Christ, enacted and confirm’d their Religion with their own blood, and not with the blood of their Opposers. 3. Thirdly, Restraint and Persecution obstructs the promotion of the Christian Religion, for if such as restrain, confess themselves miserable sinners, and altogether imperfect, it either follows, that they never desire to be To make, or seek to make, a proselyte of; proselytize (OED, def. 1). Matthew 26:52–54; John 18:11; John 18:36.  25 Matthew 5:11, 5:44.  

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[16]

better, or that they should incourage such as may be capable of further informing and reforming them; they condemn the Papists for encoffening26 the Scriptures and their Worship in an unknown Tongue, and yet are guilty themselves of the same kind of Fact. 4. Fourthly, They prevent many of eternal Rewards; for where any are Religious for fear, and that of men, ’tis slavish; and the recompence of such Religion is condemnation, not peace: besides, ’tis man that is serv’d, who having no power, but what is temporary, his reward must needs be so too; he that imposes a duty, or restrains from one, must reward; but because no man can reward for such Duties, no man can, or ought, to impose them, or restrain from them. So that we conclude Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution, are destructive of the Christian Religion, in the Nature, Practice, Promotion, and Rewards of it, which are Eternal.

CHAP. III.

[17]

We further say, That Imposition, Restraint, and Persecution are repugnant to the plain Testimonies and precepts of the Scriptures. The inspiration of the Almighty gives Understanding, 1. Job 32. 8.27 If no man can believe before he understands, and no man can understand before he is inspir’d of God, then are the Impositions of men excluded, as Unreasonable, and their Persecutions for Non-obedience as Inhumane. Wo unto them that take counsel, but not of me, 2. Isa. 30. 1. Wo unto them that make a man an Offender for a word, and lay a Snare for him that reproveth in the Gate, and turns aside the Just for a thing of naught, 3. Isa. 29. 15, 21. Let the Wheat and the Tares Grow together until the time of the Harvest, or, end of the World, 4. Mat. 13. 27, 28, 29. And Jesus call’d them unto him, and said, Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are greatest, exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so amongst you, 5. Mat. 20. 25, 26. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are Gods, 6. Luke 20. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Put in a coffin; to shut up or hide away (OED). That is, Job 32:8. The numbers placed before each Scriptural reference in this list are in the original.

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience When his Disciples saw this (that there were Non-conformists then as well as now) they said, Wilt thou that we command Fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, as Elisha did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what spirit ye are of; for the Son of Man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them, 7. Luk[e] 9. 54. 55. 56. Howbeit, when the Spirit of Truth is come, he shall lead you into all Truth, 8. John 16. 8, 13. But now the Anointing, which ye have received of him, abides in you; and you need not that any man teach you (much less impose upon any, or restrain them from what any are perswaded it leads to) but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is Truth, and is no Lye, 9. John 1. 9, 27.28 Dearly Beloved, Avenge not your selves, but rather give place unto Wrath (much less should any be Wrath that are called Christians, where no occasion is given) Therefore if thine Enemy Hunger, Feed him; and if he Thirst, give him Drink: Recompence no man Evil for Evil, 10. Rom. 12[.] 19, 20, 21. For though we walk in the flesh (that is in the body, or visible world) we do not War after the Flesh; for the Weapons of our warfare are not Carnal, 11. 2 Cor. 3. 4, 5. (but Fines and Imprisonments are, and such use not the Apostles Weapons that employ those) for a Bishop, 1 Tim. 3. 2[–]3 (said Paul) must be of a good behaviour, apt to teach, no Striker, but be gentle unto all men, Patient in Meekness, Instructing (not Persecuting) those that [18] oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledgment of the Truth, 2 Tim. 2. 24, 25. Lastly, We shall subjoyn one Passage more, and then no more of this Particular; Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them. 12. Matt. 7. 12. Luke 6. 31. Now upon the whole we seriously ask, Whether any should be Impos’d upon, or Restrain’d in matters of Faith and Worship? Whether such Practices become the Gospel, or are sutable to Christs Meek Precepts and Suffering Doctrine? And Lastly, Whether those, who are herein guilty, do to us, as they would be done unto by others? What if any were once severe to you? many are unconcern’d in that, who are yet lyable to the Lash, as if they were not. But if you once thought, the Imposition of a Directory Unreasonable, and a Restraint from your Way of Worship Unchristian, can you believe that Liberty of 1 John 2:27.

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience Conscience is changed, because the Parties in points of Power are?29 or that the same Reasons do not yet remain in Vindication of an Indulgence for others, that were once Employ’d by you for your selves? Surely such Conjectures would argue gross Weakness. To conclude, Whether Persecutors (at any time) read the Scriptures we know not; but certain we are, Such practice as little of them as may be, who with so much delight reject them, and think it no small accession to the discovery of their Loyalty, to lead us and our Properties in Triumph after them.

CHAP. IV.

[19]

We further say, That Imposition, Restraint and Persecution are also destructive of the great Priviledg[e] of Nature and Principle of Reason. Of nature in three Instances. 1. First, If God Almighty has made of one Blood all Nations, as himself has declar’d,30 and that he has given them both Sences Corporal and Intellectual, to discern things and their differences, so as to assert or deny from Evidences and Reasons proper to each; then where any Enacts the Belief or Disbelief of any thing upon the rest, or Restrains any from the Exercise of their Faith, to them indispensible, such Exalts himself beyond his bounds, Enslaves his Fellow Creatures, Invades their Right of Liberty, and so perverts the whole order of Nature. 2. Secondly, Mankind is hereby ro[b]b’d of the use and benefit of that instinct of a D[ei]ty, which is so natural to him, that he can be no more without it, and be, then he can be without the most essential Part of himself; For, to what serves that Divine Principle in the universallity of Mankind, if men be restricted by the Prescriptions of some Individuals? But if the excellent Nature of it, inclines men to God, not Man; if the Power of Accusing, and Excusing, be committed to it; if the troubled Thoughts, and sad Reflections, of Forlorn and Dying men, make their tendency that a way only, (as being hopeless of all other Relief and Succour from any external Power or Command) What shall we say? but that such as invallid31 the

The Directory for the Publique Worship of God Throughout the Three Kingdomes (London, 1646), approved by parliament following its ban on use of the Book of Common Prayer. The 1662 Act of Uniformity (14 Car. II c. 4) reinstated a new version of the Book of Common Prayer. 30 Paul’s words, in Acts 17:26.  31  To render invalid; invalidate (OED). 29

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Authority of this Heavenly Instinct (as Imposition and Restraint evidently do) destroy Nature, or that Priviledge which men are born with, and to. 3. All natural Affection is destroy’d; for those who have so little Tender- [20] ness, as to persecute men that cannot for Conscience sake yield them compliance, manifestly act injuriously to their Fellow-Creatures, and consequently are Enemies to Nature; for Nature being one in all, such as ruin those who are equally entitled with themselves to Nature, ruin it in them, as in Liberty, Property, &c. and so bring the state of Nature to the state of War, the great Leviathan of the times, as ignorantly as boldly does assert.32 2. But secondly, We also prove them Destructive of the noble Principle of Reason, and that in these eight Particulars. 1. In that those who Impose or Restrain are uncertain of the truth, and justifiableness of their Actions in either of this, their own Discourses and Confessions are pregnant Instances, where they tell us, that They do not pretend to be infallible, only they humbly conceive ’tis thus, or it is not. 2. Since then they are uncertain and fallible, how can they impose upon, or restrain others, whom they are so far from assuring, as they are not able to do so much for themselves? what is this, but to impose an Uncertain Faith upon Certain Penalties?33 3. As he that Acts Doubtfully is Damn’d, so Faith in all Acts of Religion is necessary: Now in order to Believe, we must first Will; to Will, we must first Judge; to Judge any thing, we must first understand; if then we cannot be said to Understand any thing against our Understanding; no more can we Judge, Will, and Believe against our Understanding: And if the Doubter be Damn’d, what must he be that conforms directly against his Judgment and Belief, and they likewise that require it from him? In short, that Man cannot be said to have any Religion, that takes it by another mans choice, not his own. 4. Where men are limitted in Matters of Religion, there the Rewards, [21] which are entail’d on the free acts of men, are quite overthrown; and such as superceed that Grand Charter of Liberty of Conscience, frustrate all hopes of Recompence by rendring the Actions of men unavoidable: But those think perhaps, They do not destroy all Freedom, because they use so much of their own. 5. Fifthly, They subvert all true Religion; for where men believe, not because it is True, but because they are required to do so; there they will Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London, 1651), ch. 13. In the first edition the text in point 2 is included in point 1, although the numbering goes directly from 1 to 3.

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[22]

unbelieve, not because ’tis False, but so commanded by their Superiors, whose Authority, their Interest, and Security, obli[g]e them rather to obey, then dispute. 6. Sixthly, They Delude, or rather Compel people out of their eternal Rewards; for where men are commanded to act in reference to Religion, and can neither be secured of their Rewards, nor yet sav’d harmless from Punishments; their so acting and believing dispriviledges them forever of that Recompence, which is provided for the Faithful. 7. Seventhly, Men have their Liberty and Choice in external matters; they are not compelled to Marry this Person, to Converse with that, to Buy here, to Eat there, nor to Sleep yonder; Yet if men had Power to Impose or Restrain in any thing, one would think it should be in such exteriour matters; but that this Liberty should be unquestion’d, and that of the Mind Destroy’d issues here, that it does not Unbruit us, but Unman us; for take away Understanding, Reason, Judgment, and Faith, and like Nebuchad­ nezar, let us go Graze with the Beasts of the Field.34 8. Eighthly and lastly, That which most of all blackens the Business is PERSECUTION; for though it is very unreasonable to require Faith, where men cannot chuse but doubt, yet after all, to punish them for Disobedience, ’tis Cruelty in the abstract; for we demand, Shall men Suffer for not doing when they cannot do? Must they be persecuted here if they do not go against their Consciences, and punished hereafter if they do? But neither is this all; for that part that is yet most unreasonable, and that gives the clearest sight of Persecution, is still behind, namely, The Monstrous Arguments they have to Convince an Heretick with: Not those of old, as Spirituall as the Christian Religion, which were to Admonish, Warn, and finally to reject;35 but such as were imploy’d by the Persecuting Jews and Heathens, against the great Example of the World, and such as follow’d him; and by the inhumane Papists against our first Reformers, as Clubbs, Staves, Stocks, Pillories, Prisons, Dungeons, Exiles, &c. in a word, Ruin to whole Families, as if it were not so much their Design to Convince the Soul, as to Destroy the Body. To Conclude, There ought to be an Adequation36 and Resemblance betwixt all Ends, and the means to them, but in this case there can be none imaginable; the End is the conformity of our Judgments and Understandings

Daniel 4:33.  35  Titus 3:10. The action of making commensurate, equal, or balanced; proportioning (OED, def. 3).

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience to the acts of such as require it; the Means are Fines and Imprisonments (and bloody Knocks to boot). Now what Proportion or Assimulation these bear, let the Sober judge: The Understanding can never be convinc’d, nor properly submit, but by such Arguments, as are rational, perswasive, and sutable to its own Nature; something that can Resolve its Doubts, Answer its Objections, Enervate its Propositions, but to imagine those barbarous Newgate Instruments37 of Clubbs, Fines, Prisons, &c. with that whole Troop of external and dumb Materials of force should be fit Arguments to convince the Understanding, scatter its scruples, and finally, convert it to their Religion, is altogether irrational, cruel, and impossible. Force may make an Hypocrite; ’tis Faith grounded upon knowledge and consent that makes a Christian. And to Conclude, As [23] we can never betray the honour of our Conformity (only due to Truth) by a base and timorous Hypocrisie, to any external Violence under Heaven; so must we needs say, Unreasonable are those Imposers, who secure not the Imposed, or Restrained, from what may occur to them, upon their account; and most inhumane are those Persecutors, that punish men for not obeying them, though to their utter ruin.

CHAP. V. We next urge, That Force, in matters relating to Conscience, carry a plain Contradiction to Government, in the Nature, Execution, and End of it. By Government we understand, an external Order of Justice, or the right and prudent Discipline of any Society, by just Laws, either in the Relaxation, or Execution of them. 1. First, It carries a Contradiction to Government in the Nature of it, which is Justice, and that in three Respects. 1. It is the first Lesson that great Synterisis,38 so much renowned by Ph[i]losophers and Civillians, learns Mankind, to do as he would be done to, since he that gives what he would not take, or takes what he would not give, only shews care for himself; but neither kindness nor Justice for another.

Recall that Penn composed this edition while imprisoned in Newgate. The phrase “Newgate instruments” appeared in the first edition as well; at the time of that composition, he had been imprisoned briefly in Cork (November 1667) and for eight months in the Tower of London (December 1668–July 1669), but not yet at Newgate. 38 See also England’s Present Interest (Selection 2) pp. 88–89. 37

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[24]

[25]

2. Secondly, The just Nature of Government Lies in a fair and equal Retr[i]bution; But what can be more unequal then that men should be rated more then their Proportion, to answer the Necessities of Government, and yet that they should not only receive no Protection from it, but by it be disseiz’d of their dear Liberties and Properties; we say to be compelled to pay that Power, that exerts it self to ruin those that pay it, or that any should be required to enrich those that ruin them, is hard, and unequal, and therefore contrary to the just Nature of Government. If we must be Contributaries to the maintenance of it, we are entituled to a protection from it. 3. Thirdly, It is the Justice of Government to proportion Penalties to the Crime committed. Now granting our Dissent to be a Fault, yet the infliction of a Corporal or External Punishment, for a meer mental Error (and that not Voluntarily too) is Unreasonable and Inadequate, as well as against particular directions of the Scriptures, Tit[us] 3. 9, 10, 11. For as Corporal Penalties cannot convince the Understanding; so neither can they be commensurate Punishments, for Faults purely Intellectual: And for the Government of this World to intermeddle with what belongs to the Government of Another, and which can have no ill Aspect, or Influence upon it, shews more of Invasion then Right and Justice. 2. Secondly, It carries a Contradiction to Government in the Execution of it, which is Prudence; and that in these Instances. The state of the Case is this, That there is no Republique so great, no Empire so vast, but the Laws of them are Resolvable into these two Series or Heads, Of Laws Fundamental, which are indispensible and immutable; And Laws Superficial, which are temporary and alterable:39 And as it is Justice and Prudence to be Punctual in the Execution of the former; so by Circumstances it may be neither, to Execute the latter, they being suited to the present Conveniency and Emergency of State; as the Prohibiting of Cattle out of Ireland was judg’d of advantage to the Farmers of England, yet a Murrin would make it the good of the whole, that the Law should be broke, or at least the Execution of it suspended.40 That the Law of Restraint in point of Conscience is of this number; we may further manifest,

See also Peoples (Selection 1), p. 58; England’s Present Interest (Selection 2). pp. 88–89. First edition: “fammin” (famine) instead of “murrin,” a reference to “murrain,” an infectious disease, plague, pestilence (OED, def. 2). The Importation Acts of 1666 (18 & 19 Car. II c. 2) and 1667 (19 & 20 Car. II c. 12) prohibited the importation of Irish cattle into England.

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience and the imprudence of thinking otherwise: For, first, if the saying were as true as ’tis false; No Bishop, No King,41 (which admits of various readings; As no decimating Clergy, or no Persecution, no King), we should be as silent, as some would have us: but the confidence of their Assertion, and the impollicy42 of such as believe it, makes us to say, that a greater injury cannot be done to the present Government. For if such Laws and Establishments are fundamental; they are as immutable as mankind it self; but that they are as alterable as the Conjectures and Opinions of Governors have been, is evident; since the same fundamental indispensable Laws and Pollicy of these Kingdoms have still remain’d through all vari[e]ty of opposite Ruling Opinions and Judgments, and disjoynt from them all. Therefore to admit such a fixation to temporary Laws, must needs be highly imprudent, and d[e]structive of the essential parts of the Government of these Countries. 2. Secondly, That since there has been a time of connivance, and that with no ill success to publick Affairs, it cannot be prudence to discontinue it, unless it was imprudence before to give it, and such little deserve it that think so.43 3. Thirdly, Dissenters not being conscious to themselves of any just Forfeiture of that Favour, are as well griev’d in their Resentments of this Alteration, as the contrary did obli[g]e them to very gr[a]tefull Acknowledgments. 4. Fourthly, this must be done to gratifie all, or the greatest Part, or but some few only; it is a demonstration all are not pleased with it; that the greatest Number is not, the empty publick Auditories will speak: In short, how should either be, when six Parties are sacrificed to the seventh; that [26] this cannot be Prudence, common Maxims and Observations prove. 5. Fifthly, It strikes fatally at Protestant-sincerity; for will the Papists say, Did Protestants exclaim against us, for Persecutors, and are they now the Men themselves? Was it an instance of Weakness in our Religion, and is’t become a demonstration in theirs? Have they transmuted it from Antichristian in us, to Christian in themselves? Let Persecutors answer. 6. Sixthly, It is not only an Example, but an Incentive to the Romanists, to Persecute the Reformed Religion abroad; for when they see their Actions

A saying made most notably by King James I, at the Hampton Court conference in 1604, in rejecting Puritan calls for further reformation in the Church of England. 42 Bad or inexpedient policy (OED). 43 The Conventicle Act of 1664 had expired in 1668, and a replacement was not passed until 1670. 41

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[27]

(once void of all Excuse) now defended by the Example of Protestants, that once accus’d them (but now themselves) doubtless they will revive their Cruelty. 7. Seventhly, It overturns the very ground of the Protestants Retreat from Rome; for if men must be restrain’d upon pretended Prudential Considerations, from the Exercise of their Conscience in England; why not the same in France, Holland, Germany, Constantinople, &c. where matters of State may equally be pleaded? This makes Religion, State-policy; and Faith and Worship, subservient to the Humors and Interests of Superiors: Such Doctrine would have prevented our Ancestors Retreat; and We wish it be not the beginning of a Back-march; for Some think it shrewdly to be suspected, where Religion is suited to the Government, and Conscience to its conveniency. 8. Eighthly, Vice is incourag’d; for if Licentious Persons see Men of Vertue molested for Assembling with a Religious Purpose to Reverence and Worship God,44 and that are otherwise most serviceable to the CommonWealth, they may and will infer, it is better for them to be as they are, since not to be demure, as they call it, is half way to that kind of Accomplishment, which procures Preferment. 9. Ninthly, For such persons as are so poor spirited as to truckle under such Restraints: What Conquest is there over them? that before were Conscientious men, and now Hypocrites; Who so forward to be aveng’d of them, that brought this guilt upon them, as they themselves? And how can the Imposers be secure of their Friendship, whom they have taught to change with the Times? 10. Tenthly, Such Laws are so far from benefiting the Country, that the Execution of them will be the assured ruin of it, in the Revenues, and consequently in the Power of it; For where there is a decay of Families, there will be of Trade; so of Wealth, and in the end of Strength and Power; and if both kinds of Relief fail; Men, the Prop of Republiques; Money, the Stay of Monarchies; this as requiring Mercenaries, that as needing Freemen (farewell the interest of England): ’tis true, the Priests get (though that’s but for a time) but the King and People lose; as the event will shew. 11. Eleventhly, It ever was the Prudence of wise Magistrates to Obli[g]e their people: But what comes shorter of it then Persecution? What’s dearer to them then the Liberty of their Conscience? What cannot they better spare then it? Their Peace consists in the enjoyment of it: First edition: “trifles in opinion” instead of “assembling…to…worship God.”

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience And he that by Compliance has lost it, carries his Penalty with him, and is his own Prison. Surely such Practices must render the Government Uneasie, and beget a great Disrespect to the Governours, in the Hearts of the people. 12. Twelfthly, But that which concludes our prudential part, shall be this, That after all their Pains and Goodwill to stretch men to their measure, they never will be able to accomplish their End: And if he be an unwise Man, that provides Means where he designs no End, how neer is he kin to him that proposes an End inobtainable. Experience has told us, 1. How Invective45 it has made the Impos’d. 2. What Distractions have insued such Attempts. 3. What Reproach has followed to the Christian Religion, when the Professors of it have us’d a coercive Power upon Conscience. And lastly, That Force never yet made, either a Good Christian or a Good Subject. 3. Thirdly and Lastly, Since the proceedings we argue against, are prov’d so destructive to the Justice and Prudence of Government, we ought the less to wonder that they should hold the same malignity against the End of it, which is Felicity, since the Wonder would be to find it otherwise; and this is evident from these three brief Considerations. 1. First, Peace (the End of War and Government, and its great Happiness too) has been, is, and yet will be broken by the frequent Tumultuary Disturbances, that ensue the Disquieting our Meetings, and the Estreeting46 Fines upon our Goods and Estates. And what these things may issue in, concerneth the Civil Magistrate to consider. 2. Secondly, Plenty (another great End of Government) will be converted into Poverty by the Destruction of so many thousand Families as refuse Compliance and Conformity,47 and that not only to the Sufferers, but influentially to all the rest; a Demonstration of which we have in all those Places where the late Act has been any thing considerably put in Execution. Besides, how great Provocation such Incharity and Cruel Usage, as stripping Widdows, Fatherless, and Poor, of their very Necessaries for humane Life, meerly upon an account of Faith or Worship, must needs be to the Just and Righteous Lord of Heaven and Earth; Scriptures, and plenty of other Stories plainly shew us.

Characterized by bitter denunciation; vituperative, abusive (OED, def. A. 1). Payments enforced by law (OED, def. 2). First edition: the sentence ends here, and the third point immediately follows.

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[28]

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[30]

3. Thirdly,48 Unity (not the least but greatest End of Government[)] is lost for by seeking an Unity of Opinion (by the wayes intended) the Unity requisit to uphold us, as a civil Society, will be quite destroy’d: And such as relinquish that to get the other (besides that they are Unwise) will infallibly lose both in the end. In short, We say, that ’tis unreasonable we should not be entertain’d as men, because some think we are not as Good Christians as they pretend to wish us; or that we should be depriv’d of our Liberties and Properties, who never broke the Laws that gave them to us: What can be harder, then to take that from us by a Law, which the great indulgence and solicitude of our Ancestors took so much pains to intail upon us by Law; An. 18 Ed. 3. stat 3. also stat. 20. Ed. 3. cap. 1. again, Petition of Right, An. 3. Car. and more fully in Magna Charta; further peruse 37 Ed. 5. cap. 8. 28. 42 Ed. 3. cap. 3. 28 Hen. cap. 7.49 And we are perswaded, that no Temporary Subsequential Law whatever, to our Fundamental Rights (as this of Force on Conscience is) can invalid so essential a part of the Government, as an English Liberty and Property: Nor that it’s in the power of any on Earth, to deprive us of them, till we have first done it our selves, by such enormous Facts, as those very Laws prohibit, and make our Forfeiture of that benefit, we should otherwise receive by them;50 for these being such Cardinal and Fundamental Points of English Law-Doctrine, individually, and by the collective Body of people agreed to; and on which as the most solid Basis, our Secondary Legislative Power, as well as Executive is built; it seems most rational, that the Superstructure cannot quarrel or invalid its own Foundation, without manifestly endangering its own security, the Effect is ever less noble then the Cause, the Gift then the Giver, and the Superstructure then the Foundation. The single Question, to be resolved in the Case, briefly will be this, Whether any visible Authority (being founded in its primitive Institution upon First edition: erroneously reads “Thirteenthly.” 18 Edw. III st. 3 (1344); 20 Edw. III c. 1 (1346) is the Ordinance for Justices; Petition of Right, 3 Ch. I c. 1 (1628); 42 Edw. III c.3 (1368) mandated observance of the due process of law. The other two references are unclear: The reference to 37 Edw. V is surely in error, as Edward V ruled only a few months (April–June 1483); Penn may be referring to 37 Edw. III (1363). In addition, Penn may be referring to 23 (not 28) Hen. VI c. 7 (1444), the Sheriff (Tenure of Office) Act, which limited a sheriff’s term of office to one year in an attempt to avoid oppression. 50 First edition: does not contain the subsequent material in this chapter, with the exception of the final short paragraph beginning “To this we shall add,” p. 189. 48 49

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience those Fundamental Laws, that inviolably preserve the people in all their just Rights and Priviledges) may invalidate all, or any of the said Laws, without an implicit shaking of its own Foundation, and a clear overthrow of its own Constitution of Government, and so reduce them to their Statu quo prius, or first Principles: Their resolution is every mans, at his own pleasure. Read Hen 3 9 14, 29. 25 E 3. Cook Instit. 2. 9. 50, 51.51 Those who intend us no Share or Interest in the Laws of England, as they relate to civil Matters, unless we correspond with them in Points of Faith and Worship, must do two things: First, It will lie heavy on their parts to prove, That the Ancient Compact and Original of our Laws, carries that Proviso with it; else we are manifestly disseized of our Free-Customs. Secondly, They are to prove the Reasonableness of such Proceedings to our Understandings, that we may not be concluded by a Law, we know not how to understand; for if I take the matter rightly (as I think I do) we must not Buy or Sell unless of this or that Perswasion in Religion; not considering civil Society was in the World before the Protestant Profession; Men, as such, and in Affairs peculiarly relative of them, in an external and civil capacity, have subsisted many Ages, under great variety of Religious Apprehensions, and therefore not so dependant on them as to receive any variation or Revolution with them. What shall we say then? but that some will not that we should Live, Breath[e], and Commerce as men, because we are not such modell’d Christians as they coercively would have us; they might with as much justice and reputation to themselves forbid us to look or see, unless our Eyes were Grey, Black, Brown, Blew, or some one Colour best suiting theirs: For not to be able to give [31] us Faith, or save our Consciences harmless, and yet to persecute us for refusing Conformity, is intollerable hard measure. In short, That coercive way of bringing all men to their height of Perswasion, must either arise from Exorbitant Zeal and Superstition; or from a consciousness of Error and Defect, which is unwilling any thing more sincere, and reformed should take place; being of that Cardinals mind, who therefore would not hearken to a Reformation, at the sitting of the Counsel of Trent; because he would not so far approve the Reformers Judgment (for having once condescended to their Apprehensions, he thought 9 Hen. III c. 14, 29 refers to chs. 14 and 29 of Magna Carta, reissued by Henry III in 1225. The specific reference to 25 Edw. III (1351) is nonspecific; Penn may intend to refer instead to 25 Edw. I (1297), the Confirmation of Charters, rather than 25 Edw. III. See also Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes, commentary on Magna Carta, ch. 29, pp. 50, 51.

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience ‘twould forever inslave them to their Sence) though otherwise he saw as much as any man, the grand necessity of a Reformation, both of the Roman Doctrine and Conversation.52 Some grand Objections in the way must be Considered.

[32]

Objection 1. But you are a People that meet with Designs to Disaffect the People, and to ruin the Government. Answ. A Surmise is no Certainty, neither is A may be, or Conjecture, any Proof: That from the first we have behaved our selves inoffensively is a Demonstration, that our Meetings are open, where all may hear our Matter, and have liberty to object or discus[s] any point, is notorious. Ignorant Calumnies are Sandy Foundations to build so high a Charge upon: Let us Fairly be heard in a publique Conference, how far we can justifie our Principles from being deservedly suspected of Sedition or Disloyalty, and not over-run us with meer Suppositions. We declare our readiness to obey the Ordinance of man, which is only relative of Humane or Civil Matters, and not Points of Faith, or Practice of Worship: But if Accusations must stand for Proofs, we shall take it for granted, that we must stand for Criminals; but our Satisfaction will be, that we shall not deserve it otherwise then as prejudice seeks to tradu[c]e us. Object. 2. But you strike at the Doctrine, at least the Discipline of the Church, and consequently are Hereticks. Answ. This Story is as old as the Reformation; if we must be objected against out of pure Reputation, let it be in some other matter then what the Papists objected against the first Protestants; otherwise you do but hit your selves in aiming at us: To say you are in the Right, but we are in the Wrong, is but a meer begging of the Question; for doubtless the Papists said the same to you, and all that you can say to us: Your best Plea was, Conscience upon Principles, the most evident and rational to you: Do not we the like? What if you think our Reasons thick, and our ground of Separation mistaken? Did not the Papists harbour the same Thoughts of you? You perswaded as few of them as we of you: Were you therefore in the Wrong? No more are we: It was not what they thought of you, or enacted against you, that concluded you: And why should your Apprehensions

Reference unclear. Penn might be referring to Cardinal Giovanni Maria del Monte (later, Pope Julius III), who served as first president of the Council of Trent, and who opened its proceedings in 1545 with a brief oration.

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience conclude us?53 If you have the way of giving Faith beyond what they had, and have the faculty of Perswasion, evidence as much; but if you are as destitute of both, as they were to you; why should Fines and Prisons, once us’d by them against you, and by you exclaimed against, as Unchristian Wayes of reclaiming Hereticks (supposing your selves to be such) be employ’d by you as Rational, Christian, and Convincing upon us? To say [33] we deserve them more, is to suppose your selves in the Right, and we in the Wrong, which proves nothing. Besides, the Question is not barely this, Whether Hereticks, or no Hereticks? but whether an Heretick should be Persecuted into a disclaiming of his Error? Your old Arguments run thus, as I well remember. 1. Error is a Mistake in the Understanding. 2. This is for want of a better Illumination. 3. This Error can never be dislodged, but by Reason and Perswasion; as what are most sutable to the Intellect of man. 4. Fines, Jails, Exiles, Gibbits, &c. are no Convincing Arguments to the most erring Understanding in the World, being slavish and brutish. 5. This way of Force makes, instead of an honest Dissenter, but an Hypocritical Conformist; then whom nothing is more detestable to God and man. This being the Protestants Plea, we are not to be disliked by Protestants, for following their own avowed Maxims, and Axioms of Conscience, in defence of its own Liberty. In short, Either allow separation upon the single Principle of, My Conscience owns this, or disowns that; or never dwell in that Building, which knew no better Foundation (indeed good enough) but accusing your Fore-fathers of Schism, and Heresie, return to the Romish Church. What short of this can any say to an Anti-liberty-of-Conscience-Protestant. Object. 3. But at this rate ye may pretend to Cut our Throats, and do all manner of savage Acts. Answ. Though the Objection be frequent, yet it is as foul[l]y ridicu- [34] lous. We are pleading only for such a Liberty of Conscience, as preserves the Nation in Peace, Trade, and Commerce; and would not exempt any man, or party of men, from not keeping those excellent Laws, that tend to Sober, Just, and Industrious Living. It is a Jesuitical Morral, To Kill Penn seems to use “conclude” here in the sense of refute, or overcome in argument (OED, def. 4); he might also mean it synonymously with “determine” or “resolve” (OED, defs. 11, 12).

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a man before he is Born: First, to suspect him of an Evil Design, and then Kill him to prevent it. Object. 4. But do not you see what has been the end of this Separation? Wars, and Revolutions, and Danger to Government; witness our late Troubles. Ans. We see none of all this, but are able to make it appear, that the true cause of all that perplext Disturbance, which was amongst the Homousians and Arrians of old,54 and amongst us of later years (as well as what has modernly attended our Neighbouring Countries) took its first rise from a narrowness of spirit, in not Tollerating others to live the Free-men God made them, in External Matters upon the Earth, meerly upon some difference in Religion. And were there once but an hearty Tolleration establisht, ‘twould be a Demonstration of the truth of this Assertion. On this Ground, Empire stands safe; on the other, it seems more uncertain. But these are only the popular Devices of some to traduce honest Men, and their Principles; whose lazy Life, and intollerable Av[a]rice become question’d, by a Tolleration of people better inclin’d. Object. 5. But what need you take this pains to prove Liberty of Conscience Reasonable and Necessary, when none questions it; all that is required is, That you meet but four more then your own Families; and can you not be contented with that?55 Your Disobedience to a Law, so favourable, brings suffering upon you. Answ. Here is no need of answering the former part of the Objection; ’Tis too apparent throughout the Land, that Liberty of Conscience, as we have stated it, has been severely prosecuted, and therefore not so franckly injoyned:56 The latter part, I answer thus, If the words lawful and unlawful, may bear their signification from the nature of the things they stand for, then we conceive that a Meeting of Four Thousand is no more Unlawful, then a Meeting of Four; for Number singly consider’d criminates no Assembly: but the reason of their Assembling; the posture in which; and the Matter transacted, with the Consequences thereof. Now if those things are taken for granted, to be things dispensible (as appears by the allowance of four besides every Family) certainly the number

On the Arian controversy, see p. 87. The Conventicle Act forbade unauthorized religious gatherings attended by “five persons or more assembled together over and besides those of the same Household.” 56 Penn may mean “enjoyed.” 54 55

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience can never render it Unlawful; so that the Question will be this, Whether if Four met to worship God, be an Allowable Meeting; Four Thousand met with the same Design be not an Allowable Meeting? It is so plain a Case, that the Matter in the Question resolves it. Object. 6. But the Law forbids it. Answ. If the Enacting any-thing can make it lawful, we have done; but if an Act so made by the Papists against Protestants, was never esteem’d so by a true Protestant; and if the nature of the matter will not bear it; and lastly, that we are as much commanded by God to meet Four thousand as Four; we must desire to be excused, if we forbear not the assembling of our selves together, as the manner of some is. Object. 7. But the reason of the prohibition of the number is (for you see they allow all that can be said to Four Thousand to be said the Family and Four) that Tumults may arise, and Plots may be made, and the like Inconveniences happen to the Government. Answ. Great Assemblies are so far from being injurious, that they are the most inoffensive. For, First, They are open, exposed to the view of all, which of all things Plotters are the shyest of; but how fair an Opertunity ‘twere, for men so principled, to do it in those allowed Meetings of but four besides the Family, is easie to guess, when we consider, that few make the best and closest Council; and next, that such an Assembly is the most private and clandestine, and so fitted for Mischief and Surprize. Secondly, Such Assemblies, are not only publick and large, but they are frequented, as well by those that are not of their way, as of their own; from whence it follows, that we have the greatest reason to be cautious and wise in our Behaviour, since the more there be at our Meetings, the more Witnesses are against us, if we should say or act any thing that may be prejudicial to the Government. Lastly, For these several years none could ever observe such an ill Use made of that Freedom, or such wicked Designs to follow such Assemblies; and therefore it is high Incharity to proceed so severely upon meer Suppositions. To this we shall add several Authorities and Testimonies, for further confirmation of our sense of the matter, and to let Imposers see, that we are not the only Persons, who have impleaded57 Persecution, and justified Liberty of Conscience, as Christian and Rational.

Arraigned, accused (OED, def. 2).

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CHAP. VI.58

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A Brief Collection of the Sence and Practice of the Greatest, Wisest, and Learnedst Common-Wealths, Kingdoms, and particular Persons of their Times, concerning Force upon Conscience. 1. First, Though the Jews above all people had the most to say for Imposition and Restraint within their own Dominions, having their Religion instituted by so many signal Proofs of Divine Original, it being delivered to them by the Hand of God himself; yet such was their Indulgence to Dissenters, that if they held the common receiv’d Noachical Principles tending to the acknowledging of one God, and a just Life, they had the Free Exercise of their distinct Modes, or Wayes of Worship, which were numerous. Of this their own Rabbies are Witnesses, and Grotius out of them.59 2. Secondly, The Romans themselves, as strict as they were, not only had Thirty Thousand Godds (if Varro may be credited) but almost every Family of any note, had its distinct Sacra, or peculiar Way of Worship.60 3. Thirdly, It was the sence of that Grave, exemplary Commonwealths-man, Cato,61 in Salust, that among other things which ruin any Government, want of Freedom of Speech, or mens being obli[g]’d to humor Times, is a great one; which we find made good by the Florentine Republique, as Guicceardine relates.62 4. Fourthly, Livy tells us, It was a Wonder that Hannibals Army, consisting of divers Nations, divers Humors, differing Habits, contrary Religions, various Languages, should live 13 years from their own Country under his Command without so much as once mutining either against their General, or among themselves. But what Livy relates for a Wonder, that ingenious Marquess, Virgillio Malvetzy, gives the reason of, namely, That the difference of their Opinions, Tongues, and Customs, was the reason of their Preservation and Conquest; For said he, ’Twas impossible so many contrary Readers may wish to compare this catalog with that in the Preface and Conclusion to A Perswasive to Moderation (Selection 8). Grotius cites Maimonides in The Law of War and Peace; Penn would have consulted The Illustrious Hugo Grotius of the Law of Warre and Peace (London, 1654), Part I, ch. 1, pp. 8–10. 60 Marcus Terentius Varro’s Divine Antiquities has been lost; its elaboration of the Roman system of gods is known largely due to Augustine’s discussion in City of God, books 6 and 7. 61 First edition: Cato is described only as “that (then) incomparable Cato.” 62 Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline. Cato’s speech is at chapter 52, but it does not explicitly deal with freedom of speech. The specific reference to Guicciardini’s History of Florence is unclear, but he may be referring to “Florence prized her liberty of speech as moderns do the press” (History, ed. Henry Edward Napier [London, 1846–7], vol. II: p. 583).

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Spirits should Combine, and if any should have done it, ’twas in the Generals power to make the greater Party by his equal hand; they owing him more of Reverence, then they did of Affection to one another: This, says he, some impute to Hannibal; but how great soever he was, I give it to the variety of Humors in the Army. For, (adds he) Romes Army was ever less given to Mutining, when joyned with the Provincial Auxilaries, then when intirely Roman; thus much and more, in his publique Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus.63 5. Fifthly, The same, best Statist of his Time, C. Tacitus, tells us in the Case of Cremtius, That it had been the interest of Tiberius, not to have punished him, in as much as Curiosity is begotten by Restriction of Liberty to Write or Speak, which never mist of Proselites.64 6. Sixthly, Just. Martin. I will forbear to quote, in less then this, two whole Apollogies, dedicated to Adrian and Antonius Pius, as I take it.65 7. Seventhly, Tertullian ad scapul[a]m, that learned and juditious Appollogist, plainly tells us, That ’tis not the Property of Religion to Compel or Persecute for Religion; she should be accepted for her Self, not for Force; that being a poor and beggarly one, that has no better Arguments to Convince; and a manifest Evidence of her Superstition and Falshood.66 8. Eightly, Of this we take the nine Moneths Reign of the Emperor Jovianus to be an excellent Demonstration, whose great Wisdom, and admirable Prudence in granting Tolleration (expresly saying, He would have none molested for the Exercise of their Religious Worship) Calm’d the impe[tuous] Storms of Dissention betwixt Homousians and Arrians: and reduc’d the whole Empire, before agitated with all kind of Commotions during the Reign of Constantine, Constantius, and Julian, to a wonderful Serenity and Peace, as Socrates Scholasticus affirms.67 9. Ninthly, That little Kingdom of Aegypt had no less then Forty Thousand Persons retir’d to their private and seperate Wayes of Worship, as Eusebius out of Philo Judeus, and Josephus relates.68

Livy, History of Rome, book 28, ch. 12; Malvezzi, Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus, Discourse 49, pp. 475–477. 64 Tacitus, Annals, book 4, chs. 34–35. First edition: describes Tacitus as “the same stately Tacitus.” 65 Justin Martyr, First and Second Apology. 66 Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, ch. 2. First edition: no “ad scapul[a]m.” 67 Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 3, ch. 25. 68 Eusebius Pamphilius, Ecclesiastical History, book 2, ch. 17, secs. 6–10 (with references to Philo Judaeus); Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, book 1, secs. 223–226. 63

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience 10. Tenthly, And here let me bring in honest Chaucer, whose Matter (and not his Poetry) heartily affects me: ’twas in a time when Priests were as rich, and lofty, as they are now, and Causes of Evil alike.69 (a)70 The time was once, and may return again; (for oft may happen that hath been beforn) When Shepherds had none Inheritance, ne of Land, nor Fee in sufferance. But what might arise of the bare Sheep, (were it more or less) which they did keep; Well ywis71 was it with Shepherds tho: nought having nought fear’d they to forgo; For PAN (God) himself was their Inheritance, and little them serv’d for their Maintenance; The Shepherds God so well them guided, that of nought were they unprovided; (b)72 Butter enough, Honey, Milk, and Whay, and their Flock Fleeces them to array: But Tract of Time and long Prosperity, (that Nurse of Vice, this of Insolency) Lulled the Shepherds in such security, that not content with Loyal obeysance, Some [be]gan to gap for greedy Governance, and match themselves with mighty Potentates, (c)73 Lovers of lordships, and troublers of states; then [be]gan Shepherds Swains to look aloft, And leave to live hard, and learn to li[e] soft, though under colour of Shepherds some while, There crept in Wolves, full of fraud and guile, that often devour’d their own Sheep, And often the Shepherd that did them keep. (d)74 This was the first source of the Shepherds sorrow, that nor will be quit, with Bale, nor borr[o]w.

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The following poem is not in fact Chaucer: it is Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar, May, lines 103–131. The first edition does not include the marginal notes below. 70 Marginal note: The Primative State of things observed by a Poet, more then 300. year old; by which the Clergy may read their own Apostacy and Character. 71 Variant of iwis; assured or certainly (OED, def. B). 72 Marginal note: Time and Prosperity corrupted them, and then they grew States-men. 73 Marginal note: ’Twas now they began to Persecute; they hated any that were more devout then themselves: Devotion was counted Disaffection; Religious Assemblies, Conventicles; primitive Spirited Christians, Upstart Hereticks; thus the Tragedy began, Cain slaying Abel about Religion. 74 Marginal note: He truly maketh their Averice the cause of their Degeneration; for ’tis the Root of all Evil. 69

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience 11. Who knows not that our first Reformers were great Champions for Liberty of Conscience, as Wicklif in his Remonstration to the Parliament; the Albigences to Leuis the 11th and 12th of France; Luther to the several Dyets under Fredrick and Charles the 5th; Calvin to Francis the first; and many of our English Martyrs, as the poor Plowman’s Famous Complaint, in Foxes Martyr[o]logy, &c.75 12. The present Affairs of Germany, plainly tells us, That Tolleration [41] is the preservation of their states; the contrary having formerly almost quite wasted them. 13. The same in France: Who can be so ignorant of their Story, as not to know that the timely Indulgence of Henry the fourth, and the discreet Tolleration of Richlieu and Mazarin saved that Kingdom from being ruin’d both by the Spaniards; and one another.76 14. Holland, then which, what place is there so improved in Wealth, Trade and Power, chiefly owes it to her Indulgence in matters of Faith and Worship. 15. Among the very Mahumetans of Turkey, and Persia, what variety of Opinions, yet what Unity and Concord is there? we mean in matters of a Civil Importance. 16. It was the opinion of that great Master of the sentences, Dominicus a Soto, That every man had a Natural Right to instruct others in things that are Good, And he may teach the Gospel Truths also; but cannot compel any to believe them, he may Explain them, and to this (says he) every Man has a Right, as in his 4th Sentence, Dist. 5. Art. 10. Pag. 115. 7.77 17. Strifes about Religion, said Juditious and Learned Grotius, are the most pernicious and destructive; where Provision is not made for Dissenters: The contrary most happy; As in Muscovy. He further says upon the occasion of Campanella, That not a rigid, but easie Government, suits best with the North[er]n people: He often pleads the relaxation of temporary Laws to be reasonable and necessary. As in the case of the Curatij and Horatij, Penn may be referring to the 1395 remonstrance addressed to parliament by Wycliffe’s followers (Wycliff died in 1384), published as Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions in the Church, ed. Rev. J. Forshall (London, 1851). The Albigenses, a neo-Manichean sect in southern France during the twelfth and thirteen centuries, were suppressed by Pope Innocent III; Luther made his famous “Here I stand” statement at the 1521 Diet of Worms; for Calvin to Francis I, see “Prefatory Address” to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion; “The Poor Plowman’s Complaint” in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, vol. II, book 5. 76 Henry IV, he of “Paris is well worth a Mass,” issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598; French statesmen and Cardinals Richelieu (1585–1642) and Mazarin (1602–61). 77 Soto, Commentarium fratris Dominici Soto…in Quartum Sententiarum. 75

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and Fabius Vitulanus; and others stincted78 to time and place, as the Jewish Laws, &c. Polit. Maxims p. 12, 18, 78, 98.79 18. The Famous Raleigh tells us, That the way for Magistrates to govern well, and gain the esteem of their People, is to Govern by Piety, Justice, Wisdom, and a Gentle and Moderate Carriage towards them: And that Disturbance attends those States, where men are ruin’d or depress’d by Parties. See his Observations and Maxims of State.80 19. If I mistake not, the French and Du[t]ch Protestants enjoy their Separated Wayes of Worship in London, if not in other parts of these Lands, without Molestation; we do the like in remote Countries, but not in our own. 20. This must needs be the meaning of the learned Doctor to his inquisitive Student, in their Juditious Dialogue about the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdoms, when he says, That such Laws as have not their Foundation in Nature, Justice, and Reason are void ipso Facto. And whether Persecution or Restraint upon Conscience be congruous with either, let the Impartial judge, lib. I. cap. 6.81 21. Doctor Hammond himself, and the grand Patron of the English Church, was so far from urging the Legallity of Restriction in matters relating to Conscience, that he Writ, Argu’d, and left upon his dying-bed, his sense to the contrary: As the Author of his Life might have b[ee]n pleas’d to observe, but that interest stood in the Way; the Doctor exhorting his Party, Not to seek to Displace those then in the University, or to Persecute them for any matter of Religious Difference.82 22. That a Person of no less ability in the Irish Protestant Church did the same; I mean D. Jerem. Tayl[o]r, his whole Discourse of Liberty of Prophecy, is a most pregnant demonstration.83

Penn likely means “stinted” here, as in limited or restricted (OED, def. 2). Pagination from Grotius, Politick Maxims and Observations; see also pp. 43–44. 80 Sir Walter Raleigh, Maxims of State (London, 1650), pp. 25–35. First edition: calls Raleigh “great” rather than “famous.” 81 Christopher St. Germain, Two Dialogues in English between a Doctour of Divinity and a Student in the Laws of England (1517). The text refers to book 1, ch. 6, which discusses the relationship between the law of England and the law of God; additional relevant material appears in chapters 2 (reason) and 15 (conscience). 82 John Fell, The Life of the Most Learned, reverend, and Pious Dr. H. Hammond (London, 1661). Fell, the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, published Life of Hammond during Penn’s unhappy time as a student there. 83 Jeremy Taylor, Theologike Eklektike; or A Discourse on the Liberty of Prophesying (London, 1647). 78 79

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience 23. It was the Saying of a Person once, too great to be nam’d now, That Liberty of Conscience is every mans Natural Right; and he who is deprived of it, is a Slave in the midst of the greatest Liberty: And since every man should do as he would be done to, such only don’t deserve to have it, that won’t give it.84 24. Lactantius reflects upon Persecutors thus, If you will with Blood, [43] with Evil, and with Torment defend your Worship, it shall not thereby be Defended but Polluted, lib. 5. cap. 20.85 25. Hillary against Auxentius, saith, The Christian Church does not persecute, but is persecuted.86 26. Jerom, thus, Heresie must be cut off with the Sword of the Spirit, Proaem lib. 4.87 27. Chrysostum saith, That it is not the manner of the Children of God to persecute about their Religion, but an evident Token of Antichrist — — Relig. Uris. pag. 192.88 28. Stephen, King of Poland, declared his mind in the point controverted, thus, I am King of Men, not of Conscience; a Commander of Bodies, not of Souls.89 29. The King of Bohemia was of Opinion, That mens Consciences ought in no sort to be Violated, Urg’d, or Constrained.90 30. And Lastly, Let me add (as what is, or should be now of more force) the Sence of King James, and King Charles the first, Men fam’d for their great natural abilities, and acquir’d Learning; That no man ought to be punished for his Religion, nor disturbed for his Conscience; In that it is the Duty of every man to give what he would Receive. ‘It is a sure Rule in Divinity,’ said King James, ‘that God never loves to plants his Church by Oliver Cromwell’s message to the first Protectorate parliament: “Liberty of conscience is a natural right; and he that would have it, ought to give it” (September 12, 1654, in Letters and Speeches, ed. Carlyle and Lomas [London, 1904], vol. II: pp. 382–383). The first edition proceeds directly to James I (here, no. 30) as its no. 24, and does not include 24–29. 85 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, ch. 20. 86 Hilary of Poitiers, Contra Auxentium Arrianum. 87 Commonly attributed to Jerome, for example in the “Scriptures and Reasons” preface to Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution, which itself draws on chs. 6–8 of John Murton’s A Most Humble Supplication (Amsterdam [?], 1620). The 1846 edition of A Most Humble Supplication notes that the passage does not appear in any of the proems in Jerome’s corpus. 88 Paraphrase of John Chrysostom, Homily III, 2 Thessalonians 1:9–10. 89 It was in fact not King Stephen but Sigismund II Augustus (reigned 1548–72). See Gerard T. Kapolka, “A Letter from William Penn to Jan III Sobieski,” The Polish Review 28 (1983): 9. 90 Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate, ruled as king of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. 84

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Violence and Bloodshed.’ And in his Exposition on Rev. 20. he saith, ‘That PERSECUTION is the Note of a False Church.’91 And in the last Kings advice to the present King, he says, ‘Take heed of Abetting any Factions; your partial adhearing to ANY ONE SIDE gains you not so great advantages in some mens hearts (who are prone to be of their Kings Religion) as it loseth you in others, who think themselves, and their profession first d[e]spis’d, then persecuted by yo[u]’. Again, ‘Beware of Exasperating any Faction by the Crosness and Asperity of some mens Passions, Humours, or private opinions imployed by you, grounded only upon their difference in lesser matters, which are but the Skirts and Suburbs of Religion. Wherein a Charitable Connivence, and Christian Tolleration, often dissipates their strength, whom rougher opposition fortifies, and puts the despised and oppressed Party, into such combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their Persecutors, who are commonly assisted by that vulgar Commiseration, which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion.’ ‘Alwayes keep up SOLLID PIETY and those fundamental Truths (which mend both hearts and lives of men) with Impartial Favour and Justice. Your Prerogative is best shown and exercis’d in Remitting, rather then Exacting the rigour of Laws; there being nothing worse than Legall Tyranny.—’92 NOW upon the whole, we ask, What can be more Equal, what more reasonable then Liberty of Conscience; so correspondent with the Reverence due to God, and Respect to the Nature, Practice, Promotion, and Rewards of the Christian Religion; the Sense of Divine Writ; the Great Priviledge of Nature, and Noble Principle of Reason; the Justice, Prudence, and Felicity of Government; And Lastly, to the Judgment and Authority of a whole Cloud of Famous Witnesses,93 whose Harmony in Opinion, as much detects the Unreasonableness, and Incharity of Persecutors, as their Savage Cruelties imply an high contempt of so sollid determinations, of which number I can not forbear the mention of two, whose Actions are so near James I, ‘‘Speech to Parliament, 21 March 1609/10,’’ in King James VI and I: Political Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 199; A Fruitfull Meditation, in The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, James (London, 1616), p. 79. First edition: contains only “That no man ought to be punished for his Religion, nor disturbed for his Conscience; In that it is the Duty of every man to give what he would Receive.” 92 Charles I, Eikon Basilike, pp. 227, 231–232. 93 Hebrews 12:1. 91

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience of kin to one another, and both to Inhumanity, as the same thing can be to it self.94 The first is a great Lord of Buckingham-shire;95 but so hearty a Persecutor of the poor Quakers; that rather then they should peaceably enjoy the Liberty of Worshipping God (and to supply the County defect of Informers) he has encourag’d a pair of such Wretches, that it had been a Disgrace for the meanest Farmer to converse with; one having been Prisoner in Alsbury for Theft, and said to have been Burnt in the Hand; and the other of a Complexion not much less Scandalous and Immortal. To give an undeniable Testimony of their Merit once for all, I shall briefly relate a most notorious piece of Perjury. They suspecting a religious Assembly to be at a certain place in the same County, came, and finding once in reallity, repaired to one they call Sr. Tho Clayton, and a Justice, where they depos’d, That not only a Meeting was at such an House, but one Tho. Zachery and his Wife were there, who at the same time (as at the Tryal upon Indictment for Perjury at Alsbury was proved by sufficient Witnesses from London) were then in that City, yet fined not only for being there, but for the Speaker also, though none spoke that day. Upon the prosecution of these men as perjur’d men, and by the Law dispriviledg’d of all [Employ],96 and never to be credited more in Evidence; several delays were made, much time spent, and not a little pains bestow’d, all in hopes of an Exemplary Success which prov’d so, but the wrong way; for the very last Sessions, when the matter should have receiv’d an absolute Decision and the Attendants have been dismist (especially on the score of the Witnesses, that came from London the second time upon no other account) a Letter was reported to have bin writ from the aforesaid Lord, in favour of these Informers, to this purpose, That since Sr. Tho. Clayton was not present, the business could not well be determined, but if the Court would undertake the ending of it, he beseecht them to be favourable to those HONEST MEN. If this be as true as said, ’tis a most aggravated shame to Nobility: what! to protect them from the Lash of Law, who went about to destroy Truth the Life of it: ’Tis a Dishonour

First edition: lacks the two examples that follow, and proceeds directly to “In short…”, p. 199. 95 John Egerton, second earl of Bridgewater, lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire from 1660 to 1686. 96 Text reads “imply.” 94

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to the Government, a Scandal to the County, and a manifest Injury to an inof[f]ensive and useful Inhabitant.97 ’Tother is as well known by his Cruelty as by his Name, and he scarce deserves another; However, he is understood by that of the Reading Knight, Arrant, and always in Armour for the Devil;98 a man whose life seems to be whole BONNER reviv’d:99 Hogestraut, the Popish Inquisitor,100 could not hate Martin Luther more, then he does a poor Dissenter; and wants but as much Power, as he has Will, to hang more then he has Imprisoned. The Laws made against Papists, he inflicts upon the Quakers; And makes it Crime enough for a Primunire to have an Estate to lose. The single Question is not, Were you at such a Meeting? which the Act intends: But will you Swear? which it intends not; and Women escape him as little for this, as those of his own Tribe do for SOME THING ELSE: But what of all things most aggravates the mans Impiety, is, the making a Devillish Snare of a Christian Duty; since such as have come to Visit the Imprison’d, have been imprisoned themselves for their Charity; so that with him it seems a current Maxime, That those must not come to see Prisoners, and not be such themselves, who will not take the Oath of Allegiance to do it. To relate the whole Tragedy, would render him as Bad, as the Discourse Big; and the latter not less Voluminous, then the former Odious. But three things I shall observe. First, That he has crouded 72. Persons (of those called Quakers) Men and Women, immodestly into Jail, not suffering them to enjoy common Conveniencies. And for his Diversion, and the Punishment of little Children, he pours Cold Water down their Necks. 2d, His Imprisonments are almost perpetual; first he premunires them, without any just cause of suspition; then imprisons them; and lastly, plunders them, and that by a Law enacted against Romanists; which if all be true, that is said, is more his concern then theirs; if without offence, it may be suppos’d he has any Religion at all. This episode, which took place in August 1670, later appeared in the first printed Quaker Book of Sufferings: A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers (London, 1753), pp 79–80. 98 Sir William Armorer, subject of Persecution Appearing with its own Open Face (London, 1667); note the pun. 99 Edmund Bonner (1500–69), bishop of London under Queen Mary, nicknamed “Bloody Bonner” for his persecution of Protestants. 100 Jacob van Hoogstraaten (c. 1460–1527), Flemish Dominican, religious controversialist, and inquisitor. 97

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience 3d, Some have been there about eight years, and should be eighteen more, were he as sure to live (being more then 70) and enjoy his power, as doubtless he hopes to die before those good Laws over-take him, that would make an Example of such an Oppressor: In short, Wives, Widdows, Poor, and Fatherless, are all Fish for his Net; and whether over or under Age he casts none away, but seems to make it his Priviledge to correct Law by out-doing it. When we have said all we can (and we can never say too much, if enough) he is still his own best Character. Such are the Passions, Follies, and Prejudices, men devoted to a spirit of Imposition and Persecution, are attended with, Non enim possumus quae vidimus, et audivimus non loqui.101 In short, What Religious, what Wise, what Prudent, what Goodnatured Person would be a Persecutor? Certainly its an office only fit for those, who being wide of all reason, to evidence the verity of their own Religion, fancy it to be true, from that strong Propensity and greedy Inclination they find in themselves to persecute the Contrary; A Weakness of so ill a consequence to all civil Societies, that the admission [of] it ever was, and ever will prove their utter Ruin, as well as their great Infelicity, who pursue it. And though we could not more effectually express our Revenge, then by leaving such persons to the scope of their own Humors: Yet being taught to Love and Pray for our very Persecutors,102 we heartily wish their better Information, that (if it be possible) they may act more sutably to the good pleasure of the Eternal Just God, and beneficially to these Nations.103 To conclude, Liberty of Conscience (as thus stated and defended) we ask, as our undoubted Right by the Law of God, of Nature, and of our own Country: It has been often promised, we have long waited for it; we have Writ much, and Suffered more in its Defence; and have made many true Complaints, but found little or no Redress. However we take the Righteous Holy God to Record against all Objections, that are ignorantly, or designedly raised against us. That, 1st, We hold no Principle destructive of the English Government. 2d, That we plead for no such Dissenter (if such an one there be.) Acts 4:20: “We can not help speaking about the things we have seen and heard.” Matthew 5:44. First edition concludes thus: “But if this short discourse should not be Credited, nor Answered in all its sober Reasons and Requests, Time and the Event will vindicate it from untruth; and in the mean while ‘twill be my great satisfaction, that I have borne my honest testimony, not out of Season, either to the King or to my Country.” It then proceeds to the Postscript.

101 102 103

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3d, That we desire the Temporal and Eternal Happiness of all Persons (in Submission to the Divine Will of God) heartily forgiving our Cruel Persecutors. 4thly, And Lastly, We shall engage by Gods assistance to lead peaceable, just, and industrious lives amongst men, to the good and example of all. But if after all we have said, this short Discourse should not be credited, nor answer’d in any of its sober Reasons and Requests; but Sufferings should be the present Lot of our Inheritance from this Generation, be it known to them all, THAT MEET WE MUST, and MEET, we cannot but encourage all to do (whatever Hardship we sustain) in Gods Name and Authority, who is Lord of Hosts, and King of Kings; at the revelation of whose Righteous Judgments and Glorious Tribunal, Mortal Men shall render an Account of the Deeds done in the Body: And whatever the Apprehensions of such may be, concerning this Discourse, ’twas writ in Love, and from a true sense of the present State of things: and TIME, and the EVENT will vindicate it from Untruth. In the mean while, ’tis matter of great Satisfaction to the Author, that he has so plainly cleared his Conscience, in pleading for the Liberty of other Mens, and publickly born his honest Testimony for God, not out of Season to his POOR COUNTRY.

Postscript.

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A few brief Observations upon the late Act, and the usual Tearms of Acts of this Nature. That which we have to say, relates, either to the Tearms of the Act, or the Application of them to us. As to the Tearms of the Act, they are these; Seditious Conventicles, Seditious Sectaries, and Meetings under Colour or Pretence of Religion, p.1. 1. Seditious, from Sedition, imports as much as Turbulent, Contentious, Factious, which sowes Strife, and Debate, and Hazards the Civil Peace of the Government. 2. Conventicle, is a diminutive private Assembly, designning and contriving Evil to particular Persons, or the Government in general, see Lamb. p. 173.104 In Tertullians sense it is an Assembly of Immodest and Unclean Persons; at least, it was so taken in those dayes, and objected against Penn is paraphrasing William Lambarde, Eirenarcha; or, Of the Office of the Justices of Peace (London, 1581), ch. 19, pp. 172–183.

104

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience the Christians, as their Practice, whom he defends, Tertul[lian]. Apol[ogy]105 3. Sectaries, must be such as dis-joyn or dis-member themselves from the [51] Body of Truth, and confess to a Strange and Untrue opinion. If any Subject of this Realm, being Sixteen Years of Age, or Upwards; shall be present at any Assembly, Conventicle, or Pretence of Religion &c. which can signifie no more then thus much, That true it is, some may meet and assemble to Worship God, and upon a Religious Account, that are Dissenters, such we censure not; but those, who under Colour or Pretence of any Exercise of Religion Conspire, &c. they are to be suspected and prosecuted. This being the true Explanation of the Tearms of the Act; we proceed to show how unreasonably they are apply’d to us. First, Words are but so many intelligible Marks, and Characters, set, and employ’d, to inform us of each others Conceptions, and therein of the nature of those things they stand for: Now because we take the Act to mean what it speaks, and that the Law concludes no man Guilty upon Conjectures, but from the detection of some Fault, We affirm our selves altogether unconcern’d in that word, Seditious; because ’twas never our practice, in Words or Actions, to disturb the Government; or suggest Principles that might hatch Conspiracies, or feed the vulgar with Disaffection to their Rulers: But before the King’s coming in, at his coming in, and ever since; notwithstanding our frequent Suffering, we have made it our Business to Heal Animosities, Preach Forgiveness, and Charity amongst men; and that they would by an hearty repentance turn to God, rather then hunt after Revenge upon one another: Therefore we assert, we have not done one thing that may be prov’d Seditious in the sense above mention’d. 2. That we are Strangers to Conventicles is most evident; for, where the parts that render it such, are wanting, there can be no Conventicle; but [52] that they are in our Assemblies, appears. First, Because our Meetings are not Small. 2. Neither are they Private or Clandestine; but in the view of all People. 3. Nor are they Riotous, Licentious, or otherwise Immodest, or Immorral; but on purpose to diswade persons from such Impieties; so that we are clear in the Interpretation of the Law, 13 Hen. 5. cap. 8. 19. and 19. H. 7. cap. 13. and in the sense of the famous Father Tertullian.106 Tertullian, Apology, ch. 39. References to 13 Henry V unclear; Penn may be referring to the Riot Acts, 2 Hen. V c. 8 and 9; 19 Hen. VII c. 13 (1503). Tertullian, Apology, ch. 39.

105 106

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3. Sectaries, is a word, that whosoever has but confidence enough to conceit himself in the Right, by consequence wants none to suppose the contrary in the Wrong, and so to call him a Sectary; but this is but a meer begging of the Question; For, to say those are Sectaries, does not conclude them such, nor does the Act speak so plainly of Dissenters: but granting it did, yet they must be Seditious Ones, or else all will be in vain; where we may observe, that purely to be a Sectary, is not what the Act strikes at, but to be a Seditious One: For, a man may differ in Judgment about matters of Faith, from the National Religion, and yet correspond with the Government in matters civil: So that ACT upon the whole, aims not at Sectaries simply, but they must be such as are Enemies to the civil constitution to be rendered Seditious Ones, from which we have sufficiently clear’d our selves. 4. That we meet under Colour and Pretence, and not really to Worship God; we deny, and none can prove. ‘Twere high Incharity to affirm positively, This, or that People meet only under a Colour of Religion; yet unless the Act had so expres’d it self, we conceive their Authority lame and imperfect that persecute us by it. It will help but little to say, The King, Lords and Commons, by the following words, In other manner then according to the Liturgy of the Church of England; meant, that such meet under a Pretence that did not conform to the Worship; since the precedent words say, under Colour or Pretence of any Exercise of Religion, in other manner, &c. So that they are only struck at, who are not sincere Dissenters, but that are such, with Design to carry on another End. Object. But may some say, ’Tis granted, you have very evidently evaded the force of the Act, so far as relate to these recited Expressions: But what if a Bill be ready, for an Explanatory and Supplementory Act to the former, wherein this Scope for Arguments will not be found, because your Meetings will be absolutely adjudged Seditious, Riotous, and Unlawful. To which we Answer, That as the granting of the first, which none reasonably can deny is a manifest Impeachment of such as have violently prosecuted people for being present at Religious Assemblies (almost to their utter Undoing) so shall we as easily answer the second, which amounts to the force of an Objection, and briefly thus. First, It is not more impossible for Mankind to preserve their Society without Speech, then it is absolutely requisite that the Speech be Regular and Certain. For, if what we call a Man, a Lion, a Whale to day; we should call a Woman, a Dogg, a Sprat to morrow; there would be such Uncertainty and Confusion, as it would be altogether impossible to preserve Speech or Language intelligible. 

Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Secondly, It is not in the power of all the men in the World to reconcile an absolute Contradiction, to convert the nature of Light into that of Darkness, nor to enact a thing to be that which it is not; but that those endeavour to do, who think of making our Religious Meetings Routs and Riots; for [54] first they offer Violence to our common Propriety of Language, it being the first time that ever a Religious and Peaceable Assembly would be enacted a Rout or Riot: Nature, Reason, the Law of the Land, and common Practice, and Observation, give a clear contrary definition of a Rout and Riot.107 Secondly, They endeavour to reconcile Contradictions; for they would have a thing that which by nature it cannot be; for that which is Peaceable cannot be Riotous, and what is Religious can never be Seditious. For any to say our Meetings are not Religious, is not only a poor Evasion, but great Incharity; for that is properly a Religious Assembly where Persons are congregated with a real Purpose of Worshipping God, by Prayer, or otherwise, let the Persons met be esteem’d Doctrinally Orthodox, or not. Can any be so Ignorant, or so Malitious, as to believe we do not Assemble to Worship God, to the best of our Understanding? If they think otherwise, they must, and do assume unto themselves a Power, beyond the Arrogancy of the POPE himself, that never yet adventur’d to tell man his Thoughts, nor the Purposes and Intents of his heart, which he, or they must do, that definitively judge our Assemblies, void of Sword or Staff, Drum or Musket, Tumult or Violence; and circumstantiated with all the Tokens of Christian Devotion, a Rout or a Riot. And truly, If Protestants deny the Legallity of those Acts or Edicts, which were contrived and executed in order to their suppression, by the respective Kings and Parliaments that own’d the Romish Faith and Authority, where they either did, or do live, let them not think it strange, if we on the same Tearms (namely, Scruple of Conscience) refuse compliance with their Laws of Restraint. And as the first Reformers were no whit daunted at the black Characters the Romanists fastened on them; neither thought their Assemblies in a way of profest seperation, the more [55] unlawful, for their representing them such; no more are we surpriz’d or scar’d at the ugly Phrases, daily cast upon us by a sort of men, that either do not know us, or would not that others should: For we are not so easily to be Brav’d,108 Menac’d, or Persecuted out of our Sense, Reason, and Priviledge. In Peoples (Selection 1), Mead had cited Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes, ch. 79, on the definition of a riot. See pp. 42–43. Threatened, menaced (OED, def. 2).

107

108

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience They say, LOSERS have leave to Speak; at least, we take it; none being greater Losers, then such as for Dissenting from National Institutions in point of Faith or Worship, are depriv’d of their Common Rights, and Freedoms, and hindred as much as may be, from Reverencing the God that made them, in the Way which to them seems most acceptable to Him. To Conclude, We say, and by it let our Intentions in our whole Discourse be measur’d, that we have not defended any Dissenters, whose Quarrel or Dissent is rather Civil and Polittical, then Religious and Concientious; for, both we really think such unworthy of Protection from the English Government, who seek the ruin of it; and that such as are Contributaries to the preservation of it, (though Dissenters in point of Faith or Worship) are unquestionably intituled to a Protection from IT.

THE END.

Appendix: Dedication from first edition, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Dublin, 1670) To the KING. As the concerns of Conscience in things proper to God are of the highest importance, so to deliberate in acts relative of them, must needs be the greatest prudence; since whoever errs herein, certainly incurs divine displeasure, and at best buys his repentance at so dear a rate, as how great soever the spoils of nonconformity may be, they will be much too inconsiderable to purchase it. [p.b.] And though perhaps it may be judged by some (such as they are) a disrespect in me to present any thing so naked of splendid Titles to the most eminent Person in the Kingdom, yet they so far mistake me, as well as true respect, that ’tis the very great share I bare that publick Princely Office, and the due sence I have of Thy private obligations, as well as the great love I owe my Countrey, that have necessitated me to this address, before the late Act has made too great a progress in it: well knowing it is the common infelicity of Princes (and so consequently of their people) that they are forced to see, hear, and act by Proxy; and such Persons too, who sometimes out of prejudice or interest, ruine others, not less deserving, and in their inclinations more loyal and peaceable then themselves: which, if it shews our jealousie of

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Selection 5: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience them, it does not less express our confidence in Thee. For not to play the Parasite (a trade as much below the plain[n]ess of my principle, as the dignity of my cause) we generally have made this one interpretation of our suffering, that it has rather been the effect of that advantage the Law gives our peevish persecutors, then for want of any inclination in Thee to prevent it. [p.b.] And because we have had the frequent experience of thy Clemency, and that with no ill success to publick affairs, we are the more incouraged to solicite the continuation of it, in a time, when nothing on earth besides the interposal of thy Authority, can disappoint the greedy designs of some to ruine us, if not them too. In short there be three things which with all due respect we crave, First, thy sedate consideration of our ensuing reasons and testimonies against imposition, restraint, and persecution, with those brief observations upon the late Act. Secondly, to deliberate whether it be conscience or interest that will instigate any to persecute us, and which of them ’tis that can soberly be thought to Act us in a way of separation, since so much trouble attends us for it. Thirdly, that it would please thee to consider who and what we are, no Plotters, no Disturbers, nor yet deboist or inexemplary Persons, although [p.b.] we fear the ill will of some have put them upon such Injust remonstrances. But a people whose tender consciences do not more oblige them to a dissent from the present establishments, then they strongly perswade them to an hearty compliance with all civil Laws for the external good and benefit of our countrey; whilest we have great cause to suspect the Fomenters of these severities against us, have as little regard for the one as the other; and how should they that have so very much for themselves. To conclude, if thou chusest rather to please the Almighty then some one angry Party of men, & to correspond with the meekness of the Christian Religion to own the authority of the Scriptures, preserve natural Affection, pursue the dictas of right Reason, advance the interest of Government, in the Justice, Prudence, & Felicity of it; & last of all to embrace the authorities of the greatest, wisest, & best men in their times, then to gratify the heat, envy and avarice of our adversaries: suffer us not to be prey’d upon, nor our estates [p.b.] to be led in triumph by every sturdy Begger & malicious Informer, as their trophies and our forfeits, for conscience sake, but rather discountenance such proceedings, & incourage virtue in all; which, as it will be truly

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Part II: Toleration and ­Liberty of Conscience Noble, Christian and Prudent, so will it indubitably render Thee blest of God, and beloved of vertuous men; an happiness to be defin’d by the greatest Prince, & which is very heartily wish’d Thine, by one who will be ready and diligent to obey thee in all just commands,

WILL: PENN jun.

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6. THE Proposed Comprehension Soberly, and Not Unseasonably, CONSIDERED. Although the Benefits wher[e]with Almighty God has Universally Blest the whole Creation, are a sufficient Check to the Narrowness of their Spirits, who would Unreasonably Confine all Comfort of Life within the streight Compass of their own Party (as if to receed from their Apprehensions, whereof themselves deny any Infallible Assurance, were Reason good enough to deprive other Dissenters of Nature’s Inheritance, and which is more peculiar, ENGLAND’s FREEDOMS) Yet since it fares so meanly with those Excellent Examples, that many vainly think themselves then best to answer the End of their being born into the World, when by a Severity, which least of all resembles the God of Love, they rigorously prosecute the Extirpation of their Brethren: Let it not seem Unreasonable, or Ill timed, that we offer to your more Serious Thoughts, the great Partiality and Injustice, that seem to be the Companions of a Comprehension, who onely can be concern’d at this time, to prevent It, by a more Large and Generous Freedom. First then, Liberty of Conscience (by which we commonly understand the free Exercise of any Dissenting Perswasion) is but what has been generally pleaded for, even by the Warmest Sticklers for a Comprehension, and without which it would be utterly Impossible, they should be comprehended: The Question then will be this, What Ground can there be, why Some, and not All, should be Tolerated? It must either respect Conscience, or Government: If it be upon Matter of meer Religion, What Reason is there that one Party should be Tolerated, and another Restrained; since all those Reasons, that may be urg’d by that Party, which is Comprehended, are every whit as proper to the Party Excluded? For if the Former say, 

Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience They are Orthodox, so say the Latter too;109 If the one urge, It is Impossible they should Believe without a Conviction; that the Understanding cannot be Forced; that Mildness most Gains; that the True Religion never Persecuted; that Severity is most Unworthy of her; that Sound Reason is the only Weapon which can Disarm the Understanding; that Coertion doth rather Obdurate then Soften; and that they therefore chuse to be Sincere Dissenters, before Hypocritical Conformists:110 The other Party says the same. In fine, There can be nothing said for Liberty of Conscience, upon Pure Consciencious Grounds, by any one Party in England, that every one may not be Interested in; unless Any will undertake to judge that of Five Sorts of Dissenters, Two are really such on Convictions, and Three upon meer Design. But if such Sentence would be lookt upon as most Arrogant and Unjust, how can it be Reasonable, that those whom some endeavour to exclude, should be thus prejudg’d, and such as are comprehended, be therefore so only from a strong Opinion of their Reality: We may conclude then, that since Liberty of Conscience is what in it self Comprehenders plead, and that it is evident to affirm this, or that, or the other Party Orthodox, is but a meer Begging of the Question. What may be urg’d for one, is forceable for any other: Conscience (not moveable but upon Conviction) being what all pretend themselves alike concerned in. But they say, that such as are like to be comprehended, are Persons, not Essentially Differing; that it were pitty to exclude them whose Difference is rather in Minute Matters, then any thing Substantial, whereas you Err in Fundamentals.111 But how Paradoxal soever such may please to think it, that we should therefore plead the Justice of taking those in, Some unkindly would have left out, we know not; however, we believe it most Reasonable to do so; For certainly the Reason for Liberty or Toleration, should hold Proportion with the Weighty Cause of Dissent, and Cf. Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration: “Every church is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or heretical.” 110 This catalog of arguments restates many of the same positions advanced in The Great Case (Selection 5). 111 The claim that Presbyterians differed from Anglicans only in matters of church government formed a large part of the argument that they should be comprehended, and animated sectarian (including Quaker) opposition to comprehension. Penn turns the Presbyterian argument on its head; if they do not differ from the Church of England on fundamental matters, their separation is all the more blameworthy; their support for comprehension represents a scheme to “prevent others of Injoying the same Favour, under the Pretence of more Fundamental Difference” (p. 209). These issues were further rehearsed in Penn’s October 1675 debate with Presbyterian Richard Baxter; see Murphy, William Penn: A Life, pp. 103–104. 109

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Selection 6: The Proposed Comprehension the Stress Conscience puts upon it. Where Matters are Trivial, they are more blameable that make them a Ground for Dissent, then those who perhaps (were that all the Difference) would never esteem them worth Contending for, much less that they should Rend from that Church, they other-wise Confess to be a True One: So that whoever are Condemnable, certainly those who have been Authors and Promoters of Separation upon meer Toyes and Niceties, are not most of all others to be ­Justified. Had they conscienciously offer’d some Fundamental Discontent, and pleaded the Impossiblity of reconciling some Doctrines with their Reason or Conscience, yet promising Quiet Living, and all Due Subjection to Government, they might have been thus far more excusable, that People would have had Reason to have said; Certainly small Matters could not have induc’d these Men to this Disgraceful Separation, nor any thing of this Life have tempt[ed] them to this so Great and Troublesom Alteration: But to take pet112 at a Ceremony, then Rend from the Church, set up a New Name and Model, gather People, raise Animosity, and only make fit for Blows, by a Furious Zeal kindled in their Heads, against a few Ineptia, meer Trifles; and being utterly vanquisht from these Proceedings, to become most earnest Sollicitors for a Comprehension; though at the same time of hot Pursuit after this Priviledge, to seek nothing more then to prevent others of Injoying the same Favour, under the Pretence of more Fundamental Difference; Certainly, this shows that had such Persons Power, they would as well Disallow of a Comprehension to those who are the Assertors of those Ceremonies they receed from, as that for meer Ceremonies they did at first Zealously Dissent, and ever since remain more Unjustifiably Fierce for such Separation. And truly, If there were no more in it then this, it would be enough for us to say, That some in England never Rent themselves from the Church at all, much less for little Matters: that they never endeavoured her Exile, but she found them upon her Return, which they Opposed not, nor yet since have any wayes sought to install themselves in her Dignities, or enrich themselves by her Preferments. We appeal then to all Sober Men, if what is generally call’d the Episcopal Party of England can with Good Conscience, and True Honour dis-inherit those of their Native Rights, Peace, and Protection, and leave them as Orphan[s] to the wide World, indeed a Naked Prey to the Devourer, who from first to last have never been concerned, either to endeavour their Ruin, or any ways withstand their Return, whilst it may “To take pet”: to take offence, to become bad-tempered or sulky (OED, def. 3).

112

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience be some of those, who have been the most Vigorous in both, and that for Circumstantial, and not Essential Differences, may be reputed more deserving of a Comprehension, then we are of a Toleration.113 But it will be yet said, You are Inconsistent with Government, They are not, therefore You are Excluded, not out of Partiality, but Necessity. What Government besides their own they are consistent with, we leave on the side of Story to tell, who can better speak their Mind then we are either able or Willing to do: But this give us leave to say in general, If any apprehend us to be such as merit not the Care of our Superiours, because suppos’d to be Destructive of the Government, let us be call’d forth by Name, and hear our Charge; and if we are not able to answer the Unbyast Reason of Mankind, in reference to our Consistency with the Peace, Quiet, Trade, Tribute of these Kingdoms, then, and not before, deny us all Protection. But that Men should be concluded before heard, and so sentenced for what they really are not, is like Beheading them before they are Born. We do aver, and can make it appear, that there is no one Party more Quiet, Subject, Industrious and in the bottom of their very Souls, greater Lovers of the Good Old English Government and Prosperity of these Kingdoms among the Comprehended, then for ought we yet see, may be found among those who are like to be unkindly Excluded; However if such we were in any one Point, Cure rather then Kill us; and seek the Publick Good some cheaper Way then by our Destruction: Is there no Expedient to prevent Ruin? Let Reason qualifie Zeal, and Conscience, Opinion. To Conclude, If the Publick may be secured, and Conscience freely exercis’d by all, for the same Reasons, it may be some (& since Liberty of Conscience, is Liberty of Conscience, and the Reasons for it, equivalent) We see not in the whole World, why any should be depriv’d of That, which others for no better Reasons are like to injoy. Let it not then be Unworthy of Such to remember, that God affords his Refreshing Sun to All; The Dung-hill is no more excepted then the most Delightful Pla[in], and his Rain falls alike both upon the Just and Unjust:114 He strips not Mankind of what suits their Creaturely Preservation; Christians themselves, have no more peculiar Priviledge in the Natural Benefits of Heaven, then Turks or Indians. Would it not then be strange, that Infidels themselves much less any Sort of Christians should be Penn refers to tensions between Presbyterians and Anglicans before the Restoration and up to the passage of the 1662 Act of Uniformity (14 Car. II c. 4), which led to the “Great Ejection” of nonconformist (largely Presbyterian) clergy from the Church of England. 114 Psalm 113:7; Matthew 5:45. 113

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Selection 6: The Proposed Comprehension deprived of Natural Priviledges for meer Opinion, by those who pretend to be the Best Servants of that God, who shows them quite an other Example, by the Universality of his Goodness as Creator; And Believers in that Christ, who himself preacht the Perfection of Love, both to Friends and Enemies;115 and laid down his Life to confirm it when he had done. If Men should Love their Enemies, doubtless they ought at least to Forbear their Friends: And though some Differences in Judgment about Religion be a Sufficient Reason to excommunicate a Man [from] the Air Ecclesiastical, yet nothing certainly of that Sort ought to dis-Priviledge Men of their Air Natural and Civil to breath freely in: And let that GOOD our Superiours have observed to be the Fruit of Toleration, not be Weakned or Blasted by an Untimely Comprehension of some, to the Exclusion of the Rest; since the Reason holds the same for the less Formidable Separatists, that may not be however any whit less Consciencious. We will omit to mention, how much more Suitable it were to State Matters, that all Parties should be kept upon an Equal Poize, a thing most True in it self, and most Secure to the Publick Magistrate: and will Conclude at this time, That though We no wayes Designe a Mis-Representing of any, much less their Exception, and least of all their Persecution; yet, a Comprehension either respecting the Persons and their Qualifications, or their Separation, and the Grounds and Reasons of it, We seriously believe, can never be consistent with that Conscience, and Honor, and Wisdom, and Safety, that ought to be the Mark, those who are concern’d in it, should take their Aim by. But if a Comprehension should at last be compast, it is not doubted by many Wise Men, but it will be found as Impracticable as other ACTS more seemingly Severe have been, and at last will necessitate to that Well-Ordered Universal Toleration of all, who both profess and Practice Peace, Obedience, Industry, and Good Life, which will best please Almighty God, and Rejoyce the Hearts of all Good Men. From Real Friends to King and Country.

Matthew 5:43–44.

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7. ONE PROJECT For the GOOD of ENGLAND: THAT IS, Our CIVIL UNION is our CIVIL SAFETY. Humbly dedicated to the Great Council, The Parliament of England. [1]

RELIGION, as it is the noblest End of Man’s Life, so it were the best Bond of Humane Society, provided Men did not err in the Meaning of that excellent Word. Scripture interprets it to be Loving God above all, and our Neighbours as our selves;116 but Practice teacheth us, that too many meerly resolve it into Opinion and Form; in which, not the Text, but the Comment too often prevails: whence it comes to pass that those Bodies of Men, who have but one Common Civil Interest, are miserably disframed in favour of their adopted Notions, upon whom they are impatient to bestow an Earthly Crown. And this is the Reason of that Mischief and Uncertainty that attend Government, No sooner one Opinion prevails upon another (though all hold the Text to be sacred) but Humane Society is shaken, and the Civil Government must receive and suffer a Revolution: in so much, that when we consider the Fury and Unnaturalness of some People for Religion (which shews they have none that’s True[,] Religion making Men most Natural as well as Divine) we have Reason to Bewail the Mis-understanding as well as Mis-living of that venerable Word.

Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–29; Luke 10:25–28.

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England But since ’tis so hard to disabuse men of their wrong Apprehensions of Religion, and the true Nature and Life of it, and consequently as yet too early in the day to fix such a Religion upon which Mankind will readily agree as a common Basis for Civil Society, we must recur to some lower but true Principle for the present, and I think there will be no Difficulty of succeeding. ’Tis this, That Civil Interest is the Foundation and End of Civil Government, and where it is not maintained entire the Government must needs decline. The word INTEREST has a good and bad Acceptation; when it is taken in an ill Sense, it signifies a pursuit of Advantage without regard to Truth or Justice; which I mean not: The good signification of the word, [2] and which I mean, is a Legal Endeavour to keep Rights, or augment honest Profits, whether it be in a private Person or a Society. By GOVERNMENT, I understand a Just and Equal Constitution, where Might is not Right, but Laws rule, and not the Wills or Power of Men; for that were plain Tyranny. This Government must have a Supream Authority in it self to Determine, and not to be Superceeded or Controuled by any other Power, for then it would not be a Government, but a Subjection, which is a plain Contradiction. Having thus explain’d the Terms of the Principle I have laid down, I repeat it, viz. That Civil Interest is the Foundation and End of Civil Government, and prove it thus, The Good of the Whole is the Rise and End of Government; but the Good of the Whole must needs be the Interest of the Whole, and Consequently the Interest of the whole is the Reason and End of Government. None can stumble at the Word Good, for every man may easily and safely Interpret that to himself, since he must needs believe; ’tis Good for him to be preserv’d in an undisturb’d Possession of his Civil Rights, according to the Free and Just Laws of the Land, and the Construction he makes for himself will serve his Neighbour, and so the whole Society. But as the Good of the People is properly the Civil Interest of the People, and that, the Reason and End of Government; so is the Maintenance of that Civil Interest entire, the Preservation of Government. For where People are sure of their own, and are Protected from Violence or Injury, they chearfully yield their Obedience, and pay their Contribution to the support of that Government. But on the contrary, where men are Insecure of their Civil Rights, nay, where they are daily violated, and themselves in danger of Ruin, and that for no sin committed ag[a]inst the 

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Nature of Civil Interest (to preserve which, Government was instituted) we ought to suppose their Affections will flagg, that they will grow deadhearted, and that what they pay or do, may go against the Grain: And to say true, such unkindness is ready to tempt them to believe they should not of right Contribute to the Maintenance of such Governments as yield them no Security or Civil Protection. Which Unhappy Flaw in the Civil Interest, proves an untoward Crack in the Government; Men not being cordially devoted to the Prosperity of that Government, that is exercis’d in their Destruction; and how far that Fraction117 upon the Common Interest of the People may Affect the Government I cannot tell, but to be sure ’tis insecure to any Government, to have the People (its Strength) divided, as they will be, where their Interest is so disjoynted by the Government; One Protected, the Other Expos’d. Wherefore, Wise Governments have ever taken Care to preserve their People, as knowing they do thereby preserve their Interest, and that how Numerous their People, so large their Interest. For not only Solomon has told us, That the Honour of a Prince is in the Multitude of his People,118 but Experience teaches, that Plenty of People is the Riches and Strength of a Wise and Good Government; as that is, where Vice is corrected and Vertue encourag’d, and All taken in and secured in Civils, that have the same Civil Interest with the Government. But as the Good and Interest of the Whole is the Rise and End of Government, so must it suppose, that the whole (which takes in all Parties) concurs in seeking the Good of the Government; for the Reason of the Government will not suffer it to protect those that are Enemies to its Constitution and Safety; for so it would admit of something dangerous to the Society, for the Security of which, Government was at first instituted. It will follow, that those that own another temporal Power superior to the Government they properly belong to, make themselves Subjects not of the Government they are born under, but to that Authority which they avow to be superior to the Government of their own Country, and consequently men of another Interest, because ’tis their Interest to pursue the Advantages of that Power they acknowledge to be soveraign: But those that own, embrace and obey the Government of their own Country as their temporal supream Authority, and whose Interest is one and the Breach, rupture (OED, def. 2), here and throughout. Proverbs 14:28.

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England same with that of their own proper Government, ought to be valued and protected by that Government. The Principle thus far lyes General, I will now bring it to our own Case. ENGLAND is a Country Populous and Protestant, and though under some Dissents within it self, yet the Civil Interest is the same, and in some sense the Religious too. For first, all English Protestants, whether Conformists or Nonconformists agree in this, that they only owe Allegiance and Subjection unto the Civil Government of England, and offer any Security in their power to give of their Truth in this Matter. And in the next place, they do not only consequentially disclaim the Pope’s Supremacy, and all adhesion to forreign Authority under any Pretence, but therewith deny and oppose the Romish Religion, as it stands degenerated from Scripture, and the first and purest Ages of the Church, which makes up a great Negative Union. And it cannot be unknown to men read in the Reasons of the Reformation, that a Protestation made by the German Reformers against the Imperial Edicts of Charles the fifth, imposing Romish Traditions, gave beginning to the word Protestant.119 In short; It is the Interest of the Ruling or Church Protestants of England, that the Pope should have no Claim or Power in England. It is also the Interest of the Dissenting Protestants, that the Pope should have no Claim or Power here in England, because they are subject to the same Mischiefs and Sufferings in their Civil and Religious Rights that the Church Protestants are liable to: if then both are like to lose by Pope and Forraign Authority, their Interest must needs be one against Pope and Forraign Authority; and if they have but one Interest, it will follow, that the Church Protestant cannot prejudice the Dissenting Protestant, but he must weaken and destroy his own Interest. The Civil Interest of English Protestants being thus the same, and their Religious Interest too, so far as concerns a Negative to the Usurpation and Error of Rome; I do humbly ask, if it be the Interest of the Government, to expose those to Misery that have no other Civil Interest than THAT of the Government? Or if it be just or equal that the Weaker

At the Diet of Speyer (1529), a delegation of German princes submitted a Protestation against the emperor’s ban on Luther’s teachings.

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should be prosecuted by the more Powerful Protestants, whose Interest is Positively the same in Civils, and in Religion Negatively? One would think ‘twere Reasonable that they should not suffer by Protestants, who if Popery ever have a day, are likely to suffer with them, and that upon the same Principles. Experience tells us, That the wisest Architects lay their Foundations broad and strong, and raise their Squares and Structure by the most exact Rules of Art, that the Fabrick may be secure against the Violence of storms; but if People must be destroy’d by those of the same Interest, truly that Interest will stand but Totteringly, and every breath of Opposition will be ready to shake it. ’Twas the Inconfutable answer Christ made to the Blasphemers of that Power by which he wrought Miracles; A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand:120 what he said then, let me on another occasion say now, an Interest divided against it self must fall. I know some Men will take Fire at this, and by Crying The CHURCH, The CHURCH, hope to silence all Arguments of this Nature; But they must excuse me, if I pay no manner of Regard to their Zeal, and hold their Devotion both Ignorant and Dangerous at this time. It is not the way to fill the Church, to Destroy the People. A Church without People is a Contradiction, especially when the Scripture tells us that ’tis the People that makes the Church.121 And ’tis not without an appearance of Reason that some good & wise men are apprehensive, that the greatest Sticklers for Persecuting Protestant Dissenters in favour of the Church of England, are men addicted and devoted to the Church of Rome, or at least animated by such as are; who, d[espai]ring of doing any great Feats, if known, hide themselves under these pretences; but the meaning of it is to debilitate the Protestant cause in general, by exciting the Church of England to destroy all other Protestant Interests in these Kingdoms, that so nothing may remain for Popery to conflict with but the few Zealous abettors of that Church. And that this may not look disingenuous, or like a Trick of mine, I will enforce it by a demonstration. It is plain fact, that the Church of Rome hath ever since the Reformation practic’d122 the Restoration of her Religion and Power in these Kingdoms. It is as evident that Religion is with her a word for Civil Interest, that is, that she may have the Rule over men Matthew 12:25; Mark 3:24; Luke 11:17. See the opening salutations of many of the Pauline letters, as well as Acts 5:11, 20:28. Attempted (OED, def. 5b).

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England both Body and Soul. For ’tis Government she aims at, to have the r[e]ins of Power in her hand, to give Law and w[ie]ld the Scepter. To do this she must either have a greater interest then the Protestants that are now in possession, or else divide their Interest, and so weaken them by themselves, and make them Instruments to her ends. That her own force is Inconsiderable is clear: She has nothing within Doors to give her hope but the Discord of Protestants. It follows then that she must of necessity bestir her self and use her Arts to enflame the reckoning among Protestants, and carry their Dissents about Religious matters to a division in the Civil Interest. And it is the more to be fear’d, because whatever she has been to others, she has been ever true to her self. If this then be the only domestick Expedient left her, we are sure she will use it; and if so, it must needs be of great Importance with all Protestants to let fall their private Animosities, and take all possible care that their dissents about Faith or Worship (which regard the other World) divide not their Affection and Judgment about the Common and Civil Interest of their Country: because if that be kept entire, it equally frustrates the designs of Rome, as if you were of one Religion. For since, as I said before, Religion, with the great men of that Church, is nothing else but a softer word for Civil Empire, preserve you but your Civil Interest from fraction, and you are in that sense of one Religion too; and that such an one, as you need not fear the temptation of Smithfield, if you will but be true to it.123 This being the case, I would take leave to ask the Zealous Gentlemen of the English Church, If Conformity to the fashion of their Worship be dearer to them then Englands Interest and the Cause of Protestancy? if their love to Church-Government be greater then to the Church and her Religion, and to their Country and her Laws? or lastly, whether in case they are sincere in their Allegations for the Church (which I confess ingenuously I am apt to suspect) it is to be supposed that the present Church-men (Conformists I mean) are better able of themselves to secure Protestancy and our Civil Interest against the Attempts of Rome, then in Conjunction with the Civil Interest of all Protestant Dissenters? If they say yes, I would have them at the same time, for the same reason, to give it under their Hands, that ’tis a standing Rule in Arithmetick, that ONE is more then SIX, and that hitherto we have been all mistaken in the art of Numbers.

Smithfield was one of the main sites for public executions in London.

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Being brought to this pinch, I conceive they must say, that they had rather deliver up their Church to the Power and Designs of Popery, then suffer Dissenters to live freely among them, though Protestant, of one negative Religion, and of the same Civil Interest; or else hasten to break those bonds that are laid upon Dissenters of truly tender and (by experience) of peaceable Consciences; and by Law establish the free Exercise of their Worship to Almighty God, that the Fears, Jealousies, Disaffection and Distraction, that now affect the one common Interest of Protestants, may be removed; for it seems impossible to preserve a distinct Interest from both. But to which of these they may incline, I must not determine; and yet I hope, they will not be of the mind of a late Monk of Cullen, that in his publick Exercise exhorted the Civil Magistrates to chuse to have their City poor and Catholick, that is Popish, rather then great and Opulent by the Admission of trading Hereticks; but if they should, may our Magistrates have at least their Prudence; for the Culleners gave him the hearing, but were as true to their Interest, as the Monk to his Superstition. Under favour, the Civil Government is greatly concern’d to discountenance such Biggotrys; for it Thins the People, Lessens Trade, Creates Jealousies, and Endangers the Peace and Wealth of the Whole. And with Submission, of what should the Civil Magistrate be more tender, than in suffering the Civil Interest of a great People to be disturb’d and narrow’d for the Humor of any one Party of them? for since the Civil Interest lies as large, as the People of that Interest, the people must be preserved in order to preserve that Common Interest. Other Notions ever did divide and weaken Empire, and in the end they have rarely mist to pull the Old House about their Ears, that have govern’d themselves by such disproportionable measures: By all means, interest the Affections of the People in the Prosperity of the Government, by making the Government a SECURITY to their perticular Rights and Properties. I ask, if more Custom comes not to the King, and more Trade to the Kingdom by encouraging the Labour and Traffick of an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent, Quaker and Anabaptist, than by an ­Episcopalian only? If this be true, why should the rest be render’d uncapable of Trade, yea, of Living? What Schism or Heresy is there in the Labour and Commerce of the Anabaptist, Quaker, Independent and Presbyterian, more than in the Labour and Traffick of the Episcopalian? I beseech you give me leave, is there ever a Church-man in England· that in distress would refuse the Curtesie of one of these Dissenters? If 

Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England one of them should happen to fall into a Pond or Ditch, would he deny to be helpt out by a Dissenters Hand? Is it to be supposed, he would in such a pickle be Stomachful,124 and chuse to lie there, and be Smother’d or Drowned, rather than owe Aid to the good Will of a poor Phanatick? Or if his House were on Fire, may we think that he would have it rather burnt to the ground than acknowledge its Preservation to a Non-­conformist? Would not the Act be Orthodox, whatever were the Man? So in case of being Sick, Imprison’d, Beset, Benighted, out of the Way, far from Kindred or Acquaintance, with an hundred other cases that may happen daily, can we think, that such Men would ask Questions for Conscience sake, or charge Schism upon the Relief given them? No, no; Self will always be true to its Interest, let Superstition mutter what it will. But since the Industry, Rents and Taxes of the Dissenters are as currant as their Neighbours, who loses by such narrowness more than England, than the Government and the Magistracy? For till it be the Interest of the Farmer to destroy his Flock, to starve the Horse he rides, and the Cow that gives him Milk, it cannot be the Interest of England to let a great part of her Sober & Useful Inhabitants be destroy’d about things that concern another World. And ’tis to be hop’d that the Wisdom and Charity of our Governors will better guide them both to their own real Interest and their Peoples Preservation, which are inseparable; that so they may not Starve them for Religion, that are as willing as able to WORK for the good of King and Country. I beseech you, let Nature speak, who is so much a better Friend to Humane Society, than False or Froward125 Opinion, that she often rectifies the Mistakes of a Prejudiced Education, that we may say, how [6] Kind, how Gentle, how Helpful does she teach us to be to each other, till that Make-bate126 OPINION (falsly call’d Religion) begins the Jangle and Foments to Hatred. All the Productions of Nature are by Love, and shall Religion propagate by Force? If we consider the poor Hen, she will teach us Humanity. Nature does not only learn her to hatch, but to be tender over her Feeble Chickens, that they may not be a Prey to the Kite. All the Seeds and Plants that grow for the Use and Nourishment of Man, are produced by the kind and warm influences of the Sun. Nothing but kindness keeps up Obstinate, self-willed (OED, def. 1).  125  Perverse, intractable (OED). A person or thing that creates contention, discord, or strife (OED, def. 1).

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Humane race: Men and Women don’t get Children in Spight, but Affection. ’Tis wonderful to think by what Friendly and Gentle ways Nature produce[s], and matures the Creatures of the World: and that Religion should teach us to be Froward and Cruel, is Lamentable: This were to make her the Enemy instead of the Restorer of Nature. But I think, we may without Offence say, That since True Religion gives Men Greater Mildness and Goodness than they had before, that Religion which teaches them less, must needs be False. What shall we say then, but that even Nature is a truer guide to Peace, and better informs us to preserve Civil Interest, then false Religion, and consequently, that we ought to be true to the Natural and Just Principles of Society, and not suffer one of them to be violated for Humor or Opinion. Nor is every Difference in Opinion to be reputed or Nick-named a New or Different Religion.127 Let us go together as far as our way lies, and Preserve our Unity in those Principles, which maintain our Civil Society. This is our Common and our Just Interest, all Protestant-Dissenters agree in this, and it is both Wise and Righteous to admit no Fraction upon this Pact, no Violence upon this Concord. For the consequence of permitting any thing to break in upon the Principles of Humane Society, that is Forreign to the Nature of it, will distract and weaken that Society. We know, that in all Plantations the Wisdom of Planters is well aware of this: and let us but consider, that the same ways that plant Countries, must be kept to for preserving the Plantation, else ‘twill quickly be Depopulated. That Country which is False to its first Principles of Government, and mistakes or divides its Common and Popular Interest, must Unavoidably Decay. And let me say, That had there been this Freedom granted Eighteen Years ago,128 Protestancy had been too Potent for the Enemies of it; nor had there been those Divisions for Popery to make its advantage by; at least, not in the Civil Interest of the Nation. And where that has been preserv’d entire, it has been never able to Prevail: Witness the careful Government of Holland, where the Preservation of their Civil Interest from Fraction hath Secur’d them against the growth of Popery, though it be almost Tolerated by them: So powerful are the Here Penn evokes his dispute with Presbyterian John Faldo, whose Quakerism no Christianity (London, 1673) occasioned Penn’s reply, Quakerism a New Nick-name for Old Christianity (London, 1673). 128 That is, at the Restoration. 127

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England Effects of an United Civil Interest in Government. Now because the Civil Interest of this Nation is the Preservation of the Free and Legal Government of it from all Subjection to Forreign claim, and that the several sorts of Protestants are united, as in the common Protestancy (that is, a General Renunciation of Rome) so in the Maintenance of this Civil Government as a common Security (for it strikes both at their Rights Civil and Sacred, their Conscience, Religion and Law to admit any Forreign Jurisdiction here) it must follow, that had these several, as well English as Protestant Parties been timely encourag’d to this united Civil Interest, they had secur’d the Government from this danger by rendering it too formidable for the Attempt. But there is a twofold Mistake that I think fit to remove. First, That the difference betwixt Protestants & their Dissenters is generally manag’d, as if it were Civil. Secondly, The difference betwixt Papist & Protestant is carried on, as if it were chiefly Religious. To the First, I say, ’Tis plausible, but false, it is an Artifice of ill men to enflame the Government against good People, to make base Ends by other Mens Ruin; whereas they that dissent, are at a Ne plus ultra on the behalf of the English Government, as well as themselves.129 They neither acknowledge nor submit to any other Authority. They hold the one common Civil Head, and not only acquiess in the Distribution of Justice by Law; but embrace it as the best part of their Patrimony. So that the difference between Protestants and their Dissenters is purely Religious, and mostly about Church-Government, and some Forms of Worship, apprehended to be not so pure and Apostolical as could be desired; and here it is, that Tenderness should be exercis’d, if in any case in the World, or St. Paul is Mistaken.130 But as to the Second, under Correction, the case is alter’d, for though it be mostly manag’d on the side of Religion, The great Point is meerly Civil, and should never be otherwise admitted or understood. For want of this caution Protestants suffer themselves to be drawn into tedious Controversies about Religion, and give occasion to the Professors and Favourers of that way to exclaim against them, as Persecutors for

In other words, Dissenters’ is the ultimate (ne plus ultra) or strongest loyalty. Romans 14:1–5.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Religion, who had reprobated such Severity in the Papists to their Ancestors (a most plausible and very often a succesful Plea) when in reality the difference is not so much Religious as Civil. Not but that there is a vast contrariety in Doctrine and Worship too; but this barely should not be the cause of our so great distance, and that Provision the Laws make against them; but rather that Fundamental inconsistancy they carry with them to the Security of the English Government and Constitution, unto which they belong, by acknowledging a Forreign Jurisdiction in these Kingdoms. So that drawing into Question and Danger the Constitution and Government, to which Scripture, and Nature and Civil Pact oblige their Fidelity and Obedience, there seems a Discharge upon the Civil Government from any further care of their Protection, that make it a piece of Conscience to seek its Ruin, and which is worse, a Principle, not to be informed of better things, for even here not Reason or Law, but the Pope must be Judge. This being the Brief and Modest state of the Case, I must return to my first great Principle, That Civil Interest is the Foundation and End of Civil Government: and that how much Men desert the Interest of a Kingdom, so much they Wound and Subvert the Government of it. I appeal to all Wise and Considerate Men of the Truth of this by the present Posture of Affairs and their proper Causes. To come then to our Point, Shall English Men by English Men, and Protestants by Protestants be Free or Opprest? That is, Whether shall we receive as English men and Protestants, those that have no other Civil Interest than that which is purely English, and who sincerely profess and embrace the same Protestation, for which the Antient Reformers were stiled Protestants, or for the sake of Humour or Base Ends disown them, and expose them and their Families to utter misery? I would hope better of our great Church-mens Charity and Prudence; but if they should be so unhappy as to keep to their old measures, and still play the Gawdy but empty Name of Church against the Civil Interest and Religion of the Nation, they will shew themselves deserted of God, and then how long it will be, before they will be seen and left of all sober men, let them Judge. For to speak freely, after all this Light that is now in the world, no Ignorance can excuse such Zeal, nor will wise men believe it to be either, but a Trick to weaken Protestancy, that her declared Enemy may with less hazard gain the Chair. And there is not so much reason to fear

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England Profest Roman Catholicks, as those Gentlemen, who valuing themselves by their respects to the Church and tenderness of her Independent honour, have the opportunity with less suspition of letting in Popery at the Back door. These are the men that pay off the Phanatick in the Name of the Church, but for the good of the Pope, to whose account those endeavours must be placed. But it will go a great way to our Deliverance if we are not Careless to observe the Secret workings of those that have vow’d our Misery, & of them such, as are in Masckarade, and wear the Guize of Friends are most Dangerous: But some Men are Pur-blind, they can see Danger as near as their Nose, but in a Difficulty, that is not a Foot from them, they are Presumptive, Rusty and not to be govern’d, Could some Church-men but see the Irreparable Mischiefs that will attend them (if sincere to their present Profession) unless prevented by a Modest and Christian condescension to Dissenting Protestant Christians, they would never suffer themselves to be Mis-guided by Stiff and Rigid Principles at this time of day. If Christianity, that most Meek and Self denying Religion, cannot prevail upon them, me thinks the Power of Interest, and that Self interest too, should have some Success for in those cases they use not to be obstinate. But I expect it should be told me, That this is the way to Ruin the Church, and let in an Anarchy in Religion: Cujus contrarium verum.131 I am glad to obviate this, before I leave you, seeing the Contrary is most true; for it leaves the Church and Church-men as they are, with this Distinction, that whereas now Conformity is Coercive, which is Popish, it will be then Perswasive, which is Christian. And there may be some hopes, when the Parsons, destitute of the Magistrates Sword, shall of necessity enforce their Religion by good Doctrine and holy Living; nor ought they to murmur, for that which satisfied Christ and his Apostles should satisfie them: His Kingdom is not of this World, therefore they should not Fight for him, if they would be his Servants and the Children of his Kingdom, Christ and not Civil Force is the Rock his Church is built upon.132 Nor indeed has any thing so Tarnisht the Cause of Protestancy, as the Professors of it betaking themselves to Worldly Arms to propagate their Religion. David could not wear Saul’s Armor,133 and true Protestants cannot use Popish Weapons, Imposition and Persecution. In short; ’Tis the very ­Interest The opposite is true. John 18:36.  133  1 Samuel 17:38–39.

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But some will say, There is a Difference even among Dissenters; Some will give a Security to the Civil Government by taking the Oaths; others will not, and be it through Tenderness, how do we know, but Papists will shrow’d themselves under the Wings of such Dissenters, and so in Tolerating Protestant Dissenters to fortify Protestancy, in reality Popery will be hereby shelter’d incognito. I Answer, First, That such Oaths are little or no Security to any Government, and though it may give some allay to the Jealousie of Governors, they never had the Effect desired. For neither in Private Cases, nor yet in Publick Transactions have Men adher’d to their Oaths, but their Interest. He that is a Knave, was never made Honest by an Oath: nor is it an Oath, but Honesty, that keeps Honest men such. Read Story and consult our Modern Times, tell me what Government stood the firmer or longer for them? Men may take them for their own Advantage, or to avoid Loss and Punishment: But the Question is, What real Benefit, or Security comes thereby to the Government? It is certain they have often ensnared a Good Man, but never caught one Knave yet: we ought not to put so great a Value upon Oaths, as to render the Security of our Government so low and hazardous. God’s Providence and the Wisdom of our Ancestors have found out a better Test for us to rest upon, and that is our Common Interest and the Laws of the Land DULY executed: These are the Security of our Government. For example, a Man Swears he will not Plot, yet Plots; pray what Security is this Oath to the Government? But though ’tis evident, that this be no Security; that Law which Hangs him for Plotting, is an ­unquestionable one. So that ’tis not for wise Governours, by Swearing men to the Government to think to secure it; but all having agreed to the Laws, by which they are to be governed, let any Man break them at his Peril. Wherefore good Laws, and a Just Execution of them, and not Oaths, are the Natural and real Security of a Government. But next, though some may scruple the Oaths, ’tis not for the sake of the Matter so much as Form, which you know is not the case of Roman Catholicks (pray distinguish) and those very Persons, whoever they be of Protestant-Dissenters, I dare say, they will very cheerfully promise their 

Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England Allegiance on the same Penalties, and subscribe any Renunciation of Pope and Forraign Authority, which the Art of man can Pen; nor should it be hard for you to believe they should subscribe what they have alwayes liv’d. To that part of the Objection, which mentions the danger of Papists concealing themselves under the Character of Protestant Dissenters; under Favour I say, it is most reasonable to believe, that those who will deny their Faith upon record, as those that subscribe your Declaration do, will swallow the Oaths too; for the Declaration flatly denys the Religion, but the Oaths only the Pope’s Supremacy, which even some of themselves pretend to reject. Therefore those that can sincerely subscribe the Declaration, cannot be Papists. If it be yet objected, that Papists may have Dispensations to subscribe the Test, or a Pardon, when they have done it; I answer, they may as well have Dispensations to take the Oaths or Pardons when they have taken them, and these last six Moneths prove as much.134 There is no Fence against this Flail: At this rate they may as well be Protestants, as Protestant-Dissenters, Ministers or Bishops in Churches, as Speakers or Preachers in Meeting-houses: Nay, ’tis more probable, where there is least Suffering, and most Preferment. But this Objection only shews the weakness of both Oaths and Declaration for the Purpose intended, and not, that they can hide themselves more under one People then another. For they that can have a Dispensation or Pardon for one act, can have it for another; especially when the matter of the Declaration is of a more general weight to them, then that of the Oaths; all which confirms my former Judgment of the Insecurity of such Oaths to any Government. Give me leave then upon this to ask you, if you will bring a certain Ruin upon any Protestant Dissenters for the sake of such an uncertain Security to your selves? for this is the Question; I beseech you to weigh it as becomes wise and good men, shall they be Reprobated for tenderly refusing, what being perform’d, cannot save or secure you? Consider, you have no reason to believe, but those that are allow’d to subscribe the Declaration, or that will be pardon’d, when they have done it, may be allow’d to take the Oaths, or will be pardon’d and absolv’d, when they have taken them: but you are certain on the other side, that Penn here refers to the tumultuous events, highlighted by lurid rumors of popish plotting, of late 1678 and early 1679.

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the Imposing of the Oaths will be a great Snare to many Protestant Dissenters, that love the Government, and renounce both Pope and Popery; They will be ruin’d; which to me is of the nature of an Argument for those People: for their not taking the Oaths, proves plainly, they have no Dispensations nor hopes of Absolution, and therefore no Papists; shall they then lie under the Severities intended against Papists, who have none of their Dispensations or Absolutions to deliver them from them? This is (with Submission, but in plain terms) to make the case of the Kingdom worse; for it destroys those who are not Guilty, and whom, I believe, you would not destroy. Having brought the matter to this, I shall first offer you a new Test; Next, the ways of taking it, with most aggravation against the Party rejecting or breaking it; And lastly, how you may secure your selves from Papists disguizing themselves among Protestant-Dissenters; that so nothing may remain a Remora135 in the way, that shall not be removed, to leave you a plain and even Path to Peace and Safety.

The New TEST. I A.B. do solemnly and in good Conscience, in the sight of God and Men, acknowledge and declare, that King Charles the second is Lawful King of this Realm, and all the Dominions thereunto belonging. And that neither the Pope nor See of Rome, nor any else by their Authority have Right in any Case to Depose the King, or Dispose of his Kingdom, or upon any score whatever to absolve his Subjects of their Obedience, or to give leave to any of them to Plot or Conspire the Hurt of the King’s Person, his State or People; and that all such Pretences and Power are False, Pernicious and Damnable. And I do further sincerely profess, and in good Conscience declare, that I do not believe, that the Pope is Christ’s Vicar, or Peter’s Lawful Successor, or that He or the See of Rome severally or joyntly are the Rule of Faith or Judge of Controversie, or that they can absolve Sins: Nor do I believe, there is a Purgatory after Death; or that Saints should be pray’d to or Images in any sense be worship’d. Nor do I believe, that there is any Transubstantiation in the Lord’s Supper, or Elements of Bread and Wine at or after the Consecration thereof by any Person whatsoever. But I do firmly believe, that the Present Communion of the Roman-Catholick Church is both Supersti-

Obstacle, hindrance (OED, def. 2).

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Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England tious and Idolatrous. And all this I do acknowledge, intend, profess and declare without any Equivocation, or reserv’d, or other Sense, then the plain and usual Signification of these words, according to the real Intention of the Law-makers and the common Acceptation of all true Protestants. This is the Test I offer; large in Matter, because comprehensive of Oaths and Test too, yet brief in words. The next thing is the Wayes of taking it with most Aggravation upon the Refusers or Violaters of it. 1. That in all Cities and great Towns, notice be given by the Magistrates thereof to the Inhabitants of every Ward or Parish to appear on such a day, be it New-Years-Day or Ash-wednesday rather (when the Pope Curses all Protestants)136 at their publick Hall or other places of Commerce, where the Magistrates shall first openly Read, Subscribe & Seal the Test. Then that it be read again by the proper Officer of the Place to the People, and that those that take it, do audibly pronounce the words after him that reads it, and when they have so done, that they subscribe and seal it. That such Subscriptions be Register’d, and Copies of each Parish’s Subscription transmitted to the Parish, and Affixt upon some publick Place for all that will to see. That in the Countries the Parishes of each Hundred or Rape137 may be likewise summon’d to appear upon the Day aforesaid at the head Market Town in the said Hundred or Rape, and that the Justices of the Peace within that part of the Country shall first read, subscribe and seal the said Test in view of the People, and then that the People say, subscribe and seal the Test, as is before exprest. Which being done, let the said Subscriptions be collected into one Volum[e], and kept in the County Court as a Book of Record; and that to each Parish be transmitted a Copy of the said Parish’s Subscription, to be affixt upon some publick Place within the said Parish for all to see, that please. Lastly, Let this be done Annually, that is, upon every New-Years Day or Ash-wednesday, as a perpetual Testimony of the Peoples Affection to the King and Government, and their Abhorrence of the Practices of Rome.

Penn may refer here to the papal bull In Coena Domini, which condemned heresies, schisms, and challenges to papal authority (as well as a host of other crimes). The bull was issued annually, but on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter), not Ash Wednesday. 137 An administrative unit (OED, def. 1). 136

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The Abuse of this Discrimination should be very Penal; for ’tis a great Lye upon a Man’s own Conscience and a Cheat put upon the Government: Your Wisdom can best proportion and direct the Punishment; but it can scarcely be too severe, as our Business stands. But as in case of such Hypocrisie a severe Penalty should be inflicted, so pray let Provision be made, that if any Person so subscribing should be afterwards call’d by the Name of Jesuit or Papist, without very good Proof, it should be deem’d and punisht in open Sessions for a Slander and Breach of Peace, yet so, as that the Penalty may be remitted at the Request of the Abused Party. I should think that this business, carefully done, might render needless my Answer to the last Objection, viz. Which Way shall we be able to prevent Papists from passing for Protestant Dissenters, that so the Security propounded to the Government be not baffled by Disguize? For no Papist can subscribe this but he will Lye in the Face of the Government and Country, and that Yearly, and upon Record too; which is ten times more then a Transient Oath, mutter’d with one word spoken, and another dropt: However, that we may carry it as far as humane Prudence can go,--I yet offer two Expedients; First, That upon Jealousie of any Persons being a Papist, or Popishly inclined, who is known to frequent the Assemblies of Protestant Dissenters, Four of that Party of most Note and Integrity, unto which he pretends to adhere, should be summoned to appear before those Justices of the Peace, unto whom the Complaint is made, to testifie their Knowledge of the Person suspected, his Education, Principles and Manner of Life; which way of Inspection, as it goes as far as Man can reach, so can it scarcely fail; for those Persons will not only discover their own Hypocrisie if they conceal him, but expose themselves and their Friends to Ruin. So that to say true, the Government has the Interest and Security of an Entire Party, for the discovery of every such suspected Person. But if this will not do, then Secondly, Be you pleased to refer the Discrimination of suspected Persons to the good old way of the Government; that is, the Inquiry and Judgment of Twelve Men of the Neighbourhood, to wit, a Jury; provided always, that they be such as have taken or will themselves take the Test; else, that they may be Exceptable by the Party suspected. Indeed a good Expedient may be made out of both, for the first may be the Evidence to the last, and I think you will hardly fail of your Ends. 

Selection 7: One Project For the Good of England I shall conclude with this Request, First to Almighty God, that he would please to make us truly and deeply sensible of his present Mercies to us, and to reform our Hearts and Lives to improve them thankfully. And Secondly to you, that we may be loving, humble and diligent one to and for another; for as from such Amendments we may dare promise great and suddain Felicity to England, so if Loosness in Life, and Bitterness in Religion be not speedily reprehended and reform’d, and the Common Civil Interest maintained entire, God will, I justly fear, repent he has begun to do us good, Adjourn the Day of our Deliverance to that of our Repentance and Moderation, and Overcast these happy Dawnings of his Favour by a thick and dismal Cloud of Confusion and Misery; which GOD AVERT! These things that I have written, are no wild Guesses or May-be’s, but the Disease and Cure, the Danger and Safety of England; in treating of which, that God that made the World knows, I have not gratified any private Spleen or Interest (for I am sorry of the Occasion) but singly and conscientiously intended his Honor, and the lasting Good of England, to which all Personal and Party Considerations ought ever to submit. Amicus Plato, Amicus Aristoteles, sed magis Amica Veritas, i.e. Anglia.138 Your own Faithful and Most Affectionate PHIL’ ANGLUS.

A friend of Plato, a friend of Aristotle, but most of all a friend of Truth, i.e., England. Penn also signed England’s Great Interest (Selection 3) “Philanglus.”

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8. A PERSWASIVE TO Moderation TO Church Dissenters, In Prudence and Conscience Humbly submitted to the KING AND HIS Great Councel. By one of the Humblest and most Dutiful of his Dissenting Subjects. Let your Moderation be known unto all men, for the Lord is at Hand, Phil[lippians]. 4. 5. A Christian Toleration often dissipates their Strength, whom Rougher Opposition fortifies. King Charles 1 to the late King.139 Printed and Sold by Andrew Sowle, at the Crooked-Billet in Holloway-Lane, in Shoreditch, and to be had at most ­Booksellers in London and Westminster. [1686]

THE PREFACE.

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HAVING of late Time observ’d the Heat, Aversion and Scorn with which some men have treated all Thoughts of Ease to Church Dissenters, I confess, I had a more then ordinary Curiosity to examine the Grounds those Gentlemen went upon: For I could not tell how to think Moderation should be a Vice, where Christianity was a Vertue, when the Great

Charles I, Eikon Basilike, pp. 231–232.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation ­ octor of that Religion commands, that Our Moderation be known unto all D Men; and why? For the Lord’s at Hand:140 And what to do? but to judge our Rancor, and retaliate and punish our Bitterness of Spirit. And, to say true, ’tis a severe reflection we draw upon our selves, that though Pagan Emperors could endure the Addresses of primitive Christians, and Christian Caesars receive the Apologies of Infidels, for Indulgence, yet it should be thought, of some men, an Offence to seek it, or have it of a Christian Prince, whose Interest I dare say it is, and who himself so lately wanted it: But the Consideration of the Reason of this Offence, will encrease our Admiration; for they tell us, ’tis dangerous to the Prince to suffer it, while the Prince is himself a Dissenter: This Difficulty is beyond all skill to remove, that it should be against the Interest of a Dissenting Prince to indulge Dissent. For tho it will be granted there are Dissenters on differing Principles from those of the Prince, yet they are still Dissenters, and Dissent being the Princes Interest, it will naturally follow, that those Dissenters are in the Interest of the Prince, whether they think on it or no. Interest will not Lye: Men embark’d in the same Vessel seek the Safety of the Whole, in their Own whatever other Differences they may have. And Self-Safety is the highest worldly Security a Prince can have; for tho all Parties would rejoyce [if] their own Principles prevailed, yet every one is more soli[cit]ous about its own Safety, then the others Verity. Wherefore it cannot be unwise, by the security of All, to make it the Interest as well as Duty of All, to advance that of the Publick. Angry things then set aside, As Matters now are, What is best to be done? This I take to be the Wise Man’s Question, as to consider and answer it, will be his Business. Moderation is a Christian Duty, and it has ever been the Prudent Man’s Practice. For those Governments that have used it in their Conduct, have succeeded best in all Ages. I remember, it is made in Livy the Wisdom of the Romans, that they relaxed their Hand to the Privernates, and thereby made them most faithful to their Interest. And it prevailed so much with the Petilians, that they would endure any Extremity from Hannibal, rather than desert their Friendship, even then, when the Romans discharged their Fidelity, and sent them the Dispair of knowing they could not relieve them.141 So did one Act of Humanity overcome the Falisci above Arms: Which confirms that noble Saying of Seneca, Mitius imperanti, Melius paretur, the mildest Philippians 4:5. Livy, History of Rome, book 8, ch. 21 (Petilians); book 23, ch. 20 (Privernates).

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Conduct is best obeyed.142 A Truth Celebrated by Grotius and Campanella:143 Practised doubtless, by the bravest Princes: For CYRUS exceeded, when he built the Jews a Temple, and himself no Jew: ALEXANDER astonish’d the Princes of his Train with the profound Veneration he paid the High Priest of that People: And AUGUSTUS was so far from Suppressing the Jewish Worship, that he sent Hecatombs to Jerusalem to encrease their Devotion.144 Moderation fill’d the Reigns of the most Renowned Caesars: And Story says, they were Nero’s and Caligula’s that loved Cruelty.145 But others tell us that Dissenters are mostly Antimonarchical, and so not to be Indulged, and that the Agreement of the Church of England and Rome, in Monarchy and Hierarchy, with their Nearness in other things should oblige her to grant the Roman Catholicks a special Ease, exclusive of the other Dissenters. But with the leave of those Wor[th]y146 Gentlemen, I would say, no Body is against that which is for him: And that the aversion apprehended to be in some against the Monarchy, rather comes from Interest then Principles: For Governments were never destroy’d by the Interests they preserve. In the next place, it is as plain, that there is a Fundamental ­Difference between those Churches in Religion and Interest. In Religion, it ­appears by a Comparison of the Thirty Nine Articles with the Doctrine of the Council of Trent.147 In Interest, they differ Fundamentally, because our Church is in the Actual Possession of the Churches and Livings that the other Church claims. What better Mixture then can these two Churches make then that of Iron and Clay?148 Nor do I think it well judg’d, or wise in any that pretend to be Sons of the Church of England, to seek an Accommodation from the Topick of Affinity, since ’tis that Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, book 3, ch. 20; Seneca, On Clemency, sec. 24, also quoted in Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes, ch. 105. 143 Grotius, Politick Maxims and Observations; Tommaso Campanella, A Discourse Touching the Spanish Monarchy (London, 1653), ch. 5. 144 On Cyrus, see Ezra 1:1–2; on Alexander, see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, ch. 8; on Augustus, see Philo Judaeus, Embassy to Gaius, ch. 23. 145 Compare the “Five Good Emperors” (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, reigned 96–180) with the reputations for cruelty of Nero (reigned 54–68) and Caligula (reigned 37–41). 146 Text reads “wordy.” 147 The Thirty-Nine Articles form the doctrinal basis of the Anglican Church; the Council of Trent (nineteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church), met between 1545 and 1563, responding to the Protestant Reformation. 148 Daniel 2:42–43. 142

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation some of her Dissenters have always Objected, and she as constantly Deny’d to be true. I say, this Way of Reconciling or Indulging Roman Catholicks stumbles far greater Numbers of People of nearer Creeds, and gives the Church of England the Lye. But suppose the Trick took, and they only of all Dissenters had Indulgence, yet Their Paucity considered, I am sure, a Pair of Sir Kenelm Digby’s Breeches would set with as good a Grace upon the late Lord Rochester’s Dwarf.149 Upon the whole Matter, Let Men have Ease, and They will keep it; For those that might Plot to get it, would not Plot to lose it. Men love the Bridge they need and Pass: And that Prince who has his People fast by Interest, holds them by the strongest humane Tye; for other Courses have fail’d as often as they have been try’d. Let us then once Try a True Liberty: Never did the Circumstances of any Kingdom lie more open and fair to so blessed an Accommodation as we do at this Time. But we are told, The King has Promis’d to Maintain the Church of England, as by Law Establish’d: I grant it: But if the Church of England claims the King’s Promise of Protection, her Dissenters cannot forget That of his Clemency: And as they were both great, and admirably distinguish’d, so by no means are they inconsistent or impracticable. Will not his Justice let him be wanting in the One? And can his Greatness of Mind let him leave the Other behind him in the Storm, unpitied and unhelpt? Pardon me, we have not to do with an insensible Prince, but one that has been Toucht with our Infirmities:150 More then any Body fit to judge our Cause, by the share he once had in it.151 Who should give Ease like the Prince that has wanted it? To suffer for his own Conscience, lookt Great; but to deliver other Mens, were Glorious. It is a Sort of paying the Vows of his Adversity, and it cannot therefore be done by any one else, with so much Justice and Example. Penn may be referring to Jeffrey Hudson, court dwarf to Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s queen. Hudson, though, was granted to the queen by the duke of Buckingham, not Rochester. He might also be referring to Richard Gibson, the “dwarf painter” who was originally in the household of the earl of Pembroke. Regardless, the point Penn is making is less about the individual than the ill match between Digby’s breeches – Digby, described as “over six feet in height” (Bernard Holland, Memoir of Sir Kenelm Digby [London, 1919], p. 10) – and the diminutive “dwarf.” 150 Hebrews 4:15. 151 Here, and below, referring to James’s Catholicism. James resigned his naval commission after the passage of the 1673 Test Act. During the Exclusion Crisis (1678–81), he faced repeated attempts by Whigs to exclude him from the succession, owing to his Catholicism. 149

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Far be it from me to solicite any Thing in D[i]minution of the just Rights of the Church of England: Let her rest protected where she is. But I hope, none will be thought to intend her wrong, for refusing to understand the King’s Promise to her, in a Ruinous sence to all Others; and I am sure she would understand her own Interest better, if she were of the same Mind. For it is morally impossible that a Conscientious Prince can be thought to have ty’d himself to compel others to a Communion, that himself cannot tell how to be of; or that any thing can oblige him to shake the Firmness of those he has confirmed by his own Royal Example. Having then so Illustrious an Instance of Integrity, as the hazard of the loss of Three Crowns for Conscience, Let it at least, excuse Dissenters Constancy, and provoke the Friends of the Succession to Moderation, that no man may lose his Birth Right for his Perswasion, and us to live Dutifully, and so Peaceably under our own Vine, and under our own FigTree,152 with Glory to God on High, to the King Honour, and Good-will to all Men.153

A PERSWASIVE TO Moderation, &c.

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MODERATION, the Subject of this Discourse, is in plainer English, Liberty of Conscience to Church Dissenters: A Cause I have, with all Humility undertaken to plead, against the Prejudices of the Times. That there is such a thing as Conscience, and the Liberty of it, in reference to Faith and Worship towards God, must not be denied, even by those, that are most scandall’d at the Ill use some seem to have made of such Pretences. But to settle the Terms: By Conscience, I understand the Apprehension and Perswasion a man has of his Duty to God. By Liberty of Conscience, I mean, A free and open Profession and Exercise of that Duty; especially in Worship. But I always premise this Conscience to keep within the bounds of Morality, and that it be neither Frantick nor Mischievous, but a Good Subject, a Good Child, a Good Servant in all the affairs of Life: As exact to y[ie]ld to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, as jealous of with-holding from God the thing that is God’s:154 In brief, [2] he that acknowledges the civil Government under which he lives, and that maintains no principle hurtful to his Neighbour in his civil property: For Micah 4:4. The first (1685) edition of the Perswasive contained a different Preface, though with a few parallel passages to this one. That preface appears in the Appendix to this text. 154 Matthew 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26. 152 153

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation he that in any thing violates his Duty to these Relations, cannot be said to observe it to God, who ought to have his Tribute out of it.155 Such do not reject their Prince, Parent, Master or Neighbour, but God who enjoyns that duty to him. Those Pathetick words of Christ will naturally enough reach the case, In that ye did it not to them, ye did it not to me;156 for Duty to such Relations have a divine Stamp: And divine Right runs through more things of the World, and Acts of our Lives then we are aware of: And Sacriledge may be committed against more than the Church. Nor will a Dedication to God, of the Robbery from Man, expiate the Guilt of Disobedience: For though Zeal could turn Gossip to Theft, his Altars would renounce the Sacrifice. The Conscience then that I state, and the Liberty I pray, carrying so great a Salvo and Deference to publick and private Relations, no ill design, can with any Justice, be fixt upon the Author, or Reflection upon the Subject, which by this time, I think, I may venture to call a Toleration. But to this so much craved, as well as needed Toleration, I meet with two Objections of weight, the salving of which will make way for it in this Kingdom. And the first is a Dis-belief of the Possibility of the thing. Toleration of Dissenting Worships from that establish’t, is not practicable (say some) without danger to the State, with which it is interwoven. This is Political. The other Objection is, That admitting Dissenters to be in the Wrong (which is always premised by the National Church) such Latitude were the way to keep up the Dis-union, and instead of compelling them into a better Way, leave them in the possession and p[u]rsuit of their old Errors. This is Religious. I think I have given the Objections fairly, ‘twill be my next business to answer them as fully. The strength of the first Objection against this Liberty, is the Danger suggested to the State; the Reason is, the National Form being ­interwoven with the Frame of the Government. But this seems to me only said, and not only (with submission) not prov’d, but not true: For the establisht Religion and Worship are no other ways interwoven with the Government, than that the Government makes profession of them, and by divers Laws has made them the Currant Religion, and required all the Members of the State to conform to it. First edition inserts the following here: “For he that with-holds from Man the thing that God requires him to pay, with-holds it from God, who has his Tribute out of it. They do not reject their Prince, Parent or Master, but God, who enjoyns that Duty to them: The difference being only this, They deny not God his Due immediately, and to his face, but they do it too often in the Person of his Deligate. The text then continues with “Those Pathetick words…” 156 Matthew 25:40–45. 155

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[3]

Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience This is nothing but what may as well be done by the Government, for any other Perswasion, as that. ’Tis true, ’tis not easie to change an establish’t Religion, nor is that the Question we are upon; but State Religions have been chang’d without the change of the States. We see this in the Governments of Germany and Denmark upon the Reformation: But more clearly and near our selves, in the case of Henry the eighth, Edward the sixth, Queen Mary and Elizabeth; for the Monarchy stood, the Family remained and succeeded under all the Revolutions of State-Religion, which could not have been, had the Proposition been generally true. The change of Religion then, does not necessarily change the Government, or alter the State; and if so, a fortiori, Indulgence of ChurchDissenters, does not necessarily hazard a change of the State, where the present State-Religion or Church remains the same; for That I premise. Some may say, That it were more facile to change from one National Religion to another, than to maintain the Monarchy and Church, against the Ambition and Faction of divers dissenting Parties. But this is improbable [4] at least. For it were to say, That it is an easier thing to change a whole Kingdom, than with the Soveraign Power, followed with Armies, Navies, Judges, Clergy, and all the Conformists of the Kingdom, to secure the Government from the Ambition and Faction of Dissenters, as differing in their Interests within themselves, as in their Perswasions; and were they united, have neither Power to awe, nor Rewards to allure to their Party. They can only be formidable, when headed by the Soveraign. They may stop a Gap, or make, by his Accession, a Ballance: Otherwise, till ’tis harder to fight broken and divided Troops, than an entire Body of an Army, it will be always easier to maintain the Government under a Toleration of Dissenters, than in a total change of Religion, and even then it self, it has not fail’d to have been preserved. But whether it be more or less easie, is not our point; if they are many, the danger is of exasperating, not of making them easie; for the force of our Question is, Whether such Indulgence be safe to the State? And here we have the first and last, the best and greatest Evidence for us, which is Fact and Experience, the Journal and Resolves of Time, and Treasure of the Sage. For, First, the Jews, that had most to say for their Religion, and whose Religion was Twin to their State (both being joyn’d, and sent with Wonders from Heaven) Indulg’d Strangers in their Religious Dissents. They requir’d but the belief of the Noachical Principles, which were common to the World: No Idolator, and but a Moral Man, and he had his Liberty, ay, and some Priviledges too, for he had an apartment in the 

Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation Temple, and this without danger to the Government. Thus Maimonides, and others of their own Rabbles, and Grotius out of them.157 The Wisdom of the Gentiles was very admir[able] in this, that though they had many Sects of Philosophers among them, each dissenting from the other in their Principles, as well as Discipline, and that not only in Physical things, but points Metaphysical, in which some of the Fathers were not free, the School-men deeply engaged, and our present Accademies but too much perplext; yet they indulged them and the best Livers with singular Kindness: The greatest Statesmen and Captains often becoming Patrons of the Sects they best affected, honouring their Readings with their Presence and Applause. So far were those Ages, which we have made as the original of Wisdom and Politeness, from thinking Toleration an Error of State, or dangerous to the Government. Thus Plut[ar]ch, Strabo, Laertius, and others.158 To these Instances I may add the Latitude of old Rome, that had almost as many Deities as Houses: For Varro tells us of no less than thirty Thousand several Sacra, or Religious Rites among her People, and yet without a Quarrel:159 Unhappy fate of Christianity! the best of Religions, and yet her Professors maintain less Charity than Idolators, while it should be peculiar to them. I fear, it shews us to have but little of it at Heart. But nearer home, and in our own time, we see the effects of a discreet Indulgence, even too Emulation. Holland, that Bogg of the World, neither Sea nor dry Land, now the Rival of tallest Monarchs; not by Conquests, Marriages, or accession of Royal Blood, the usual wayes to Empire, but by her own superlative Clemency and Industry; for the one was the effect of the other: She cherisht her People, whatsoever were their Opinions, as the reasonable stock of the Country, the Heads and Hands of her Trade and Wealth; and making them easie in the main point, their Conscience, she became great by them: This made her fill with People, and they fill’d her with Riches and Strength. And if it should be said, She is upon her Declension for all that. I Answer, All States must know it, nothing is here Immortal. Where are the Babylonian, Persian and Grecian Empires? And are not Lacedemon, Athens, Rome and Carthage gone before her? Kingdoms and Common Grotius cites Maimonides in The Illustrious Hugo Grotius of the Law of Warre and Peace (London, 1654), Part I, ch. 1, pp. 8–10. 158 Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans; Strabo, Geography; Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. 159 The details of Varro’s Divine Antiquities’s elaboration of the Roman system of gods are known largely due to Augustine’s discussion in City of God, books 6 and 7. 157

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[5]

[6]

Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Wealths have their Births and Growths, their Declensions and Deaths, as well as private Families and Persons: But ’tis owing, neither to the Armies of France, nor Navies of England, but her own Domestick Troubles. Seventy Two sticks in her Bones yet:160 The growing Power of the Prince of Orange, must in some degree, be an Ebb to that States Strength; for they are not so unanimous and vig[o]rous in their Interest as formerly: But were they secure against the danger of their own Ambition and Jealousie, any body might ensure their Glory at five per Cent. But some of their greatest men apprehending they are in their Climacterical Juncture, give up the Ghost, and care not, if they must fall, by what hand it is. Others chuse a Stranger, and think one afar off will give the best Terms, and least annoy them: whil[st] a considerable Party have chosen a Domestick Prince, a Kin to their early Successes by the fore-Father’s side (the Gallantry of his Ancestors). And that his own greatness and security are wrapt up in theirs, and therefore modestly hope to find their Account in his Prosperity. But this is a kind of Digression, only before I leave it, I dare venture to add, that if the Prince of Orange changes not the Policies of that State, he will not change her Fortune, and he will mightily add to his own.161 But perhaps I shall be told, That no body doubts that Toleration is an agreeable thing to a Common-Wealth, where every one thinks he has a share in the Government; ay, that the one is the consequence of the other, [7] and therefore most carefully to be avoided by all Monarchical States. This indeed were shr[e]wdly to the purpose, in England, if it were but true. But I don’t see how there can be one true Reason advanc’d in favour of this Objection: Monarchies, as well as Common-Wealths, subsisting by the Preservation of the People under them. But, First, if this were true, it would follow by the Rule of Contraries, that a Republick could not subsist with Unity and Hierarchy, which is Monarchy in the Church; but it must, from such Monarchy in Church, come to Monarchy in State too. But Venice, Genova, Lucca, seven of the Cantons of Switzerland, (and Rome her self, for she is an Aristocracy) all under the loftiest Hierarchy in Church, and where is no Toleration, show in fact, that the contrary is true. 1672 is referred to as “Het Rampjaar” (the year of disaster) in Dutch history, as the Dutch faced attacks from England, France, and Germany. Despite early losses, the Republic rebounded; the warfare was ended by the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678 and 1679. 161 William, Prince of Orange, held that title from his birth in 1650. In 1688, he invaded England, and ruled England as King William III from 1689 until his death in 1702. 160

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation But, Secondly, this Objection makes a Common-Wealth the better Government of the two, and so overthrows the thing it would establish. This is effectually done, if I know any thing, since a Common-Wealth is hereby rendred a more copious, powerful and beneficial Government to Mankind, and is made better to answer Contingencies and Emergencies of State, because this subsists either way, but Monarchy not, if the Objection be true. The one prospers by Union in Worship and Discipline, and by Toleration of dissenting Churches from the National. The other only by an universal Conformity to a National Church. I say, this makes Monarchy (in it self, doubtless, an admirable Government) less Powerful, less Extended, less Propitious, and finally less Safe to the People under it, than a Common-Wealth; In that no Security is left to Monarchy under diversity of Worships, which yet no man can defend or forbid, but may often arrive, as it hath in England, more than five times in the two last Ages. And truly ’tis natural for men to chuse to settle where they may be safest from the Power and Mischief of such Accidents of State. Upon the whole matter, it is to reflect the last Mischief upon Monarchy, the worst Enemies it has could hope to disgrace or endanger it by; since it is to tell the People under it, that they must either conform, or be destroyed, or to save themselves, turn Hypocrites, or change the Frame of the Government they are under. A perplexity both to Monarch and People, that nothing can be greater but the comfort of knowing the Objection is False. And that which ought to make every reasonable man of this Opinion, is the cloud of Witnesses that almost every Age of Monarchy affords us. I will begin with that of Israel, the most exact and sacred Patern of Monarchy, begun by a valiant Man, translated to the best, and improv’d by the wisest of Kings, whose Ministers were neither Fools, nor Fanaticks: Here we shall find Provision for Dissenters. Their Prosoliti Domicilii were so far from being compelled to their National Rites, that they were expresly forbid to observe them. Such were the Egyptians that came with them out of Egypt, the Gibeonites and Canaanites, a great People, that after their several Forms worshipt in an apartment of the same Temple. The Jews with a Liturgy, they without one: The Jews had Priests, but these none: The Jews had variety of Oblations, these People burnt Offerings only: All that was required of them was the Natural Religion of Noah, in which the Acknowledgement and Worship of the true God, was, as it still ought to be, the main point; nay, so far were they from coercive Conformity, that they did not so much as oblige them to observe 

[8]

Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience their Sabbath, tho’ one of the ten Commandments: Grotius and Selden say more.162 Certainly this was great Indulgence, since so unsuitable an Usage lookt like prophaning their Devotion, and a common nusance to their National Religion. One would think by this, that their Care lay on [9] the side of preserving their Cult from the touch or accession of Dissenters, and not of forcing them, by undoing Penalties to conform, this must needs be evident. For if Gods Religion and Monarchy (for so we are taught to believe it) did not, and would not at a time, when Religion lay less in the Mind, and more in Ceremony, compel Conformity from Dissenters, we hope we have got the best of precedents on our side. But if this Instance be of most Authority, we have another very Exemplary, and to our point pertinent; for it shows what Monarchy may do: It is y[ie]lded us from the famous Story of Mordecai.163 He, with his Jews, were in a bad plight with the King Ahasuerus, by the ill Offices Haman did them; the Arguments he used were drawn from the common Topicks of Faction and Sedition, That they were an odd and dangerous People, under differing Laws of their own, and refused Obedience to his; So denying his Supremacy. Dissenters with a witness; things most tender to any Government. The King thus incenst, commands the Laws to be put in Execution, and decrees the Ruin of Mordecai with all the Jews: But the King is timely entreated, his Heart softens, the Decree is revokt, and Mordecai and his Friends saved. The Consequence was, as extream Joy to the Jews, so Peace and Blessings to the King. And that which heightens the Example, is the Greatness and Infidelity164 of the Prince: Had the Instance been in a Jew, it might have been plac’d to his greater Light or Piety: In a petty Prince to the Paucity and Entireness of his Territory; but that an Heathen, and King of one hundred and seven and twenty Provinces, should throughout his vast Dominions, not fear, but practice Toleration with good success, has something admirable in it. If we please to remember the Tranquility & success of those Heathen Roman Emperors, that allowed Indulgence; that A[u]gustus sent [10] Hecatomb[s] to Jerusalem,165 and the wisest honoured the Jews, and at last spared the divers Sects of Christians, it will certainly oblige us to think, that Princes, whose Religions are nearer of Kin, to those of the The Illustrious Hugo Grotius of the Law of Warre and Peace (London, 1654), Part I, ch. 1, pp. 8−10; Selden, De iure naturali & gentium (London, 1640), book 2, ch. 2, esp. p. 141. Esther, esp. ch. 3.  164  That is, he was an infidel (a Gentile).   165  See Preface, p. 232.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation Dissenters of our times, may not unreasonably hope for [quiet] from a discreet Toleration, especially when there is nothing peculier in Christianity to render Princes unsafe in such an Indulgence. The admirable Prudence of the Emperor Jovianus, in a quite contrary method to those of the Reigns of his Predecessors, settled the most Imbroiled time of the Chistian World, almost to a Miracle; for though he found the Heats of the Arian and Orthodox carried to a barbarous h[e]ight, (to say nothing of the Novations, and other dissenting Interests) the Emperor esteeming those Calamities the effect of Coercing Conformity to the Prince’s or States Religion; and that this course did not only waste Christians, but expose Christians to the scorn of Heathens, and so scandal those whom they should Convert, he resolutely declared, That he would have none Molested for the different exercise of their Religious Worship;166 which (and that in a trice, for he reigned but seven Moneths) calmed th[e] impetuous Storms of Dissention, and reduced the Empire (before agitated with the most uncharitable Contests) to a wonderful Serenity and Peace; thus a kindly Amity, brought a civil Unity to the State; which endeavours for a forc’d Unity never did to the Church, but had formerly fill’d the Government with incomparable Miseries, as well as the Church with Incharity; and which is sad, I must needs say, that those Leaders of the Church that should have been Teachers and Examples of Peace, in so singular a juncture of the Churches ferments, did, more then any, blow the Trumpet and kindled the Fire of Division. So dangerous is it to Superfine upon the Text, and then Impose it upon Penalty for Faith. Valantinian the Emperor (we are told by Socrates Scholasticus) was a great Honourer of those that favoured his own Faith; but so, as he molested [11] not the Arrians at all. And Marcellinus further adds, in his Honour, That he was much Renown’d for his Moderate Carriage during his Reign; insomuch, that amongst sundry Sects of Religion, he troubled no man for his Conscience, imposing neither this nor that to be observed; much less, with menacing Edicts and Injunctions, did he compel others, his Subjects, to bow the Neck, or conform to that which himself worshipped, but left such Points as clear and untouch’d as he found them.167 Gratianus and Theodosius the great, Indulged divers sorts of Christians; but the Novations of all the Dissenters were preferr’d: which was Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 3, ch. 25. Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, ch. 1; Ammianus Marcellinus, History, book 30, ch. 9, sec. 5.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience so far from Insecuring, that it preserv’d the Tranquility of the Empire. Nor till the time of Celestine Bishop of Rome, were the Novations disturbed; And the Persecution of them, and the Assumption of the secular Power began much at the same time. But the Novations at Constantinople were not so dealt withal; for the Greek Bishops continued to permit them the quiet enjoyment of their dissenting Assemblies; as Socrates tells us in his fifth and seventh Book of Ecclesiastical Story.168 I shall descend nearer our own times; for notwithstanding no Age has been more furiously moved, then that which Jovianus found, and therefore the Experiment of Indulgence was never better made, yet to speak more in view of this time of day, we find our Contemporaries, of remoter Judgments in Religion, under no manner of difficulty in this point. The Grand Signior, great Mogul, Czars of Muscovia, King of Persia; the great Monarchs of the East have long allow’d and prosper’d with a Toleration: And who does not know that this gave Great Tamerlan his mighty Victories? In these Western Countries we see the same thing. [12] Cardinal d’Ossat in his 92d Letter to Villroy, Secretary to Henry the fourth of France, gives us Doctrine and Example for the Subject in hand; “Besides (says he) that Necessity has no Law, be it in what case it will; our Lord Jesus Christ instructs us by his Gospel, To let the Tares alone, lest removing them, may endanger the Wheat. That other Catholick Princes have allow’d it without Rebuke. That particularly the Duke of Savoy, who (as great a Zealot as he would be thought for the Catholick Religion) Tolerates the Hereticks in three of his Provinces, namely, Angroyne, Lucerne and Perose. That the King of Poland does as much, not only in Sweedland, but in Poland itself. That all the Princes of the Austrian Family, that are celebrated as Pillars of the Catholick Church, do the like, not only in the Town, of the Empire, but in their proper Territories, as in Austria it self, from whence they take the Name of their Honour. In Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia, Stirria, Camiolia and Croatia the like. That Charles the fifth, Father of the King of Spain, was the Person that taught the King of France, and other Princes, how to yield to such Emergencies. That his Son, the present King of Spain, who is esteemed Arch-Catholick, and that is, as the Atlas of the Catholick Church, Tolerates notwithstanding, at this day, in his Kingdoms of Valentia and Granada, the Moors themselves in their Mahumatisme, and has offer’d to those of Zealand, Holland, and other Hereticks of the Low-Countries, the free Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 5 (Gratian); book 7 (Theodosius).

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation ­Exercise of their pretended Religion, so that they will but Acknowledge and Obey him in Civil Matters.”169 It was of those Letters of this extraordinary Man, for so he was (whether we regard him in his Ecclesiastical Dignity or his greater Christian and Civil Prudence) that the great Lord F[a]lkland said, A Minister of State should no more be without Cardinal d’ Ossat’s Letters, than a Parson without his Bible.170 And indeed, if we look into France, we shall find the Indulgence of those Protestants, hath [13] been a flourishing to that Kingdom, as the Arms a Succour to their King. ’Tis true, that since they help’t the Ministers of his Greatness to Success, that haughty Monarch has changed his Measures, and resolves their Conformity to his own Religion, or their Ruin; but no man can give another Reason for it, than that he thinks it for his turn to please that part of his own Church, which are the present necessary and unwearied Instruments of his absolute Glory. But let us see the end of this Conduct, it will require more time to approve the Experiment.171 As it was the Royal Saying of Stephen, King of Poland, That he was a King of Men, and not of Conscience; a Commander of Bodies, and not of Souls.172 So we see a Toleration has been practiced in that Country of a long time, with no ill Success to the State; the Cities of Cracovia, Racovia, and many other Towns of Note, almost wholly dissenting from the common Religion of the Kingdom, which is Roman Catholick, as the others are Socinian and Calvanist, the most opposite to that, as well as to themselves. The King of Denmark, in his large Town of Altona, but about a Mile from Hambrough [Hamburg], and therefore called so, that is, All-to-near, is a pregnant proof of our point. For though his Seat be so remote from that place, and another strong and insinuating State so near, yet under his Indulgence of divers Perswasions, they enjoy that Peace, and he that Security, that he is not upon better Terms in any of his more Immediate and Uniform Dominions. I leave it to the thinking Reader, if it be not much owing to this Freedom, and that a contrary course were not the way

Cardinal Arnaud d’Ossat (1537–1604). A number of versions of d’Ossat’s letters would have been available to Penn in French editions, including Lettres d’illustrissime et reverendissime Cardinal d’Ossat (Paris, 1624). Letter 92 begins on p. 221 of this edition. 170 Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, A Discourse of Infallibility (London, 1651), p. 297. 171 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in October 1685. 172 This quotation was widely (and apparently erroneously) repeated in the tolerationist literature, when it was in fact Sigismund II Augustus (reigned 1548–72). See Kapolka, “A Letter from William Penn to Jan III Sobieski,” 9. (See also p. 195.) 169

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience for him to furnish his Neighbours with means to Depopulate that place, or make it uneasie and chargeable to him to keep?173 [14] If we look into other parts of Germany, where we find a Stout and War-like People, fierce for the thing they opine, or believe, we shall find the Prince Palatine of the Rhine, safe, and more potent by his Indulgence, witness his Improvements at Manhine [Mannheim]: And as (believe me) he acts the Prince to his People in other things, so in this to the Empire; for he has made bold with the Constitution of it, in the Latitude he gives his Subjects in this Affair.174 The Duke of Bradenburg is himself a Calv[i]nist, his People mostly Lutherain, yet in part of his Dominions, the Roman-Catholicks enjoy their Churches quietly.175 The Duke of Newburg, and a strict Roman Catholick, Brother-in-Law to the present Emperor, in his Province of Juliers, has, not only at Dewsburg, Mulheim, and other places, but in Deuseldor[f] it self, where the Court resides, Lutherain, and Calvanist, as well as Roman Catholick Assemblies.176 The Duke of Saxony, by Religion a Lutherain, in his City of Budissin, has both Lutherains and Roman Catholicks in the same Church, parted only by a Grate.177 In Au[g]sburg, they have two chief Magistrates, as their Duumvirat, one must always be a Roman Catholick, and the other a Lutherain.178 The Bishop of Osnaburg is himself a Lutherain, and in the Town of his Title, the Roman-Catholicks, as well as Lutherains, have their Churches; and which is more, the next Bishop must be a Catholick too; for like the Buckets in the Well, they take turns, one way to be sure, so that one be but in the Right.179 From hence we will go to Sultzbach, a small Territory, but has a great Prince, I mean, in his own extraordinary Qualities; for among other things

The king of Denmark in 1686 was Christian V (reigned 1670–99). Reference unclear; Penn might be referring not to a specific elector palatine but to the office. Charles II, elector palatine, died in 1685 after an unremarkable five-year reign. 175 Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg (reigned 1640–88). 176 Philip William, count palatine of Neuburg (reigned 1653–90). 177 Johan George III, elector of Saxony (reigned 1680–91). Budissin is now known as Bautzen. 178 Following the Peace of Augsburg (1555), Free Imperial cities like Augsburg were often referred to as “parity cities” owing to their protection of both Catholicism and Lutheranism. 179 Ernest Augustus, prince-bishop of Osnabrück (reigned 1662–98). 173 174

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation we shall find him act the Moderator among his People. By profession he is a Roman Catholick, but has Simultaneum Religionis Exercitium,180 not only Lutherains and Roman Catholicks enjoy their different Worships, but [15] alternatively in one and the same place, the same day; so ballancing his Affection by his Wisdom, that there appears neither Partiality in him, nor Envy in them, though of such opposite Perswasions. I will end these for[reign] Instances with a Prince and Bishop, all in one, and he a Roman Catholick too, and that is the Bishop of Mentz; who admits, with a very Peaceable success, such Lutherains with his Catholicks, to enjoy their Churches, as live in his Town of Erford.181 Thus does Practice tells us, that neither Monarchy nor Hierarchy are in danger from a Toleration. On the contrary, the Laws of the Empire, which are the Acts of the Emperor, and the Soveraign Princes of it, have tolerated these three Religious Perswasions, viz. the Roman-Catholick, Lutherain and Calv[i]nist, and they may as well tolerate three more, for the same Reasons, and with the same Success. For it is not their greater nearerness or consistency in Doctrine, or in Worship; On the contrary, they differ much, and by that, and other Circumstances, are sometimes engaged in great Controversies, yet is a Toleration practicable, and the way of Peace with them. And which is closest to our point at home it self, we see that a Toleration of the Jews, French and Du[t]ch Churches in England, both Dissenters from the National Way: And the Connivance that has been in Ireland; And the down-right Toleration in most of his Majesties Plantations abroad,182 proves the Assertion, That Toleration is not dangerous to Monarchy. For Experience tells us, where it is in any degree admitted the King’s Affairs prosper most; People, Wealth and Strength being sure to follow such Indulgence. But after all that I have said in Reason and Fact, why Toleration is safe to Monarchy, Story tells us that worse things have befallen Princes in Countries under Ecclesiastical Union, than in places under divided forms of Worship; and so, tolerating Countries stand to the Prince, more than [16] upon equal terms with conforming ones. And where Princes have been exposed to hardship in tolerating Countries, they have as often come Christian Augustus, count palatine of Sulzbach (reigned 1632–1708). The simultaneum regime (multiple religious communities sharing the use of church buildings) became an increasingly common solution, especially in Germany, in the wake of the Reformation. 181 Anselm Franz von Ingelheim, archbishop of Mainz from 1679 to 1695. 182 Note Penn’s silence about Pennsylvania specifically. 180

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience from the Conforming, as Non-conforming party; and so the Dissenter is upon equal terms, to the Prince or State, with the Conformist. The first is evident in the Jews, under the conduct of Moses; their Dissention came from the men of their own Tribes, such as Corah, Dathan and Abiram, with their pertakers. To say nothing of the Gentiles.183 The Miseries and Slaughters of Mauritius the Emperor proves my point, who by the greatest Church-men of his time was withstood, and his Servant that perpetrated the Wickedness by them, substituted in his room, because more officious to their Grandure.184 What power but that of the Church, dethron’d Childrek King of France, and set Pippin in his place?185 The miseries of the Emperors, Henry the fourth and fifth, Father and Son, from their rebellious Subjects, raised and animated by the power of Conformists; dethroning both, as much as they could, are notorious.186 ’Tis as plain that Sigismon[d] King of Sweedland, was rejected by that Lutherain Country, because he was a Roman-Catholick.187 If we come nearer home, which is most suitable to the Reasons of the discourse, we find the Church-men take part with William Rufus, and Henry the first against Robert their elder Brother; and after that, we see some of the greatest of them make Head against their King, namely Anselm, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and his party, as did his Successor Thomas of Becket to the second Henry.188 Stephen Usurpt the Crown when there was a Church Union: And King John lived miserable for all that, and at last dyed by one of his own Religion too. The Dissentions that agitated the Reign of his Son Henry the third, and the Barrons War, with Bishop [17] Grosteeds Blessing to Mumford their General: The Deposition and Murther of the second Edward, & Richard, & sixth Henry, and his Son the Prince. The Usurpation of Richard the third, and the Murther of the Sons of Edward the fourth, in the Tower of London. The civil War that followed between him and the Earl of Richmond, afterwards our wise Henry Numbers 16. Mauritius (reigned 582–602); he was usurped by Phocas (reigned 602–610). Childeric III, king of the Franks 743–751; dethroned by Pope Zachary in favor of Pepin the Short. 186 The Investiture Controversy pitted the papacy against the Holy Roman empire, beginning with Emperor Henry IV (reigned 1084–1105) and Pope Gregory VII (reigned 1073–85), and continuing for nearly fifty years. 187 Sigismund III Vasa, ruled as king of Sweden from 1594 to 1599. 188 William Rufus (William II) was the third, and Henry I the fourth, son of William the Conqueror; Robert Curthose was William’s eldest son. Anselm served as archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109; Thomas Becket, from 1162 to 1170. 183 184 185

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation the seventh, were all perpetrated in a Country of one Religion, and by the Hands of Conformists. In short, if we will but look upon the civil War that so long raged in this Kingdom, between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and consider that they professed but one and the same Religion, and both back’t with numbers of Church-men too (to say nothing of the Miserable end of many of our Kings princely Ancestors in Scotland, specially the first and third James) will find cause to say, That ChurchUniformity is not a Security for Princes to depend upon.189 If we will look next into Countries where Dissenters from the National Church are tolerated, we shall find the Conformist not less Culpable than the Dissenter. The Disorders among the Jews, after they were settled in the Land that God had given them, came not from those they tolerated, but themselves. They cast off Samuel, and the Government of the Judges. ’Twas the Children of the National Church, that fell in with the Ambition of Absolom, and animated the Rebellion against their Father David. They were the same that revolted from Solomon’s Son, and cryed in behalf of Jeroboam, To your Tents, O Israel!190 Not two Ages ago, the Church of France, too generally fell in with the Family of Guise, against their lawfull Soveraign, Henry the fourth: Nor were they without Countenance of the greatest of their Belief, who stiled it an holy War: At that time, fearing (not without cause) the Defection of that Kingdom from the Roman See. In this conjuncture, the Dissenters [18] made up the best part of that King’s Armies, and by their Loyalty and Blood, preserv’d the Blood Royal of France, and set the Crown on the Head of that Prince. That King was twice Assassinated, and the last time murdered, as was Henry the third, his Predecessor; but they fell, one by the hand of a Church-man, the other, at least by a Conformist.191 ’Tis true, that the next civil War was between the Catholicks and the Hugonots, under the Conduct of Cardinal Rich[elieu], and the Duke of Roha[n]: But as I will not justifie the Action, so their Liberties and Cautions so solemnly settled by Henry the fourth, as the Reward of their For the details of these events, see Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000); Michael Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 1225–1360 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007); G. L. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England, 1360–1431 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). 190 1 Samuel 8; 2 Samuel 15–18; 1 Kings 12:16. 191 For this period of French history, see Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562– 1629 (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Several unsuccessful attempts on the life of Henry IV took place before François Ravaillac ultimately succeeded in 1610. 189

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience singular Merit, being by the Ministry of that Cardinal invaded, they say, they did but defend their Security, and that rather against the Cardinal, than the King, whose softness suffered him to become a Property to the great Wit and Ambition of that Person: And there is this Reason to believe them, that if it had been otherwise, we are sure that King Charles the first would not in the least have countenanced their Quarrel.192 However, the Cardinal, like himself, wisely knew when to stop: For though he thought it the Interest of the Crown, to moderate their Greatness and check their Growth, yet having fresh in Memory the Story of the fore-going Age, he saw, ’twas wise to have a Ballance upon occasion. But this was more then recompenc’d in their fixt Adhesion to the Crown of France, under the Ministry and Direction of the succeeding Cardinal, when their Perswasion had not only Number, and many good Officers to value it self upon, but yielded their King the ablest Captain of the Age, namely, Turene: It was an Hugonot then, at the Head of almost an Hugonot Army, that fell in with a Cardinal himself (see the Union, Interest makes) to maintain the Imperial Crown of France, and that on a Roman[19] Catholicks Head: And together with their own Indulgence, that Religion, as National too, against the pretences of a Roman-Catholick Army, headed by a Prince, brave and learned of the same Religion.193 I mention not this, to prefer one Party to another; for contrary Instances may be given else-where, as Interests have varied. In Sweedland a Prince was rejected by Protestants: And in England and Holland, and many of the Principalities of Germany, Roman-Catholicks have approv’d themselves Loyal to their Kings, Princes and States: But this suffices to us, that we gain the Point; for it is evident in Countries where Dissenters are tolerated, the Insecurity of the Prince and Government, may as well come from the Conforming, as Dissenting Party, and that it comes not from Dissenters, because such. But how happy and admirable was this civil Union between the Cardinal and Turene? Two most opposite Religions, both follow’d by People of their own Perswasion: One says his Mass, t’other his Directory: Both invoke One Deity, by several ways, for one Success, and it followed with Glory, and a Peace to this Day. O why should it be otherwise now! What has been, may be: Methinks Wisdom and Charity are on that side still. The religious conflicts of the 1620s, sometimes called the Rohan wars. Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, viscount of Turenne (1611–75), French marshal general; “the succeeding Cardinal” was Jules Mazarin (1602–61).

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation It will doubtless be objected, That the Dissenting Party of England, fell in with the State Dissenter in our late Civil, but Unnatural War: And this seems to be against us, yet Three things must be confessed; First, That the War rather made the Dissenters, than the Dissenters made the War: Secondly, That those that were then in being, were not tolerated as in France, but prosecuted: And Lastly, That they did not lead, but follow great Numbers of Church-goers, of all Qualities in that unhappy Controversie; and which began upon other Topicks than Liberty for Church-Dissenters. And though they were herein blameable, Reason is Reason, in all Climates and Latitudes. This does not affect the Question: Such Calamities are no [20] necessary Consequences of Church-Dissent, because they would then follow in all places where Dissenters are tolerated, which we see they do not: But these may sometimes indeed be the effects of a violent Endeavour of Uniformity, and that under all Forms of Government, as I fear they were partly here under our Monarchy. But then, this teaches us to conclude, that a Toleration of those, that a contrary course makes uneasie and desperate, may prevent or Cure Intestine Troubles; as Anno Forty Eight, it ended the Strife, and settled the Peace of Germany.194 For ’tis not now the Question, how far men may be provoked, or ought to resent it; but Whether Government is safe in a Toleration, especially Monarchy? And to this Issue we come in Fact, That ’tis safe, and that Conformists (generally speaking) have for their Interests, as rarely known their Duty to their Prince, as Dissenters for their Consciences. So that the danger seems to lie on the side of forcing Uniformity against Faith, upon severe Penalties, rather than of a discreet Toleration. In the next place, I shall endeavour to shew the Prudence and Reasonableness of a Toleration, by the great Benefits that follow it. Toleration, which is an admission of Dissenting Worships, with Impunity to the Dissenters, secures Property, which is civil Right; and That Eminently the Line and Power of the Monarchy: For if no man suffer in his Civil Right for the sake of such Dissent, the point of Succession is settled without a civil War, or a Recantation; since it were an absurd thing to imagin[e], that a man born to five Pounds a Year should not be liable to forfeit his Inheritance for Non-conformity, and yet a Prince of the Blood, and an Heir to the Imperial Crown, should be made incapable of his Inheritance for Church-dissent.195 Treaty of Westphalia. Here, and below: the Exclusion Crisis (1678–81).

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience [21]

The Security then of Property or civil Right, from being forfeitable for Religious Dissent, becomes a security to the Royal Family, against the Difficulties lately labour’d under in the business of the Succession. And though I have no Commission for it, besides the great Reason and Equity of the thing it self, I dare say, there can hardly be a Dissenter at this time of day so void of Sence and Justice, as well as Duty and Loyalty, as not to be of the same mind. Else it were to deny that to the Prince, which he needs, and prays from him. Let us not forget the Story of Sigismund of Sweedland, of Henry the fourth of France, and especially of our own Queen Mary. Had Property been fix’t, the Line of those Royal Families could not have met with any Let or Interruption. ’Twas this Consideration that prevail’d with Judge Hailes, though a strong Protestant, after King Edward’s Death, to give his Opinion for Queen Mary’s succession, against that of all the rest of the Judges to the contrary: Which noble precedent, was recompenc’d in the Loyalty of Arch-Bishop Heath, a Roman-Catholick, in favour of the Succession of Queen Elizabeth; And the same thing would be done again, in the like case, by men of the same Integrity.196

I know it may be said, That there is little Reason now for the Prince to regard this Argument in favour of Dissenters, when it was so little heeded in the case of the Presumptive Heir to the Crown. But as this was the Act and Heat of Conforming men within Doors, so if it were in Counsel or Desire, the Folly and Injustice of any Dissenters without Doors, shall many entire Parties pay the Reckoning of the few busie Offendors? They would humbly hope, that the singular Mildness and Clemency, which make up so great a part of the King’s publick Assurances, will not leave him in his Reflection here. [22] ’Tis the Mercies of Princes, that above all their Works give them the nearest Resemblance to Divinity in their Administration.197 Besides, it is their Glory to measure their Actions by the Reason and Consequence of things, and not by the Passions that possess and animate private Breasts: For it were fatal to the Interest of a Prince, that the Folly or Undutifulness of any of his Subjects, should put him out of the way, or tempt him to be

John Hales (d. 1572), member of parliament, justice of the peace, and author of A Declaration of the Succession of the Crowne Imperiall of Inglande (1563); Nicholas Heath (1501–78), (Catholic) archbishop of York and lord chancellor, who proclaimed Elizabeth queen on Mary’s death. 197 See Portia’s speech in The Merchant of Venice, Act IV: “earthly power doth then show likest God’s/When mercy seasons justice.” 196

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation unsteady to his Principle and Interest: And yet, with submission, I must say, it would be the Consequence of Coertion: For by exposing Property for Opinion, the Prince exposes the Consciences and Property of his own Family, and plainly Disarms them of all Defence, upon any alteration of Judgment. Let us remember, that several of the same Gentlemen, who at first sacrificed civil Rights for Non-conformity in common Dissenters, fell at last to make the Succession of the Crown, the Price of Dissent in the next Heir of the Royal Blood. So dangerous a thing it is to hazard Property to serve a turn for any Party, or suffer such Examples in the case of the meanest Person in a Kingdom. Nor is this all the benefit that attends the Crown by the preservation of civil Rights; for the Power of the Monarchy is kept more Entire by it. The King has the benefit of his Whole People, and the Reason of their Safety is owing to their Civil, and not Ecclesiastical Obedience: Their Loyalty to Caesar, and not Conformity to the Church. Whereas the other Opinion would have it, that no Conformity to the Church, No Property in the State: Which is to clog and narrow the civil Power; for at this rate, No Church-Man, No English-man, and No Conformist No Subject. A way to alien198 the King’s People, and practise an Exclusion upon him, from, it may be, a fourth part of his Dominions. Thus it may happen that the ablest States man, the bravest Captain, and the best Citizen may be [23] disabled, and the Prince forbid their Imployment to his Service. Some Instances of this we have had since the late King’s Restoration: For upon the first Dutch War, Sir William Penn being commanded to give in a List of the ablest Sea-Officers in the Kingdom, to serve in that Expedition. I do very well remember he presented our present King with a Catalogue of the knowingest and bravest Officers the Age had bred, with this subscrib’d, These men, if his Majesty will please to admit of their Perswasions, I will answer for their Skill, Courage and Integrity. He pickt them by their Ability, not their Opinions; and he was in the Right; for that was the best way of doing the Kings business. And of my own knowledge, Conformity robb’d the King at that time of Ten men, whose greater Knowledge and Valour, than some one ten of that Fleet, had in their room, been able to have saved a Battle, or perfected a Victory. I will name three of them. The first was Old Vice-Admiral Goodson; than whom, no body was more Stout, or a Sea-man. The second, Captain

Alienate, estrange (OED, def. 1).

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Hill, that in the Saphire beat Admiral Everson, hand to hand, that came to the Relief of old Trump. The third was Captain Potter, that in the constant Warwick, took Captain Beach, after eight hours smart Dispute.199 And as evident it is, that if a War had proceeded between this Kingdom and France, seven years ago, the business of Conformity had deprived the King of many Land-Officers, whose share in the late Wars of Europe, had made knowing and able. But which is worst of all, such are not safe, with their Dissent, under their own extraordinary Prince. For though a man were a great Honourer of his King, a Lover of his Country, an Admirer of the Government: In the [24] course of his Life, sober, wise, industrous and useful; if a Dissenter from the establish’t Form of Worship, in that condition there is no Liberty for his Person, nor Security to his Estate: As Useless to the Publick, so Ruin’d in himself. For this Net catches the best. Men true to their Conscience, and who indulged, are most like to be so to their Prince: whilst the rest are left to couzen him by their change; for that is the unhappy end of forc’d Conformity in the poor spirited Compliers. And this must always be the consequence of necessitating the Prince to put more and other Tests upon his People, than are requisit[e] to secure him of their Loyalty. And when we shall be so happy in our Measures as to consider this Mischief to the Monarchy, it is to be hoped, it will be thought expedient to dis-intangle Property from Opinion, and cut the untoward Knot, some men have tyed, that hath so long hamper’d and gaul’d the Prince as well as People. It will be then, when civil Punishments shall no more follow Church Faults, that the Civil Tenure will be recover’d to the Government, and the Natures of Acts, Rewards and Punishments so distinguish’t, as Loyalty shall be the Safety of Dissent, and the whole People made useful to the Government. It will, perhaps, be objected, That Dissenters can hardly be obliged to be true to the Crown, and so the Crown unsafe in their very Services; for they may easily turn the Power given them to serve it, against it, to greaten themselves. I am willing to obviate every thing, that may with any pretence be offer’d against our entreated Indulgence. I say, No, and appeal to the

William Goodsonn (c. 1610–80); Captain William Hill was part of the English victory over the Dutch in the Battle of the Gabbard (also known as the Battle of the North Foreland); see Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs (London, 1682), entry for June 3, 1653, p. 532; Potter’s battle with Beech is recounted in Whitelock, Memorials, entry for March 18, 1654, p. 567.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation King himself (against whom the Prejudices of our late Times ran highest, and therefore has most reason to Resent) If he was ever better lov’d or serv’d, than by the Old Roundheaded Sea-men, the Earl of Sandwich, Sir William Penn, Sir J. Lawson, Sir G. Ascue, Sir R. Stainer, Sir J. Smith, Sir J. Jordan, Sir J. Harmon, Sir Chris. Minns, Captain Sansum, Cuttins, [25] Clark, Robinson, Molton, Wager, Tern, Parker, Haward, Hubbard, Fen, Langhorn, Daws, Earl, White;200 to say nothing of many yet living, of real Merit, and many inferior Officers, expert and brave. And to do our Prince Justice, he deserv’d it from them, by his Humility, Plainness and Courage, and the care and affection that he always shew’d to them. If any say, That most of these men were Conformists: I presume to tell them, I know as well as any man, they serv’d the King never the better for that: On the contrary, ’twas all the strife that some of them had in themselves, in the doing that Service, that they must not serve the King without it; and if in that they could have been Indulged, they had perform’d it with the greatest Alacrity. Interest will not lye. Where People find their Reckoning, they are sure to be True. For ’tis want of Wit that makes any man false to himself. ’Twas he that knew all mens Hearts, that said, Where the Treasure is, there the Heart will be also.201 Let men be easie, safe, and upon their Preferment with the Prince, and they will be Dutiful, Loyal, and most Affectionate. Mankind by nature fears Power, and melts at Goodness. Pardon my Zeal, I would not be thought to plead for Dissenters Preferment; ’tis enough they keep what they have, and may live at their own Charges. Only I am for having the Prince have Room for his Choice, and not be crampt and stinted by Opinion; but imploy those who are best able to serve him: And I think out of Six Parties ’tis better picking, than out of One; and therefore the Prince’s Interest is to be head of all of them; which a Toleration effects in a moment; since those Six (divided Interests, within themselves) having but on[e] civil Head, become one intire civil Body to the Prince: And I am sure, I have Monarchy on my side, if Solomon and [26] his Wisdom may stand for it, who tells us, That the Glory of a King is in the Multitude of his People.202

All of these individuals appear in Granville Penn’s two-volume Memorials of the Professional Life and Times of Sir William Penn (London, 1830), although often with alternative spellings (e.g., Stayner, Harman, Mings/Minnes, Cuttance, Clarke, Moulton, Hayward, Fenn, Laugharne, Dawes). 201 Matthew 6:21.  202 Proverbs 14:28. 200

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Nor is this all, for the Consequences of such an Universal Content would be of infinite moment to the security of the Monarchy, both at Home and Abroad. At Home, for it would Behead the Factions without Blood, and Banish the Ringleaders without going abroad. When the great bodies of Dissenters see the care of the Government for their safety, they have no need of their Captains, nor these any ground for their pretences: For as they us’d the People to value themselves, and raise their Fortunes with the Prince, so the People follow’d their Leaders to get that ease, they see their Heads promised, but could not, and the Government can, and does give them. Multitudes cannot Plot, they are too many, and have not Conduct for it, they move by another Spring. Safety is the pretence of their Leaders: If once they see they enjoy it, they have yet Wit enough not to hazard it for any Body: For the endeavours of busie men are then discernable; but a state of Severity gives them a pretence, by which the Multitude is easily taken. Men may indiscreetly Plot to get what they would never Plot to lose. So that case is not only their content, but the Prince’s Security. This I say, upon a Supposition, that the Dissenters could agree against the Government; which is a begging of the Question: For it is improbable (if not impossible without Conformists) since besides the Distance they are at in their Perswasions and Affections, they dare not hope for so good terms from one another, as the Government gives: And that Fear, with Emulation, would draw them into that Duty, that they must all fall into a Natural Dependance, which I call holding of the Prince, as the great Head of the State. [27] From abroad, we are as safe as from within our selves: For if leading Men, at Home, are thus disappointed of their Interest in the People, Forreigners will find here no Interpreters of their dividing Language, nor matter (if they could) to work upon; For the Point is gain’d, the People they would deal in, are at their ease, and cannot be bribed; and those that would, can’t deserve it. It is this that makes Princes live Independent of their Neighbours; And to be lov’d at Home, is to be fear’d Abroad: One follows necessarily the other. Where Princes are driven to seek a Forreign Assistance, the issue must either be the Ruin of the Prince, or the absolute Subjection of the People; not without the hazard of becoming a Province to the Power of that Neighbour that turns the Scale. These Consequences have on either hand an ill Look, and should rebate Extreams.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation The Greatness of France carries those Threats to all her Neighbours, that, politically speaking, ’tis the Melanchol[i]est Prospect England has had to make since Eighty Eight: 203 The Spaniard at that time, being shorter in all things but his Pride and Hope, than the French King is now of the same Universal Monarchy. This greatness begun by the Eleaventh Lewis, some will have it, has not been so much advanced by the Wisdom of Rich[elieu], and Craft of Mazar[in], no, not the Arms of the present Monarch, as by the Assistance or Connivance of England, that has most to lose by him. O. Cromwell begun, and gave him the Scale against the Spaniard. The Reason of State he went upon, was the support of his usurpt Dominion: And he was not out in it; for the Exile of the Royal Family was a great part of the price of that Aid: In which we see, how much Interest prevails above Nature. It was not Royal Kindred could shelter a King against the Solicitations of an Usurper with the Son of his Mother’s Brother.204 But it will be told us by some People, We have not degenerated, but [28] exactly follow’d the same Steps ever since, which has given such an Increase to those Beginnings that the French Monarchy is almost above our reach. But suppose it were true, what’s the cause of it? It has not been old Friendship, or nearness of Blood, or Neighbourhood. Nor could it be from an Inclination in our Ministers, to bring things here to a like issue, as some have suggested; for then we should have clogg’d his Successes, instead of helping them in any kind, lest in so doing, we should have put it into his Power to hinder our own. But perhaps our Cross Accidents of State may sometimes have compell’d us into his Friendship, and his Councils have carefully improv’d the one, and husbanded the other to great advantages, and that this was more then made for our English Interest; And yet ’tis but too true, that the extream Heats of some men, that most inveighed against it, went too far to strengthen that Understanding, by not taking what would have been granted, and creating an Interest at home, that might naturally have dissolved that Correspondence abroad. I love not to revive things that are uneasily remembred, but in points most tender to the late King, he thought himself sometimes too closely Comparing Louis XIV with the Spanish Armada (1588). As a result of Cromwell’s negotiations toward a French alliance during the mid 1650s, Charles II was forced to leave his exile in Paris. He turned to Spain for support and spent the rest of the Interregnum in the Spanish Netherlands.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience prest, & hardly held; and we are all wise enough now to say, a milder Conduct had succeeded better: For if reasonable things may be reasonably prest, and with such private Intentions, as induce a denial, Heats about things doubtful, unwise or unjust, must needs harden and prejudice. Let us then create an Interest for the Prince at Home, and Forreign Friendships (at best, uncertain and dangerous) will fall of course; for if it be allow’d to Private Men, shall it be forbid, to Princes only, to know and be true to their own Support? [29] It is no more than what every Age makes us to see in all Parties of men. The Parliaments of England, since the Reformation, giving no quarter to Roman Catholicks, have forc’d them to the Crown for shelter: And to induce the Monarchy to yield them the Protection they have needed, have with mighty Address and Skill, recommended themselves as the great Friends of the Prerogative, and so successfully too, that it were not below the Wisdom of that Constitution to reflect what they have lost by that costiveness205 of theirs to Catholicks. On the other hand, the Crown having treated the Protestant Dissenters, with the severity of the Laws that affected them, suffering the sharpest of them to fall upon their Persons and Estates, they have been driven successively to Parliaments for Succour, whose Priviledges, with equal Skill and Zeal, they have abetted: And our late unhappy Wars are too plain a proof, how much their Accession gave the Scale against the Power and Courage of both Conformists & Catholicks, that adhered to the Crown. Nor must this contrary Adhesion be imputed to Love or Hatred, but necessary Interest: Refusal in one place makes way for Address in another. If the Scene be changed, the parts must follow; for as well before as after Cromwell’s Usurpation, the Roman Catholicks did not only promise the most ready Obedience to that Government in their Printed Apologies for Liberty of Conscience: But actually treated by some of their greatest Men, with the Ministers of those Times for Indulgence, upon the Assurances they offer’d to give of their good Behaviour to the Government, as then establisht. On the other hand, we see the Presbyterians, That in ­Scotland began the War, and in England promoted and upheld it to Forty Seven, when ready to be supplanted by the Independents, wheel to the King. In Scotland they Crown him, and come into England, with [30] an Army to restore him, where their Brethren joyn them; but being Reluctance, or unwillingness, in action or speech (OED, def. 2a).

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation defeated, They help, by private Collections, to support him abroad, and after the Overthrow of Sir G. Booth’s Attempt;206 to almost a Miracle, restore him. And which is more, a great part of that Army too, whose Victories rise from the Ruin of the Prince they restored. But to give the last Proofs our Age has of the power of Interest, against the Notion oppos’d by this Discourse. First, the Independants themselves, held the greatest Republicans of all Parties, were the most Lavish and Superstitous Adorers of Monarchy in Oliver Cromwell, because of the regard he had to them; allowing him, and his Son after him, to be Custos Utriusq[ue] Tabulae, over all Causes, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil, Supream Governour.207 And next, the Conformists in Parliament, reputed the most Loyal and Monarchical men, did more than any body question and oppose the late King’s Declaration of Indulgence; even They themselves would not allow so much Prerogative to the Crown, but pleaded and opposed his Political Capacity.208 This proves the Power of Interest, and that all Perswasions center with it: And when they see the Government engaging them with a fix’t Liberty of Conscience, they must for their own sakes seek the Support of it, by which it is maintained. This Union, directed under the Prince’s Conduct, would awe the greatness of our Neighbours, and soon return Europe to its antient Ballance, and that into his hand too. So that he may be the great Arbiter of the Christian World. But if the Policy of the Government places the Security of its Interest in the Destruction of the civil Interest of the Dissenters, it is not to be wondered at, if they are less found in the praises of its Conduct, than others to whom they are offered up a Sacrifice by it. I know it will be insinuated, That there is danger in building upon the [31] Union of divers Interests; and this will be aggravated to the Prince, by such as would engross his Bounty and intercept his Grace from a great part of his People. But I will only oppose to that meer Suggestion, three Examples to the contrary, with this Challenge, That if after Rummaging

George Booth (1622–84) led a royalist uprising in 1659. Although defeated at the Battle of Winnington Bridge and briefly imprisoned in the Tower, Booth went on to serve in the Convention Parliament. 207 In the Humble Petition and Advice (1657), parliament had offered the crown to Cromwell, who declined the title (although, as lord protector, he exercised virtually the same powers that the king had). 208 Parliament pressured Charles II into rescinding his 1672 Declaration of Indulgence after just a year. 206

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience the Records of all Time, they find one Instance to contradict me, I shall submit the Question to their Authority. The First, is given by those Christian Emperors, who admitted of all sorts of Dissenters into their Armies, Courts and Senates. This, the Ecclesiastical Story of those Times, assures us, and particularly Socrates, Evagrius, and Onuphrius.209 The Next Instance, is that of Prince William of Orange, who by a timely Indulgence, united the scattered strength of Holland, and, all animated by the Clemency, as well as Valour of their Captain, crown’d his Attempts with an extraordinary Glory; and what makes, continues Great.210 The last is given us by Livy, in his account of Hannibals Army; “That they consisted of divers Nations, Languages, Customs & Religions: That under all their successes of War and Peace, for Thirteen Years together, they never mutinied against their General, nor fell out among themselves.” What Livy relates for a Wonder, the Marquess Virgilio Malvetzy gives the Reason of, to wit, their Variety and Difference, well managed by their General; for said he, “It was impossible for so many Nations, Customs and Religions to combine, especially when the General’s equal hand gave him more Reverence with them, than they had of affection for one another. This (says he) some would wholly impute to Hannibal; but however great he was, I attribute it to the variety of People in the Army: For (adds he) Rome’s Army was ever less given to Mutiny, [32] when ballanced with Auxiliary Legions, than when intirely Roman.” Thus much in his Discourse upon Cornelius Tacitus.211 And they are neither few, nor of the weakest sort of men, that have thought the Concord of Discords a firm Basis for Government to build upon. The business is to Tune them well, and that must be by the skill of the Musitian. In Nature we see, all Heat consumes, all Cold kills: That three Degrees of Cold to two of Heat, allays the Heat, but introduces the contrary Quality, and over-cools by a Degree; but two Degrees of Cold to two of Heat, makes a Poize in Elements, and a Ballance in Nature. And in those

Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History; Evagrius Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History; Onofrio Panvinio, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. 210 William I, prince of Orange, also known as William the Silent (1533–84). 211 Livy, History of Rome, book 28, ch. 12; Malvezzi, Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus, Discourse 49, pp. 475–477. 209

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation Families where the evenest Hand is carried, the Work is best done, and the Master is most reverenced. This brings me to another benefit, which accrues to the Monarchy by a Toleration, and that is a Ballance at home: For though it be improbable, it may so happen, that either the conforming or non-conforming Party may be undutiful; the one is then a Ballance of the other. This might have prevented much Mischief to our second and third Henry, King John, the second Edward, and Richard, and unhappy Henry the sixth, as it undeniably saved the Royal Family of France, and secured Holland, and kept it from truckling under the Spanish Monarchy. While all hold of the Government, ’tis that which gives the Scale to the most Dutiful; but still, no farther than to show Its Power, and awe the disorderly into Obedience, not to destroy the Ballance, lest it should afterwards want the means of Overpoizing Faction. That this is more than Fancy; plain it is, that the Dissenter must firmly adhear to the Government for his Being, while the Church-man is provided for. The one subsists by its Mercy, the other by its Bounty. This is ty’d by Plenty, but that by Necessity, which being the last of Tyes, and strongest Obligations, the Security is greatest from him, that it is fancied [33] most unsafe to Tolerate. But besides this, the Tranquility which it gives at Home, will both oblige those that are upon the Wing for Forreign Parts, to pitch here again; and at a time when our Neighbouring Monarch is wasting his People, excite those Sufferers into the King’s Dominions, whose Number will encrease that of his Subjects, and their Labour and Consumption, the Trade and Wealth of his Territories.212 For what are all Conquests, but of People? And if the Government may by Indulgence add the Inhabitants of Ten Cities to those of its own, it obtains a Victory without Charge. The Antient Persecution of France and the Low Countries, has furnisht us with an invincible Instance; for of those that came hither on that account, we were instructed in most useful Manufacturies, as by courses of the like nature, we lost a great part of our Woollen Trade. And as men, in times of danger, draw in their Stock, and either transmit it to other Banks or bury their Talent at home for security (that being out of sight, it may be, out of reach too, and either is fatal to a Kingdom) So this Mildness entreated, setting every mans heart at rest, every man will be at work, and the Stock of the Kingdom ­imployed; Penn refers to Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience which, like the Blood, that hath its due Passage, will give Life and V[i]gour to every Member in the publick Body. And here give me leave to mention the Experiment made at Home by the late King, in his Declaration of Indulgence.213 No matter how well or ill built that Act of State was, ’tis no part of the business in hand, but what effect the Liberty of it had upon the Peace and Wealth of the Kingdom, may have Instruction in it to our present Condition. ’Twas evident, that all men Laboured cheerfully, and Traded boldly, when they had [34] the Royal Word to keep what they got, and the King himself became the universal Insurer of Dissenters Estates. White-Hall then, and St. James’s, were as much visited and courted by their respective Agents, as if they had been of the Family: For that which eclipsed the Royal Goodness, being by his own Hand thus removed, his benigne Influences drew the returns of Sweetness and Duty from that part of his Subjects, that the want of those Influences had made barren before. Then it was that we look’t like the Members of one Family, and Children of one Parent. Nor did we envy our eldest Brother, Episcopacy, his Inheritance, so that we had but a Child’s Portion: For not only Discontents vanish’t, but no matter was left for ill Spirits, forreign or domestick, to brood upon, or hatch to Mischief. Which was a plain proof, that it is the Union of Interests, and not of Opinions, that gives Peace to Kingdoms. And with all Deference to Authority, I would speak it, the Liberty of the Declaration, seems to be our English Amomum214 at last: The Soveraign Remedy to our English Constitution. And to say true, we shifted Luck (as they call it) as soon as we had lost it; like those that lose their Royal Gold, their Evil returns. For all Dissenters seem’d then united in their affection to the Government, and follow’d their Affairs without fear or distraction. Projects then, were stale and unmerchantable, and no body cared for them, because no body wanted them: That gentle Opiate at the Prince’s hand, laid the most busie and Turbulent to sleep: But when the loss of that Indulgence made them uncertain, and that uneasie; Their Persons and Estates being again exposed to pay the Reckoning of their Dissent, no doubt, but every Party shifted then as they could: Most grew selfish, at least, jealous, fearing one should make Bargains apart, or exclusive of the other. This was the fatal part Dissenters acted to their common Ruin: And For the text of the Declaration, see Bate, The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672, pp. 76–78. An odoriferous plant; a genus of aromatic plants (OED).

213 214

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation I take this Partiality to have had too great a share in our late Animosities; [35] which, by fresh Accidents falling in, have swell’d to a mighty Deluge, such an one as hath overwhelmed our former civil Concord and Serenity. And pardon me if I say, I cannot see that those Waters are like to asswage, till this Olive Branch of Indulgence be some way or other restored: The Waves will still cover our Earth, and a spot of Ground will hardly be found in this glorious Isle, for a great Number of useful People to set a quiet foot upon. And to persue the Allegory; what was that Ark it self, but the most apt and lively Emblem of Toleration? A kind of Natural Temple of Indulgence. In which, we find two of every living Creature dwelling together, of both Sexes too, that they might propagate; and that as well of the unclean as clean kind: So that the baser and less useful sort were saved. Creatures never like to change their Nature, and so far from being whip’t and punish’t to the Altar, that they were expresly forbid. These were Saved, these were Fed and Restored to their Antient Pastures.215 Shall we be so mannerly as to complement the Conformists with the stile of Clean, and so humble as to take the Unclean kind to our selves, who are the less Noble, and more Clownish sort of People? I think verily we may do it, if we may but be saved too by the Commander of our English Ark. And this the Peaceable and Virtuous Dissenter has the less reason to fear, since Sacred Text tells us, ’Twas Vice, and not Opinion that brought the Deluge upon the rest. And here (to drop our Allegory) I must take leave to hope, that though the Declaration be gone, if the reason of it remain, I mean, the Interest of the Monarchy, the King and His Great Council will graciously please to think a Toleration, no Dangerous nor Obsolete thing. But as it has many Arguments for it, that are drawn from the Advantages that have and would come to the Publick by it, so there are divers Mischiefs that must unavoidably follow the Persecution of Dissenters, that may [36] reasonably disswade from such Severity. For they must either be ruin’d, fly or conform; and perhaps the last is not the Safest. If they are Ruin’d in their Estates, and their Persons Imprisoned, modestly computing, a fourth of the Trade and Manufactury of the Kingdom sinks; and those that have help’t to maintain the Poor, must come upon the Poors Book for Maintenance. This seems to be an Impoverishing of the Publick. But if to avoid this, they Transport themselves, with their Estates, into other Governments; nay, though it were to any of the King’s Plantations, the Number were far too great to be spared from home. So much principal Genesis 6–9.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Stock wanting to turn the yearly Traffick, and so many People too, to consume our yearly Growth, must issue fatally to the Trade one way, and on the Lands and Rents of the Kingdom the other way. And Lastly, If they should resolve, neither to suffer nor fly, but conform to prevent both. It is to be enquired, if this Cure of Church-Division be safe to the State; or not rather, a raking up [Coals] under Ashes, for a future Mischief? He whom Fear or Policy hath made Treacherous to his own Conscience, ought not to be held True to any thing but his own Safety and Revenge. His Conformity gives him the first, and his Resentment of the Force that compels it, will on no occasion let him want the last. So that Conformity cozens216 no body but the Government: For the State Phanatick (which is the unsafe thing to the State) being christen’d by Conformity, he is El[i]gible every where, with Persons the most devoted to the Prince: And all men will hold themselves protected in their Votes by it. A Receipt217 to make Faction keep, and preserve Disloyalty against all Weathers. For whereas the nature of Tests is to discover, this is the way to [37] conceal the Inclinations of men from the Government. Plain Dissent is the Prince with a Candle in His hand: He sees the Where and What of Persons and Things: He discriminates,218 and makes that a rule of Conduct: but forc’d Conformity is the Prince in the Dark: It blows out his Candle, and leaves him without Distinction. Such Subjects are like Figures in Sand, when Water is flap’t upon them, they run together, and are indiscernable: Or written Tradition, made illegible by writing the Oaths and Canons upon it: The safest way of blotting out Danger. I know not how to forbear saying, that this necessary Conformity makes the Church dangerous to the State: For even the Hypocrisie that follows, makes the Church both conceal & protect the Hypocrites; which together with their Liberality to the Parson, Charity to the Poor, and Hospitality to their Neighbours, recommends them to the first favour they have to bestow. That Fort is unsafe, where a part of the Garrison consists of disguised Enemies; for when they take their turns at the Watch, the danger is hardly evitable.219 It would then certainly be for the safety of the Fort, that such Friends in Masquerade were industr[i]ously kept out, instead of being whipt in.

Cheats, defrauds (OED, def. 1).  217 Recipe. Differentiate, distinguish (OED, def. 1).  219  That is, inevitable.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation And it was something of this, I remember, that was made an Argument for the Declaration of Indulgence in the Preamble, to wit, the greater Safety of the Government, from Open and Publick, then private, dissenting Meetings of Worship; as indeed the rest bear the same resemblance. For these were the Topicks, Quieting the People, Encouraging Strangers to come and live among us, and Trade by it; and lastly, preventing the danger that might arise to the Government by private Meetings: Of greater reason then from private men, not less discontented, but more concealed and secured by the great Brake of Church Conformity. It is this will make a Comprehension of the next Dissenters to the Church dangerous, tho’ it were practicable, of which side soever it be. For in an Age, the present [38] Frame of Government shall feel the Art and Industry of the comprehended. So that a Toleration is in reason of State to be prefer’d. And if the Reasons of the Declaration were ever good, they are so still, because the Emergencies of State that made them so, remain; and our Neighbours are not less powerful to improve them to our detriment. But it will be now said, Though the Government should find its account in what has been last alledged, this were the way to overthrow the Church, and encourage Dissenters to continue in their Errors. Which is that second main Objection I proposed at first, to answer in its proper place, and that I think this is. I humbly say, if it prove the Interest of the three considerable ChurchInterests in this Kingdom, a Relaxation, at least, can hardly fail us. The three Church Interests are, That of the Church of England; That of the Roman-Catholick-Dissenter; and That of the Protestant-Dissenter. That the Church of England ought in Conscience and Prudence to consent to the Ease desired. I pray first, that it be considered, how great a reflection it will be upon her Honour, that from a Persecuted, she should turn a Persecuting Church: An overthrow none of her Enemies have been able to give to her many excellent Apologies. Nor will it be excused, by her saying, She is in the Right, which her Persecutors were not; since this is a confidence not wanting in any of them, or her Dissenters: And the truth is, it is but the begging of a Question, that will by no means be granted. No body ought to know more then Church-men, that Conscience cannot be forced. That Offerings against Conscience, are as odious to God, as uneasie to them that make them. That God loves a free Sacrifice. That Christ forbad Fire, though from Heaven (it self) to punish Dissenters; and [39] commanded that the Tares should grow with the Wheat till the Harvest. 

Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience In fine, that we should love Enemies themselves: And to exclude worldly strife for Religion; That his Kingdom is not of this World. This was the Doctrine of the Blessed Saviour of the World.220 Saint Paul persues the same course. Is glad Christ is Preached, be it of Envy; the worst ground for Dissent that can be. It was he that ask’t that hard, but just Question, Who art thou that judgest another mans Servant? To his own Lord he standeth or falleth. He allows the Church a Warfare, and Weapons to perform it, but they are not Carnal, but Spiritual. Therefore it was so advised, that every man in matters of Religion, should be fully perswaded in his own mind, and if any were short or mistaken, God would, in his time, Inform them better.221 He tells us of Schismaticks and Hereticks too, and their punishment, which is to the point in hand: He directs to a first and second Admonition, and if that prevail not, reject them: That is, refuse them Church Fellowship, disown their Relation, and deny them Communion. But in all this there is not a Word of Fines or Imprisonments, nor is it an excuse to any Church, that the civil Magistrate executes the severity, while they are Members of her Communion, that make or execute the Laws.222 But if the Church could gain her Point, I mean Conformity, unless she could gain consent too, ‘twere but Constraint at last. A Rape upon the Mind, which may encrease her Number, not her Devotion. On the contrary, the rest of her Sons are in danger by their Hypocrisie. The most close, but watchful and Revengeful thing in the World. Besides, the Scandal can hardly be removed: To over-value Coyn, and Rate Brass to Silver, Beggers any Country; and to own them for Sons she never begat, debases and destroyes any Church. ‘Twere better to indulge forreign [40] Coyn of intrinsick Value, and let it pass for its Weight. ’Tis not Number, but Quality: Two or three sincere Christians, that form an Evangelical Church;223 And though the Church were less, more Charity on the one hand, and Piety on the other, with exact Church-censure, and less civil Coertion, would give her credit with Conscience in all Sects; without which, their Accession it self would be no benefit, but disgrace, and hazard to her Constitution. And to speak prudently in this Affair, ’tis the Interest of the Church of England, not to suffer the Extinction of Dissenters, that she may have a Luke 9:51–55; Matthew 13:24–30; Matthew 5:43–48; John 18:36. Philippians 1:15–18; Romans 14:4; 2 Corinthians 10:4; Romans 14:5. Titus 3:9–10.  223 Matthew 18:20.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation Counter Ballance to the Roman Catholicks, who, though few in Number, are great in Quality, and greater in their forreign Friendships and Assistance. On the other hand, it is her Interest to Indulge the Roman Catholick, that by his Accession, she may at all times have the Ballance in her own hand, against the Protestant Dissenter, leaning to either, as she finds her Doctrine undermined by the one, or her Discipline by the other; or lastly, her civil Interest endangered from either of them. And it is certainly the Interest of both those Extreams of Dissent, that She, rather than either of them should hold the Scale. For as the Protestant Dissenter cannot hope for any Tenderness, exclusive of Roman Catholicks, but almost the same Reasons may be advanced against him. So on the other hand, it would look imprudent, as well as unjust, in the Roman Catholicks, to solicite any Indulgence exclusive of Protestant Dissenters. For besides that, it keeps up the Animosity, which it is their Interest to bury: the consequence will be, to take the advantage of Time, to snatch it from one another, when an united Request for Liberty, once granted, will oblige both Parties, in all times, for Example sake, to have it Equally preserved. Thus are all Church Interests of Conformists and Dissenters, [41] rendered consistent and safe in their civil Interest one with the other. But it will last of all, doubtless, be objected, That tho’ a Toleration were never so desireable in it self, and in its consequence beneficial to the Publick, yet the Government cannot allow it, without Ruin to the Church of England, which it is obliged to maintain. But I think this will not affect the Question at all, unless by maintaining the Church of England, it is understood that he should force whole Parties to be of her Communion, or knock them on the Head: Let us call to mind, that the Religion that is true, allows no man to do Wrong, that Right may come of it.224 And that nothing has lessen’d the Credit of any Religion more, than declining to support it self by its own Charity and Piety, and taking Sanctuary in the Arms, rather than the Understandings of men. Violences are ill Pillars for Truth to rest upon. The Church of England must be maintain’d: Right; but can’t that be done without the Dissenter be destroyed? In vain then did Christ command Peter to put up his Sword, with this Rebuke, He that kills with the Sword, with the Sword shall be killed, if his Followers are to draw it again. He makes killing for Religion, Murder, and deserving Death: Was he then in the right, Not to call Legions to his Assistance?225 And are not his Followers of these Romans 3:8.  225 Matthew 26:52–53.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Times in the Wrong, to seek to uphold their Religion by any methods of Force. The Church of England must be maintain’d, therefore the Dissenters, that almost hold the same Doctrine, must be Ruin’d. A Consequence most unnatural, as it is almost impossible. For besides that, the Drudgery would unbecome the civil Magistrate, who is the Image of divine Justice and Clemency, and that it would fasten the Character of a False Church, upon one that desires to be esteemed a True one; she puts the Government upon a Task that is hard to be performed. Kings can no more [42] make Brick without Straw, than Slaves.226 The Condition of our Affairs is much chang’d, and the Circumstances our Government are under, differ mightily from those of our Ancestors. They had not the same dissents to deal with, nor those Dissents the like Bodies of People to render them formidable, and their Prosecution mischievous to the State. Nor did this come of the Princes neglect or Indulgence: There are other Reasons to be assigned, of which, the opportunities Domestick Troubles gave to their Increase and Power, and the Severities used to suppress them, may go for none of the least. So that it was as involuntary in the Prince, as to the Church Anxious. And under this necessity to tye the Magistrate to old measures, is to be regardless of Time, whose fresh Circumstances give Aim to the conduct of wise men in their present Actions. Governments, as well as Courts, change their Fashions: The same Cloathes will not always serve: And Politicks made Obsolete by new Accidents, are as unsafe to follow, as antiquated Dresses were ridiculous to w[ear]. Thus Sea-men know, and teach us in their daily practice: They humour the Winds, though they will lie as near as they can, and trim their Sails by their Compass: And by patience under these constrained and uneven Courses, it is they gain their Port at last. This justifies the Governments change of Measures from the change of Things; for res nolunt male Administrari.227 And to be free, it looks more then Partial, to Elect and Reprobate too. That the Church of England is prefer’d, and has the Fat of the Earth, the Authority of the Magistrate, and the Power of the Sword in her Sons Hands, which comprehend all the Honours, Places, Profits, and Powers of the Kingdom, must not be repined at: Let her have it, and keep it all, and let none dare seek or accept an Office that is not of her. But to ruin Dissenters to compleat her Happiness, (pardon the Allusion) is Calvinism in the

Exodus 5:6–9.  227  Things refused to be mismanaged for long.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation worst sence; for this is that Horrendem Decretum228 reduc’d to Practice: [43] And to persue that ill-natured Principle, Men are civilly Damn’d for that they cannot help, since Faith is not in Man’s power, though it sometimes exposes one to it. It is a severe Dilemma, that a man must either renounce That of which he makes Conscience in the sight of God, or be Civilly and Ecclesiastically Reprobated. There was a time, when the Church of England her self stood in need of Indulgence, and made up a great part of the Non-conformists of this Kingdom, and what she then wanted, she pleaded for, I mean a Toleration, and that in a general Stile, as divers of the Writings of her Doctors tell us: Of which let it be enough but to mention that excellent Discourse of Dr. Taylor, Bishop of Down, entituled, Liberty of Prophecy.229 And that which makes Severity look the worse in the Members of the Church of England, is the Modesty she professes about the Truth of the things she believes: For though perhaps it were Indefencible in any Church to compel a man to that which she were infallibly assured to be true, unless she superceeded his Ignorance by Conviction, rather than Authority, it must, doubtless, look rude, to punish men into Conformity to that, of the truth of which, the Church her self pretends no certainty. Not that I would less believe a Church so cautious, than one more confident; but I know not how to help thinking Persecution harsh, when they Ruin People for not believing that, which they have not in themselves the Power of believing, and which she cannot give them, and of which her self is not infallibly assured. The Drift of this is Moderation, which well becomes us poor Mortals, That for every Idle Word we speak, must give an account at the Day of Judgment, if our Saviour’s Doctrine have any credit with us.230 It would much mittigate the Severity, if the dissent were Sullen, or in [44] Contempt: But if men can’t help or hinder their Belief, they are rather Unhappy than Guilty, and more to be pitied than blamed. However, they are of the reasonable stock of the Country, and tho’ they were unworthy of Favour, they may not be unfit to live. ’Tis Capital, at Law, to destroy Bastards, and By-blows231 are lay’d to the Parish to keep: They must maintain them at last: And shall not these natural Sons, at least, be laid at Horrible decree: a reference to Calvin’s theory of predestination (Institutes, passim, esp. book 3). 229 Taylor, Theologike Eklektike.  230 Matthew 12:36. 231 Illegitimate children (OED, def. 3). 228

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience the Door of the Kingdom? Unhappy fate of Dissenters! to be less heeded, and more destitute then any Body. If this should ever happen to be the effect of their own Folly, with submission, it can never be the consequence of the Government’s Engagements. Election does not necessarily imply a Reprobation of the rest. If God hath elected some to Salvation, it will not follow, of course, that he hath absolutely rejected all the rest. For tho’ he was God of the Jews, he was God of the Gentiles too, and they were his People, tho’ the Jews were his peculiar People. God respects not Persons, says St. Peter, the good of all Nations are accepted.232 The Difference at last, will not be of Opinion, but Works: Sheep or Goats, All, of all Judgments will be found; And, Come, Well Done; or Go ye Workers of Iniquity, will conclude their Eternal State:233 Let us be careful therefore of an Opinion-Reprobation of one another. We see the God of Nature hath taught us softer Doctrine in his great Book of the World: His Sun shines, and his Rain falls upon all.234 All the Productions of Nature are by Love, and shall it be proper to Religion only to propagate by Force? The poor Hen instructs us in Humanity, who, to defend her feeble Young, refuses no danger. All the Seeds and Plants that grow for the use of Man, are produc’d by the kind and warm Influences of the Sun. ’Tis Kindness that upholds Humane Race. People don’t Mul[45] tiply in spight: And if it be by gentle and friendly ways, that Nature produces and matures the Creatures of the World, certainly Religion should teach us to be Mild and Bearing. Let your Moderation be known to all men, was the saying of a great Doctor of the Christian Faith, and his Reason for that command Cogent, For the Lord is at hand. As if he had said, Have a care what you do, be not bitter nor violent, for the Judge is at the Door: Do as you would be done to, lest what you deny to others, God should refuse to you.235 And after all this, shall the Church of England be less tender of mens ­Consciences, than our common Law is of their Lives, which had rather a Thousand Criminals should escape, than that One Innocent should perish? Give me leave to say, that there are many Innocents (Conscience excepted) now exposed, Men honest, peaceable and useful; free of ill ­designes; that pray for Caesar, and pay their Tribute to Caesar.

Acts 10:33–35.  233 Matthew 25:31–46.  234 Matthew 5:45. Philippians 4:5; Luke 6:31; Matthew 7:12.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation If any tell us, They have, or may, ill use their Toleration. I say, this must be look’t to, and not Liberty therefore refused; for the English Church cannot so much forget her own Maxim to Dissenters, That Propter abusum non est Tollendus usus.236 It suffices to our Argument, ’tis no necessary Consequence, and that Fact and Time are for us. And if any misuse such Freedom, and entitle Conscience to Misbehavour, we have other Laws enough to catch and punish the Offendors, without treating One Party with the Spoils of Six. And when Religion becomes no mans Interest, it will hardly ever be any mans Hypocrisie. Men will chuse by Conscience, which at least preserves Integrity, though it were mistaken: And if not in the wrong, Truth recompences Inquiry, and Light makes amends for Dissent. And since a plain Method offers it self, from the Circumstances of our [46] case, I take the freedom to present it for the Model of the entreated Toleration. Much has been desired, said and prest in reference to the late King’s being Head of a Protestant League, which takes in but a part of the Christian World; the Roman and Grecian Christians being excluded. But I most humbly offer, that our Wise men would please to think of another Title for our King, and that is Head of a Christian League, and give the Experiment here at Home in his own Dominions. The Christian Religion is admitted of All in the Text, and by All acknowledged, in the Apostles Creed. Here every Party of Christians meet, and center as in a general. The several Species of Christians, that this Genus divideth it self into, are those divers Perswasions we have within this Kingdom; The Church of England, Roman-Catholicks, Grecians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Quakers, Socinians: These I call so many Orders of Christians, that unite in the Text, and differ only in the Comment; All owning one Deity, Saviour and Judge, good Works, Rewards and Punishments: which Bodies once regulated, and holding of the Prince, as Head of the Government, maintaining Charity, and pressing Piety, will be an Honour to Christianity, a Strength to the Prince, and a Benefit to the Publick: For in lieu of an unattainable (at best an unsincere) Uniformity, we shall have in Civils, Unity and Amity in Faith. Abuse is no argument against proper use (or, alternatively, an instance of abuse doesn’t invalidate a practice).

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience The Jews before, and in the time of Herod, were divided into divers Sects. There were Pharisees, Sadduces, Herodians and Essenes. They maintain’d their Dissent without Ruin to the Government. And the Magistrates fell under no censure from Christ for that Toleration. The Gentiles, as already has been observed, had their divers orders [47] of Philosophers, as Disagreeing as ever Christians were, & that without danger to the Peace of the State. The Turks themselves show us, that both other Religions, and divers Sects of their own, are very Tolerable, with security to their Government. The Roman Church is a considerable Instance to our point; for she is made up of divers Orders of both Sexes, of very differing Principles, fomented sometimes, to great Feuds and Controversies; as between Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and [Sorbonists];237 yet without danger to the Political state of the Church. On the contrary, she therefore cast herself into that Method, that she might safely give vent to Opinion and Zeal, and suffer both without danger of Schism. And these Regulars are by the Popes Graunts, privileg’d with an Exemption from Episcopal Visitation and Jurisdiction. Changing then the Terms, from Church to State, the whole Contrivance looks very Wise and Immitable. For as by this, Schism in their Church, so Faction in our State may be prevented. And these civil Regulars depending on the civil Power, as those Religious ones do upon the Popes, will naturally, like them, become the Perpetual Votaries of its greatness. And thus all Parties hanging, like Keys, by one Ring, at the civil Magistrates Girdle, though each has its several Lock, he that keeps them can open and shut every Door, as Persons deserve, and the publick Safety requires. To make this more easie in Grant and Practice, I humbly propose, First, That every Party do subscribe an Engagement of their Fidelity to the King and Government,238 in Terms the most full and plain that may be: In which, as the King will have an Account of their Number, so of their Principles of Duty to the Government, and Abhorrence of all Faction and Rebellion. Without which I would not speak a word.

Text reads “Sorbemists”; corrected to “Sorbonists” in 1726, Works, vol. II: p. 747. A Sorbonist is one associated with the Sorbonne. The term was also used to refer more generally to a person of great learning (OED, def. b). 238 Earlier editions substitute “present a voluntary Assurance of their Fidelity to the Government” in the place of “subscribe an Engagement…Government”. 237

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation Secondly, That the Names and Abode of all Dissenters above the Age of sixteen be Registred. As also the Number of their Meetings, their Place and Time.239 Thirdly, That the Doors of their Meeting-Houses be ever open during [48] their time of Worship; and that it shall be a Praemunire for any Dissenter to come Armed to any such Meeting of Worship. Fourthly, That once in every Year, the names of Proselites be delivered into the Clark of the Peace for every County, and that all of that Party, as well as those new Adherents, do renew their Obligation of Obedience by Annual Subscriptions, if required.240 Fifthly, Because it is not impossible that some or other may mis-­ behave themselves, and abuse this Liberty, or be abused in the use of it. That in every County three Persons of most Eminency, among Dissenters, be Yearly Named to the Magistrates by each Dissenting Interest, to stand a kind of Representatives, both to inform them what they can, upon inquiry, of Persons or Things among the People of that Party, which may in the least be thought to affect the Government, and to have redress of injuries done to Persons in the sober use of their allowed Liberty. And Lastly, Because this Freedom will be best kept and improved to the publick Benefit, by maintaining a good and charitable Understanding between the divers Orders of Christians within themselves: ‘Twere farther requisit, That, No Nick-Names were continued, and all Terms of Reproach, on all hands, punishable: And That Controversial Points were carefully avoided, and Vice decry’d, and Holiness prest, Without which (St. Paul assures us) no-man shall see the Lord.241 These are the Methods that have had most weight with me, and the best I know to create a Reciprocal Confidence and Interest between the Prince and his Conforming and Dissenting People: To be sure, this Course hath succeeded well elsewhere, even in Monarchical States; And therefore in it self not inconsistent with Monarchy, and very agreeable to Christianity.

Earlier editions: “That they should give in a List of their Meetings, as to Place, Time, and the Persons properly belonging to them.” 240 This is “Thirdly” in earlier editions, and becomes “Fourthly” in P1338. Earlier editions contain only four proposals (the first, second, fourth, and fifth in this edition), and lack the one about leaving doors open and prohibiting arms at meetings. 241 Hebrews 12:14. 239

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience God Almighty inspire the KING’s Heart, and the Hearts of His Great Council, to be the Glorious Instruments of this Blessing to the Kingdom. I shall conclude this Perswasive with the Judgment of some Pious Fathers and Renowned Princes. Quadratus and Aristides, wrote two Apologies to Adrian, for the Christian Faith, and against the Persecution of it.242 Justin Martyr, an excellent Philosopher and Christian, writ two learned Disswasives against Persecution, which he dedicated (as I take it) to Antoninus Pius. And Marcus Aurelius Antoninus[.] Melito, Bishop of Sardis, a good and learned man, writ a smart Defence for the Christian Religion, and a Toleration, dedicated to Verus.243 Tertullian, in his most sharp and excellent Apology for the Christians, fastens Persecution upon the Gentiles, as an inseperable Mark of Superstition and Error; as he makes the Christian Patience a Sign of Truth. In his Discourse to Scapula, he sayes, ’Tis not the property of Religion to Persecute for Religion; she should be received for her self, not Force.244 Hi[l]ary, an early and learned Father, against Auxentius, saith, The Christian Church does not persecute, but is persecuted.245 Atticus Bishop of Constantinople, would by no means have the Minister of Nice to respect any Opinion or Sect whatsoever, in the Distribution of the Money sent by him for the Relief of Christians; and by no means to prejudice those that practise a contrary Doctrine and Faith to theirs: That he should be sure to relieve those that hunger & thirst, and have not wherewith to help themselves, and make that the rule of his consideration. In short, he made the Hereticks to have his Wisdom in Admiration, in that he would by no means trouble or molest them.246 Proclus (another Bishop of Constantinople) was of this Opinion, That it was far easier by fair means to allure unto the Church, than by force to com[50] pell: He determined to vex no Sect whatever, but restored to the Church the renowned Virtue of Meekness required in Christian Ministers.247 [49]

Quadratus of Athens (d. 129), Apology; Aristides (fl. second century CE), Apology; both referenced in Eusebius. 243 Justin Martyr, First and Second Apology; Melito of Sardis, Apology. 244 Tertullian, Apology, esp. chs. 46–47; also his Ad Scapulam, ch. 2. 245 Hilary of Poitiers, Contra Auxentium Arrianum. 246 Atticus (d. 425). The story appears in Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, ch. 25. 247 Proclus (d. 446); in Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, ch. 41. 242

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation If we will next hear the Historians own Judgment, upon a Toleration, I am of opinion (says he) that he is a Persecutor, that in any kind of way molesteth such men as lead a quiet and peaceable Life. Thus Socrates in his third Book: In his seventh, he tells us, That the Bishop of Sinada, indeed, did banish the Hereticks, but neither did he this (says he) according to the Rule of the Catholick Church, which is not accustomed to persecute, (l. 7.)248 Lactantius, tells the angry men of his time, thus, If you will, with Blood, Evil and Torments defend your Worship, it shall not thereby be defended, but polluted.249 Chrysostom saith expresly, That it is not the manner of the Children of God, to persecute about their Religion, but an evident Token of Antichrist.250 Thus the Fathers and Doctors of the first Ages. That Emperors and Princes have thus believed, let us hear some of greatest note, and most pressing to us. Jerom, a good and learned Father, saith, That Heresie must be cut off with the Sword of the Spirit.251 Constantinus, the Father of Constantine the great, laid this down for a Principle, That those that were Disloyal to God, would never be trusty to their Prince. And which is more, he liv’d thus, and so dy’d, as his great Speech to his great Son, on his Death-bed, amply evidences.252 Constantine the Great, in his Speech to the Roman Senate, tells them, There is this difference between Humane and Divine Homage and Service, that the one is compell’d, and the other ought to be free.253 Eusebius Pamphili, in the Life of Constantine, tells us, that in his Prayer to God, he said, Let thy People, I beseech thee, desire and maintain Peace, living free from Sedition to the common good and benefit of all the World; and those that are led away with Error, let them desire to live in [51] Peace and Tranquility with the faithful: for friendly humane Society and Commerce with them, will very much avail to bring them to the right way. Let no man molest another, but let every one follow the Perswasion of their Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 3, ch. 12; book 7, ch. 3. The bishop was Theodosius. 249 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, ch. 20. 250 John Chrysostom, Homily III, 2; Thessalonians 1:9–10. Chrysostom does not say so expressly. 251 On this attribution, see p. 195. 252 See Nicolas Caussin, The Holy Court, in Five Tomes (London, 1650), vol. I: p. 234; Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 1, chs. 13–21. 253 Although the wording differs, the speech seems similar to that recounted in Caussin, The Holy Court, vol. I: pp. 247–248. 248

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience own Conscience: But let those that have a true Opinion concerning God, be perswaded, that such as regulate their Lives by Gods holy Laws, do lead an holy and upright Life: But those that will not conform thereunto, may have liberty to erect and set up Altars. But we will maintain the Church and true Religion, which thou hast committed to our Defence. Moreover, we desire that they may joyfully receive and wellcome this general offer of Peace and Concord.254 This was the Judgment of the most celebrated Emperor that ever professed the Christian Faith. I have cited other Emperors in the Body of this Discourse; but because the worst are to be commended when they do well, Valens himself, charm’d with the sweetness and strength of the Philosopher Themistius in his elegent Oration, grew moderate towards the Orthodox, whom a little before he had severely treated: Of which these were the heads; That he persecuted without reason, People of good Lives: That it was no crime to think or believe otherwise than the Prince believed: That he ought not to be troubled at the diversity of Opinions: That the Gentiles were much more divided in their Judgment than the Christians: That it sufficeth, that every Sect aimed at the Truth, and lived virtuously.255 We have had Modern Royal Examples too. Stephen, King of Poland, declared his Mind in the point controverted, thus, I am King of Men, and not of Conscience; a Commander of Bodies, and not of Souls.256 The King of Bohemia was of opinion, That mens Consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged or constrained.257 And Lastly, let me add (as what is, or should be of more force) the [52] sence of King James and King Charles the first, Men, as of supream Dignity, so famed for their great Natural Abilities and acquired Learning, It is a sure Rule in Divinity (said King James) that God never loves to plant his Church by Violence and Bloodshed. And in his Exposition on the twentieth of the Revelations, he saith, That Persecution is the note of a false Church.258

Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 2, ch. 56. Themistius’s oration is recounted in Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, ch. 32. 256 An apparent misattribution: see pp. 195, 243. 257 Frederick V, the elector palatinate, ruled as king of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. 258 Quotations from James I, respectively: “Speech to Parliament, 21 March 1609/10,”, p. 199; A Fruitfull Meditation, p. 79. 254 255

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation And in the Advice of King Charles the first, to the late King, he says, Take heed of abetting any Factions; your partial adhearing to any one Side, gains you not so great Advantages in some mens hearts (who are prone to be of their King’s Religion) as it loseth you in others, who think themselves, and their Profession, first despised, then persecuted by you. Again, Beware of Exasperating any Factions by the crosness & asperity of some mens Passions, Humors or private Opinions, imployed by you, grounded only upon their difference, in lesser matters, which are but the Skirts and Suburbs of Religion; wherein a Charitable Connivance and Christian Toleration, often dissipates their strength, whom Rougher Opposition fortifies, and puts the despised and oppress[e]d Party into such Combinations, as may most enable them to get a full Revenge on those they count their Persecutors, who are commonly assisted by that vulgar Commiseration that attends all that are said to suffer under the Notion of Religion. Always keep up Sollid Piety, & those Fundamental Truths (which mend both Hearts and Lives of men) with impartial Favour and Justice. Your Prerogative is best shown and exercised in Remitting, rather than Exacting the Rigour of Laws; there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny.259 To which Excellent Wisdom (so excellently expressed) King James the Second is the undoubted heir, with the Imperial Crown, to whose Descent and Succession it was given, and it does belong. And so, Vivat REX.260

[APPENDIX: PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1685] If it was permitted to Antient Christians to Address Pagan Emperours, and Infidels to Solicite Christian Caesars for Indulgence, with Success, ‘twere Rude in us, to doubt the Issue of a Discourse of this Stile and Tendency, with our Superiors, when the Interest of the Monarch, as well as Miseries of some of His Subjects make it necessary. For if we consider the great Numbers that are Disabled in their Livelihoods, and some that languish to Death by Confinement, and the Spoil that is daily made of the Estates of others by Fines, and the lavish and excessive way of raising them, for pure

Charles I, Eikon Basilike, pp. 227, 231–232.  260  Long live the king.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience Dissent in Matters of Worship: And on the other hand, how Injurious a state of Severity is to the Interest of the Prince, by the Discouragement and Poverty of so great a Number of His People; and consequently how much a discreet Indulgence would contribute to the Trade, Peace and Amity of [p.b.] His Kingdom, we shall be forc’d to conclude, That in Prudence as well as Conscience, Moderation is a desirable thing. It were, doubtless, one of the most agreeable things in the World, that Mankind were of One Mind, because the occasion that we see is taken at the Differences Men have about Religion, that should teach them to agree, make them so uneasie, and unhappy one to another. But the pleasure of that Harmony is a thing to be wisht, rather than yet expected. ’Tis Fact we differ, and upon a point wherein Unity is out of our Power: such as we are, what shall we do? Destroy one another for our Differences, or be moderate, and try a discreet Liberty? Men must thank themselves for their Animosity, that suffer their Opinions to destroy their Affections. Let us reflect what it was confounded the first Tongue,261 and if Disobedience has not divided Man’s Judgment? yet we do not war for Mother-Tongue, nor ought we for Religion. Man’s Fault has been to slight the Divine Oracle in his persuit of Truth, and he is apt to entitule his own Thoughts to her Reputation. Too many things [p.b.] in Religion, and those too fine and nice, made necessary to be believed, have prest so hard upon the Liberty of Mankind, that Nature heaves against the Burden. We ought in Charity to presume, that all men think they chuse the best way to Heaven, especially where the choice is against the Stream, and draws Loss or Disgrace after it. If they are Mistaken, they must be Rectified there where the Mistake lies, and that is in the Understanding: And to do it Successfully, there must be Light and Moderation: God gives one, and it is our Duty and Wisdom to exercise the other. Let us then pray to Almighty God, That he would enlighten our Understandings; And to the end we may obtain our desire, let us be sure to use the Light we have, and more will be given us. Let us with it see if Expedients may not be found to unite our Interests, and so our Affections, if not our Faiths. How to keep the Peace, and Indulge Dissenters safely, serves the Government. And to see clear, we must put away the Prejudices of former Heats; and not call Wrath, Zeal, nor Railing, Loyalty.

Genesis 11:1–9.

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Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation As things now are, what is best to be done? I take to be the Wise Man’s [p.b.] Question; as to consider and answer it, will be his Business. Moderation is a Christian Duty. Let your Moderation be known to all Men:262 And has ever been the Prudent Man’s Practice. Those Governments that have used it in their Conduct have Succeeded best, and the contrary been unhappy. I remember, it is made in Livy the Wisdom of the Romans, that they relaxed their hand to the Privernates; for by making their Conditions easie, they made them most faithful to their Interest. And it prevailed so much with the Petilians, that they would endure any Extremity from Hannibal, rather than desert their Friendship, that had governed them with so much Moderation, even then, when the Romans discharged their Fidelity, and sent them the Dispair of knowing they could not relieve them. So did one Act of Humanity overcome the Falisci above Arms: Which confirms that noble Saying of Seneca, Mitius imperanti, Melius paretur, the Mildest Conduct is best obeyed: A Truth Celebrated by Grotius & Campanella: Practised, doubtless, by the bravest Princes. For Cyrus exceeded when [p.b.] he built the Jews a Temple, and himself no Jew. Alexander Astonisht the Princes of his Train with the profound Veneration he paid the High Priest of that People. And Augustus was so far from Suppressing the Jewish Worship, that he sent Hecatombs to Jerusalem to encrease their Devotion. Moderation fill’d the Reigns of the most Renowned Caesars: They were Nero’s and Caligulas that lov’d Cruelty then.263 But that which in a singular manner makes Moderation the King’s Interest, is that those penal Laws which vex Dissenters seem in themselves Antimonarchical; and it is therefore less to be wonder’d if any of them have been tempted to be so too. For whereas the Prerogative is the peculiar Glory of the King; That which gives weight and lustre to his Crown, it, is so shar’d by these Laws, to Poor and Informers, that the KING can but put in for a third of his own Power: A Triumviratship, or Three Estates of Prerogative: King, Poor and Informers: For tho’ the King would remit, and the Circumstances of the Person deserve a Pardon, it cannot be, without the Consent of the other Two: which is a kind of an Ex- [p.b.] clusion from two thirds of his Power, and so a Dissolution of that entire Prerogative that his Ancestors had, & is his undoubted Right in the like cases. And as some of these Laws injure the Prince, so they deeply affect the Subject. For People are not only tempted to Inform by Rewards, (to Philippians 4:5. For all these citations, see the 1686 preface.

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Part II: Toleration and Liberty of Conscience

[p.b.]

[p.b.]

be sure, not the cleanest way of Justice) but the Oaths of such are made the Evidence to Convict; which is Swearing in their own Cause, and to their own profit. But this is not all, Men are Try’d, Cast and Fin’d, without a Jury. An express Contradiction to one of the most celebrated Branches of the Great Charter. So that the Interest of Prince and People (as they ever should) conspire in the Repeal of those Laws that furnish harsh and unkind Folks with the Power of disturbing their Conscientious Neighbours, and which disable the Prince to Receive and Redress the Complaints of such of his Suffering Subjects. The Example is to both dangerous, but to the KING most. If the Church of England claims the King’s Promise of Protection; ’tis fit she has it. But her Dissenters cannot forget That of his Clemency: And as they were both great, and admirably distinguish’t, so by no means are they inconsistent or impracticable. And if his Justice will not let him be wanting in the One, His wonted greatness of Mind will hardly let him leave the Other behind him in the Storm, unpitied and unhelpt. Pardon me, We have not to do with an insensible Prince, but one Toucht with our Infirmities. More than any Body fit to judge our Cause, by the share he once had in it. Who should give Liberty of Conscience like the Prince that has wanted it? To suffer for his own was Great, but to deliver other mens, were Glorious. It is a sort of paying the Vows of his Adversity, and it cannot therefore be done by any one else, with so much Justice and Example. Far be it from me to solicite any thing in D[i]minution of the just Rights of the Church of England: Let her rest protected where she is, and if in any thing Mistaken, let God alone perswade her. I hope, none will be thought to intend her Injury, for refusing to understand the King’s Promise to her, in a Ruinous sense to all Others. For it is morally impossible that a Conscientious Prince can be thought to have ty’d himself to compell others to a Communion, that himself cannot tell how to be of, or that any thing can oblige him to shake the Firmness of those he has confirmed by his own Royal Example. Having then so Illustrous an Instance of Integrity, as the hazard of the loss of Three Crowns for Conscience. Let it at least, excuse our Constancy, and provoke the Friends of the Succession to Moderation, that we may none of us lose our Birth-Rights for our Perswasion; & us Dissenters to live Dutifully, and so Peacably under our own Vine, and under our own Fig-Tree, with Glory to God on High, to the King, Honour, and Good Will to all Men. 

Selection 8: A Perswasive to Moderation The Publication of the following Discourse is occasioned by an Appeal made by a late Author, to all Crowned Heads against Toleration and Liberty of Conscience, in his pretended Answer to the Duke of Buckingham.264 I shall not Commend it, and I hope, it will need no Excuse. ’Tis writ with Duty to the King, and Compassion to many of his peaceable People. The usual ­Objections against the Moderation desired, are stated and answered. The Whole recommended to the Reader, By his Affectionate Friend, W. P.

See A Short Answer (London, 1685), an anonymous attack on the duke of Buckingham’s A Short Discourse upon the Reasonableness of Men’s Having a Religion (London, 1685).

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Part III Pennsylvania

Part III: Pennsylvania The founding of Pennsylvania was the grand adventure of William Penn’s life, offering him an opportunity to put into practice the theory he had been developing in England during the 1670s. Part III presents four key texts in Penn’s complicated move from theory to practice. It would prove to be a challenging undertaking, to say the least, from the high aspirations of the early 1680s through Penn’s gradually worsening relationship with his settlers over the course of the next three decades. By October 1712, when he suffered the stroke that disabled him for the final six years of his life, Penn had decided to wash his hands of the enterprise, and had just signed an agreement to sell his government back to the crown. But all that heartache, disappointment, and bitterness was well in the future in June 1680, when a 35-year-old William Penn petitioned Charles II for land in America as repayment for a debt the crown owed his father. (Penn had played a role in the earlier founding of New Jersey, helping to mediate a dispute between Quakers involved in the settlement, but the 1680 petition represented a whole new level of engagement.) After months of negotiations – and despite what he called the “great opposition of envious great men,” including Lord Baltimore, proprietor of Maryland, who would quickly become his American nemesis1 – Penn received the royal charter granting him the proprietorship of Pennsylvania in March 1681. Convincing the king to grant his charter was one thing; what Penn really needed to do was attract investors and settlers. Almost immediately after receiving his colony, he published Some Account of the Province of Pennsilvania (Selection 9), a promotional tract that appeared first in English and then, soon after, in German and Dutch. (The process of recruiting settlers was facilitated by Penn’s extensive networks among European Dissenters, fostered by two trips through Germany and Holland during the 1670s.) Some Account combined a general defense of colonies with details about the land and the conditions under which settlers could take up residence. With regard to his plans for governing the colony, Penn emphasized the foundation of Pennsylvania’s political legitimacy in consent, and promised that “the rights and freedoms of England” would be honored there.2 He concluded Some Account by emphasizing his view of the ideal demographics in a new colony: those most fitted for such a settlement included industrious workers encountering difficulty making

Penn to Thomas Janney, PWP II: 106.  2  Some Account (Selection 9), p. 292.

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Part III: Pennsylvania a living in their native lands, artisans looking for advancement, creative individuals whose prospects at home seemed dim, and others with an interest in promoting the public good. The second state of Some Account’s first edition (Wing P1365) appears in this volume. Shortly after publishing Some Account, Penn sat down to write the first draft of a foundational governing document. Penn’s Fundamentall Constitutions of Pennsilvania (Selection 10) is a remarkable document, with a number of features that reflect Whig influences and evoke some of the commitments evident in Parts I and II: an annually elected lower house, whose members were to receive written instructions from their electors; explicit endorsements of habeas corpus, Magna Carta, and the Petition of Right; and a jury system, “that we may in whatever we can, resemble the Ancient Constitution of England.”3 There were also some specifically Quaker elements, including a provision that no oaths be sworn in legal proceedings; and some fairly severe morals legislation, restricting taverns, gambling, and public entertainments. The text that appears here is the version housed in the Penn Family Papers, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Charters and Frame of Government, vol. VIII: p. 147; later published as PWP microform reel 3:045). There are two versions of the Fundamentall Constitutions in the Penn Papers; the one reproduced here is the earlier, and more extensive, one.4 (The document is not in Penn’s hand but was apparently copied by a clerk.) Yet while it sheds important historical light on Penn’s thinking early in the process of colonization, the broader significance of Fundamentall Constitutions to the story of Pennsylvania remains ambiguous, as Penn never made it public during his lifetime. Indeed, it represents just the first step in a long process that culminated in the publication of the Frame of Government and Laws Agreed upon in England (Selection 11) nearly a year later. Indeed, by the time that Penn published the Frame in spring 1682, he had changed his political designs in marked ways from those laid out in the Fundamentall Constitutions the previous summer. Though still grounded in legitimacy based on consent, the Frame granted a much greater amount of political authority to the governor and a small, directly elected council, who were to initiate legislation and make the weightiest political decisions. The Frame enhanced the Fundamentall Constitutions, p. 310. For detailed information on the divergences between the two versions of the Fundamentall Constitutions, see PWP II: 140–156.

3 4

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Part III: Pennsylvania powers of the council, provided a triple council vote for the governor or his deputy, and relegated the assembly to the distinctly secondary role of providing affirmation or negation of laws proposed by the governor and council. But not everything had changed. Liberty of conscience, Penn’s first Fundamental Constitution, remained as one of the laws appended to the Frame, and there were other areas of commonality between the two documents: a prohibition on transacting most government business within one day; punishments for bribery; morals legislation; and provisions for jury trials and affirmations instead of oaths in legal proceedings. This volume reprints the second issue of the first edition of The Frame of the Government…Together with certain Laws Agreed upon in England (Wing P1292). After this sixteen-month flurry of activity, William Penn set off for America in late August 1682. The first Pennsylvania General Assembly ratified the Frame, with some minor revisions, the following spring. He spent the next two years in the colony, returning to London only when it became absolutely necessary to prosecute his border dispute with ­Baltimore. Although Penn emerged from that legal proceeding with a victory, he did not return to Pennsylvania, instead remaining in England as a key advisor to King James II, as we have seen in such selections as The Great and Popular Objection (Selection 4) and A Perswasive to Moderation ­(Selection 8). Following the 1688 Revolution, with Penn under ­surveillance, imprisoned, and eventually in hiding on suspicion of Jacobite plotting, the crown placed Pennsylvania under the control of New York governor Benjamin Fletcher between 1692 and 1694. Penn finally cleared his name and regained control of his colony, but he did not return until late 1699, by which time the political dynamic had changed greatly. The proprietor was no longer the young visionary but rather, to many Pennsylvanians, a greedy absentee landlord out of touch with the situation on the ground. When rumors arose in 1701 of new parliamentary legislation to strip colonies from their proprietors, Penn returned to England once again. (He would never return.) Prior to his departure, the assembly prevailed upon him to grant a new governing document, which he did with great reluctance: the Charter of Privileges (October 28, 1701). The Charter reproduced here as Selection 12 in the version from The Papers of William Penn (PWP microform reel 9:741, slightly reformatted for ease of reading), finally gave the assembly the right to initiate legislation and provided for the eventual separation,

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Part III: Pennsylvania should the representatives desire it, of Pennsylvania from the Lower Counties (the present-day state of Delaware). The separation took place several years later, deeply disappointing the proprietor, who had journeyed to America two decades earlier with high hopes for a new chapter in the history of liberty of conscience.

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9. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PROVINCE OF PENNSILVANIA IN AMERICA; Lately Granted under the Great Seal OF ENGLAND TO ­William Penn, &c. Together with Priviledges and Powers necessary to the well-governing thereof. Made publick for the Information of such as are or may be disposed to Transport themselves or Servants into those Parts. LONDON: Printed, and Sold by Benjamin Clark Bookseller in George-Yard Lombard-street, 1681.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PROVINCE of Pennsilvania IN AMERICA; Lately Granted under the Great Seal of ENGLAND TO William Penn, &c.

[1]

Since (by the good providence of God) a Country in America is fallen to my lot, I thought it not less my Duty than my honest Interest to give some publick notice of it to the World, that those of our own, or other Nations, that are inclin’d to Transport themselves or Families beyond the Seas, may find another Country added to their choice, that if they shall happen to like the Place, Conditions and Constitutions, (so far as the present Infancy of things will allow us any prospect) they may, if they please, fix with me in the Province hereafter describ’d. But before I come to treat of my particular Concernment, I shall take leave to say something of the benefit of Plantations or Colonies in general, to obviate a common Objection.5 See, e.g., Roger Coke, A discourse of trade (London, 1670), for a critique of colonies.

5

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Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania Colonies then are the Seeds of Nations begun and nourished by the care of wise and populous Countries; as conceiving them best for the increase of Humane Stock, and beneficial for Commerce. Some of the wisest men in History have justly taken their Fame from this Design and Service: We read of the Reputation given on this account to  Moses, Joshua and Caleb in Scripture-Records;6 and what Renown the Greek-story yields to Lycurgus, Theseus, and those Greeks that Planted many parts of Asia:7 Nor is the Roman account wanting of instances to the Credit of that People; They had a Romulus, a Numa Pompilius; and not only reduc’d, but moraliz’d the Manners of the Nations they subjected; so that they may have been rather said to conquer their Barbarity than Them.8 Nor did any of these ever dream it was the way of decreasing their People or Wealth: For the cause of the decay of any of those States or Empires was not their Plantations, but their Luxury and corruption of Manners: For when they grew to neglect their ancient Discipline, that maintained and rewarded Virtue and Industry, and addicted themselves to Pleasure and Effeminacy, they debas’d their Spirits and debauch’d their Morals, from whence Ruine did never fail to follow to any People: With Justice therefore I deny the vulgar Opinion against Plantations, That they weaken England; they have manifestly inrich’d, and so strengthned her; Which I briefly evidence thus. 1st. Those that go into a Foreign Plantation, their Industry there is worth more than if they stay’d at home, the Product of their Labour being in Commodities of a superiour Nature to those of this Country. For Instance, What is an improved Acre in Jamaica or Barbadoes worth to an improved Acre in England? We know ’tis three times the value, and the product of it comes for England, and is usually paid for in English Growth and Manufacture. Nay, Virginia shews that an ordinary Industry in one man produces Three thousand pound weight of Tobacco and Twenty Barrels of Corn yearly: He feeds himself, and brings as much of Commodity into England besides as being return’d in the Growth and Workmanship of this Countrey, is much more than he could have spent here: Let it also be remembred, that the Three thousand weight of To When Moses sent out the “Twelve Spies” to report on the land of Canaan, only Joshua and Caleb urged Moses to attempt to conquer it. See Numbers 13. 7 Lycurgus, founder of Sparta; Theseus, founder of Athens. 8 Romulus, founder of Rome; Numa Pompilius, Romulus’s successor and second king of Rome. 6

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[2]

Part III: Pennsylvania bacco brings in Three thousand Two-pences by way of Custom to the King, which makes Twenty five Pounds; An extraordinary Profit. 2dly. More being produc’d and imported than we can spend here, we Export it to other Countries in Europe, which brings in Money, or the Growth of those Countries, which is the same thing; And this is the Advantage of the English-Merchants and Seamen. 3dly. Such as could not only not marry here, but hardly live and allow themselves Cloaths, do marry there, and bestow thrice more in all Necessaries and Conveniencies (and not a little in Ornamental things too) for themselves, their Wives and Children, both as to Apparel and Housholdstuff; which coming out of England, I say ’tis impossible that England should not be a considerable Gainer. 4thly. But let it be consider’d, That the Plantations imploy many hundreds of Shipping, and many thousands of Seamen; which must be in divers respects an Advantage to England, being an Island, and by Nature fitted for Navigation above any Countrey in Europe. This is followed by other depending Trades, as Shipwrights, Carpenters, Sawyers, Hewers, Trunnelmakers,9 Joyners, Slopsellers,10 Dry-salters, Iron-workers, the Eastland-­ Merchants,11 Timber-sellers, and Victuallers, with many more Trades which hang upon Navigation: So that we may easily see the Objection [3] (That Colonies or Plantations hurt England) is at least of no strength, especially if we consider how many thousand Blacks and Indians are also accomodated with Cloaths and many sorts of Tools and Utensils from England, and that their Labour is mostly brought hither, which adds Wealth and People to the English Dominions.12 But ’tis further said, They injure England, in that they draw away too many of the people; for we are not so populous in the Countries as formerly: I say there are other reasons for that. 1st. Country-People are so extremely addicted to put their Children into Gentlemens Service, or send them to Towns to learn Trades, that Husbandry is neglected; and after a soft and delicate Usage there, they are for ever unfitted for the Labour of a Farming Life. t2dly. The Pride of the Age in its Attendance and Retinue is so gross and universal, that where a man of 1000 l. a year formerly kept but four or Trunnel (aka tree-nail), wooden peg used in ship construction (OED). Sellers of inexpensive clothing. Queen Elizabeth chartered the Eastland Company in 1579, to encourage trade with the Baltic states. Charles II reconfirmed the charter in 1661. 12 On Penn’s relationship with slavery in Pennsylvania, see Murphy, William Penn: A Life, pp. 185–186. On the complex relationship between Quakers and slavery, see Jean Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit (Princeton University Press, 1985).  9 10 11

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Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania five Servants, he now keeps more than twice the number; He must have a Gentleman to wait upon him in his Chambers, a Coach-man, a Groom or two, a Butler, a Man-Cook, a Gardner, two or three Lacques,13 it may be an Huntsman, and a Faulkner [falconer], the Wife a Gentlewoman, and Maids accordingly: This was not known by our Ancestors of like Quality. This hinders the Plough and the Dairy, from whence they are taken, and instead of keeping People to Manly-labour, they are effeminated by a lazy and luxurious Living; But which is worse, these people rarely marry, tho’ many of them do worse; but if they do, ’tis when they are in Age; And the reason is clear, because their usual Keeping at their Masters is too great and costly for them with a Family at their own Charge, and they scarcely know how to live lower; so that too many of them chuse rather to vend their Lusts at an evil Ordinary than honestly Marry and Work: The excess and sloth of the Age not allowing of Marriage and the Charge that follows; all which hinders the increase of our People. If Men, they often turn either Souldiers, or Gamesters, or Highway-men. If Women, they too frequently dress themselves for a bad market, rather than know the Dairy again, or honestly return to Labour, whereby it happens that both the Stock of the Nation decays and the Issue is corrupted. 3dly. Of old time the Nobility and Gentry spent their Estates in the Country, and that kept the people in it; and their Servants married and sate at easie Rents under their Masters favour, which peopled the place: Now the Great men (too much loving the Town and resorting to London) draw many people thither to attend them, who either don’t marry; or if they do, they pine away their small gains in some petty Shop; for there are so many, they prey upon one another. 4thly. The Country being thus neglected, and no due Ballance kept between Trade and Husbandry, City and Country, the poor Country-man takes double Toil, and cannot (for want of hands) dress and manure his Land to the Advantage it formerly yielded him, yet must he pay the old Rents, which occasions Servants, and such Children as go not to Trades, to continue single, at least all their youthful time, which also obstructs the increase of our people. 5thly. The decay of some Country-manufactures (where no Provision is made to supply the people with a new way of living) causes the more Industrious to go abroad to seek their Bread in other Countries,

Footman or valet (OED, “lackey,” def. 1).

13

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Part III: Pennsylvania [4]

and gives the lazy an occasion to loiter and beg or do worse, by which means the Land swarms with Beggars: Formerly ’twas rare to find any asking Alms but the Maimed, or Blind, or very Aged; now thousands of both Sexes run up and down, both City and Country, that are sound and youthful, and able to work, with false Pretences and Certificates; nor is there any care taken to imploy or deter such Vagrants, which weakens the Country, as to People and Labour. To which let me add, that the great Debauchery in this Kingdom has not only rendred many unfruitful when married, but they live not out half their time, through Excesses, which might be prevented by a vigorous execution of our good Laws against corruption of manners. These and the like evils are the true grounds of the decay of our People in the Country, to say nothing of Plague and Wars: Towns and Cities cannot complain of the decay of People, being more replenish’d than ever, especially  London, which with reason helps the Country-man to this Objection. And though some do go to the Plantations, yet numbering the Parishes in England, and computing how many live more than die, and are born than buried, there goes not over to all the Plantations a fourth part of the yearly increase of the People. and when they are there, they are not (as I said before) lost to England, since they furnish them with much Cloaths, Houshold-stuff, Tools, and the like necessaries, and that in greater quantities than here their condition could have needed, or they could have bought, being there well to pass, that were but low here, if not poor; and now Masters of Families too, when here they had none, and could hardly keep themselves; and very often it happens that some of them, after their Industry and Success there have made them wealthy, they return and empty their Riches into England; one in this capacity being able to buy out twenty of what he was when he went over. Thus much to justifie the Credit and Benefit of Plantations; wherein I have not sought to speak my Interest, but my Judgment; and I dare venture the success of it with all sober and considering men. I shall now proceed to give some account of my own concern. 1st. I shall say what may be necessary of the Place or Province. 2dly. Touch upon the Constitutions. 3dly. Lay down the Conditions. 4thly. Give my sense what persons will be fit to go. 5thly.  What Utensils, Furniture and Commodities are fit to carry with them, with the charge of the voyage, and what is first to be done and expected there for some time. 

Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania And lastly, I shall give an Abstract of the Grant by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England, that an account may be given of the Estate and Power granted to me thereby. I. Something of the Place. The Place lies 600 miles nearer the Sun than England; for England begins at the 50th. Degree and ten minutes of North Latitude, and this Place begins at fourty, which is about the Latitude of Naples in Italy, or Mompellier in France.14 I shall say little in its praise, to excite desires in any, whatever I could truly write as to the Soil, Air and Water: This shall satisfie me, that by the Blessing of God, and the honesty and industry of Man, it may be a good and fruitful Land. For Navigation it is said to have two conveniencies; the one by lying Ninescore miles upon Delaware River; that is to say, about threescore and ten miles, before we come to the Falls,15 where a Vessel of Two hundred Tuns may Sail, (and some Creeks and small Harbours in that distance, where Ships may come nearer than the River into the Country) and above the Falls, for Sloops and Bo[a]ts, as I am informed, to the extent of the Patent. The other convenience is through Chespapeak-Bay? For Timber and other Wood there is variety for the use of man. For  Fowl, Fish, and Wild-Deer, they are reported to be plentiful in those Parts. Our English Provision is likewise now to be had there at reasonable Rates. The Commodities that the Country is thought to be capable of, are Silk, Flax, Hemp, Wine, [C]ider, Woad, Madder,16 Liquorish, Tobacco, Pot-ashes, and Iron, and it does actually produce Hides, Tallow, Pipe-staves, Beef, Pork, Sheep, Wool, Corn, as Wheat, Barly, Ry, and also Furs, as your Peltree,17 Mincks, Racoons, Martins, and such like; store of Furs which is to be found among the Indians, that are profitable Commodities in Europe. The way of trading in those Countries is thus: they send to the Southern Plantations Corn, Beef, Pork, Fish and Pipe-staves, and take their Growth and bring for England, and return with English Goods to their own Country. Their Furs they bring for England, and either sell them

Penn is correct about Naples, but not about Montpellier, which lies at 43 degrees north latitude. 15 Near present-day Trenton, New Jersey. 16 Woad and madder are plants used to make blue and red dye, respectively. 17 Archaic, plural of pelts (OED, defs. 1a, 1b). 14

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[5]

Part III: Pennsylvania here, or carry them out again to other parts of Europe, where they will yield a better price: And for those that will follow Merchandize and Navigation there is conveniency, and Timber sufficient for Shipping. II. The Constitutions. For the Constitution of the Country, the Patent shows, first, That the People and Governour have a Legislative Power, so that no Law can be made, nor Money raised, but by the Peoples consent. 2dly. That the Rights and Freedoms of England (the best and largest in Europe) shall be in force there. 3dly. That making no Law against Allegiance (which should we, ‘twere by the Law of England void of it self that moment) we may Enact what Laws we please for the good prosperity and security of the said Province. 4thly. That so soon as any are ingaged with me, we shall begin a Scheam or Draught together, such as shall give ample Testimony of my sincere Inclinations to encourage Planters, and settle a free, just and industrious Colony there. III. The Conditions.

[6]

My Conditions will relate to three sorts of people: 1st.  Those that will  buy: 2dly. Those that take up Land upon Rent: 3dly. Servants. To the first, the Shares I sell shall be certain as to number of Acres; that is to say, every one shall contain Five thousand Acres, free from any Indian incumbrance, the price a hundred pounds, and for the Quit-rent but one English shilling or the value of it yearly for a hundred Acres; and the said Quit-Rent not to begin to be paid till 1684. To the second sort, that take up Land upon Rent, they shall have liberty so to do paying yearly one pe[n]ny per Acre, not exceeding Two hundred Acres. To the third sort, to wit, Servants that are carried over, Fifty Acres shall be allowed to the Master for every Head, and Fifty Acres to every Servant when their time is expired. And because some engage with me that may not be disposed to go, it were very advisable for every three Adventurers to send an Overseer with their Servants, which would well pay the Cost. The  Divident18  may be thus; if the persons concern’d please, a Tract of Land shall be survey’d; say Fifty thousand Acres to a hundred Adventurers; in which some of the best shall be set out for Towns or Cities; and there shall be so much Ground allotted to each in those Towns as may maintain Division or distribution (OED, def. 4).

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Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania some Cattel and produce some Corn; then the remainder of the fifty thousand Acres shall be shar’d among the said Adventurers (casting up the Barren for Commons, and allowing for the same) whereby every Adventurer will have a considerable quantity of Land together; likewise every one a proportion by a Navigable River, and then backward into the Country. The manner of divident I shall not be strict in; we can but speak roughly of the matter here; but let men skilful in Plantations be consulted, and I shall leave it to the majority of votes among the Adventurers when it shall please God we come there, how to fix it to their own content. IV. These persons that providence seems to have most fitted for Plantations are, 1st.  Industrious  Husbandmen  and  Day-Labourers,  that are hardly able (with extreme Labour) to maintain their Families and portion their Children. 2dly.  Laborious  Handicrafts,  especially  Carpenters, Masons, Smiths, Weavers, Taylors, Tanners, Shoemakers, Shipwrights, &c. where they may be spared or are low in the World: And as they shall want no encouragement, so their Labour is worth more there than here, and there provision cheaper. 3dly. A Plantation seems a fit place for those Ingenious Spirits that being low in the World, are much clogg’d and oppress’d about a Livelyhood, for the means of subsisting being easie there, they may have time and opportunity to gratify their inclinations, and thereby improve Science and help Nurseries of people. 4thly. A fourth sort of men to whom a Plantation would be proper, takes in those that are younger Brothers of small Inheritances; yet because they would live in sight of their Kindred in some proportion to their Quality, and can’t do it without a labour that looks like Farming, their condition is too strait for them; and if married, their Children are often too numerous for the Estate, and are frequently bred up to no Trades, but are a kind of Hangers on or Retainers to the elder Brothers Table and Charity: which is a mischief, as in it self to be lamented, so here to be remedied; For Land they have for next to nothing, which with moderate Labour produces plenty of all things necessary for Life, and such an increase as by Traffique may supply them with all conveniencies. Lastly,  There are another sort of persons, not only fit for, but necessary in Plantations, and that is,  Men of universal Spirits,  that have an eye to the Good of Posterity, and that both understand and delight to promote good Discipline and just Government among a plain and well intending peo-

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Part III: Pennsylvania ple; such persons may find Room in Colonies for their good Counsel and Contrivance, who are shut out from being of much use or service to great [7] ­Nations under settl’d Customs: These men deserve much esteem, and would be hearken’d to. Doubtless ’twas this (as I observ’d before) that put some of the famous Greeks and Romans upon Transplanting and Regulating Colonies of People in divers parts of the World; whose Names, for giving so great proof of their Wisdom, Virtue, Labour and Constancy, are with Justice honourably delivered down by story to the praise of our own times; though the World, after all its higher pretences of Religion, barbarously errs from their excellent Example. V. The Journey and it’s Appurtenances, and what is to be done there at first coming. Next let us see, What is fit for the Journey and Place, when there, and also what may be the Charge of the Voyage, and what is to be expected and done there at first. That such as incline to go, may not be to seek here, or brought under any disappointments there. The Goods fit to take with them for use, or sell for profit, are all sorts of Apparel and Utensils for Husbandry and Building and Houshold Stuff. And because I know how much People are apt to fancy things beyond what they are, and that Immaginations are great flatterers of the minds of Men; To the end that none may delude themselves, with an expectation of an Immediate Amendment of their conditions, so soon as it shall please God they Arrive there; I would have them understand, That they must look for a Winter before a Summer comes; and they must be willing to be two or three years without some of the conveniences they enjoy at home; And yet I must needs say that America is another thing then it was at the first Plantation of Virginia and New-England:19 For there is better Accommodation, and English Provisions are to be had at easier rates: However, I am inclin’d to set down particulars, as near as those inform me, that know the Place, and have been Planters both in that and in the Neighbouring Colonys. 1st. The passage will come for Masters and Mistresses at most to 6 Pounds a Head, for Servants Five Pounds a Head, and for Children under Seven years of Age Fifty Shillings, except they Suck, then nothing. Next being by the mercy of God, safely Arrived in September or October, two Men may clear as much Ground by Spring (when they set the Corn of that Country) as will bring in that time twelve month Forty Barrels, which The settlement of Virginia dated to the first decade of the seventeenth century; New England, to 1620 (Plymouth) and 1630 (Massachusetts Bay). Arrivals in Pennsylvania would thus reap the benefit of decades of English settlement in North America.

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Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania amounts to two Hundred Bushels, which makes Twenty Five quarters of Corn. So that the first year they must buy Corn, which is usually very plentiful. They may so soon as they come, buy Cows, more or less, as they want, or are able, which are to be had at easy rates. For Swine, they are plentiful and cheap; these will quickly Increase to a Stock. So that after the first year, what with the Poorer sort, sometimes labouring to others, and the more able Fishing, Fowling, and sometime Buying; They may do very well, till their own Stocks are sufficient to supply them, and their Families, which will quickly be and to spare, if they follow the English Husbandry, as they do in NewEngland, and New-York; and get Winter Fodder for their Stock. [8]

 VI. and Lastly, An Abstract of the PATENT GRANTED BY THE KING To William Penn, &c. The Fourth of March, 1680/1. I. WE do Give and Grant (upon divers considerations) to William Penn his Heirs and Assigns for ever all that Tract of Land in America with all Islands thereunto belonging That is to say from the beginning of the fortieth degree of  North Latitude unto the forty third Degree of  North Latitude whose Eastern bounds from twelve English Miles above Newcastle (alias Delaware Town) runs all along upon the side of Delaware River. II. Free and undisturb’d use and passage into and out of all Harbours Bays Waters Rivers Isles and Inlets belonging to or leading to the same Together with the Soyl Fields Woods Underwoods Mountains Hills Fenns Isles Lakes Rivers Waters Rivulets Bays and Inlets Scituate in or belonging unto the Limits and Bounds aforesaid Together with all sorts of Fish Mines Mettles, &c. To have and to hold to the only behoof of the said William Penn his Heirs and Assigns for ever To be holden of us as of our Castle of  Windsor20 in free and common soccage paying only two Beaver Skins yearly. III.  And of our further Grace we have thought it fit to erect and we do hereby erect the aforesaid Countrey and Islands into a Province and Seigniory and do call it Pennsilvania and so from henceforth we will have it call’d. IV.  That reposing special confidence in the wisdom and justice of the said William Penn we do grant to him and his Heirs and their Deputies for the good and happy Government thereof to ordain and enact and under his and their Seals to publish any Laws whatever for the publick uses of the said On the significance of the “Castle of Windsor,” as opposed to the Maryland charter, which granted the Calvert family privileges of the “palatinate of Durham,” see Vicki Hsueh, Hybrid Constitutions: Challenging Legacies of Law, Privilege, and Culture in Colonial America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 30–31, 87–88.

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Part III: Pennsylvania Province by and with the Advice and Approbation of the Freeholders of the said Countrey or their delegates so as they be not repugnant to the Law of this Realm and to the Faith and Allegiance due unto us by the legal Government thereof. V. Full power to the said William Penn, &c. to appoint Judges L[ie]utenants Justices Magistrates and Officers for what causes soever and with what Power and in such Form as to him seems convenient Also to be able to Pardon and Abolish Crimes and Offences and to do all and every other thing that to the compleat Establishment of Justice unto Courts and Tribunals forms of Judicature and manner of proceedings do belong And our pleasure is and so we [9] enjoyn and require that such Laws and Proceedings shall be most absolute and available in Law and that all the Leige People of us our Heirs and Successors inviolably keep the same in those parts saving to us final appeals. VI.  That the Laws for regulating Property as well for the d[e]scent of Lands as enjoyment of Goods and Chattels and likewise as to Felonies shall be the same there as here in England until they shall be altered by the said William Penn his Heirs or Assigns and by the Free-men of the said Province or their Delegates or Deputies or the greater part of them. VII.  Furthermore that this new Colony may the more happily encrease by the multitude of People resorting thither therefore we for us our Heirs and Successors do hereby grant License to all the leige People present and future of us, &c. (excepting such as shall be specially forbidden) to Transport themselves and Families into the said Countrey there to Inhabit and Plant for the publick and their private Good. VIII. Liberty to Transport what Goods or Commodities are not forbidden paying here the legal Customs due to us, &c. IX. Power to divide the Countrey into Counties Hundreds and Towns to Incorporate Towns into Burroughs and Burroughs into Cities to make Fairs and Markets with convenient Priviledges according to the merit of the Inhabitants or the fitness of the place And to do all other thing or things touching the premises which to the said William Penn his Heirs or Assigns shall seem meet and requisite albeit they be such as of their own nature might otherwise require a more special commandment and warrant then in these presents is express’d. X.  Liberty to Import the Growth or Manufactures of that Province into England paying here the legal duty. XI. Power to erect Ports Harbours Creeks Havens Keys and other places for Merchandizes with such Jurisdictions and Priviledges as to the said William Penn, &c. shall seem expedient. 

Selection 9: Some Account of Pennsilvania XII. Not to break the Acts of Navigation neither Governour nor Inhabitants upon the penaltys contained in the said Acts. XIII.  Not to be in League with any Prince or Countrey that is in War against us our Heirs and Successors. XIV.  Power of safety and defence in such way and manner as to the said William Penn, &c. seems meet. XV. Full power to Assign Alien Grant Demise or Enfeoff 21 of the premises so many and such parts and parcels to those that are willing to purchase the same as the said William Penn thinks fit to have and to hold to them the said Persons their Heirs or Successors in fee Simple or fee Tail22 or for term of Life or Lives or years to be held of the said William Penn, &c. as of the said Seigniory of Windsor by such services Customs and Rents as shall seem fit to the said William Penn his Heirs and Assigns and not immediately of us our Heirs or Successors and that the said Persons may take the premisses or any Parcel thereof of the said William Penn, &c. and the same hold to themselves their Heirs and Assigns the Statute Quia emptores Terrarum23 in any wise notwithstanding. XVI.  We give and grant License to any of those Persons to whom the said William Penn, &c. has granted any Estate of Inheritance as aforesaid with the consent of the said William Penn to erect any parcel of Lands within the said Province into Mannors to hold Courts Barron and view of Franckepledge,24 &c. by Themselves or Stewards. XVII. Power to those Persons to Grant to others the same Tenures in fee Simple or otherwise to be held of the said Mannors respectively and upon all further Alienations the Land to be held of the Mannor that it held of before the Alienation. XVIII.  We do covenant and Grant to and with the said William Penn his Heirs and Assigns that we will not set or make any Custom or other Taxation upon the Inhabitants of the said Province upon Lands Houses Goods Chattels or Merchandizes except with the consent of the Inhabitants and Governour. XIX. A charge that no Officers nor Ministers of us our Heirs and Successors do presume at any time to attempt any thing to the contrary of the prem Demise: to transfer or grant (OED, def. 1); enfeoff: to put an individual in possession of lands (OED, def. 1). Fee-simple: absolute possession by owner and heirs in perpetuity; fee-tail: inheritance limited to a designated person or persons. 23 Quia Emptores Terrarum, 18 Edward I c. 1 (1290), governed the conditions under which land could be alienated in England. 24 A medieval form of collective responsibility held by the members of a designated group. 21

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Part III: Pennsylvania isses or in any sort withstand the same but that they be at all times aiding to the said William Penn and his Heirs and to the Inhabitants and Merchants their Factors and Assigns in the full use and benefit of this our Charter. XX. And if any doubts or questions shall hereafter arise about the true sense or meaning of any Word Clause or Sentence contained in this our Charter We will ordain and command that at all times and in all things such Interpretation be made thereof and allowed in any of our Courts whatsoever as shall be adjudged most advantageous and favourable unto the said William Penn his Heirs and Assigns so as it be not against the Faith and Allegiance due to us our Heirs and Successors. In witness whereof we have caused our Letters to be made Patents.  Witness our self at Westminster, &c. To conclude, I desire all my dear Country-Folks, who may be inclin’d to go into those Parts, to consider seriously the premises, as well the present inconveniences, as future ease and Plenty, that so none may move rashly or from a fickle but solid mind, having above all things, an Eye to the providence of God, in the disposal of themselves. And I would further advise all such at least, to have the permission, if not the good liking of their near Relations, for that is both Natural, and a Duty Incumbent upon all; and by this means will natural affection be preserved, and a friendly and profitable correspondence be maintained between them. In all which I beseech Almighty God to direct us, that his blessing may attend our honest endeavour, and then the Consequence of all our undertaking will turn to the Glory of his great Name, and the true happiness of us and our Posterity. Amen. WILLIAM PENN.  POSTSCRIPT. Whoever are desirous to be concern’d with Me in this Province, they may be treated with and further Satisfied, at Philip Fords in Bow-lane in Cheapside, and at Thomas Rudyards or Benjamin Clarks in George Yard in Lumbard-street.25 THE END.

Ford was Penn’s longtime agent and bookkeeper; later conflict with Ford’s widow, Bridget, would lead to Penn’s confinement for debt in 1708. Rudyard, a lawyer, worked closely with Penn throughout the 1670s and may have had a hand in the authorship of Peoples (Selection 1), though the relationship later soured. Clark was the printer of Some Account.

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10. The Fundamentall Constitutions of ­ ennsilvania as they were drawn up Settled P and Signed by William Penn Proprietary and Governour, and Consented to and Subscribe[d] by all the first Adventurers and Free holders of that Province, as the ground and Rule of all future Government.26 The Preamble or Introduction When it pleased Almighty God, the Creator and upholder of all things, to make man his great Governour of the World, he did not only endue him with excellent knowledge but an upright mind, so that his power over the Creation was balanced by an inward uprightness, that he might use it Justly: then was the Law of light and truth writ in his heart, and that was the Guide and keeper of his Innocency; there was not need of any External precepts to direct or terrify him; but when he leant his ear to another voice, and followed his lust, and did the thing he was forbidden of

As mentioned in the introduction to this part, no evidence exists that Penn ever submitted the Fundamentall Constitutions for anyone’s approval. I have silently corrected Penn’s rendering of “goverment” as “government,” “lieftenant” as “lieutenant,” and “Councell” as “Council” throughout. Perhaps due to its unpublished status, the spelling in this document is even more erratic than normal. I have silently corrected many such instances throughout, while leaving the title and underlining intact. For orthography that exactly matches the source, see the version published in PWP II: 140–156.

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Part III: Pennsylvania God,27 the law was added, that is, the external law came to awe and terrify such as would not do the thing that was just according to the righteous law within themselves; thus transgression introduced and occasioned the outward law, and that, Government, and both Magistracy, that those that would not answer the righteous law within, might be compelled by an Impartial Execution of the righteous law without: wherefore the Apostle made it the end of Magistracy, to be a terror to evill doers, and a praise to them that do well.28 Good Government then, is a Constitution of Just laws, wisely Set together for the well ordering of men in Society, to prevent all Corruption or Justly to Correct it, wherein it is most evident That the Governours and Governed have but one interest by the Constitution; to wit preserving of right to all; and punishing corruption in all; which is the end of Government, and Consequently of Governours. So that if any Governours Shall set up another Interest to themselves then that which tends to preserving right to all and punishing evil in all; they Contradict the Constitution, and instead of serving Government, makes Government only serve to their avarice or Ambition. This is that Corruption in man kind which Government is by Consent of all established to Prevent. If then Government it self be Subservient to an higher end, to wit the general good, much more is it reasonable to believe that all Instruments and Forms of Government are to be Subjected to that end, to which government it self is but a means. This duly weighed leads me to Consider, what is that manner or frame of Government that shall preserve Magistracy in reverence with the People and best keep it from being hurtful to them. This is a matter of great weight, but once to be well done, and that is by the Founders of Governments. An error here, is a Successive mischief to the Governed in every age; and what troubles have followed in Ancient and present governments from this unskillfulness are rather to be lamented and avoided then in the least doubted. I know not any greater helps from example in a business of this Moment, then an exact Consideration of the G ­ overnment God

Genesis 3. Although Romans 13 was the most widely cited Scriptural text about obedience to government, and “the Apostle” generally referred to Paul, the “terror to evildoers” language is from 1 Peter 2:14; see also Proverbs 21:15.

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions establisht among the Jews [or] what his Providence and the wisdom of our Ancestors have settled among us English, yet I shall not refuse the Assistance that may be yielded from the wisdom of other Governments, whether Ancient [or modern]29 Since the main thing in hand; is to lay such a foundation as may be most agreeable with right reason and conducing to the end of government. to wit, the virtue peace and Prosperity of the People, to which all forms and Customs ought to yield; For it were a most Condemnable Superstition, to perpetuate any thing for being Ancient or domestick that were not otherwise useful to this great end much less should follow those Copies if time has proved them hurtful instead of being beneficial to Societies. Upon the whole matter this draught of Constitutions I do for me and mine, in Honour to God and love to man-kind give fix and Confirm So far Forth as I by my Authorities granted to me in the Kings Letters and Patents am enabled to do. I Constitution Considering that it is impossible that any People or Government should ever prosper, where men render not unto God, that which is Gods, as well as to Caesar, that which is Caesars;30 and also perceiving the disorders and Mischiefs that attend those places where force in matters of faith and worship, and seriously reflecting upon the tenure of the new and Spiritual Government, and that both Christ did not use force and that he did expressly forbid it in his holy Religion, as also that the Testimony of his blessed Messengers was, that the weapons of the Christian warfare were not Carnal but Spiritual;31 And further weighing that this unpeopled Country can never be planted if there be not due encouragement given to Sober people of all sorts to plant, & that they will not esteem any thing a sufficient encouragement where they are not assured but that after all the Hazards of the Sea, and the troubles Of a Wilderness, the Labour of their hands and Sweat of their brows may be made the forfeit of their Conscience, and they and their wives and Children ruined because they worship god in some different way from that which may be more

The original is torn.   30  Matthew 22:21; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25. Matthew 5:21–25, 26:51–54; Luke 9:54–56; John 18:10–11, 36; 2 Corinthians 10:4.

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Part III: Pennsylvania generally owned: Therefore, In reverence to God the Father of lights and Spirits the Author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, I do hereby declare for me and mine and establish it for the first fundamental of the Government of my Country, that every Person that does or shall reside therein shall have and enjoy the Free Possession of his or her faith and exercise of worship towards God, in such way and manner As every Person shall in Conscience believe is most acceptable to God and so long as every such Person useth not this Christian liberty to Licentiousness, that is to say to speak loosely and prophanely of God Christ or Religion, or to Commit any evil in their Conversation, he or she shall be protected in the enjoyment of the aforesaid Christian liberty by the civil Magistrate.32 II Constitution Because Corruption of manners and remissness of Magistrates to punish Evil doers, by which means virtue often falls in the Streets, have ever provoked Gods heavy Displeasure against both Governours and People and that I cannot hope it should prosper better with me and mine and the People that do or shall Inhabit this Country if an effectual Care be not taken to prevent or appease the wrath of God by an impartial Execution of Justice upon every evil doer according to the law provided in such Cases; Therefore [I] for me and mine declare and Establish For the Second Fundamental of the Government of this Country, that all those laws which relate to prevention or Correction of vice and injustice be impartially and vigorously executed, and that those Magistrates that do not in their respective Charges vigilantly and impartially execute all such laws to the terror of evil doers, and praise of those that do well; shall be reputed and Marked as breakers of the Fundamental Constitutions of the Country, and therein as well publique enemies to God, as the people, and never to bear office till they have given good Testimony of their repentance. III Constitution And since it hath been the Judgment of the wisest men and practice of the most famous Governments in all ages, as well as that it is most Natural, reasonable and prudent in it self, that the People of any Country should be consenting to the laws they are to be Governed by, therefore I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the 3d Funda In margin: “very good.”

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions mental Constitution of this Province, that there shall be held once every year, that is to say on the first day of the first month called March, An Assembly shall be duly Chosen by the Freeholders of this Country to serve as their Deputies to Consult debate and resolve and in their names to Consent to the enacting or abolishing of laws, and whatever is the Priviledge of an English house of Commons, and lest this excellent and necessary Constitution should be any ways abused or obstructed It is hereby declared that the aforesaid Freeholders shall of themselves meet on the first Day of every twelfth month called February, in their Respective places, and there Choose their Deputies to serve for them as aforesaid, without any writs or mandates to be issued forth by the governour or his Deputy, or any else in Authority what ever for that purpose, and being So Chosen and Assembled, they shall not set less then two months, unless it be their own Choice or desire but longer if Publique business require it And this shall be Called the Assembly of the Province of which not less than two thirds of the whole shall make a Quorum. IV Constitution But because this Assembly cannot be so large at first as hereafter, when the place is peopled, and yet some Care must be taken both to have one now and to limit it, that the number do not exceed what may be convenient and proportionable to the Province I do hereby for me and mine declare and establish for the fourth Fundamental of the Government of this Country that the Country shall be cast into 24 Counties each County into 4 Hundreds and each hundred into two Tribes, and each Tribe shall choose two of their own Tribe in best repute with them for virtue wisdom and Integrity, to serve in Assembly for the Peace and the Prosperity of the Province which Comes to 384 Persons for the whole Country.33 And till such time as the said Counties are Peopled let the Number be Chosen equally out of the County or Counties that are in any respect planted and able to Send them. V Constitution To the end that it may not be in the Power of any member or Deputy in the Assembly to betray [his trust] I do hereby for me and mine, declare & Counties, hundreds, and tribes appear in Harrington’s Oceana (London, 1656).

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Part III: Pennsylvania Establish it for the fifth Fundamental Constitution of the Government of this Province, that every such Deputy shall bring his Instructions signed under the hands of the Electors, and his own hand as accepting of them; And that a Copy be kept thereof and registered in every respective Tribe, and if it shall So happen that he shall act Contrary to the same, that then he never more presume to Stand unless the People, Sensible of his Repentance, shall forgive and Chuse him.34 VI Constitution And that all those mischiefs may be avoided which attend hasty resolutions, I do for me and mine hereby declare and Establish this for the Sixth Fundamental Constitution in the Government of this Province, that during the time of any Assembly, no law shall be made or abrogated, or Money raised by the Deputies of the Tribes without first Consulting the mind of their Principals or Tribes, that Depute them, that they may always remember they are but Deputies and men intrusted to the Good of others and responsible for that trust. VII Constitution For the better Completing of the frame of this Government, and to the end that the Assembly and Governour may have all possible help in the knowledge and dispatch of affairs, I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the 7th Fundamental of the Government of this Province, that there shall be a Council of 48 Persons, thus Chosen, Continued and altered, that is to say, the Assembly shall Choose out of the members serving for each County two Persons of best repute for their understanding and faith and fullness, there being 24 Counties the Council will [consist]35 of 48 Persons: the Places of these Persons so Chosen, to be filled up by a new election of such of the Tribes as they related to: This Council is to Continue entire for one year then a third part, that is to say 16, to go out, 4 of each Committee as expressed here after and so many by the next Assembly to be Chosen in their Stead, so that in 3 years the Council is new. They go out by lot, this Council is to sit with the Governour Apart from the Assembly. Their share in the Government is this, first to receive The notion of constituents instructing their legislators appears in Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (sec. 44) as well as the West Jersey Concessions of 1677, of which Penn was a signatory. 35 Text reads “consult,” but “consist” seems intended. 34

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions all proposals from the Assembly, be they to make or abrogate laws or what they shall Concern, and to Consult of what may be most beneficial to the Publique in all respects; and after they have fully Considered the matter before them to propose their Deliberations, by the way of Conferences, to the Assembly, and if upon due Consideration they are by them agreed to, then and not otherwise, to be engrossed and presented to the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy for his Confirmation in order to a law, and the yearly Meeting of Governour Council and Assembly shall be called the General Assembly of the Province. The Council is to Continue in the Intervals of the Assembly, to advise & Assist the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy in the business of the Government. The Council shall be divided into Several Committees, or Commissions, And each of them shall have a proportion assigned by the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy in the Government, that is to say, to divide the whole into 4 Committees which makes 12 in each Committee. The first Committee is to Supervise the Justice of the Province: as to Judges, Courts, Justices, Inferior officers of Justice, Registers &c: in the discharge of their Duty; and these Shall be Called the Commissioners of Justice; The Second Committee shall have the Charge of trade, & shall be Called the Commissioners of Trade; which will take in all foreign Correspondences, Merchandises, Manufactories, the advancement of the Country growth, provision against begging, by the employment of the Poor, and Prevention of Corruption and fraud in Dealing. The third Committee is to Inspect and manage the Publique Treasury of the Country on all occasions; and to be accountable to the General ­Assembly of all moneys intrusted with them, that the People may be satisfied in the Employment of their Contributions to the Publique; and this Committee shall be called the Commissioners of the Treasury. The 4th and last Committee will be the Commissioners of Education, who shall inspect the breeding of Youth as to Schools, Masters, Books and the way and Method of Cultivating and improving of Science truly So called which may be useful and laudable, among good men that so youth may be grounded, in the way of virtue and wisdom, and the ­Successive generations secured against declension and Corruption of manners, which draws after it slavery and beggary, and which is worse the wrath of God too. but because it may in divers respects So fall out, that the whole Council may not be able to yield a Constant attendance; therefore in the Interval of the General Assembly, any twelve of them 

Part III: Pennsylvania Consisting of 3 of each Committee or Commission shall be Sufficient to dispatch any business, belonging to the whole, except some extraordinary business happens, and in all such Cases; that the rest upon the Governours Summons or his Lieutenants or Deputys, shall forth with repair to give their attendance for the Service of the Publique. VIII Constitution And because the end of Governours is the good of Government and the end of the Government the good of the Governed & that the Governours right and share in the Government & Propriety of the Province is not in danger [if] he does not in Wisdom think fit to leave himself and the Jealousies of the People when he may Safely to himself and his Heirs remove or Prevent them, therefore I do for me and mine &c Establish for the 8th Fundamental of the government of this Province, that all Bills agreed upon by the Council and Assembly that do not Infringe the Right of the Governour and his Heirs and Assigns either as to his share in the Government or in the Propriety of the Province which are hereby all along intended to be acknowledged and Confirmed, and are Hereby acknowledged and Confirmed, shall in fourteen days after their Presentment to the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy for his Assent not by him Assented stand good and available in Law, as if Assented unto by the Governour, or his Lieutenant or Deputy. IX Constitution That the People of this Province may love and obey the Government of it from the share they have in it; I do for me and mine declare and establish for the 9th Fundamental in the Government thereof, that all Towns and Cities where Magistrates of any degree, are thought necessary, whether they be Mayors, Bailiffs, Provosts, Sheriffs, Constables, &c: or by any other name Styled, they Shall be Chosen by the Inhabitants thereof; that are house keepers, that receive no alms to their Maintenance; and in all Counties, the free men of every Tribe; Shall present to the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy two for Justices of the Peace, and the County at their County Court, two for Sheriffs; and if the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy shall not within 20 Days after the said Presentation, choose one of the two for Sheriff for that County, and the one of the two for a Justice of Peace for that Tribe that then the first set down for the County for Sheriff and by the Tribe for Justice shall stand and serve for 

Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions the ensuing year as legally as if he were elected by the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy. X Constitution To Prevent that Corruption which men not guided by a just Principle are Subject to for fear or favour, and that much of the mischief which attends the Decision of Controversies by voices in great Assemblies, I do for me and mine, hereby declare and establish, for the 10th fundamental of the Government of this Province, that at the election of Deputies to serve in Assembly, and in the Assembly it self upon all questions, the decision shall be by balloting as in Venice;36 only in the Council it Shall be by Subscription,37 which the numbers of the other two will not permit without great delay to business. XI Constitution And because great Inconveniences do oftener arise from hasty than deliberate Councels, I do for me and mine declare and establish it for the eleventh Fundamental of the Government of this Province, that unless it be in a Case of such Immanent and Immediate danger, as will not give a day to Consider, no business of state in Assembly or Council shall be resolved the day it is Proposed, to the end, time may be given to learn all that may be known or said about the matter in hand, in order to a Clear and Safe Determination. XII Constitution That this government may appear equal in it Self, and agreeable to the wisdom God gave unto Moses, and the Practice of our best Ancestors; and that we may avoid heart burnings in families, and the foundation of much misery and beggary or worse I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the 12th fundamental of the Government of this Province, that what Estate every person dying has in it, though he or She die else where, having Children, shall be equally Shared, after such Persons The Venetian balloting system, designed to make corruption impossible, consisted of a series of votes involving drawn lots and colored balls. For a description, see Jay S. Coggins and C. Federico Perali, “64% Majority Rule in Ducal Venice: Voting for the Doge,” Public Choice 97 (1998): 709–723. It also forms part of Harrington’s scheme in Oceana. 37 That is, by voice vote and not by secret ballot. 36

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Part III: Pennsylvania decease, among the Children of the said Person, Saving only that the eldest if the first born shall have (according to the Law of God by Moses given to the Jews)38 a double portion for his Inheritance and not otherwise. XIII Constitution And that Law Suits and animosities among People may be prevented, which have so lamentably Consumed the Estates of many families in Divers Nations, as well as sown and fixed perpetual hatred between neighbours and near kindred, I do for me and mine declare and establish for the 13th Fundamental of the Government of this Province, that there shall be a Register of all deeds Mortgages, Settlements, Conveniencys,39 Trusts, Sales, bonds, bills, Receipts &c: that from time to time shall be transacted in this Province, both in the Capital Town of every County, and also in the Chief City of the Province so that all may be Secured from those frauds and abuses which the want of it has brought to other Countries and those perplexing and expensive suits that follow thereupon. XIV Constitution It is so sad a thing to behold the Jails of Nations filled with Prisoners for Debts that they can never Pay, and so their Confinement can only be the effect of an unprofitable revenge, that I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish it A Fundamental in the Government of this Province, that no man Shall be imprisoned for any debt that is not above the Sum of ten Pounds, nor yet for any debt at all if he will Subscribe such a declaration to be recorded, as Shall be presented to him that he is not worth ten pounds in the world, and he can get two Sufficient Creditable Persons to sign a declaration that they believe he is not worth ten pounds in the world; but if it Should afterwards appear that such a Person was then worth more than ten pounds and Purposely concealed it, that then the said estate so concealed shall go to the Satisfaction of his Creditors, and he become their bonds men, during their Pleasure, to work only to their Behoof.40 XV Constitution Since the due Proportion of Rewards and Punishments is the wisdom and Justice of Government and that the example be of Gods law as well as Deuteronomy 21:15–17.  39  Agreement or covenant (OED, “convenience,” def. 2). Use, benefit (OED, def. 1).

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions the reason of the thing, guides all men to believe that to Shed mans blood and take away his life for Worldly goods, is a very hard thing; especially considering the tenderness of the holy merciful Christian Law, and Considering the little reformation this severity brings, and that it tempts the thief to be a murderer, when the Punishment is the same, to kill whom he robs that so he may not discover or Prosecute him that Robbs him, which instead of making thieves afraid may Constrain them to destroy good men therefore I do for me and mine hereby Declare and establish for the 15th Fundamental of the Government of this Province, that no Person Committing Felony within the limits thereof shall die for the same, but for the first offence if a Single man and able he shall make Satisfaction; for the Second offense he shall if able make double Satisfaction; if not be kept in a work house till he have wrought out such a Satisfaction and for the 3rd offence He shall if able pay a 3 fold Satisfaction, if not able, be a Perpetual bondsman if married and has Children, then, unless the thing Stolen be found upon him or amongst his goods, he shall not be putt to make Satisfaction to the Prejudice of his Children that were Innocent of the fact, and which would only serve to increase the Poor and so the Publique Charge, but that he shall for the first offence work out a Satisfaction, for the Second offence a double Satisfaction and for the 3rd offence he shall be a perpetual bonds man to the behoof of those he has wronged whether by work or sale, which is more terrible to Idle and highminded Persons, then Death it self and therefore better to Prevent the evil. XVI [Constitution] That Justice may be Speedily as well as Impartially done and that to prevent tedious and expensive Pilgrimages to obtain it I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the Sixteenth Fundamental in the Government of this Province that monthly Sessions shall be held in every County in which all sorts of Causes belonging to that County shall be heard and finally determined, whether relating to civil or criminal acts, and the Parties obliged to Submit to that determination upon bonds before hand to be taken on that account to prevent the renewal of suits out of a litigious mind and that every Person may freely Plead his own cause or bring his Friend to do it for him and the Judges are hereby obliged to Inform him or her what they can to his or her assistance in the matter before them, that none be prejudiced through Ignorance in their own business which Judges shall be of the same County but last not longer then one year in office. 

Part III: Pennsylvania XVII Constitution And that we may in what ever we can, resemble the Ancient Constitution of England, I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the Seventeenth fundamental of the Government of this Province, that all trials and Determinations Of Causes and concerning life Liberty good name or estate, shall by the verdict and judgement of twelve of the neighbourhood to the Party or Parties Concerned, and near as may be of the same degree, that they may be equals, lest being Poorer they be awed with fear or drawn by rewards to a Corrupt Judgement, or by being richer and greater, be careless of their Verdict upon an Inferior Person, whose low Condition are not or is not able to call them to Question: And these twelve men shall sit with the Judges six on a side, or on a bench on purpose at an other Side of the Court, but that no verdict be given without their withdrawing, to Consult the matter no Person to be Admitted to them nor any note or letter to be delivered to any of them from the time they with-draw till they Return to the Bench & then Publiquely delivered the Charge given the 12 men or verdictors by the Judges to be audibly in open Court, before the Party Concerned, the Judges and the 12 men to speak only to one an other what the Court and Party Concerned shall hear the verdict being given, the Judges in a grave and Sober manner to pronounce Sentence accordingly. XVIII Constitution To avoid All delays or Denials of Justice and all briberies to Injustice in officers of Justice or Persons Chosen to serve in Assembly or Council I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the eighteenth fundamental of the Government of this Province: that all such officers of Justice as Delay or Deny Justice being Convict thereof, shall pay or make good the wrong or Prejudice the Party aggrieved seeks redress from and Satisfaction for such delay or Denial beside or if they or those that Serve in Assembly shall at any time in any Case take any Bribe or Secret reward from any Person to favour him or her, or his or her Cause or business being proved by Sufficient witnesses that every such Person shall be Immediately discharged from all employment for ever, and pay to the publique Treasury threefold.41 In margin: “Very good.”

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions XIX Constitution Because all may be be useful and beneficial in evidence to the Publique after the example of those Countries that Comply with the tenderness of their Consciences that cant take any Oath, and yet are often the only Persons to prove either theft murder, Titles of land wills &c: and having reflected on the reverent [blank space] is of many Courts in Swearing, and that Shutting out Oaths there would be the best way to Shut all loose and vain Swearing, out of the Country, I do for me and mine hereby declare and Establish for the nineteenth Fundamental of the Government of this Province that all evidence shall be by Subscription upon record after this form: I A B do from the very bottom of my heart hereby engage and Promise in the Presence of God and the Court to declare the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in the matter I am to be inquired upon witness my hand this __ of __ in the year __ A:B.

And if it shall afterwards appear that any Person hath declared and subscribed that which is false, That then he Sustain the same injury he by false evidence brings to the Person or estate of any Person wronged thereby and be exposed in the tribe where he lives as a false man, never to be received in any evidence any more, much less employed in any office in the Province. XX Constitution And for as much as Divers Inconveniencies may arise by undue Imprisonments of Persons upon mere Surmises and that in Several [respects]42 to prevent which a law of Habeas Corpus was lately made in the Kingdom of England to secure the People from any such Disadvantages,43 I do for me and mine hereby declare and establish for the 20 Fundamental of the Government of this Province that no man shall be Imprisoned for any Case but on good evidence and that the same law of Habeas Corpus shall be in full force in this Province and that all Persons imprisoned whether Innocent or Guilty shall not be obliged to pay any fees to the keeper of the Prison, but the said keeper be maintained at the Charge as an officer belonging to state. Inspects. Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II c. 2 (1679).

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Part III: Pennsylvania XXI [Constitution] And as government can not well Subsist and prosper where virtue and Industry are not carefully Promoted, and that it is impossible to do if the lets to both are not [prevented]44 or removed, I do therefore for me and mine hereby declare and establish for 21 fundamental of the Government of this Province that there shall be no Taverns, nor alehouses, endured in the same, nor any Playhouses, nor morris dances, nor Games as Dice, Cards, Board Tables, Lotteries, Bowling greens, Horse races, Bear baitings, Bull batings, and such like Sports, which only tend to Idleness and looseness, and that all those that go about to erect or use any of these things, be fined to the government and put into the next Common work house and kept by the space of 6 months to hard daily Labour as if he were some petty Felon. XXII Constitution And to the end that none may be destitute of Subsistence in Case of any Calamities or Afflictions that may fall upon their Parents or them in their estates, from which no sort or degree of men are free, and that all may labour as well as eat and be useful and not as [blank space] prevent the many inconveniencies that follow Idleness, I do for me and mine hereby Declare and establish as the two and twentieth fundamental of the government of this Province, that every Child that is of the Age of 12 years shall be taught some trade or Skill by which to exercise their minds and bodies in honest immediation45 and labour, and that of all degrees and qualities without respect to Persons as well females as males, this will give the Country and People wealth & reputation and keep out Idleness the Mother of many Mischiefs. XXIII [Constitution] And to the end what ever relates to the Property, liberty, Trials by twelve equals of the neighbourhood equal & Proportionable fines and Amercements for faults Committed not delaying, denying or selling of Justice, Contained in the Great English Charter with the like Civil Privileges, and all those acts of Parliament Confirmatory of the Same more especially that Called the Petition of right in the [3rd]46 year of Charles the presented. Immediate or direct action (OED). 46 Text reads “17th” here and below. The Petition of Right is 3 Charles I c. 1. 44 45

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Selection 10: The Fundamentall Constitutions first. I do hereby declare and establish, for 23d Fundamental of the Government of this Province, that all the said Privileges of the great Charter before expressed, and the laws Confirmatory of the same, especially that Called the Petition of Right in the [3rd] year of Charles the first, be and remain in full force as an effectual part of the Government of this Province. XXIIII Constitution And because it may so fall out that the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy, may by the evil insinuations and pernicious Councels of some in power or esteem, with him of or from his mistaking the true extent of his Authority, or possibly by the Instigations of his own Ambition command or require the officers or Magistrates in this Province or any of them to do a thing that is Contrary to these Fundamentals or any law that may be hereafter made for the well ordering of this Province I do for me and mine hereby declare and Establish, for the last fundamental of the Government of this Province, that though any desire order precept or Command should come from the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy to any officer, or Magistrate as before said to do any act or thing that is Contrary to these Fundamentals or the law of the land whether it be to Commit Injustice or to Omit and delay Justice in the cause of any Person or otherways be it Signified by word of mouth by letter or any little or great Seale, every such officer or Magistrate, shall be surely obliged to reject the same & follow the tenure of these Fundamentals and the express law of the Province: and if he shall offer or dare to waive and desert his duty by law to Answer any such mistake or illegal Passion in the governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy, that for so doing he shall be accountable to the next general Assembly of the Province, in whose power it shall be to proportion his Satisfaction and disgrace to the [nature] and degree of his Assembly or Offence. More, if any of them, or any members of either Assembly or Council, or any not in office, or Trust for Private and Corrupt ends of their own having the temptation of such an illegal desire or command from a Superior, Shall betray or in any respect by word or deed Deviate or Derogate from these Fundamental Constitutions, shall they lie under the examination and sentence of the next general Assembly who have hereby Power to proportion the Satisfaction and disgrace of the offending [to] the nature and degree of the offence. And I do further desire and establish that a Copy thereof may be hung up in the Places where the Assembly and Council sett, and that they be all read in the presence of the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy, and the Council 

Part III: Pennsylvania and Assembly as the first thing at the opening of every General Assembly in the Province, and that the testimony of their acknowledgment of them shall be signified by the Standing up of the Governour or his Lieutenant or Deputy and the Council and Assembly and lifting up of their Right hands after they are all Audibly read which done, their so Acknowledging of them as the rule of their laws and Government, shall be recorded in the Journal Book of both the Council and Assembly that if possible they may not be forgotten, or in any wise Contradicted. These four and twenty articles are the Fundamental Constitutions of the Province of Pennsylvania in America by me drawn up, Settled and Confirmed so far as in me lies, for an abiding ground and Rule to all Future laws and Government, And I do hereby desire Charge and Command all my Children and their and my Posterity whose lot it may be to be Concerned in this Province to remember love and preserve with all Care and faithfulness [these] Fundamental Constitutions, being the establishment of me their Father and Ancestor as the discharge of my Conscience to God, the giver of this Country unto me and them and as they hope to keep it, and his Blessing upon it. We whose names are here under written and Subscribed being Freeholders of the Province of Pennsylvania in America do with much Clearness and Satisfaction hereby testify declare our Consent and Agreement with William Penn Proprietary and Governour of the said Province in the above written Fundamental Constitutions as the Ground and Rule of all Future Laws & Government, in that Country and we do hereby promise every one for himself that by Gods Assistance we will remember love and Preserve to the utmost of our Power the aforesaid Fundamentals inviolably and do hereby desire and Charge our Posterity to do the same as they hope to enjoy what we leave them and the blessing of God with it.

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11. The FRAME of the GOVERNMENT OF THE Province of Pennsilvania IN AMERICA: Together with certain LAWS Agreed upon in England BY THE GOVERNOUR AND Divers FREE-MEN of the aforesaid PROVINCE. To be further Explained and Confirmed there by the first Provincial Council and General Assembly that shall be held, if they see meet.47 Printed in the Year MDCLXXXII.

THE PREFACE. When the Great and Wise God had made the World, of all his Creatures it pleased him to chuse Man his Deputy to Rule it: And to fit him for so great a Charge and Trust, he did not only qualifie him with Skill and Power, but with Integrity to use them justly. This Native Goodness was equally his Honour and his Happiness; and whilst he stood here, all went well: There was no need of Coercive or Compulsive means; the Precept

On April 2, 1683 the first Pennsylvania general assembly approved a slightly revised Frame of Government. That document, with a list of divergences from the 1682 Frame of Government that appears here, may be found in Jean R. Soderlund (ed.), William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680–1684: A Documentary History (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), pp. 265–273.

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Part III: Pennsylvania of Divine Love and Truth, in his own Bosom was the Guide and Keeper of his Innocency. But Lust prevailing against Duty, made a lamentable Breach upon it;48 and the Law, that before had no Power over him, took place upon him and his Disobedient Posterity, that such as would not live conformable to the holy Law within, should fall under the Reproof and Correction of the just Law without in a Judicial Administration. This the Apostle teaches in divers of his Epistles: The Law (says he) was added because of Transgression: In another place; Knowing that the Law was not made for the Righteous Man, but for the Disobedient and Ungodly, for Sinners, for Unholy and Prophane, for Murderers, for Whoremongers, for them that Defile themselves with Mankind, and for Men-stealers, for Lyars, for Perjured Persons, &c.49 But this is not all, he opens and carries the matter of Government a little farther; Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers; for there is no Power but of God. The Powers that be, are ordained of God: Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power, resisteth the Ordinance of God. For Rulers are not a Terror to good Works, but to Evil: Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power, Do that which is good, and thou shalt have Praise of the same – He is the Minister of God to thee for good – Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for Wrath, but for Conscience sake.50 This settles the Divine Right of Government beyond Exception, and that for two ends: First, To Terrifie Evil-Doers:51 Secondly, To Cherish those that do Well; which gives Government a Life beyond Corruption, and makes it as durable in the World, as Good Men shall be. So that Government seems to me a part of Religion it self, a thing Sacred in its Institution and End: for if it does not directly remove the Cause, it crushes the Effects of Evil, and is as such (though a lower, yet) an Emanation of the same Divine Power, that is both Author and Object of Pure Religion; the Difference lying here, that the One is more Free and Mental, the Other, more Corporal and Compulsive in its Operations: But that is only to Evil-doers; Government in it self being otherwise as capable of Kindness, Goodness and Charity as a more private Society. They weakly Err, that think there is no other use for Government, than Correction, which is the co[a]rsest part of it: Daily experience tells us, that the Care and Regulation of many other Affairs, more soft and daily necessary, make up much the greatest part of Government: and which must have followed the Peopling of the World, had Adam never fell, and will continue among Men on Earth under the highest Genesis 1–3.  49  1 Timothy 1:9–10. Romans 13:1–5.  51  See 1 Peter 2:14; Proverbs 21:15.

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government Attainments they may arrive at, by the Coming of the blessed Second Adam, the Lord from Heaven. –Thus much of Government in General, as to its Rise and End.52 For particular Frames and Models, it will become me to say little; and comparatively I will say nothing. My Reasons are, First, That the Age is too nice53 and difficult for it, there being nothing the Wits of Men are more busie and divided upon. ’Tis true, they seem to agree in the end, to wit, Happiness; but in the means they differ, as to Divine, so to this Humane Felicity; and the cause is much the same, not alwayes want of Light and Knowledge, but want of using them rightly. Men side with their Passions against their Reason; and their sinister Interests have so strong a Byass upon their minds, that they lean to them against the good of the things they know. Secondly, I do not find a Model in the World, that Time, Place and some singular Emergencies have not necessarily alter’d; nor is it easie to frame a Civil Government, that shall serve all places alike. Thirdly, I know what is said by the several Admirers of Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy, which are the Rule of One, a Few and Many, and are the Three Common Idea’s of Government, when men discourse of that Subject. But I chuse to solve the Controversie with this small Distinction, and it belongs to all three: Any Government is free to the People under it (whatever be the Frame) where the Laws Rule, and the People are a Party to those Laws, and more then this is Tyranny, Oligarchy or Confusion. But Lastly, when all is said, there is hardly one Frame of Government in the World so ill design’d by its first Founders, that in good hands would not do well enough; and Story tells us, The Best in Ill Ones can do nothing that is great or good; witness the Jewish and Roman States. Governments, like Clocks, go from the motion Men give them; and as Governments are made and mov’d by Men, so by Them they are Ruin’d too: wherefore Governments rather depend upon Men, then Men upon Governments. Let Men be good, and the Government can’t be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it: but if Men be bad, let the Government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their Turn. To this point, Penn’s Preamble expands on, and provides further Scriptural grounding for, the first paragraph of the “Preamble or Introduction” to the Fundamentall Constitutions (Selection 10) pp. 299–301. 53 Fastidious, difficult to please (OED, def. 3b). No doubt Penn’s comments here reflect that criticism he had received from various sources when he had circulated his Fundamentall Constitutions (Selection 10); for examples and discussion of those criticisms, see PWP II: 124–125, 156–162, 184–188, 227–238. 52

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[p.b.]

Part III: Pennsylvania I know some say, Let us have good Laws, and no matter for the Men that Execute them: But let them consider, that though good Laws do well, good Men do better; for good Laws may want good Men, and be abolished or evaded by ill Men; but good Men will never want good Laws nor suffer Ill Ones. ’Tis true, good Laws have some Awe upon Ill Ministers, but that is where They have not Power to escape or abolish them, and the People are generally wise and good: But a loose and deprav’d People (which is to the Question) love Laws and an Administration like themselves. That therefore which makes a good Constitution must keep it; (viz.) Men of Wisdom and Virtue; qualities, that because they descend not with Worldly Inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous Education of Youth; for which After-Ages will owe more to the care and prudence of Founders and the successive Magistracy, then to their Parents for their private Patrimonies. These Considerations of the Weight of Government, and the nice and various Opinions about it, made it uneasie to Me to think of publishing the ensuing Frame and Conditional Laws, foreseeing, both the Censures they will meet with from Men of differing Humors and engagements, and the occasion they may give of discourse beyond my design. But next to the Power of Necessity, (which is a Solicitor that will take no denial) this induc’d me to a Compliance, that we have (with Reverence to God and good Conscience to Men) to the best of our Skill contrived and composed the Frame and Laws of this Government to the great End of all Government, viz. To support Power in Reverence with the People, And to secure the People from the abuse of Power; that they may be Free by their just Obedience, and the Magistrates Honourable for their just Administration: For Liberty without Obedience is Confusion, and Obedience without Liberty is Slavery. To carry this Evenness is partly owing to the Constitution, and partly to the Magistracy; where either of these fail, Government will be subject to Convulsions: but where both are wanting, it must be totally subverted: Then where both meet, the Government is like to endure: Which I humbly pray and hope, God will please to make the Lot of This of Pennsilvania: Amen.  William Penn. [1]

THE FRAME OF THE Government of Pennsilvania IN AMERICA, &c. To all People, to whom these Presents shall come: WHEREAS King Charles the Second, by his Letters Patents, under the Great Seal of England, for the Considerations therein mentioned, 

Selection 11: The Frame of the Government hath been graciously pleased to Give and Grant unto Me William Penn (by the Name of William Penn Esquire, Son and Heir of Sir Will[i]am Penn deceased) and to My Heirs and Assigns forever, All that Tract of Land or Province, called Pennsilvania, in America, with divers great Powers, Preheminencies, Royalties, Jurisdictions and Authorities necessary for the Well-being and Government thereof. Now know Ye, That for the Well-being and Government of the said Province, and for the Encouragement of all the Free-men and Planters that may be therein concerned, in pursuance of the Powers aforementioned, I the said William Penn have Declared, Granted and Confirmed, and by these Presents for Me, my Heirs and Assigns do Declare, Grant and Confirm unto all the Free-men, Planters and Adventurers of, in and to the said Province These Liberties, Franchises and Properties to be held, enjoyed and kept by the Free-men, Planters and Inhabitants of and in the said Province of Pennsilvania forever. Imprimis, That the Government of this Province shall, according to the Powers of the Patent, consist of the Governour and Free-men of the said Province, in the Form of a Provincial Council and General Assembly, by whom all Laws shall be made, Officers chosen and publick Affairs Transacted, as is hereafter respectively declared; That is to say, II. That the Free-men of the said Province shall on the Twentieth day of the Twelfth Moneth, which shall be in this present Year One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Two,54 Meet and Assembly in some fit place, of which timely Notice shall be beforehand given by the Governour or his Deputy, and then and there shall chuse out of themselves Seventy Two Persons of most Note for their Wisdom, Virtue and Ability, who shall meet on the Tenth day of the First Moneth next ensuing,55 and alwayes be called and act as the Provincial Council of the said Province. III. That at the first Choice of such Provincial Council, One Third part of the said Provincial Council shall be chosen to serve for Three Years then next ensuing, One Third part for Two Years then next ensuing, and One Third part for One Year then next following such E ­ lection, and no longer; and that the said Third part shall go out accordingly. And on the Twentieth day of the Twelfth Moneth, as aforesaid, yearly, February 20, 1683. March 10, 1683. Marginal note here of finger pointing.

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[2]

Part III: Pennsylvania f­ orever afterward, the Free-men of the said Province shall in like manner Meet and Assemble together, and then chuse Twenty Four Persons, being One Third of the said Number, to serve in Provincial Council for Three Years, it being intended, that One Third of the whole Provincial Council (alwayes consisting and to consist of Seventy Two Persons, as aforesaid) falling off Yearly, it shall be yearly supplied by such new yearly Elections as aforesaid. And that no one Person shall continue therein longer than Three Years: And in case any Member shall decease before the last Election, during his time, that then at the next Election ensuing his Decease, another shall be chosen to supply his place for the remaining time he was to have served, and no longer. IV. That after the first Seven Years, every one of the said Third parts that goeth yearly off, shall be uncapable of being Chosen again for one whole Year following: That so all may be fitted for Government, and have Experience of the Care and Burden of it. V. That the Provincial Council in all Cases and Matters of ­Moment, as their Arguing upon Bills to be past into Laws, Erecting Courts of Justice, giving Judgment upon Criminals Impeached, and Choice of Officers in such manner as is herein after mentioned, Not less than Two Thirds of the whole Provincial Council shall make a Quorum; and that the Consent and Approbation of Two Thirds of such Quorum shall be had in all such Cases or Matters of Moment. And moreover, that in all Cases and Matters of lesser Moment, Twenty Four Members of the said Provincial Council shall make a Quorum, the Majority of which twenty four shall and may always Determine in such Cases & Causes of lesser Moment. VI. That in this Provincial Council the Governour or his Deputy shall or may always preside and have a Treble Voice; and the said Provincial Council shall alwayes continue and sit upon its own Adjournments and Committees. VII. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall p ­ repare and propose to the General Assembly, hereafter mentioned, all Bills, which they shall at any time think fit to be past into Laws within the said Province; which Bills shall be Publisht and Affixed to the most ­noted ­Places in the Inhabited Parts thereof Thirty Dayes before the Meeting of the General Assembly, in order to the passing of them into Laws, or rejecting of them, as the General Assembly shall see meet.

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government VIII. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall take Care, that all Laws, Statutes and Ordinances, which shall at any time be made within the said Province, be duely and diligently Executed. IX. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall at all times have the Care of the Peace and Safety of the Province; and that nothing be by any Person attempted to the Subversion of this Frame of Government. X. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall at all times settle and order the Scituation of all Cities, Ports and Market-Towns in every County, modelling therein all publick Buildings, Streets and Market-Places; and shall appoint all necessary Roads and Highwayes in the Province. XI. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall at all times have Power to inspect the Management of the publick Treasury, and punish those who shall Convert any part thereof to any other use, than what hath been agreed upon by the Governour, Provincial Council and General Assembly. XII. That the Governour and Provincial Council shall erect and order all publick Schools, and encourage and reward the Authors of useful Sciences and laudable Inventions in the said Province. XIII. That for the better Management of the Powers and Trust aforesaid, the Provincial Council shall from time to time divide it self into Four distinct and proper Committees, for the more easie Administration of the Affairs of the Province, which divides the Seventy Two into four Eighteens, every one of which Eighteens shall consist of Six out of each of the Three Orders or Yearly Elections, each of which shall have a distinct portion of Business, as followeth. First, A Committee of Plantations, to scituate and settle Cities, Ports, Market-Towns and High-wayes, and to hear and decide all Suits and Controversies relating to Plantations. Secondly, A Committee of Justice and Safety to secure the Peace of the Province, and punish the Male-Administration of those who subvert ­Justice to the Prejudice of the publick or private Interest. Thirdly, A Committee of Trade and Treasury, who shall regulate all Trade and Commerce according to Law, encourage Manufacture and Country-growth, and defray the publick Charge of the Province. And Fourthly, A Committee of Manners, Education and Arts, that all Wicked and Scandalous Living may be prevented, and that Youth may be successively trained up in Virtue and useful Knowledge and Arts; the Quorum of each of which Committees being Six, that is, Two out of each of the three Orders or yearly Elections, as aforesaid, make a constant or standing Council of twenty 

[3]

Part III: Pennsylvania

[4]

four, which will have the Power of the Provincial Council, being the Quorum of it, in all Cases not excepted in the fifth Article; and in the said Committees and standing Council of the Province, the Governour or his Deputy shall or may Preside, as aforesaid. And in the Absence of the Governour or his Deputy; if no one is by either of them appointed, the said Committees or Council shall appoint a President for that time, and not otherwise; and what shall be resolved at such Committees, shall be reported to the said Council of the Province, and shall be by them Resolved and Confirmed before the same shall be put in Execution: And that these respective Committees shall not sit at one and the same time, except in cases of necessity. XIV. And to the end that all Laws prepared by the Governour and Provincial Council aforesaid, may yet have the more full Concurrence of the Free-men of the Province, It is Declared, Granted and Confirmed, that at the time and Place or Places, for the Choice of a Provincial Council, as aforesaid, the said Free-men shall Yearly chuse Members to serve in a General Assembly, as their Representatives, not exceeding Two Hundred Persons, who shall Yearly meet on the Twentieth Day of the second Moneth, which shall be in the Year 1683 following,56 in the Capital Town or City of the said Province, where during Eight Dayes the several Members may freely Confer with one another; and if any of them see meet, with a Committee of the Provincial Council (consisting of Three out of each of the Four Committees aforesaid, being Twelve in all) which shall be at that time purposely Appointed to receive from any of them Proposals for the Alteration or Amendment of any of the said proposed and promulgated Bills; and on the Ninth Day from their so meeting, the said General Assembly, after the reading over of the proposed Bills by the Clark of the Provincial Council, and the Occasions and Motives for them being opened by the Governour or his Deputy, shall give their Affirmative or Negative, which to them seemeth best, in such manner as hereafter is exprest: But not less than two Thirds shall make a Quorum in the Passing of Laws and Choice of such Officers as are by them to be Chosen. XV. That the Laws so prepared and proposed as aforesaid, that are Assented to by the General Assembly, shall be Enrolled, as Laws of the Province, with this Stile, By the Governour, with the Assent and Approbation of the Free-men in Provincial Council and General Assembly.

April 20, 1683.

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government XVI. That for the better Establishment of the Government and Laws of this Province, and to the end there may be an Universal Satisfaction in the laying of the Fundamentals thereof, the General Assembly shall or may for the first Year consist of all the Free-men of and in the said Province; and ever after it shall be yearly Chosen, as aforesaid: which Number of Two Hundred shall be Enlarged as the Country shall Encrease in People, so as it do not Exceed Five Hundred at any time: The Appointment and Proportioning of which, as also the Laying and Methodizing of the Choice of the Provincial Council and General Assembly in future times most Equally to the Division of the Hundreds and Counties, which the Country shall hereafter be divided into, shall be in the Power of the Provincial Council to Propose, and the General Assembly to Resolve. XVII. That the Governour and the Provincial Council shall Erect from time to time standing Courts of Justice in such Places and Number, as they shall judge Convenient for the good Government of the said Province. And that the Provincial Council shall on the Thirteenth Day of the First Moneth Yearly57 Elect and Present to the Governour or his Deputy a double Number of Persons to serve for Judges, Treasurers, Masters of Rolls within the said Province for the Year next ensuing. And the Free-men of the said Province in their County-Courts, when they shall be erected, and till then, in the General Assembly shall on the Three and Twentieth Day of the Second Moneth yearly58 Elect and Present to the Governour or his Deputy a Double Number of Persons to serve for Sheriffs, Justices of Peace and Coroners for the Year next ensuing; Out of which Respective Elections and Presentments the Governour or his Deputy shall Nominate and Commissionate the proper Number for each Office the Third day after the said respective Presentments, or else the First named in such Presentment for each Office shall stand and serve for that Office the Year ensuing. XVIII. But for as much as the present Condition of the Province requires some Immediate Settlement, and admits not of so quick a Revolution of Officers, and to the end the said Province may with all convenient Speed be well ordered and settled, I William Penn do therefore think fit to Nominate and Appoint such Persons for Judges, Treasurers, Masters of the Rolls, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace and Coroners, as are most fitly qualified for those Employments; to whom I shall make and grant March 13.  58 April 23.

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[5]

Part III: Pennsylvania Commissions for the said Offices, respectively to hold to them to whom the same shall be granted, for so long time as every such Person shall Well behave himself in the Office or Place to him respectively granted, and no longer. And upon the Decease or Displacing of any of the said Officers, the succeeding Officer or Officers shall be chosen as aforesaid. XIX. That the General Assembly shall continue so long as may be needful to Impeach Criminals, fit to be there Impeached, to pass Bills into Laws, that they shall think fit to pass into Laws, and till such time as the Governour and Provincial Council shall declare, That they have nothing further to propose unto them for their Assent and Approbation: And that Declaration shall be a Dismiss to the General Assembly for that time; which General Assembly shall be notwithstanding capable of Assembling together upon the Summons of the Provincial Council at any time during that year, if the said Provincial Council shall see occasion for their so Assembling. XX. That all the Elections of Members or Representatives of the People to serve in Provincial Council and General Assembly, and all Questions to be determined by both or either of them that relate to Passing of Bills into Laws, To the Choice of Officers, To Impeachments made by the General Assembly, and Judgment of Criminals upon such Impeachments by the Provincial Council, and to all other Cases by them respectively judged of Importance, shall be resolved and determined by the Ballot;59 and unless on Suddain and Indispensible Occasions, no Business in Provincial Council, or its respective Committees shall be finally determined the same day that it is moved. XXI. And that at all times, when and so often as it shall happen, that the Governour shall or may be an Infant under the Age of One and Twenty years, and no Guardians or Commissioners are appointed in writing by the Father of the said Infant, or that such Guardians or Commissioners shall be deceased, that during such Minority the Provincial Council shall from time to time, as they shall see meet, constitute and appoint Guardians or Commissioners, not exceeding Three, one of which three shall Preside as Deputy and Chief Guardian, during such Minority, and shall have and execute with the Consent of the other Two all the Power of a Governour in all the publick Affairs and Concerns of the said Province. XXII. That as often as any day of the Moneth, mentioned in any Article of this Charter, shall fall upon the First Day of the Week, commonly That is, secret ballot.

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government called the Lords Day, the Business appointed for that day shall be deferred till the next day, unless in case of Emergency. XXIII. That no Act, Law or Ordinance whatsoever, shall at any time hereafter be made or done by the Governour of this Province, his Heirs or Assigns, or by the Free-men in the Provincial Council, or the General Assembly, to Alter, Change or Diminish the Form or Effect of this Charter, or any Part or Clause thereof, or contrary to the true Intent and Meaning thereof, without the Consent of the Governour, his Heirs or Assigns, and Six Parts of Seven of the said Free-men in Provincial Council and General Assembly. XXIV. And Lastly, That I, the said William Penn, for My Self, my Heirs and Assigns have Solemnly Declared, Granted and Confirmed, and do hereby Solemnly Declare, Grant and Confirm, That neither I, My Heirs nor Assigns shall procure or do any thing or things, whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained and expressed, shall be infringed or broken: And if any thing be procured by any Person or Persons contrary to these Premises, it shall be held of no Force or Effect. In Witness whereof I the said William Penn have unto this present Charter of Liberties set my Hand and Broad Seal this Five and Twentieth Day of the Second Moneth, vulgarly called April, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Two.  William Penn.

Laws agreed upon in England BY THE GOVERNOUR And Divers of the Free-Men of Pennsilvania, To be further Explained and Confirmed there by the first Provincial Council and General Assembly that shall be held in the said Province, if they see meet. I. THAT the Charter of Liberties Declared, Granted and Confirmed the Five and Twentieth day of the Second Moneth called April, 1682 before divers Witnesses by William Penn, Governour and Chief Proprietor of Pennsilvania, to all the Free-men and Planters of the said Province, is hereby declared and approved, and shall be forever held for a Fundamental in the Government thereof, according to the Limitations mentioned in the said Charter. II. That every Inhabitant in the said Province that is or shall be a Purchaser of One Hundred Acres of Land or upwards, his Heirs and Assigns; and every Person who shall have paid his Passage, and taken up One Hundred Acres of Land at One Penny an Acre, and have cultivated Ten Acres thereof; and every Person that hath been a Servant or Bonds

[6]

[7]

Part III: Pennsylvania

[8]

man, and is Free by his Service, that shall have taken up his Fifty Acres of Land, and cultivated Twenty thereof; and every Inhabitant, Artificer or other, resident in the said Province, that payes Scot and Lot to the Government, shall be deemed and accounted a Free-man of the said Province; and every such Person shall and may be capable of Electing or being elected Representatives of the People in Provincial Council or General Assembly in the said Province. III. That all Elections of Members or Representatives of the People and Free-men of the Province of Pennsilvania, to serve in Provincial Council or General Assembly, to be held within the said Province, shall be Free and Voluntary: And that the Elector, that shall receive any Reward or Gift in Meat, Drink, Moneys, or otherwise, shall forfeit his Right to Elect: And such Person as shall directly or indirectly give, promise or bestow any such Reward as aforesaid, to be Elected, shall forfeit his Election, and be thereby incapable to serve, as aforesaid. And the Provincial Council and General Assembly shall be the sole Judges of the Regularity or Irregularity of the Elections of their own respective Members. IV. That no Money or Goods shall be raised upon, or paid by any of the People of this Province, by way of a publick Tax, Custom or Contribution, but by a Law for that purpose made: And whosoever shall Leavy, Collect or Pay any Money or Goods contrary thereunto, shall be held a publick Enemy to the Province, and a Betrayer of the Liberty of the People thereof. V. That all Courts shall be open, and Justice shall neither be sold, denyed nor delayed. VI. That in Courts all Persons of all Perswasions may freely appear in their own Way, and according to their own Manner, and there Personally Plead their own Cause themselves, or if unable, by their Friends. And the first Process shall be the Exhibition of the Complaint in Court Fourteen Dayes before the Tryal. And that the Party complained against may be fitted for the same, he or she shall be summon’d no less than Ten Dayes before, and a Copy of the Complaint delivered him or her at his or her Dwelling House. But before the Complaint of any Person be received, he shall solemnly declare in Court, That he believes in his Conscience, his Cause is Just. VII. That all Pleadings, Processes and Records in Courts shall be short, and in English, and in an ordinary and plain Character, that they may be understood, and Justice speedily administred.

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government VIII. That all Tryals shall be by Twelve Men, and as near as may be, Peers or Equals, and of the Neighbourhood, and men without just Exception. In cases of Life there shall be first Twenty Four returned by the Sheriff for a Grand Inquest, of whom Twelve at least shall find the Complaint to be true, and then the Twelve Men or Peers, to be likewise returned by the Sheriff, shall have the final Judgment: But reasonable Challenges shall be alwayes admitted against the said Twelve Men, or any of them. IX. That all Fees in all Cases shall be Moderate, and settled by the Provincial Council and General Assembly, and be hung up in a Table in every respective Court: And whosoever shall be convicted of taking more, shall pay Twofold, and be dismissed his Employment, one Moyety of which shall go to the party wronged. X. That all Prisons shall be Work-houses for Felons, Vagrants and Loose and Idle Persons, whereof one shall be in every County. XI. That all Prisoners shall be Baylable by sufficient Sureties, unless for Capital Offences, where the Proof is evident, or the Presumption great. XII. That all Persons Wrongfully Imprisoned, or prosecuted at Law, shall have Double Damages against the Informer or Prosecutor. XIII. That all Prisons shall be Free, as to Fees, Food and Lodging. XIV. That all Lands and Goods shall be liable to pay Debts, except where there be Legal Issue, and then all the Goods, and One Third of the Land only. XV. That all Wills in Writing, attested by two Witnesses, shall be of the same Force, as to Lands, as other Conveyances, being legally proved within Forty Dayes, either within or without the said Province. XVI. That Seven Years quiet Possession shall give an Unquestionable Right, except in Cases of Infants, Lunaticks, Married Women, or Persons beyond the Sea. XVII. That all Briberies and Extortions whatsoever shall be severely punished. XVIII. That all Fines shall be moderate, and saving mens Contenements,60 Merchandize or Wainage.61 XIX. That all Marriages (not forbidden by the Law of God, as to nearness of Blood and Affinity by Marriage) shall be encouraged; but the Parents or Guardians shall be first consulted, and the Marriage shall be published before it be solemnized, & it shall be solemnized by taking one another as Husband and Wife before Credible Witnesses: And a Certificate Property.  

60

  Land under cultivation (OED, def. 2).

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[9]

Part III: Pennsylvania of the whole, under the hands of Parties and Witnesses shall be brought to the proper Register of that County, and shall be Registred in his Office. XX. And to prevent Frauds and Vexatious Suits within the said Province, That all Charters, Gifts, Grants and Conveyances of Land (except Leases for a Year, or under) and all Bills, Bonds and Specialties above Five Pound, and not under three Moneths, made in the said Province, shall be Enrolled or Registred in the publick Enrollment-Office of the said Province, within the space of two Moneths next after the making thereof, else to be void in Law. And all Deeds, Grants and Conveyances of Land (except as aforesaid) within the said Province, and made out of the said Province, shall be Enrolled or Registred, as aforesaid, within six Moneths next after the making thereof, and settling and constituting an Enrollment-Office or Registry within the said Province, else to be void in Law against all Persons whatsoever. XXI. That all Defacers or Corrupters of Charters, Gifts, Grants, Bonds, Bills, Wills, Contracts and Conveyances, or that shall deface or falsifie any Enrollment, Registry or Record within this Province, shall make Double Satisfaction for the same; half whereof shall go to the Party wronged, and they shall be dismist of all Places of Trust, and be publickly disgraced, as False Men. XXII. That there shall be a Register for Births, Marriages, Burials, Wills and Letters of Administration distinct from the other Registry. XXIII. That there shall be a Registry for all Servants, where their Names, Time, Wages, and Dayes of Payment shall be Registred. XXIV. That all Lands and Goods of Fellons shall be liable to make satisfaction to the Party wronged Twice the Value; and for want of Lands or Goods, the Fellon shall be Bonds-man, to work in the CommonPrison or Work-house, or otherwise, till the Party injured be satisfied. XXV. That the Estates of Capital Offenders, as Traitors and Murderers, shall go one third to the next of Kin to the Sufferer, and the remainder to the next of Kin to the Criminal. XXVI. That all Witnesses coming or called to testifie their Knowledge in or to any Matter or Thing in any Court, or before any lawful Authority [10] within the said Province, shall there give or deliver in their Evidence or Testimony by solemnly Promising To speak the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth to the Matter or Thing in question.62 And in case any Person so called to Evidence, shall afterwards be convicted of For the Quaker objection to swearing oaths, see Penn et al., A Treatise of Oaths (London, 1675).

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government Wilfull Falsehood, such Person shall suffer and undergo such Damage or Penalty as the Person or Persons, against whom he or she bore false Witness, did or should undergo, and shall also make Satisfaction to the Party wronged, and be publickly exposed as a False Witness, never to be credited in any Court or before any Magistrate in the said Province. XXVII. And to the end that all Officers chosen to serve within this Province, may with more care and diligence answer the Trust reposed in them, It is agreed, that no such Person shall enjoy more than one publick Office at one time.63 XXVIII. That all Children within this Province of the Age of Twelve Years shall be taught some useful Trade or Skill, to the end none may be Idle, but the Poor may Work to live, and the Rich, if they become Poor, may not want. XXIX. That Servants be not kept longer than their time; and such as are Careful be both justly and kindly used in their Service, and put in fitting Equipage at the expiration thereof, according to Custom. XXX. That all Scandalous and Malicious Reporters, Backbiters, Defamers and Spreaders of false News, whether against Magistrates or private Persons, shall be accordingly severely punished, as Enemies to the Peace and Concord of this Province. XXXI. That for the Encouragement of the Planters and Traders in this Province, who are incorporated into a Society, the Patent granted to them by William Penn, Governour of the said Province, is hereby ratified and confirmed. XXXII.64 XXXIII. That all Factors or Correspondents in the said Province wronging their Employers, shall make Satisfaction, and one third over to their said Employers; and in case of the Death of any such Factor or Correspondent, the Committee of Trade shall take care to secure so much of the deceased Party’s Estate as belongs to his said respective Employers. XXXIV. That all Treasurers, Judges, Masters of the Rolls, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, and other Officers or Persons whatsoever, relating to Courts or Tryals of Causes, or any other Service in the Government, and all Members elected to serve in Provincial Council and General Assembly: and all that have Right to elect such Members, shall be such Between the end of law XXVII and the beginning of law XXVIII there are four solid lines. Law XXXII is blank except for three solid lines.

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Part III: Pennsylvania as profess Faith in Jesus Christ, and that are not convicted of Ill Fame, or unsober and dishonest Conversation, and that are of One and Twenty Years of Age at least: and that all such so qualified, shall be capable of the said several Employments and Priviledges, as aforesaid. XXXV. That all Persons living in this Province, who confess and [11] acknowledge the One Almighty and Eternal God, to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World, and that hold themselves obliged in Conscience to live peaceably and justly in Civil Society, shall in no wayes be molested or prejudiced for their Religious Perswasion 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 Ministry whatever. XXXVI. That according to the good Example of the Primitive Christians, and for the ease of the Creation, every First Day of the Week called the Lords Day, People shall abstain from their common daily Labour, that they may the better dispose themselves to Worship God according to their Understandings. XXXVII. That as a Careless and Corrupt Administration of Justice draws the Wrath of God upon Magistrates, so the Wildness and Looseness of the People provoke the Indignation of God against a Country; Therefore, – That All such Offences against God, as Swearing, Cursing, Lying, Prophane Talking, Drunkenness, Drinking of Healths, Obscene words, Incest, Sodomy, Rapes, Whoredom, Fornication and other uncleanness (not to be repeated:) All Treasons, Misprisions,65 Murders, Duels, Fellonies, Sedition, Mayhems, Forcible Entries and other Violencies to the Persons and Estates of the Inhabitants within this Province: All Prizes, Stage-Plays, Cards, Dice, May-games, Gamesters, Masques, Revels, Bull-baitings, Cock-fightings, Bear-baitings and the like, which excite the People to Rudeness, Cruelty, Looseness and Irreligion, shall be ­respectively discouraged and severely punished, according to the ­appointment of the Governour and Free-men in Provincial Council and General Assembly, as also all Proceedings contrary to these Laws, that are not here made expresly penal. XXXVIII. That a Copy of these Laws shall be hung up in the Provincial Council and in publick Courts of Justice, and that they shall be read Yearly at the opening of every Provincial Council and General Concealing one’s knowledge of a treasonable act or felony; failure of duty (OED, def. 1).

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Selection 11: The Frame of the Government Assembly and Court of Justice, and their Assent shall be testified by their standing up after the reading thereof. XXXIX. That there shall be at no time any Alteration of any of these Laws without the Consent of the Governour, his Heirs or Assigns, and Six parts of Seven of the Free-men met in Provincial Council and General Assembly. XL. That All other Matters and Things not herein provided for, which shall and may concern the publick Justice, Peace or Safety of the said Province, and the raising and imposing Taxes, Customs, Duties, or other Charges whatsoever, shall be and are hereby referred to the Order, Prudence and Determination of the Governour and Free-men in Provincial Council and General Assembly, to be held from time to time in the said Province. Signed and Sealed by the Governour and Free-men aforesaid, this Fifth Day of the Third Moneth, called May, One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Two.



12. The Charter of Privileges William Penn Proprietary and Governour of the Province of Pennsilvania and Territories thereunto belonging To all to whom these presents shall come Sendeth Greeting WHEREAS King Charles the Second by his Letters Patents, under the Great Seal of England, bearing Date the Fourth Day of March, in the Year One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty-one, was graciously pleased to give and grant unto me, and my Heirs and Assigns for ever, this Province of Pennsylvania, with divers great Powers and Jurisdictions for the well Government thereof.66 AND WHEREAS the King’s dearest Brother, JAMES Duke of YORK and ALBANY, etc. by his Deeds of Feoffment, under his Hand and Seal duly perfected, bearing Date the Twenty-Fourth Day of August, One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Two, did grant unto me, my Heirs and Assigns, all that Tract of Land, now called the Territories of Pennsylvania, together with Powers and Jurisdictions for the good Government thereof.67 AND WHEREAS for the Encouragement of all the Freemen and Planters, that might be concerned in the said Province and Territories, and for the good Government thereof, I the said WILLIAM PENN, in the Year One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Three, for me, my Heirs and Assigns, did grant and confirm unto all the Freemen, Planters and Adventurers therein, divers Liberties, Franchises and Properties, as by

The Pennsylvania charter is reprinted in PWP II: 61–78. The Lower Counties (later, the colony of Delaware). James’s August 24, 1682 conveyance of the Lower Counties to Penn is reprinted in PWP II: 281–284.

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Selection 12: The Charter of Privileges the said Grant, entitled, The FRAME of the Government of the Province of Pennsylvania, and Territories thereunto belonging, in America, may appear;68 which Charter or Frame being found in some Parts of it, not so suitable to the present circumstances of the Inhabitants, was in the Third Month, in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred, delivered up to me, by Six Parts of Seven of the Freemen of this Province and Territories, in General Assembly met, Provision being made in the said Charter, for that End and Purpose.69 AND WHEREAS I was then pleased to promise, That I would restore the said Charter to them again, with necessary Alterations, or in lieu thereof, give them another, better adapted to answer the present Circumstances and Conditions of the said Inhabitants; which they have now, by their Representatives in General Assembly met at Philadelphia, requested me to grant. KNOW YE THEREFORE, That for the further Well-being and good Government of the said Province, and Territories; and in Pursuance of the Rights and Powers before-mentioned, I the said William Penn do declare, grant and confirm, unto all the Freemen, Planters and Adventurers, and other Inhabitants of this Province and Territories, these following Liberties, Franchises and Privileges, so far as in me lies, to be held, enjoyed and kept, by the Freemen, Planters and Adventurers, and other Inhabitants of and in the said Province and Territories thereunto annexed, for ever. First Because no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship: And Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as well as Object of all divine Knowledge, Faith and Worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and persuade and convince the Understandings of People, I do hereby grant and declare, That no Person or Persons, inhabiting in this Province or Territories, who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live quietly under For the version of the Frame approved by the Pennsylvania General Assembly on April 2, 1683, see Soderlund (ed.), William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, pp. 265–273. 69 Agitation for a new Frame of Government occupied much of May and June 1700; see Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Theophilus Fenn, 1852), vol. I: pp. 575–585; and Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: B. Franklin and D. H, 1752), vol. I: pp. 233–242. 68

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Part III: Pennsylvania the Civil Government, shall be in any Case molested or prejudiced, in his or their Person or Estate, because of his or their conscientious Persuasion or Practice, nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious Worship, Place or Ministry, contrary to his or their Mind, or to do or suffer any other Act or Thing, contrary to their religious Persuasion. AND that all Persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, shall be capable (notwithstanding their other Persuasions and Practices in Point of Conscience and Religion) to serve this Government in any Capacity, both legislatively and executively, he or they solemnly promising, when lawfully required, Allegiance to the King as Sovereign, and Fidelity to the Proprietary and Governor, and taking the Attests as now established by the Law made at New-Castle, in the Year One Thousand and Seven Hundred, entitled, an Act directing the Attests of several Officers and Ministers, as now amended and confirmed this present Assembly.70 Secondly For the well governing of this Province and Territories, there shall be an Assembly yearly chosen, by the Freemen thereof, to consist of Four Persons out of each County, of most Note for Virtue, Wisdom and Ability, (or of a greater number at any Time. as the Governor and Assembly shall agree) upon the First Day of October for ever; and shall sit on the Fourteenth Day of the same Month, at Philadelphia, unless the Governor and Council for the Time being, shall see Cause to appoint another Place within the said Province or Territories: Which Assembly shall have Power to choose a Speaker and other their Officers; and shall be Judges of the Qualifications and Elections of their own Members; sit upon their own Adjournment; appoint Committees; prepare Bills in order to pass into Laws; impeach Criminals, and redress Grievances; and shall have all other Powers and Privileges of an Assembly, according to the Rights of the free-born Subjects of England, and as is usual in any of the King’s Plantations in America.71 AND if any County or Counties, shall refuse or neglect to choose their respective Representatives as aforesaid, or if chosen, do not meet to serve The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1701 (Harrisburg, PA: State of Pennsylvania, 1896), vol. II: pp. 39–42. This law was repealed by the privy council on February 7, 1706. The language of this section repeats, at time verbatim, the first two acts passed by the first Pennsylvania general assembly: see Statutes at Large, vol. I: pp. 28–29 (1682, Laws 1 and 2). 71 The Pennsylvania assembly had been agitating for the authority to initiate legislation since its first meeting nearly two decades earlier. Granting this authority represented a painful concession for Penn. 70

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Selection 12: The Charter of Privileges in Assembly, those who are so chosen and met, shall have the full Power of an Assembly, in as ample Manner as if all the Representatives had been chosen and met, provided they are not less than Two Thirds of the whole Number that ought to meet. AND that the Qualifications of Electors and Elected, and all other Matters and Things relating to Elections of Representatives to serve in Assemblies, though not herein particularly expressed, shall be and remain as by a Law of this Government, made at New-Castle in the Year One thousand Seven Hundred, entitled, An Act to ascertain the Number of Members of Assembly, and to regulate the Elections.72 Thirdly That the Freemen in each respective County, at the Time and Place of Meeting for Electing their Representatives to serve in Assembly, may as often as there shall be Occasion, choose a double Number of Persons to present to the Governor for Sheriffs and Coroners to serve for Three Years, if so long they behave themselves well; out of which respective Elections and Presentments, the Governor shall nominate and commission one for each of the said Offices, the Third Day after such Presentment, or else the First named in such Presentment, for each Office as aforesaid, shall stand and serve in that Office for the Time before respectively limited; and in Case of Death or Default, such Vacancies shall be supplied by the Governor, to serve to the End of the said Term. PROVIDED ALWAYS, That if the said Freemen shall at any Time neglect or decline to choose a Person or Persons for either or both the aforesaid Offices, then and in such Case, the Persons that are or shall be in the respective Offices of Sheriffs or Coroners, at the Time of Election, shall remain therein, until they shall be removed by another Election as aforesaid. AND that the Justices of the respective Counties shall or may nominate and present to the Governor Three Persons, to serve for Clerk of the Peace for the said County, when there is a Vacancy, one of which the Governor shall commission within Ten Days after such Presentment, or else the First nominated shall serve in the said Office during good Behavior. Fourthly That the Laws of this Government shall be in this Stile, viz. By the Governor, with the Consent and Approbation of the Freemen in General Assembly met; and shall be, after Confirmation by the Gov-

Statutes at Large, vol. II: pp. 24–27 (1700, Law 28). This law was repealed by the privy council on February 7, 1706.

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Part III: Pennsylvania ernor, forthwith recorded in the Rolls Office, and kept at Philadelphia, unless the Governor and Assembly shall agree to appoint another Place. Fifthly That all Criminals shall have the same Privileges of Witnesses and Council as their Prosecutors. Sixthly That no Person or Persons shall or may, at any Time hereafter, be obliged to answer any Complaint, Matter or Thing whatsoever, relating to Property, before the Governor and Council, or in any other Place, but in ordinary Course of Justice, unless Appeals thereunto shall be hereafter by Law appointed. Seventhly That no Person within this Government, shall be licensed by the Governor to keep an Ordinary Tavern or House of Public Entertainment, but such who are first recommended to him, under the Hands of the Justices of the respective Counties, signed in open Court; which Justices are and shall be hereby empowered, to suppress and forbid any Person, keeping such Public-House as aforesaid, upon their Misbehavior, on such Penalties as the Law doth or shall direct; and to recommend others from time to time, as they shall see Occasion.73 Eighthly If any person, through Temptation or Melancholy, shall destroy himself; his Estate, real and personal, shall notwithstanding descend to his Wife and Children, or Relations, as if he had died a natural Death; and if any Person shall be destroyed or killed by Casualty or Accident, there shall be no Forfeiture to the Governor by reason thereof. AND no Act, Law or Ordinance whatsoever, shall at any Time hereafter, be made or done, to alter, change or diminish the Form or Effect of this Charter, or of any Part or Clause therein, contrary to the true Intent and Meaning thereof, without the Consent of the Governor for the Time being, and Six Parts of Seven of the Assembly met. BUT because the Happiness of Mankind depends so much upon the Enjoying of Liberty of their Consciences as aforesaid, I do hereby solemnly declare, promise and grant, for me, my Heirs and Assigns, That the First Article of this Charter relating to Liberty of Conscience, and every Part and Clause therein, according to the true Intent and Meaning thereof, shall be kept and remain, without any Alteration, inviolably for ever. And Lastly I the said William Penn, Proprietary and Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, and Territories thereunto belonging, for myself, my Heirs and Assigns, have solemnly declared, granted and con Parallels the 1700 law regarding public houses; Law 78, Statutes at Large, vol. II: pp. 93–94.

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Selection 12: The Charter of Privileges firmed, and do hereby solemnly declare, grant and confirm, That neither I, my Heirs or Assigns, shall procure or do any Thing or Things whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained and expressed, nor any Part thereof, shall be infringed or broken: And if any thing shall be procured or done, by any Person or Persons, contrary to these Presents, it shall be held of no Force or Effect. IN WITNESS whereof, I the said William Penn, at Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, have unto this present Charter of Liberties, set my Hand and broad Seal, this Twenty-Eighth Day of October, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and One, being the Thirteenth Year of the Reign of King WILLIAM the Third, over England, Scotland, France and Ireland, etc. and the Twenty-First Year of my Government. AND NOTWITHSTANDING the Closure and Test of this present Charter as aforesaid, I think fit to add this following Proviso thereunto, as Part of the same, That is to say, That notwithstanding any Clause or Clauses in the above-mentioned Charter, obliging the Province and Territories to join together in Legislation, I am content, and do hereby declare, that if the Representatives of the Province and Territories shall not hereafter agree to join together in Legislation, and that the same shall be signified unto me, or my Deputy, in open Assembly, or otherwise from under the Hands and Seals of the Representatives, for the Time being, of the Province and Territories, or the major Part of either of them, at any Time within Three Years from the Date hereof,74 that in such Case, the Inhabitants of each of the Three Counties of this Province, shall not have less than Eight Persons to represent them in Assembly, for the Province; and the Inhabitants of the Town of Philadelphia (when the said Town is incorporated)75 Two Persons to represent them in Assembly; and the Inhabitants of each County in the Territories, shall have as many Persons to represent them in a distinct Assembly for the Territories, as shall be by them requested as aforesaid. NOTWITHSTANDING which Separation of the Province and Territories, in Respect of Legislation, I do hereby promise, grant and declare, That the Inhabitants of both Province and Territories, shall separately enjoy all other Liberties, Privileges and Benefits, granted jointly to them The final separation of the two legislatures would take place in 1704. Penn incorporated the city of Philadelphia at around the same time as he issued the Charter of Privileges. See Minutes of the Provincial Council, vol. II: pp. 60–61.

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Part III: Pennsylvania in this Charter, any Law, Usage or Custom of this Government heretofore made and practiced, or any Law made and passed by this General Assembly, to the Contrary hereof, notwithstanding. WILLIAM PENN. THIS CHARTER OF PRIVILEGES being distinctly read in Assembly; and the whole and every Part thereof, being approved of and agreed to, by us, we do thankfully receive the same from our Proprietary and Governor, at Philadelphia, this Twenty-Eighth Day of October, One Thousand Seven Hundred and One. Signed on Behalf, and by Order of the Assembly, EDWARD SHIPPEN, PHINEAS PEMBERTON, SAMUEL CARPENTER, GRIFFITH OWEN, CALEB PUSEY, THOMAS STORY, Proprietary and Governor’s Council.76

For biographical details on these individuals, see Craig W. Horle, Marianne S. Wokeck, et al. (eds.), Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), vol. I.

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Part IV Broader Perspectives

Part IV: Broader Perspectives As William Penn attempted to move beyond the personal and professional disaster of the years following the 1688 Revolution, re-emerging into public life over the course of the 1690s, he also began to articulate a broader political vision that built upon, but transcended, his earlier ­focus on England and Pennsylvania. And so, seeking to work his way back into royal favor, Penn turned his thoughts to political units larger than the colonial and the national levels which he had been engaged with for so long. Part IV includes three works that illustrate this vision, which involved a search for institutional arrangements that would facilitate American prosperity and promote the peaceful negotiation of differences between peoples. In An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of ­Europe (1693), he proposed a European parliament for the resolution of differences between states. The two other pieces included here, both from 1697, illustrate his continuing efforts to encourage the American colonies to work in concert to promote political and economic development, and advance their common interests.1 Not surprisingly, the immediate background for Penn’s Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (Selection 13) lay in the war that had engulfed Europe since late 1688, when William of Orange, as Dutch Stadtholder, entered an alliance with Spain, Savoy, and the Holy ­Roman Emperor against Louis XIV’s France. (This volume reprints the second edition, Wing P1288.) France’s assistance to James II in his attempts to retake the English throne gave William – King William III of England, by 1689 – the opening he sought to take England into this alliance as well. The nation’s entry into the war marked a reversal of Stuart foreign policy: Charles II and James II had generally pursued a pro-French and anti-Dutch agenda, as evidenced by the Anglo-Dutch wars of 1665 to 1667 and 1672 to 1674, and the increasingly close relationship between the English kings and Louis during the same period. These earlier wars – based on the monarchs’ judgment that the Dutch sought commercial domination, that Dutch republicanism threatened the English monarchy, and that their religious toleration provided an unwelcome example for tolerationists closer to home – had been supported by Anglican Tories. Whigs and their allies, on the other hand, identified with the Dutch as fellow Protestants, and instead saw Louis XIV as their chief foe. Readers interested in further exploring this broader perspective should also consult Penn’s thoughts on English trade with Ireland, set out in a letter to the lords justice of Ireland, July 1, 1698, which is reprinted in PWP III: 548–552.

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives Against this backdrop of nearly constant war, Penn offered his Essay in 1693, beckoning to both Christian and classical sources by including one of the Beatitudes – “Beati pacifici,” or “blessed are the peacemakers” – alongside the Latin phrase “Cedant arma togae,” or “Let arms yield to the toga,” from Cicero’s De officiis, on the work’s title page. The Essay opened by pointing to the horrors of war that Europeans had witnessed in recent years, and emphasized the benefits to human well-being that trade and prosperity, facilitated by peace, bring. Penn’s Essay drew on its author’s lifetime of travel and the rich networks of correspondents that such travel produced, as well as Penn’s many attempts at mediation within the Society of Friends. Penn had by this time personally presided over the Pennsylvania government for several years (though his firsthand experiences in America were now a decade old) and, through correspondence, witnessed the seemingly intractable divisions and disputes among the colony’s inhabitants. He had a­ ppealed to civil rulers in England, Europe, America, and the Caribbean to tolerate peaceful Dissenters. Peace and prosperity had been themes in Penn’s tolerationist writings since his earliest days; his emphasis on the economic devastation wrought by this most recent war reflected, on a larger stage, his domestic arguments that prosperity and civil peace would follow from the protection of liberty of conscience in England. So we might read Penn’s Essay as a quintessentially Quaker tract, alongside the peace testimony of 1660 and other works that sought an end to the violent prosecution of human designs.2 But Penn’s Essay is also clearly a European text, and sits within a broader European context, that of seventeenth-century European schemes for international cooperation, such as that of Emeric Cruce, whose Nouveau Cynee of 1623 and 1624 proposed an association of all the world’s states, and the duke of Sully’s “Grand Design” of 1638. Sully (under the guise of Henry IV of France) proposed a Christian republic made up of the European powers, along with a series of councils for settling disputes between as well as within states. Penn’s emphasis on peace as an end in itself – and not merely as part of a European alliance against “the Turk” – set his approach apart from Sully’s, and his emphasis on justice as a key component of relations between states advanced distinctly Grotian themes, particularly Grotius’s notion of the international system as a

A Declaration from the harmless and innocent people of God, called Quakers.

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives community bound together by justice. (Grotius had also advanced the idea of an international congress.)3 Penn’s A Briefe and Plaine Scheame (Selection 14), which he presented to the Board of Trade in February 1697, proposed annual assemblies of colonial American representatives during wartime, with a diet not so different from the one he had proposed for European powers. Chaired by the governor of New York, the colonial diet would coordinate defensive preparations; foster intercolonial cooperation and settle disputes over trade, debts, criminal justice, and defense; and facilitate enforcement of the Navigation Acts. Penn’s was not the only plan for closer colonial coordination and governance, though (like the others) his stood little chance of success, since “Every design for colonial reorganization had to navigate the thicket of court politics, in which various factions tried to scuttle any proposals that did not advance their particular political agendas.”4 Although the Briefe and Plaine Scheame was not accepted by the board, it did receive a hearing in the context of the board’s continuing concern with the defense of the American colonies. We might also view Penn’s plan as a precursor to the Albany Congress of 1754, where Benjamin Franklin proposed a system of intercolonial cooperation and governance to combat the French threat and facilitate relations with Indian tribes.5 Penn’s Scheame was reprinted, without attribution and with a few minimal changes, in [Charles Davenant], Discourses on the Public Revenues and on the Trade of England (London, 1698). The version included in this volume appears in Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, vol. XV (1696–7) (London, 1904), no. 694, p. 354, under the title “Mr. Penn’s Plan for a Union of the Colonies in America.” Penn’s Proposal for the Advancement of Trade in America (Selection 15), presented to a committee of the House of Lords roughly a month after the Briefe and Plaine Scheame (March 1697), was a brief but impassioned plea that sought to accomplish two purposes: 1) to emphasize the value that the colonies provided to the mother country; and 2) to argue that the growth of trade would benefit both sides. Three things were needed: “more hands,” i.e. removing barriers to emigration to the colonies; a temporary reduction in customs and duty charges – he suggests a period of seven years – to allow American goods to make inroads into The Illustrious Hugo Grotius of the Law of Warre and Peace, Part II, ch. 118, pp. 429–430. Stanwood, The Empire Reformed, p. 182. “Albany Plan of Union,” online at www.constitution.org/bcp/albany.htm

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives English markets; and “discipline,” the cultivation of qualities that would ensure a virtuous, industrious population. At the end of the Proposal Penn once again suggested an annual meeting of colonial deputies, as he had in the Briefe and Plaine Scheame. This volume reprints the version from Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1695–1697 (London, 1903), pp. 470–472, where it appeared under the title “Mr. Penn’s Proposal for the advancement of trade in America.”

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13. An ESSAY towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, BY THE Establishment of an European Dyet, Parliament, or Estates. Beati Pacifici. Cedant Arma Togae.6 The second Edition. London Printed, and sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers Hall, 1693.

TO THE READER I Have undertaken a Subject that I am very sensible requires one of more sufficiency then I am Master of, to treat it as, in truth, it deserves, and the groaning State of Europe calls for; but since Bunglers may stumble upon the Game as well as Masters, tho’ it belongs to the Skilful to hunt and katch it, I hope this Essay will not be charged upon me for a fault, if it appear to be neither Chimerical nor Injurious, and may provoke abler Pens to improve and [p.b.] perform the design with better Judgment and success. I will say no more in excuse of my self for this undertaking, but that it is the fruit of my solicitous thoughts, for the Peace of Europe, and they must want Charity as much as the World needs Quiet, to be offended with me for so Pacifick a Proposal. Let them censure my Management so they prosecute the Advantage of the Design; Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:29); Let arms yield to the toga (Cicero, De officiis, book 1, sec. 77), emphasizing the priority of civilian over military rule.

6

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe for till the Millenary Doctrine be accomplished,7 there is nothing appears to me so beneficial an expedient to the Peace and happiness of this Quarter of the World. Sect. 1. OF PEACE, And its Advantages. He must not be a Man, but a Statue of Brass or Stone, whose Bowels do not melt when he beholds the bloody Tragedies of this War, in Hungary, Germany, Flanders, Ireland and at Sea: The Mortality of sickly and languishing Camps and Navys and the mighty Prey the Devouring Winds and Waves have made upon Ships and Men since [16]88.8 And as this, with reason ought to affect human Nature, and deeply Kindred, so there is something very moving that becomes Prudent Men to consider, and that is the vast Charge that has accompanied that Blood, and which makes no mean Part of these Tragedies: Especially if they deliberate upon the uncertainty of the War, that they know not how or when it will end, and that the expence cannot be less, and the hazard is as great as before. So that in the Contraries of Peace we see the beauties and benefits of it; which under it, such is the unhappiness of mankind, we are too apt to nautiate,9 as the full Stomach loaths the Honey Combe; and like that unfortunate Gentleman, that having a fine and a Good Woman to his Wife, and searching his pleasure in forbidden and less agreeable company, said, when reproacht with his neglect of better Injoyments, that he could love his Wife of all Women, if she were not his Wife, tho’ that increased his obligation to prefer her. It is a great mark of the Corruption of our Natures, and what ought to humble us extreamly, and excite the exercise of our Reason to a Nobler and juster sence, that we cannot see the use and pleasure of our Comforts but by the want of them. As if we could not taste the benefit of Health, but by the help of sickness; nor understand the satisfaction of fulness without the instruction of want; nor finally know the comfort of Peace but by the Smart and Penance of the Vices of War: And without dispute that is not the least reason that God is pleased to Chastise us so frequently with it. What can we desire better

The Christian view of the millennium, drawn on Revelation 20, prophesies a 1,000-year rule of Christ. 8 On the War of the League of Augsburg (also known as the War of the Grand Alliance), see Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England, 1689–1727 (Oxford University Press, 2002), ch. 4. 9 Become nauseated, feel sick (OED, def. 1a). 7

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[1]

[2]

[3]

Part IV: Broader Perspectives

[4]

than Peace, but the Grace to use it? Peace, Preserves our Possessions: we are in no danger of Invasions: Our Trade is free and safe, and we rise and lie down without anxiety. The Rich bring out their Hoards, and employ the poor Manufacturers: Buildings and divers projections, for profit and pleasure go on: It excites Industry, which brings Wealth, as that gives the means of Charity and Hospitality, not the lowest Ornaments of a Kingdom or Common-wealth. But War, like the Frost of 8310 Seizes all these Comforts at once; and Stops the civil Channels of Society. The Rich draw in their Stock, the Poor turn Soldiers, or Thieves, or Starve: No Industry, no Building, no Manufactury; little Hospitality or Charity; but what the Peace gave, the War Devours.11 I need say no more upon this Head, when the Advantages of Peace, and Mischiefs of War are so many and sensible to every Capacity under all Governments, as either of them prevails. I shall proceed to the next point. What is the best means of Peace, which will conduce much to open my way to what I have to propose. Sect. ii. Of the Means of Peace, which is JUSTICE rather then War.

[5]

As Justice is a Preserver, so it is a better Procurer of Peace then War. Tho’ Pax quaeritur bello, be an usual saying, Peace is the end of War, and as such it was taken up by O. C. for his Motto;12 Yet the use Generally made of that expression shows us, that properly and truly speaking, men seek their Wills by War rather then Peace, and that as they will Violate it to obtain them, so they will hardly be brought to think of Peace, unless their appetites be some way gratified. If we look over the Stories of all times, we shall find the Aggressors generally moved by Ambition; the Pride of Conquest and greatness of Dominion, more then Right. But as those Leviathans appear rarely in the World, so I shall anon endeavour to make it evident they had never been able to devour the Peace of the World, and engross whole Countries as they have done, if the Proposal I have to make for the benefit of our present Age had been then in practice. The Advantage that Justice has upon War is seen by the success of Embassys, that so often prevent War by hearing the Pleas and Memorials of Justice in the Hands and Mouths of the wronged Party. Perhaps it may be in a good degree owing to Reputation, or Poverty, or some particular Interest or conveniency of Princes The Great Frost of 1683–4, during which the Thames reportedly froze a foot thick. Penn’s description of war evokes Hobbes’s depiction of the state of war in Leviathan, ch. 13. 12 Oliver Cromwell included the motto Pax quaeritur bello on the reverse side of the 1655 Great Seal. 10 11

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe and States as much as Justice; but it is certain, that as War cannot in any sence be justified, but upon Wrongs received, and Right, upon Complaint, refused; so the Generality of Wars have their rise from some such Pretention. This is better seen and understood at home, for that which prevents Civil War in a Nation is that which may prevent it abroad, viz. Justice; and we see where that is notably obstructed, War is Kindled between the Magistrates and People in particular Kingdoms and States; which, however it may be unlawful on the side of the People, we see never fails to follow, and ought to give the same Caution to Princes as if it were the right of the People to do it: Tho’ I must needs say the remedy is almost ever worse than the disease; The Aggressors seldom getting what they seek, or performing, if they prevail, what they promised; And the Blood and Poverty that usually attend the enterprise, weigh more on Earth, as well as in Heaven then what they lost or suffered, or what they get, by endeavouring to mend their Condition, comes to: Which disappointment seems to be the Voice of Heaven, and Judgment of God against those violent Attempts. But to return, I say Justice is the Means of Peace; betwixt the Government and the People, and one Man and Company and another. It prevents strife, and at last ends it: For besides shame or fear to contend longer, he or they being under Government, are constrained to bound their desires and resentment with the satisfaction the Law gives. Thus Peace is maintained by Justice, which is a fruit of Government, as Government is from Society and Society from Consent.

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Sect. iii. Of GOVERNMENT, its rise and end under all Modells. Government, is an Expedient against Confusion; a Restraint upon all ­Disorder; Just weights and an even Ballance: That one may not Injure another, nor himself by intemperance. This was at first without controversie, Patrimonial, and upon the death of the Father or Head of the Family, the eldest Son or Male of kin succeeded. But time breaking in upon this way of Governing, as the World Multiplyed, it fell under other Claims and Forms: and is as hard to trace to its Original, as it is the Copies we have of the first Writings of sacred or Civil Matters. It is certain the most Natural and human is that of Consent, for that binds freely (as I may say) when men hold their Liberty by true Obedience to rules of their own making. No Man is Judge in his own cause, which ends the Confusion and Blood of so many Judges and Executioners. For out of society every Man is his own King, does what he lists at his own Peril: But when he comes to Incorporate himself, he 

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submits that Royalty to the Conveniency of the whole, from whom he receives the returns of Protection. So that he is not now his own Judge nor Avenger, neither is his Antagonist, but the Law, in indifferent Hands between both. And if he be a Servant to others that before was free; he is also served of others that formerly owed him no obligation. Thus, while we are not our own, every body is ours, and we get more than we lose; the safety of the Society being the safety of the Particulars that constitute it. So that while we seem to submit to, and hold all we have from Society, it is by Society that we keep what we have. Government then is the Prevention or Cure of disorder, and the Means of Justice, as that is of Peace: For this cause they have Sessions, Terms, Assizes and Parliaments, to overrule mens Passions and Resentments that they may not be Judges in their own Cause, nor Punishers of their own Wrongs, which as it is very incident to men in their Corrupt State, so, for that reason, they would observe no measure; nor on the other hand would any be easily reduced to their Duty. Not that men know not what is right, their excesses, and wherein they are to blame; by no means; nothing is plainer to them: But so depraved is human nature, that without Compulsion, some way or other, too many would not readily be brought to do what they know is right and fit, or avoid what they are satisfied they should not do: Which brings me near to the Point I have undertaken; and for the better understanding of which I have thus briefly treated of Peace, Justice and Government, as a necessary Introduction, because the wayes and methods by which Peace is preserved in particular Governments, will help those Readers, most concerned in my proposal, to conceive with what ease as well as advantage the Peace of Europe might be procured and kept; which is the end designed by me, with all submission to those Interested in this little Treatise. Sect. iv. Of a General Peace, or the Peace of Europe, and the means of it. In my first Section, I shewed the desirableness of Peace, In my next the truest means of it, to wit, Justice, not War: And in my last, that this Justice was the fruit of Government as Government it self was the Result of Society; which first came from a reasonable design in Men of Peace. Now if the Soveraign Princes of Europe, who represent that Soveraign or Independant state of Men that was previous to the Obligations of Society, would, for the same reason that engaged Men first into Society, viz. Love of Peace and Order, agree to meet by their stated Deputies in a 

Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe General Diet, Estates or Parliament, and there Establish Rules of Justice [11] for Soveraign Princes to observe one to another; and this to meet yearly, or once in two or three Years at farthest, or as they shall see cause; and to be stiled, The Soveraign or Emperial Diet, Parliament or States of Europe; before which Soveraign Assembly should be brought all differences depending between one Soveraign and another, that cannot be made up by Private Embassys before the Sessions begins; and that if any of the Soveraignties that Constitute these Imperial States shall refuse to submit their Claim or Pretentions to them, or to abide and perform the Judgment thereof, and seek their remedy by Arms, or delay their Compliance beyond the time prefixt in their Resolutions, all the other Soveraignties, united as one strength, shall Compel the Submission and performance of the sentance, with damages to the suffering Party, and Charges to the Soveraignties that obliged their submission: To be sure Europe would quietly obtain the so much desired and needed Peace to Her harrassed Inhabitants; no Soveraignty in Europe having the Power, and therefore cannot show the will to dispute the conclusion; and consequently, Peace [12] would be procured and continued in Europe. Sect. v. Of the Causes of difference and Motives to Violate Peace. There appears to me but three things upon which Peace is broken, viz. To Keep, to Recover, or to Add. First, to Keep what is ones Right from the Invasion of an Enemy; in which I am purely Defensive. Secondly, to Recover, when I think my self strong enough, that which by Violence, I or my Ancestors have lost to the Arms of a stronger Power; in which I am Offensive: Or, lastly, to encrease my Dominion by the Acquisition of my Neighbours Countries, as I find them weak and my self strong. To gratifie which Passion there will never want some accident or other for a Pretence: And knowing my own strength I will be my own Judge and Carver.13 This last will find no Room in the Imperial States: They are an unpassable Limit to that Ambition. But the other two may come as soon as they please, and find the Justice of that Soveraign Court. And considering how few there are of those Sons of Prey, and how early they show themselves, may be not once in an Age or two, this Expedient being Established, the Ballance cannot well be broken.

“To be one’s own carver”: to take or choose for oneself at one’s own discretion (OED, def. 4).

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives Sect. vi. Of Titles upon which those Differences may arise.

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But I easily fore-see a Question that may be answered in our way, and that is this; What is Right? Or else we can never know what is wrong. It is very fit that this should be established. But that is fitter for the Soveraign States to resolve than me. And yet that I may lead [a way] to the matter, I say that Title is either by a long and undoubted Succession, as the Crowns of Spain, France and England; or by Election, as the Crown of Poland and the Empire; or by Marriage, as the Family of the Stewarts came by England, the Elector of Brandenburgh to the Dutchy of Cleve;14 and we in Ancient time to divers places abroad; or by Purchase, as hath been frequently done in Italy and Germany; or by Conquest, as the Turk in Christendom, the Spaniards in Flanders, formerly mostly in French hands; and the French in Burgundy, Normandy, Lorrain, French-County,15 &c. This last Title is, Morally Speaking, only questionable. It has indeed obtained a place among the Rolls of Titles, but it was engrost and recorded by the point of the Sword, and in bloody Characters. What cannot be controuled or resisted, must be submitted to; but all the World knows the date of the least of such Empires, and that they Expire with the Power of the Possessor to defend them. And yet there is a little allowed to Conquest to[o], when it has had the Sanction of Articles of Peace to confirm it: Tho’ that hath not always extinguished the Fire, but it lies, like Embers under Ashes, ready to kindle so soon as there is a fit matter prepared for it. Nevertheless when Conquest has been confirmed by a Treaty and conclusion of Peace, I must confess it is an adopted Title; and if not so genuine and natural, yet being engrafted, it is fed by that which is the security of better Titles, Consent. There is but one thing more to be mentioned in this Section, and that is from what time Titles shall take their beginning, or how far back we may look to confirm or dispute them. It would be very bold and inexcusable in me to determine so tender a point, but be it more or less time, as to the last General Peace at Nimegen,16 or to the commencing of this War, or to the time of the beginning of the Treaty of Peace; I must submit it to the great pretenders and Masters in that affair. But something every Body must be willing to give i.e., the 1594 marriage of Johann Sigismund, who became elector of Brandenburg in 1608, with Anna, duchess of Prussia. Through her mother, Anna was also heir to additional titles, including the duchy of Cleves. Johann became duke of Cleves with the signing of the Treaty of Xanten, which ended the War of the Jülich Succession (1614). 15 Franche-Comté, a region in eastern France. 16 The Treaties of Nijmegen (1678–9) ended the Franco-Dutch War. 14

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe or quit, that he may keep the rest, and by this Establishment, be for ever freed of the Necessity of losing more. Sect. vii. Of the Composition of these Imperial States.

[16]

The Composition and Proportion of this Soveraign Part or Imperial State, does, at the first look, seem to carry with it no small Difficulty what Votes to allow for the inequality of the Princes and States. But with submission to better Judgements I cannot think it invincible; For if it be possible to have an estimate of the yearly Value of the several Soveraign Countries, whose Delegates are to make up this August Assembly, the Determination of the Number of Persons or Votes in the States for every Soveraignty will not be impracticable. Now that England, France, Spain, the Empire, &c. May be pretty exactly estimated, is so plain a case, by considering the Revenue of Lands, the Exports and Entries at the Custom-Houses, the Books of Rates and Surveys that are in all Gov- [17] ernments, to proportion Taxes for the support of them, that the least inclination to the Peace of Europe will not stand or halt at this Objection. I will, with Pardon on all sides, give an Instance far from exact; nor do I pretend to it, or offer it for an Estimate; for I do it at Random: Only this, as wide as it is from the just Proportion, will give some aime to my judicious Reader, what I would be at: Remembring I design not by any computation, an Estimate from the Revenue of the Prince, but the Value of the Territory; the whole being concerned as well as the Prince. And a Juster Measure it is to go by, since one Prince may have more Revenue then another, who has much a Richer Country: Tho’ in the Instance I am now about to make, the caution is not so necessary, because, as I said before, I pretend to no manner of Exactness, but go wholly by Guess, being but for examples sake. I suppose the Empire of Germany to send 12. France 10. Spain 10. Italy which comes to France 8. England 6. Portugal 3. Sweedland17 4. Denmark 3. Poland 4. Venice 3. the seven Provinces18 4. 13 Cantons and little neighbouring Soveraignties19 2. Duke of Holstein and [18] Curland 1.20 and if the Turks and Muscovites are taken in, as seems but fit and just, they will make 10 a piece more. The whole makes Ninety. A

Sweden.   18  The Dutch Republic, or United Provinces. The Old Swiss Confederacy, precursor to modern-day Switzerland. 20 Duchy of Holstein, northernmost state of the Holy Roman empire and part of the modern-day German state of Schleswig-Holstein; duchy of Courland and Semigallia, Baltic dukedom and vassal of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 17 19

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives great Presence when they represent the 4th and now the Best and wealthiest part of the known World; where Religion and Learning, Civility and Arts have their Seat and Empire. But it is not absolutely necessary there should be always so many Persons, to represent the larger Soveraignties; for the Votes may be given by one man of any Soveraignty as well as by ten or twelve: Tho’ the fuller the Assembly of States is, the more solemn, effectual and free the Debates will be; and the resolutions must needs come with greater Authority. The Place of their first Session should be Central, as much as is possible, afterwards as they agree. Sect. viii. Of the Regulation of the Imperial States in Session.

[19]

[20]

To avoid Quarrel for Precedency, the Room may be Round and have divers Doors to come in and go out at, to prevent exceptions. If the whole number be cast into tens, each Chusing one, they may preside by turns; to whom all speeches should be addressed, and who should collect the sence of the Debates, and state the Question for a Vote, which, in my Opinion, should be by the Ball[o]t, after the Prudent and commendable Method of the Venetians:21 Which in a great degree, prevents the ill Effects of Corruption; because if any of the Delegates of that high and Mighty Estates could be so Vile, false and dishonourable as to be influenced by Money, they have the advantage of taking their Money that will give it them, and of Voting undiscovered to the Interest of their Principals, and their own Inclination; as they that understand the Ball[o] ting Box do very well know. A shrode22 Stratagem and an experimental Remedy against Corruption, at least against Corrupting: For who will give their Money where they may so easily be cousened,23 and where it is two to one they will be so, for they that will take Money in such cases, will not stick to Lye heartily to them that give it, rather than wrong their Country, when they know their Lye cannot be detected. It seems to me that nothing in this Imperial Parliament should pass, but by three quarters of the whole, at least seven above the Ballance. I am sure it helps to prevent Treachery, because if Money could ever be a temptation in such a Court, it would cost a great deal of Money to weigh

The Venetian balloting system, which aimed to make corruption impossible, consisted of a series of votes involving drawn lots and colored balls. For a description, see Coggins and Perali, “64% Majority Rule in Ducal Venice,” 709–723. 22 Archaic form of shrewd (OED). 23 Cheated, defrauded (OED, def. 1). 21

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe down the wrong Scale. All Complaints should be delivered in writing, in the Nature of Memorials; and Journals kept by a proper person in a Trunck or Chest, which should have as many differing Locks, as there are Tens in the States. And if there were a Clerk for each Ten, and a Pew or Table for these Clerks in the Assembly; and at the end of every Session, [21] One out of each Ten were appointed to examine and Compare the Journals of those Clerks, and then lock them up as I have before expressed, it would be clear and Satisfactory: and each Soveraignty if they please, as is but very fit, may have an Exemplification, or Coppy of the said Memorials, and the Journals of proceedings upon them. The Liberty and Rules of Speech, to be sure, they cannot fail in, who will be the wisest and Noblest of each Soveraignty, for its own honour and safety. If any Difference can arise between those that come from the same Soveraignty, that then one of the Major Number do give the Balls of that Soveraignty. I should think it extreamly necessary that every Soveraignty should be present under great Penalties, and that none leave the Session without leave, till all be finished; and that Neutralities in Debates should by no means be endured; For any such Latitude will quickly open a way to unfair proceedings, and be followed by a Train both of seen and unseen Inconveniencies. I will say little of the Language in which the Session of the Soveraign Estates should be held, but to be sure it must be in Latine or [22] French: The first would be very well for Civilians, but the last most easie for Men of Quality. Sect. ix. Of the Objections that may be advanced against the Design. I will first give an answer to the Objections that may be offered against my Proposal; And in my next and last Section, I shall endeavour to shew some of the manifold Convenencies that would follow this European League or Confederacy. The first of them is this, That the strongest and richest Soveraignty will never agree to it; and if it should, there would be danger of Corruption more then of force at one time or other. I answer to the first part, he is not stronger then all the rest, and for that reason you should promote this and compel him into it, especially before he be so; for then it will be too late to [23] deal with such an one. To the last part of the Objection, I say the way is as open now as then; and it may be the number fewer, and as easily come at. However, if men of Sence and Honour and Substance are Chosen, they will either scorn the baseness, or have wherewith to pay for the Knavery: At least they may be watch’t so, that one may be a Check upon the other, 

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[25]

and all prudently limited by the Soveraignty they Represent. In all great points, especially before a final resolve, they may be obliged to transmit to their Principals, the merits of such important cases depending, and receive their last Instruction: which may be done in four and twenty dayes at the most, as the place of their Session may be appointed. The Second is, That it will endanger an Effeminacy by such a disuse of the Trade of Soldiery: That if there should be any need for it, upon any occasion, we should be at a Loss as they were in Holland in 72.24 There can be no danger of Effeminacy, because each Soveraignty may introduce as Temperate or Severe a discipline in the Education of Youth, as they please, by low living, and due Labour. Instruct them in Mechanical knowledge, and in Natural Philosophy, by operation, which is the Honour of the German Nobility. This would make them Men: Neither Women nor Lyons: For Soldiers are t’other extream to Effeminacy. But the Knowledge of Nature, and the useful as well as agreeable operations of Art, give Men an understanding of themselves, of the World they are born into; how to be useful and serviceable, both to themselves and others; and how to save and help, not injure or destroy. The Knowledge of Government in general; the particular constitutions of Europe; and above all, of his own Country, are very recommending accomplishments. This fits him for the Parliament and Council at home, and the Courts of Princes and Services in the Imperial States abroad. At least, he is a good CommonWealths Man, and can be useful to the Publick, or retire, as there may be occasion. To the other Part of the Objection, Of being at a loss for Soldiery as they were in Holland in 72. The Proposal answers for it self. One has War no more then the other; and will be as much to seek upon occasion. Nor is it to be thought that any one will keep up such an Army after such an Umpire is on foot, which may hazard the safety of the rest. However, if it be seen requisit, the Question may be askt by order of the Soveraign States, why such an one either raises or keeps up a formidable Body of Troops, and he obli[g]ed forthwith to Reform or Reduce them; least any One, by keeping up a great Body of Troops, should surprize a Neighbour. But a small force in every other Soveraignty, to what it is either capable or accustomed to maintain, will certainly prevent that danger, and Vanquish any such Fear. The year 1672 was known by the Dutch as “Het Rampjaar,” or “the year of disaster.” See also p. 238.

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe The Third Objection is, That there will be great want of Employment for Younger Brothers of Families; and that the Poor must either turn Soldiers or Thieves. I have answered that in my return to the Second Objection. We shall have the more Merchants and Husbandmen, or Ingenious Naturalists, if the Government be but any thing Solicitous of the Education of their Youth: Which, next to the present and Immediate Happiness of any [26] Country, ought, of all things, to be the care and skill of the Government. For such as the Youth of a Country is bred, such is the next Generation, and the Government in good or bad hands. I am come now to the last Objection, That Soveraign Princes and States will hereby become not Soveraign; a thing they will never endure. But this also, under Correction, is a mistake, for they remain as Soveraign at home as ever they were. Neither their Power over their People, nor the usual Revenue they pay them, is diminished: It may be the War-Establishment may be reduced, which will indeed of course follow, or be better employed to the advantage of the Publick. So that the Soveraignties, are as they were; for none of them have now any Soveraignty over one another: And if this be called a lessening of their Power, it must be only because the great Fish can no longer eat up the little ones, and that each Soveraignty is equally defended from Injuries, and disabled from committing them. Cedant Arma Togae is a Glorious sentence; the Voice of the Dove; the Olive Branch of Peace.25 A blessing so great, that when it pleases God [27] to chastise us severely for our Sins, it is with the Rod of War, that, for the most Part, he whips us: And experience tells us none leaves deeper Marks behind it. Sect. x. Of the real Benefits that flow from this Proposal about Peace. I am come to my last Section, in which I shall enumerate some of those many real benefits that flow from this proposal, for the present and future Peace of Europe. Let it not, I pray, be the least, that it prevents the spilling of so much Humane and Christian Blood: for a thing so Offensive to God, and terrible and Afflicting to men, as that has ever been, must recommend our Expedient beyond all Objections. For what can a man give in exchange for his Life, as well as Soul?26 And tho’ the chiefest in Government are seldom [28] personally exposed, yet it is a duty incumbent upon them to be ­tender of the Lives of their People; since without all doubt, they are accountable See above, p. 344.  26 Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36–7; Luke 9:25.

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives to God for the Blood that is spilt in their Service. So that besides the loss of so many lives, of importance to any Government, both for labour and Prop[a]gation, the Cryes of so many Widows, Parents, and Fatherless are prevented, that cannot be very pleasant in the Ears of any Government, and is the Natural Consequence of War in all Governments. There is another manifest Benefit which redounds to Christendom by this peaceable Expedient, The Reputation of Christianity will in some degree, be recovered in the sight of Infidels; which, by the many bloody and unjust Wars of Christians, not only with them, but one with another, hath been greatly impa[i]red. For, to the scand[a]l of that holy Profession, Christians, that Glory in their Saviours Name, have long devoted the Credit and dignity of it to their worldly Passions, as often as they have been excited by the Impulses of Ambition or Revenge. They have not always [29] been in the right: Nor has right been the reason of War: And not only Christians against Christians, but the same sort of Christians have embrewed their hands in one anothers Blood: Invoking and Interesting, all they could, the good and Merciful God to prosper their Arms to their Brethrens destruction: Yet their Saviour has told them, that he came to save and not to destroy the lives of Men:27 To give and Plant Peace among Men. And if in any sence he may be said to send War, it is the Holy War indeed; for it is against the Devil and not the Persons of Men. Of all his Titles this seems the most Glorious as well as comfortable for us, that he is the Prince of Peace.28 It is his Nature, his Office, his Work, and the End and excelling Blessing of his coming, who is both the Maker and Preserver of our Peace with God. And it is very remarkable, that in all the new Testament he is but once called Lyon, but frequently the Lamb of God; to denote to us his Gentle, Meek and Harmless Nature; and that those that desire to be the Disciples of his Cross and Kingdom, for they are inseparable, must [30] be like him, as St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John tell us.29 Nor is it said the Lamb shall lie down with the Lyon, but the Lyon shall lie down with the Lamb.30 That is, War shall yield to Peace, & the Soldier turn Hermite. To be sure Christians should not be apt to strive, nor swift to anger against

Luke 9:56.  28 Isaiah 9:6. For Jesus as the lion of Judah, see Revelation 5:5; as lamb, see John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19. 30 A slight misrendering of Isaiah 11:6–7: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” 27 29

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe any Body, and less with one another, and least of all for the uncertain and fading enjoyments of this lower World: And no quality is exempted from this Doctrine. Here is a wide Field for the Reverend Clergy of Europe to act their part in, who have so much the possession of Princes and People too. May they recommend and Labour this Pacifick Means I offer, which will end Blood, if not strife; and then Reason, upon free debate, will be Judge, and not the Sword. So that both Right and Peace, which are the desire and fruit of wise Governments, and the choice blessings of any Country, seem to succeed the Establishment of this Proposal. The Third Benefit, is that it saves Money, both to the Prince and ­People; and thereby prevents those Grutchings31 and Misunderstandings between them that are wont to follow the devouring expences of War; and enables both to perform Publick Acts for Learning, Charity, Manufacto- [31] ries, &c. The Virtues of Government and Ornaments of Countries. Nor is this all the advantage that follows to Soveraignties upon this head of Money and Good Husbandry, to whose service and happiness this short Discourse is dedicated; for it saves the great expence that frequent and splendid Embassies require, and all their Appendages of Spies and Intelligence, which in the most prudent Governments have devoured mighty Sums of Money; and that not without some immoral Practices also; Such as Corrupting of Servants, to betray their Masters by revealing their S ­ ecrets; not to be defended by Christian, or old Roman Virtue. But here, where there is nothing to fear, there is little to know, and therefore the Purchase is either cheap, or may be wholly spared. I might mention Pensions to the Widows and Orphans of such as dye in Wars, and of those that have been disabled in them; which rise high in the Revenue of some Countries. Our Fourth Advantage is, that the Towns, Cities and Countries that might be laid waste by the Rage of War, are thereby preserved: A bl[e]ssing [32] that would be very well understood in Flanders and Hungary, and indeed upon all the Borders of Soveraignties, which are almost ever the Stages of Spoils and Misery; of which the stories of England and Scotland do sufficiently inform us without looking over the Water. The Fifth Benefit of this Peace, is the Ease and Security of Travel and Traffick: An Happiness never understood since the Roman Empire has been broken into so many Soveraignties. But we may easily conceive the Comfort and advantage of Travelling through the Governments of Europe by a Pass from any of the Soveraignties of it, which this League and Complaints, grudges (OED).

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives State of Peace will naturally make Authentick. They that have Travelled Germany, where is so great a number of Soveraignties, know the want and value of this Priviledge, by the many Stops and Examinations they meet with by the way: But especially such as have made the great To[u]r of Europe.32 This leads to the benefit of an Universal Monarchy, without the Inconveniencies that attend it: For when the whole was one Empire, tho’ [33] these advantages were enjoyed, yet, the several Provinces that now make the Kingdoms and States of Europe, were under some hardships from the great sums of Money remitted to the Imperial seat, and the Ambition and Avarice of their several Proconsuls and Governours, and the Great Taxes they paid to the numerous Legions of Soldiers that they maintained for their own subjection; who were not wont to entertain that concern for them (being uncertainly there, and having their fortunes to make) which their Respective and proper Soveraigns have alwayes shown for them. So that to be Ruled by Native Princes or States, with the advantage of that Peace and Security that can only render an Universal Monarchy desirable, is peculiar to our proposal, and for that reason it is to be preferred. Another advantage is, the Great Security it will be to Christians against the Inroads of the Turk in their most prosperous fortune. For it had been impossible for the Port33 to have prevailed so often, and so far upon Christendom, but by the carelessness or wilful connivance, if not aide, of some [34] Christian Princes. And for the same reason why no Christian Monarch will adventure to oppose or break such an Union, the Grand-Seignior34 will find himself obliged to concur for the security of what he holds in Europe: Where, with all his strength, he would feel it an over-match for him. The Prayers, Tears, Treason, Blood and Dev[a]station, that War has cost in Christendom, for these two last Ages Especially, must add to the credit of our Proposal, and the blessing of the Peace thereby humbly recommended. The seventh advantage of an European, Imperial Dyet, Parliament or Estates, is that it will beget and encrease Personal Friendships between Princes and States; which tends to the rooting up of Wars and planting Peace in a deep and fruitful Soyle. For Princes have the Curiosity of seeing the Courts and Cities of other Countries as well as private men, if Penn had done both: the tour of Europe (1662–4), and travel through Germany and Holland (1672, 1677). See Murphy, William Penn: A Life, chs. 2, 4–5. 33 “Sublime Port” was another name for the Ottoman empire. The term referred to the Imperial Gate (porte), where the Sultan received Western diplomats. 34 Ottoman emperor. 32

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Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe they could as securely and familiarly gratifie their Inclinations. It were a great motive to the tranquility of the World, that they could freely converse face to face, and personally and reciprocally give and receive marks of Civility and Kindness. An Hospitality that leaves these Impressions behind it, will hardly let ordinary Matters prevail to mistake or Quar- [35] rel one another. Their Emulation would be in the Instances of Goodness, Laws, Customs, Learning, Arts, Buildings; and in Particular those that relate to Charity, the true Glory of some Governments, where Begg[a]rs are as much a rarity, as in other places it would be to see none. Nor is this all the benefit that would come by this Freedom and Interview of Princes: For Natural Affection would hereby be preserved, which we see little better than lost from the time their Children or Sisters are Married into other Courts. For the present State and Insecurity of Prin­ ces forbid them the Enjoyment of that Natural Comfort which is possest by Private Families: Insomuch, that from the time a Daughter or Sister is Married to another Crown, Nature is submitted to Interest, and that, for the most part, grounded not upon solid or commendable Foundations, but Ambition, or Unjust Avarice. I say this freedom that is the effect of our Pacifick Proposal, restores Nature to Her just right and dignity in the Families of Princes, and them to the Comfort she brings wherever [36] she is preserved in her proper station. Here Daughters may Personal[ly] entreat their Parents, and Sisters their Brothers, for a good understanding between them and their Husbands, where Nature, not Crusht by absence and Sinister Interests, but active by the sight and lively Entreaties of such near Relations, is almost sure to prevail. They cannot easily resist the most affectionate Addresses of such powerful Soliciters, as their Children and Grand-Children, and their Sisters, Nephews, & N[ie]ces: And so backwards from Children to Parents, and Sisters to Brothers, to keep up and preserve their own Families, by a good understanding between their Husbands and them. To conclude this Section, there is yet another Manifest Privilege that follows this Intercourse and good understanding, which methinks should be very moving with Princes, viz. That hereby they may choose Wives for themselves; such as they love, and not by Proxy, meerly to gratifie Interest; an Ignoble motive; and that rarely begets or continues that Kindness which ought to be between Men and their Wives. A Satisfaction very [37] few Princes ever knew, and to which all other pleasures ought to resign. Which has often obliged me to think that The Advantage of ­private Men upon Princes, by Family Comforts, is a sufficient Ballance against their 

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greater Power and Glory: The one being more in Imagination then real, and often Unlawful; but the other, Natural, Solid, and Commendable. Besides it is certain, Parents loving well before they are Married, which very rarely happens to Princes, has kind and Generous Influences upon their Offspring; Which, with their example, makes them the better Husbands and Wives in their turn. This, in Great Measure prevents unlawful Love, and the Misc[h]iefs of those Intreagues that are wont to follow them[.] What Hatred, Fewds, Wars, and Desolations have, in divers Ages, flown from Unkindness between Princes and their Wives? What unnatural Divisions among their Children, and Ruine to their Families, if not loss of their Countries by it? Behold an expedient to prevent it, a Natural and Efficacious One: Happy to Princes, and happy to their People also. For Nature being renewed and strengthened by these mutual pledges and endearments, I have mentioned, will leave those soft and kind Impressions behind in the minds of Princes, that Court and Country will very easily discern and feel the Good Effects of it: Especially if they have the Wisdom to show that they Interest themselves in the Prosperity of the Children and Relations of their Princes. For it does not only incline them to be good, but engage those Relations to become Powerful Su[i]tors to their Princes for them, if any Misunderstanding should unhappily arise between them and their Soveraigns. Thus ends this Section. It now rests to conclude the discourse, in which, if I have not pleased my Reader, or answered his expectation, it is some comfort to me I meant well, and have cost him but little money and time; and brevity is an Excuse, if not a Virtue, where the subject is not agreeable, or is but ill prosecuted.

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The Conclusion. I will Conclude this my Proposal of an European, Soveraign, or Imperial Dyet, Parliament or Estates, with that which I have toucht upon before, and which falls under the notice of every one concerned, by coming home to their Particular and Respective experience within their own Soveraignties. That [by] the same Rules of Justice and Prudence, by which Parents and Masters Govern their Families, and Magistrates their Cities, and Estates their Republicks, and Princes and Kings their Principalities and Kingdoms, Europe may Obtain and Preserve Peace among the Soveraignties. For Wars are the Duels of Princes; and as Government in Kingdoms and States prevents men being Judges and Executioners for themselves, ­overrules private Passions as to Injuries or Revenge, and Subjects the 

Selection 13: An Essay towards the Peace of Europe Great as well as the small to the Rule of Justice, that Power might not Vanquish or Oppress Right, nor one Neighbour act an Independency and [40] Soveraignty upon another, while they have resigned that Original Claim to the benefit and Comfort of Society; so this being soberly weighed in the whole and parts of it, it will not be hard to conceive or frame, nor yet to execute the design I have here proposed. And for the better understanding and perfecting of the Idea I here present to the Soveraign Princes and Estates of Europe, for the safety and Tranquility of it, I must recommend to their Perusals Sir William Temple’s Account of the United Provinces;35 which is an Instance and answer, upon Practice, to all the Objections that can be advanced against the Practicability of my Proposal: Nay it is an Experiment that not only comes to our Case, but exceeds the difficulties that can render its accomplishment disputable. For there we shall find Three Degrees of Soveraignties, to make up every Soveraignty in the General States. I will reckon them backwards. First the States General themselves: Then the Immediate Soveraignties that constitute them, which are those of the Provinces; answerable to the Soveraignties of Europe, that by their Deputies are to compose the European Dyet, Parliament or Estates in our Proposal: And then there [41] are the several Cities of each Province, that are so many Independant or distinct Soveraignties, which compose those of the Provinces, as Those of the Provinces do compose the States General at the Hague. But I confess I have the passion to wish heartily that the honour of proposing and effecting so great and good a design might be owing to England, of all the Countries in Europe, as something of the nature of our expedient was, in design and preparation, to the Wisdom, Justice and Vallour of Henry the fourth of France; whose superior Qualities raising his Character above those of his Ancestors or Contemporaries, deservedly gave him the Stile of Henry the Great. For He was upon Obliging the Princes and Estates of Europe to a Politick Ballance, when the Spanish Faction, for that reason, contrived, and accomplished his Murder by the hands of Ravillack.36 I will not then fear to be censured for proposing an Expedient for the Present and future Peace of Europe, when it was not Sir William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (London, 1673), ch. 2. 36 Henry IV (1553–1610), who reigned as king of France 1589–1610, when he was assassinated by François Ravaillac. Henry’s chief advisor, the duke of Sully, is associated with a “Grand Design” akin to a European Diet; see Sir Walter Scott (ed.), Memoirs of the Duke of Sully (London, 1891), vol. IV: book 30. (See Introduction to Part IV above, pp. 341–342.) 35

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only the Design but Glory of one of the Greatest Princes that ever reigned in it; and is found practicable in the constitution of one of the wisest and Powerfullest States of it. So that to conclude, I have very little to answer for in all this affair, because, if it succeed, I have so little to deserve: For this great King’s Example tells us it is fit to be done; and Sir W. Temple’s History shews us, by a Surpassing Instance, that it may be done; and Europe, by her incomparable Miseries, makes it now necessary to be done; that my share is only thinking of it at this Juncture, and putting it into the Common Light for the Peace and Prosperity of Europe. FINIS.

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14. A Briefe and Plaine Scheame how the English Colonies in the North parts of America…may be made more useful to the Crown and one another’s peace and safety with an universal concurrence.37 1. The several Colonies, viz.: Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina should meet once a year, or oftener if need be, during the war and at least once in two years in time of peace, by their appointed deputies, to debate and resolve of such measures as are most advisable for their better understanding and their public tranquillity and safety. 2. To this end two persons well qualified for sense, sobriety and substance should be appointed by each province as their representatives and deputies, the whole making a congress to consist of twenty persons. 3. The King’s Commissioner, specially appointed for the purpose, should hold the chair and preside in the congress. 4. They shall meet as near as may be to the central Colony, for the ease of the deputies. 5. The place will probably be New York, for it is near the centre of the Colonies, it is a frontier and it is in the King’s nomination. The Governor of New York may therefore be the King’s High Commissioner during the session, after the manner of Scotland.38 Presented to the Board of Trade on February 8, 1697. At this time, the Scottish privy council and parliament were presided over by a royally appointed commissioner.

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives 6. Their business shall be to hear and adjust all matters of complaint or difference between province and province, such as: (1) Where people leave their own province and go to another, to avoid their just debts though able to pay them. (2) Where offenders fly justice or justice cannot be had upon such offenders in the provinces that entertain them. (3) To prevent or cure injuries in point of commerce. (4) To consider of ways and means to support the union and safety of these provinces against the public enemies. In such a congress the quotas of men and charges will be much easier and more equally set than it is possible for any establishment made in England to do; for the provinces, knowing their own condition and one another, can debate that matter with more freedom and satisfaction, and better adjust or balance their affairs in all respects for the common safety.39 7. In times of war the King’s High Commissioner shall be General or Chief Commander of the several quotas upon service against the common enemy, as he shall be advised for the benefit of the whole.

Each of these areas represents longstanding colonial dilemmas. With regard to the provinces “knowing their own condition” best, Penn lamented royal officials’ lack of familiarity with America. “[W]e see so little of an American understanding among those whose business it is to superintend it,” he wrote to the speaker of the House of Commons (To Robert Harley, c. April 1701, PWP IV: 42–43); to the duke of Hamilton he decried “un-American understandings” among those charged with overseeing colonial affairs (To the Duke of Hamilton, July 5, 1700, PWP III: 606).

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15. Proposal for the Advancement of Trade in America 40 The English Empire in America taking in all those latitudes of Europe which furnish us with foreign commodities that are either so necessary or agreeable to us, we may, as I humbly conceive, raise them, if due methods were taken for it in our own Colonies, as pitch, tar, deals,41 masts, hemp, flax, iron, potashes,42 silk, wine, oil, fruit, gums, drugs, copper &c. That such a design is practicable New England and the neighbouring colonies have given us a proof, for pitch, tar, deals, masts, hemp, and flax may be plentifully raised on that continent, and which, for aught I hear, fall not short in goodness of those we have from the Baltic; about which proposals have several times been made, and do, I suppose, now lie before the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. Good wine has been made as far north-east as the Narragansett Country in Pennsylvania;43 both Germans and French make wine yearly, white and red, but not in quantity for export. For silk, Virginia gave a sufficient proof in the time of Sir Wm. Bartlett;44 King Charles II wore of it. Oil may be produced there, and both doubtless in Carolina to perfection, that being yet more to the southward, as also all those fruits that come from the Straits.45 For gums and drugs, all the Colonies produce them in good quantities, also potashes to be made upon the continent. But to produce these Presented to the Committee on the State of the Trade of this Kingdom, House of Lords, March 4, 1697. 41 A slice sawn from a log of timber (OED, n. 3, def. 1). 42 Minerals, usually containing potassium, used for a wide variety of agricultural (and later industrial and commercial) purposes. 43 The Narragansett Country was in New England, not Pennsylvania (perhaps substitute “and” for “in”). 44 Penn apparently refers to Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia from 1660 to 1677. 45 Straits of Gibraltar. 40

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Part IV: Broader Perspectives commodities in fitting quantities three things are requisite: First, hands; secondly, time before duty be imposed; thirdly, a better discipline in general. We cannot have hands enough at reasonable rates without more encouragement to foreigners, which the late Act of Parliament makes more difficult to get than before;46 for, instead of advantaging ourselves by the labour of strangers in the Plantations, it suffers none but English to go thither without leave under the Privy Seal, which deserves consideration, since they have now but hands sufficient to raise the present produce of tobacco and sugar, and to feed themselves and the southern Plantations, and they will not be diverted to other things, nor is it fit they should. If there be peace, that part of the army which is disbanded will be well employed in such commodities. For those commodities we fetch from the Baltic, there are in and about New England those that understand their make, so that, if they had some more hands, they would be easily and speedily raised. The French refugees are most skillful in silk, wine, and fruit, and, if sufficiently encouraged, would with a suitable number of hands answer that point. 2. The next thing is time, and that may be made an encouragement to undertakers, if the Government will take care of what is made for seven years at a certain price, and no Custom or duty payable for that time, and more duty laid upon the same commodities of foreign growth and manufacture. 3. Discipline, which is chiefly wanted and would most of all contribute to the advancement of the Colonies, and what I take to be an artificial virtue, for without industry there can be no improvement, and where discipline is loose, industry must fall, of which we have in almost all the Colonies but too plain proof; for, by the study of private gain in officers, and the too great indulgence of licentiousness in the people, very mean improvements have been made in divers parts belonging to the Crown in America, insomuch that the common people live but from hand to mouth, are poor, shabby, and debauched, ill examples to the natives, little comfort to themselves, and not half the benefit they might be to the Colonies and the Crown; all which may be helped by a better discipline,

The 1696 Navigation Act prohibited non-English persons from purchasing land in English colonies in America.

46



Selection 15: Proposal for Trade in America that neither oppresses on the one hand nor indulges licentiousness on the other, but encourages the people in sobriety and industry. For the prevention of frauds from the tobacco Colonies to the King and Kingdom, it is humbly offered that all masters of ships should not only, in their account of loading, give the number of their hogsheads, but also the several marks those hogsheads have, because cured and packed by several planters, and consigned to divers hands, and consequently differently marked; also that there be three contents, clearings and cockets47 of each ship, one to come by the ship itself, and the other two to be sent to the Commissioners of the Customs by such conveyance as the King’s Officer shall think most safe, together with a copy of the certificate which he received from such master, as given to the said master by the Commissioners at his clearing out from England. Lastly, that the master be bound to the Government, as well as the owners, to forfeit 500 l. [pounds sterling] if faulty in navigating to any ports but according to law. Conclusion. For a better correspondence and commerce among the King’s provinces upon the Continent, and for the government of the northern tract of America, where the people are planted at great distance one from another, I humbly offer that the King would be pleased to recommend to them their annual meeting by deputies, who best knowing their own and one another’s circumstances, they may adjust all matters in pursuance of such directions to a common benefit.48

Custom seal, certifying that duty has been paid on merchandise (OED, def. 2). See Selection 14.

47 48



Select Bibliography Primary Sources and Collections “An Account of the Convincement of William Penn.” Journal of the Friends Historical Society 32 (1935): 22–26. Early English Books Online: www.proquest.com/products-services/databases/ eebo.html Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey, and Delaware. Edited by Albert Cook Myers. New York: Scribner, 1912. Penn, Granville. Memorials of the professional life and times of Sir William Penn, Knt. 2 vols. London: James Duncan, 1833. Penn, William. A Collection of the Works of William Penn. 2 vols. Edited by Joseph Besse. London, 1726.   The Papers of William Penn [microform]. 14 reels. Philadelphia, PA: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1975.   The Papers of William Penn. 5 vols. Edited by Mary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981–1987. William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680–1684: A Documentary History. Edited by Jean R. Soderlund. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Secondary Sources on Penn and His Times Allen, Richard C., and Rosemary Moore (with specialist contributors). The Quakers 1656–1723: The Evolution of an Alternative Community. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2018. Angell, Stephen Ward. “William Penn, Puritan Moderate.” In The Lamb’s War: Quaker Essays to Honor Hugh Barbour, edited by Michael Birkel and John W. Newman, pp. 76–90. Earlham: Earlham College, 1992. Barbour, Hugh. William Penn on Religion and Ethics: The Emergence of Liberal Quakerism. Lewiston, NY: Mellon Press, 1991.

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Select Bibliography Beatty, Edward C. O. William Penn as Social Philosopher. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Braithwaite, William C. The Beginnings of Quakerism. London: Macmillan, 1912.   The Second Period of Quakerism. London: Macmillan, 1919. Bronner, Edwin B. William Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681–1701. New York: Temple/Columbia, 1962. Calvert, Jane E. Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Coffey, John. Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689. New York: Longman, 2000. Corcoran, Irma. Thomas Holme, 1624–1695: Surveyor General of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1992.   “William Penn and His Purchasers: Problems in Paradise,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 138 (1994): 476–486. Davies, Adrian. The Quakers in English Society, 1655–1725. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. De Krey, Gary S. London and the Restoration, 1659–1683. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Dunn, Mary Maples. William Penn: Politics and Conscience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967. Dunn, Richard S. and Mary Maples Dunn (eds.). The World of William Penn. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. Endy, Melvin B., Jr. William Penn and Early Quakerism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. Frost, J. William. A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1993. Geiter, Mary. William Penn. New York: Longman, 2000. Goldie, Mark. “The Political Thought of the Anglican Revolution.” In The Revolutions of 1688: The Andrew Browning Lectures, edited by Robert Beddard, pp. 102–136. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.   “The Theory of Religious Intolerance in Restoration England.” In From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England, edited by Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel, and Nicholas Tyacke, pp. 331–368. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Haefeli, Evan. New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Hamm, Thomas. The Quakers in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Horle, Craig W. The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660–1688. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. Hsueh, Vickie. Hybrid Constitutions: Challenging Legacies of Law, Privilege, and Culture in Colonial America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. Ingle, H. Larry. First among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Jones, J. R. The First Whigs: The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678–1683. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.

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Select Bibliography Jordan, W. K. The Development of Religious Toleration in England, 4 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932–1940. Keeble, N. H. The Restoration: England in the 1660s. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Kunze, Bonnelyn Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. Lake, Peter. “Anti-Popery: The Structure of a Prejudice.” In Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603–1642, edited by Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, pp. 72–106. London: Longman, 1989. Maloyed, Christie L. “A Liberal Civil Religion: William Penn’s Holy Experiment,” Journal of Church and State 55 (2013): 669–689. Marshall, John. John Locke, Toleration, and Early Enlightenment Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Miller, John. James II. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Moore, Rosemary. The Light in Their Consciences: Early Quakers in Britain, 1646– 1666. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000. Moretta, John A. William Penn and the Quaker Legacy. New York: Pearson, 2007. Murphy, Andrew R. Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2001.   “‘Lively Experiment’ and ‘Holy Experiment’: Two Trajectories of Religious Liberty.” In The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present, edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher Grenda. Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.   Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.   William Penn: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Murphy, Andrew R. and John Smolenski (eds.). The Worlds of William Penn. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019. Nash, Gary. Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania 1681–1726. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968. Olson, Alison Gilbert. “William Penn, Parliament, and Proprietary Government,” William and Mary Quarterly 18 (1961): 176–195. Peare, Catherine. William Penn: A Biography. Philadelphia, PA: J. P. Lippincott, 1956. Pestana, Carla Gardina. The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Pincus, Steve. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale ­University Press, 2009. Ryerson, Richard Alan. “William Penn’s Gentry Commonwealth: An Interpretation of the Constitutional History of Early Pennsylvania, 1681–1701,” Pennsylvania History 61 (1994): 393–428. Schwartz, Sally. A Mixed Multitude: The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania. New York: NYU Press, 1988. Scott, Jonathan. Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis, 1677–1683. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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Select Bibliography Smolenski, John. Friends and Strangers: The Making of a Creole Culture in Colonial Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA and Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Sowerby, Scott. Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Sutto, Antoinette. “The Borders of Absolutism: William Penn, Charles Calvert, and the Limits of Royal Authority,” Pennsylvania History 76 (2009): 276–300. Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin, 2001. Tolles, Frederick B. Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763. New York: Norton, 1948. Tully, Alan. William Penn’s Legacy: Politics and Social Structure in Provincial Pennsylvania, 1726–1755. Baltimore, MA and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Walsham, Alexandra. Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500–1700. New York: Manchester University Press, 2006.

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Index Note: Given the variegated nature of early modern spelling, this index renders most names in their standard modernized format. This may involve slight deviations from Penn’s usage in the text. Abiram, 246 abolitionism, 21 Absalom, 247 Abstract of the Patent Granted by the King To William Penn, &c., 295–298 Act of Uniformity, 210 Adrian. See Hadrian affirmations, 283–284, 311 Agricola, 136. See also Tacitus, Cornelius Ahasuerus, 240, 240 Albany Congress, 342 Albigenses, 193 Alee, John, 104–105 Alexander (the Great), 231–232, 277 Alfred, 59, 74–75, 74, 81–82, 92–94, 109–110 Alfonso I, 115–116 American colonies, 8–9, 18, 21, 342–344. See also specific colonies; plantations Indian tribes and, 342 intercolonial cooperation, 342–343, 363–364 matters of complaint or difference among, 364 political and economic development, 340 removing barriers to emigration to, 342–343, 366 trade and, 291–292, 321, 342–344, 365–367 Anabaptists, 122–123, 218, 269–270 Anglicanism. See Church of England Anglo-Dutch wars, 29, 251–252, 340–341 Anna, Duchess of Prussia, 350

Anselm, 246–247 Anselm Franz von Ingelheim, 245 Antonius Pius, 191, 272 Anytus, 166–167 Arianism, 87, 132, 188, 191, 241 Aristides, 272 aristocracy, 317 Aristophanes, 166–167 Armorer, William, 198 Ascue, George, 253 assemblies. See also freedom of assembly; General Assembly (Pennsylvania) popular, 93–94 religious, 200–204 unlawful, 54–58 Athenians, 93–94 Athens, 137, 237–238 Atticus, 272 Augustine, 8 Augustine of Canterbury, 93–94, 112 Augustus, 231–232, 240–241, 277 Austria, 242 Auxentius, 195, 272 Babylonian empire, 237–238 Bacon, Nathaniel, 97 Historical Discourse, 30, 89–90 Baily, John, 35, 46, 50 Baltimore, Lord (Cecil Calvert), 11, 282, 284 Bancroft, Richard, 130



Index Barbados, 287–288 Bartlett, William, 365 Bealknap, Robert, 75, 109–110 Beatitudes, 341, 344 Becket, Thomas, 246–247 Bede, 89–90, 93–94 Berkeley, William, 365 Bigot, Roger, 62–63, 107–108 Bloodworth, Thomas, 35, 44–45, 48, 78 Board of Trade, 342, 363, 365 Bohemia, 242, 274 Boniface, 61–63, 107–108 Bonner, Edmund, 198 Booth, George, 257 Borgia, Cesare, 115–116 Bradshaw, William, 130–131 Brightman, John, 35, 46, 50 Britains (Britons), 89, 93–94, 97–98, 136–138 British Atlantic, 5–6 British empire, 8–9, 21–22, 342–344 Britons. See Britains Brown, Richard, 35, 40, 43 Brutians, 115–116 Bucer, Martin, 132–134 Buckingham, Duke of (George Villiers), Short Discourse Upon the Reasonableness of Men’s Having a Religion, 162 Burgundy, 350 Bushel, Edward, 29, 35, 38, 44–48, 50 “Bushel’s case,” 29 Cajetan, Thomas, 132–133 Caleb, 287 Caligula, 231–232, 277 Callowhill (Penn), Hannah, 11–12 Calvin, John, 112, 121–123, 193 Calvinism, 266–267 Calvinists, 132–133, 244 Camiolia, 242 Campanella, Tommaso, 126, 193–194, 231–232 Canaanites, 239 Carolina, 8–9, 18, 363, 365 Carpenter, Samuel, 338 Carthage, 115, 237–238 Cartwright, Thomas, 130–131 Cassander, Georg, 132–133 Catholic states, 9 Protestants in, 242–243 religious toleration in, 242–243

Cato, 109, 191 Cavalier Parliament, 30, 140–141 Charles I, 7, 122–123, 126–129, 195–196, 230, 248, 274–275, 312–313 Charles II, 7, 9, 10–11, 29, 30, 77, 255–256, 282, 288–289, 318–319, 332, 340–341, 365 Declaration of Indulgence and, 155, 161, 257–258, 260–261 patent to Penn for Pennsylvania, 295–298, 318–319, 332 Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor), 193, 215 Charter of Privileges, 284–285, 332–338 Charter of the Forest, 107–108 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 192 Childeric III, 246 Christian Augustus, 244–245 Christian emperors, 258 Christianity. See also specific sects and denominations peace and, 356–357 primitive, 330 reputation of, 356–357 Christians in Roman empire, 240–242 sects among, 269–271 unity among, 269–270 Christian V, 243–244 Chrysostom, John, 195, 273 church government, 221, 238–239 Church of England, 6, 7, 8, 30, 125–133, 153–158, 181, 216, 263, 266–267, 269–270 church conformity and, 262–264, 267 church interests and, 263–265 Dissenters and, 263, 269 disunity among Protestants and, 217–218 government’s obligation to maintain, 278 liberty of conscience and, 268–269 monarchy and, 233, 234 religious persecution and, 263, 266–267 religious toleration and, 267, 272 Roman Catholicism and, 232–233 tensions with Presbyterians, 208–210 Thirty-Nine Articles, 155–156 church–state relationship, 235–236, 262–263, 278 in commonwealths, 239 in monarchies, 239–240



Index church–state separation, 19, 117–118, 122–125, 158, 165–166 Cicero, 341, 344 civil commonwealth, England as, 16–17 civil interest(s), 16–17, 161–162, 215, 218, 220–221, 265 definition of, 213 Dissenters and, 220, 257 divisions in, 217–218 of English Protestants, 214–216, 220, 222–224, 229 as foundation of civil government, 213–214, 222, 224 in Holland, 220–221 Penn’s notion of, 11, 20 Roman Catholic Church and, 216–217 civil liberties, 333–334, 336. See also judicial system; specific civil liberties civil magistrates, 22, 136–137, 138, 183, 194, 211, 218, 329 civil interest and, 218 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302, 306–307, 313–314 in A Perswasive to Moderation, 264, 266–267, 270, 271 toleration and, 84, 85 tests and, 227–228 civil rights, 213–214, 249–251 civil society, 220 civil union, 212–229 civil wars, English, 7, 9–10, 249 Clarendon Code, 7, 101 Clark, Benjamin, 253, 298–299 Clayton, Thomas, 197–198 Coke, Edward (Cook), 41, 42–44, 67–68, 75, 77, 102, 104–105, 109–110 Commissioners of Education, 305–306 Commissioners of Justice, 305 Commissioners of Trade, 305 Commissioners of the Treasury, 305 Committee of Justice and Safety, 321 Committee of Manners, Education and Arts, 321 Committee of Plantations, 321 Committee of Trade and Treasury, 321, 329–330 common law, 41, 57–58, 74–75, 110, 151 commonwealths church–state relationship in, 239

vs. monarchies, 239 toleration and, 238, 239 comprehension, 129, 130, 160–161, 207–211, 262–263. See also religious toleration Confirmationis Cartarum, 74–75 Conformists, 215, 245–246, 257, 265 conformity, 223–224 dangers of, 251–252, 262–263 security not guaranteed by, 245–249 conscience, 22–23, 234–275. See also liberty of conscience attempts to force, 263–264 (see also religious coercion) definition of, 234–235 theological analyses of, 88–89 traditional Christian notion of, 16 consent, 282, 292, 302–303, 350 Constantine, 191, 273–274 Constantinople, 182, 241–242 Constantius, 191, 273 constitution, ancient English, 7, 28, 143, 144. See also Magna Carta Conventicle Act, 28, 29–30, 32, 54–55, 143, 160–161, 169, 181–182, 201, 200–204, 205 Cook, James, 38, 55 Corah, 246 corruption, 287, 290, 300, 302, 305–307, 316, 345, 352–354 Cotton, John, 17 Council of Trent, 155–156, 185–186, 232 courts, 326–327. See also judicial system Cremtius, 191 Croatia, 242 Cromwell, Oliver, 9–10, 77–78, 81–82, 122–123, 195, 255–257 Cromwell, Thomas, 104–105 Cruce, Emeric, 341–342 Culleners, 218 Curthose, Robert, 246–247 customs and duties, 342–343, 366 Cyrus, 231–232, 277 Damask, James, 35, 46, 50 Danes, 98 Dathan, 246 David, 247 debt, 92–93, 123–124, 308, 327 Declaration of Breda, 7



Index Declarations of Indulgence, 29, 31, 155, 161, 257–258, 260–261, 263 democracy, 317 Denmark, 236, 243–244, 351 deputies. See legislators Diet of Speyer, 215–216 Diet of Worms, 193 Digby, Kenelm, 233 Dio, 89–90, 93–94 disestablishment, 19. See also church–state relationship dissent, 7–8, 28–29, 86–87, 108–109, 120–121, 130–131, 160–161, 249 among Jews, 246, 247, 270 civil interest and, 217–218 as danger to the state, 210, 235–249 liberty of conscience and, 191, 204, 205, 207–208 in monarchies, 249–251 in Roman empire, 240-242 Dissenters, 1–2, 4, 5–8, 11–12, 20, 22, 30, 54, 77–79, 153–154, 207–208, 220, 223–226, 228, 232, 245–248, 256, 263–265, 271 among Jews, 190 Church of England and, 263, 269 civil interest and, 220, 257 civil rights of, 30 Conventicle Act and, 169, 201, 202 in England’s Great Interest, 141 in England’s Present Interest, 117–118, 121, 123–130, 135 in France, 247 in The Great and Popular Objection, 151, 155–158 in The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 166–167, 169, 181, 198, 204 in Israel, 239–240 loyalty of, 221, 252–254 in One Project for the Good of England, 215, 217–219 persecution of, 216, 219, 225–226, 256, 261–268, 275–278 in The Proposed Comprehension, 207–208 Roman Catholic, 263 toleration of, 159–160, 164, 190, 193-194, 223–224, 229, 232–234, 236–237, 240, 256, 260–261, 234–275, 278, 341 (see also Declaration of Indulgence, liberty of conscience)

Dod, John, 130–131 Dominicans, 270 Donatists, 8 d’Ossat, Arnaud, 242–243 du Moulin, Peter, 131–132 Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, 351 Dudley, Edmund, 75–77, 104-105, 109–111, 143 Dunn, Mary Maples, 2 Dunn, Richard S., 12 Eastland Company, 288–289 economics, 261 economic growth, 287–288 peace and, 357 war and, 341, 345–346 Edict of Nantes, 9 education, 305–306, 312, 321, 329 Edward I, 61–64, 64–80, 72–75, 91, 92, 95–96, 106–107, 109–110 Edward II, 75, 109–110, 259 Edward III, 61, 96, 104–106, 246–247 Edward IV, 246–247 Edward the Confessor, 59–61, 101 Edward VI, 114, 122–123, 236, 250 Edwards, James, 35 Edwin of Sharnbourn, 92 Egerton, John, 197 Egyptians, 239 election, vs. reprobation, 132–133, 268 elections, 91 in European Parliament, 352 of legislators, 144–147 in Pennsylvania, 307, 321–322, 324, 326, 335 Venetian balloting system, 307, 352 Elizabeth I, 114, 122–123, 126–127, 236, 250, 288–289 Empson, Richard, 75–77, 104–105, 109–111, 143 England, 245, 249, 255, 350, 351 change of religion in, 236 Dutch Protestants in, 245 economic growth in, 287–288 French Protestants in, 245 Jews in, 245 papal authority and, 215–216 population decline in, 288–289, 290 Protestantism in, 215 Roman Catholics in, 248, 256–257, 256



Index English East India Company, 21 English liberties, 22, 29–30, 184–185. See also English rights; specific liberties in England’s Great Interest, 142–143 in England’s Present Interest, 101–104, 106–107, 133, 138 transferred to Pennsylvania, 292 English Protestants. See also Protestants; specific groups civil interest of, 214–218, 220, 222–224, 229 divisions among, 217–218, 222 religious toleration among, 224 English rights, 184–185 in England’s Great Interest, 142–143 in England’s Present Interest, 84, 88–118, 122–128, 133, 138–139 preservation of, 118, 122–128 episcopacy, 129, 130 Episcopalians, 129–131, 218. See also Church of England Ernest Augustus, 244 Essenes, 270 Ethelbert, 93–94 Ethelred, 97, 98 Ethelston, 90–91 Europe, peace in, 344–362 (see also European Parliament; specific countries) European Parliament benefits of, 355–360 composition of, 351–352 elections in, 352–353 maintenance of military power and, 354 objections to, 353–355 Penn’s proposal for, 340, 341, 344–362 Eusebius Pamphilius, 191, 273–274 Evagrius Scholasticus, 258 Exclusion Crisis, 10–11, 233–234 Fabius Vitulanus, 193–194 faith, 171, 177, 178, 179 as gift of God, 171, 172 professions of, 330, 334 Faldo, John, 219–220 Falisci, 116, 277 Falkland, Lord (Lucius Cary) , 243 felicity, as objective of government, 183–184 felons, 328 Ferdinand I, 115–116

Fitzalan, Edmund, 104–105 Flanders, 345, 350, 357 Flavius Josephus, 191 Fletcher, Benjamin, 11–12, 284 force. See also religious coercion, imposition, 121 Ford, Bridget, 298–299 Ford, Philip, 298–299 Ford, Richard, 35 Fox, George, 8, 311 Foxe, John, 193 France, 152, 182, 246, 250, 259, 350, 351 Church of, 247 Huguenots in, 247–248 monarchy in, 255, 259 religious toleration in, 193, 242, 243 Roman Catholicism and, 247–248 Franche-Comté, 350 Franciscans, 270 Francis I, 193 Franco-Dutch War, 350 Franklin, Benjamin, 342 Franks, 246 Frederick III, 193 Frederick V, 196, 274 Frederick William, 244 freedom of assembly, 54–58, 188–190 freedom of religion. See liberty of conscience; religious liberty; religious toleration freedom of speech, 191, 109, 204 frilingi, 93–94, 98 fundamental law(s), 105–107, 142, 184–185. See also fundamental rights, Magna Carta in England’s Present Interest, 88–89, 91–93, 97–104, 116–117 in Magna Carta, 102, 109–110 of person, 92–93, 99, 101–104 property rights, 92, 93, 99, 101–142 right to jury trial, 97–98, 101–102, 103–104 right to legislation, 142–143 right to share in judicatory power, 143 share in judicatory power, 97–104 Furly, Benjamin, 17 gambling, 283, 312 General Assembly (Pennsylvania), 284 in Charter of Privileges, 334–335, 337–338



Index in Frame of Government, 315–316, 319–327, 330–331 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302–307, 313–314 Genoa, 238 Gentiles, 127–128, 237, 246, 268, 270, 274 George I, 1–2 Germany, 132–133, 152, 182, 236, 345, 350, 351, 351 Calvinists in, 244 Lutheranism in, 244–245 religious toleration in, 193, 244–245 Roman Catholics in, 244–245 Treaty of Westphalia and, 249 Gibeonites, 239 Gibson, Richard, 233 Gillespie, George, 130–131 Goodsonn, William, 251–253 government civil interest as foundation of, 222 definition of, 179, 213, 300 government administration, 321–322, 323–324, 329, 330 Jews and, 317 as means of justice, 348 objectives of, 183–184, 347–348 preservation of, 213–214, 220–221, 263 religious coercion and, 179–190 Roman empire and, 317 security of, 224–225, 228 governors accountability to Assembly, 313–314 in Charter of Privileges, 325, 331 in Frame of Government, 320–325, 330–331 in Fundamental Constitutions, 306, 313–314 Gracechurch Street meetinghouse, 28, 36, 35–36, 52–53, 57–58 Granada, 242 Gratian, 96–97 Gratianus, 241–242 Great Charter. See Magna Carta “Great Ejection,” 210 Greek Orthodox Christians, 269–270 Greeks, ancient, 97, 237–238 Gregory VII, 246 Grotius, Hugo, 126, 190, 193–194, 231–232, 236–237, 240, 341–342

Guicciaridini, Francesco, 109, 191 Gunthurne the Dane, 98 habeas corpus, 283, 311 Hadrian, 191, 272 Hales, John, 250 Halifax, Marquis of (George Savile), Letter to a Dissenter, 151–152, 156–157 Haman, 240 Hammond, Henry, 194 Hammond, John, 35, 45, 46, 50 Hannibal, 115–116, 119–120, 137 190–191, 231–232, 258 Harman, John, 253 Hastings, Lord, 104–105 Heath, Archbishop Nicholas, 250 Hebrew Congregation of Newport, 6 Hecatombs, 240–241 Henley, Henry, 35, 46, 50 Henry, Earl of Oxford, 62–63, 107–108 Henry I, 91, 92, 93, 95–96, 101, 246–247 Henry II, 92, 101, 259 Henry III, 61, 62–63, 92, 93, 101, 106–107, 246–247, 259 Henry IV (France), 193, 242, 247–248, 250, 341–342, 361–363 Henry IV (Holy Roman empire), 246 Henry VI, 246–247, 259 Henry VII, 75, 76, 104–105, 110–111 Henry VIII, 104–105, 114, 122–123, 143, 236, 246–247 Herodians, 270 hierarchy, 238–239 Hilary of Poitiers, 132, 195, 272 Hill, William, 251–253 Hobbes, Thomas, 346–347 Holland, 9, 31, 182, 220–221, 258, 259, 340–341, 351, 354–355. “Rampjaar,” 238 religious toleration in, 193, 237–238, 242–243 Roman Catholicism in, 220–221, 248 Holy Roman empire, 246, 340, 351 Homousians, 87, 132, 188, 191 Hoogstraaten, Jacob van, 198–199 Hooker, Richard, 130 Horn, Andrew, 59, 74–75, 90–91, 137–138 Howell, John, 35



Index Hubert de Burgo (de Burgh), 74–75, 109–110 Hudson, Jeffrey, 233 Huguenots, 194, 245, 247–248 Humphrey, Earl of Hereford, 62–63, 107–108 Hungary, 242, 345, 357 hypocrisy, 181–182, 186–187, 262–263 penalties for, 228 Importation Acts, 180–181 imposition, 171, 223–224. See also religious coercion as destructive of privilege of nature and principle of reason, 176–179 as invasion of divine prerogative, 171, 172 as repugnant to Scripture, 174–176 Ina, 90–91, 93–94 Independents, 218, 257, 269–270 indulgence. See toleration infallibility, claims to, 171–172 informers, 167 incentives for, 277–278 inheritance, 307–308. See also property rights; succession Innocent III, 193 intercolonial cooperation, 342, 343 international cooperation, 341–342, 344–362. See also European Parliament Investiture Controversy, 246 “inward Light,” 8 Ireland, 245, 345 Irish Protestant Church, 194 Islam. See also Turks religious toleration and, 242 Israel. See also Jews Dissenters in, 239–240 monarchy in, 239–240 national religion and, 239–240 Italy, 350, 351 Jacobites, 1, 11, 284 Jamaica, 287–288 James (apostle), 134 James I, 122–123, 126–127, 181, 195–196, 274–275 James II, 10-12, 14, 18, 22, 30–32, 161–162, 275, 284, 332, 340–341 Catholicism of, 233–234

Exclusion Crisis and, 233–234 Penn’s alliance with, 160 scheme to pack parliament, 152, 154–155 use of royal dispensing and suspending powers, 153–154 Jamestown, 8–9 Jefferson, Thomas, 2, 20–21 Jerome, 195, 273 Jesuits, 270 Jews, 127–128, 193–194, 231–232, 268, 277, 301, 317 dissent among, 195, 240, 246, 247, 270 in England, 245 religious toleration and, 190, 236–237, 239–241, 245, 270 in Roman empire, 240–241 sects among, 270 Johan George III, 244 John, Earl of Warren, 62–63, 107–108 John (king), 60–61, 96, 99, 101, 105–106, 246–247, 259 John (saint), 356 John of Gaunt, 104–105 Jordan, Joseph, 253 Joshua, 287 Jovianus, 119–120, 132, 241, 242 judgment, 171, 177, 178–179 judicatory power, share in, 99, 97–104, 143 judicial system in Charter of Privileges, 336 in Frame of Government, 323–324, 326–327 in Fundamental Constitutions, 309–311 Julian, 191 Julius Caesar, 89–90, 93–94, 137 jury system, 28–30, 110–111, 143, 228, 277–278, 283–284 in England’s Present Interest, 84, 89, 97–98, 101–105, 110–111, 138–139 in Fundamental Constitutions, 310 as judges of law or fact, 33, 57–58 jury independence, 28, 69, 80–82 in Pennsylvania, 327 in The Peoples {Ancient and Just} Liberties Asserted, 48, 49, 51–53, 68–70, 77, 78–79 justice, 305, 341–342 government as means of, 348 as means of peace, 346–347 Justinian, 165



Index Katharine (queen), 114 Keelings (Kelynge’s) case, 69, 80–82 Keithian schism, 14–15 King’s High Commissioner, 363–364 Lacedaemon, 137, 237–238. See also Sparta Lacedemonians, 93–94 Lactantius, 195, 273 Laertius, 237 Lambarde, William, 60, 74, 200–201 Langton, Stephen, 62 Laud, William, 130 law(s), 99, 101–104, 300, 317–318, 330–331. See also fundamental law(s); legislation; Magna Carta; specific laws liberty of conscience and, 186–190 of Pennsylvania, 317–318, 321, 325–332 religious toleration and, 189, 193–194 superficial, 88 Lawson, John, 253 League of Augsburg, War of, 345, 350 legislation, 84, 93–97, 102–104, 138–139, 292, 328. See also voting; specific legislation in Pennsylvania, 334–337 right to, 142–143, 184 legislators, 102–106, 116–117, 324. See also representation; specific bodies in Charter of Privileges, 334–335 elections of, 144–147 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302–305, 307 legislatures. See also General Assembly in Charter of Privileges, 337 Leontines, 115–116 Lever, William, 35, 46, 50 liberties, 79–80. See also specific liberties in Magna Carta, 61–62, 66–68, 70–74, 77 political, 27–32, 83–148, 149–159 liberty, 138–139. See also liberties; specific liberties English rights of, 29–30, 84 of person, 89, 92–93 liberty of conscience, 6–7, 11–12, 15–16, 22–23, 28, 31, 33, 159–163, 163–206, 210, 234–275, 283–285 Church of England and, 268–269 consequences of restricting, 191 Conventicle Act and, 169 as danger to the state, 162, 186

definition of, 170–171, 207–208, 234–235 in England’s Present Interest, 85–86, 108– 109, 112–118, 122–125, 133 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302 in The Great and Popular Objection, 151–152, 155–156 in The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 160–161, 163–206 great charter for, 152–154, 158, 177 leading to peace and prosperity, 341 in One Project for the Good of England, 212–229 in Pennsylvania, 333–334, 336 in A Perswasive to Moderation, 230–279 in The Proposed Comprehension, 207–211 theory of, 16–17, 22–23, 159–160 Lichfield Chronicle, 91 Lincoln’s Inn, 36–37 Livy, 115–116, 119–120, 190, 231–232, 258, 277 Locke, John, 13, 15, 17–21 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 18 Letter Concerning Toleration, 15, 17–21 Two Treatises, 18 Logan, James, 12 Louis XI, 193, 255 Louis XII, 193 Louis XIV, 9, 29, 255, 340–341 Low Countries, 259. See also Holland Lucca, 238 Lusatia, 242 Luther, Martin, 79, 122–123, 132–133, 193, 215–216 Lutheranism, 244–245 Lutherans, 132–133, 269–270 Lycurgus, 287 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 116 Madison, James, 20–21 Magna Carta, 7, 28, 41, 61, 84, 91–93, 106–107, 109, 278, 283, 312–313 consequences for breachers of, 107–108 fundamental laws in, 102, 109–110, 117–118 liberties in, 61–62, 66–68, 70–74, 77 in The Peoples {Ancient and Just} Liberties Asserted, 33, 43–44, 48, 49, 51, 52–53, 61–64, 69–70, 80–82 as restoration/confirmation of ancient privileges, 97–101



Index Maimonides, Moses, 236–237 Malvezzi, Virgilio, 120, 190, 258 manufacturing, 261, 287–288, 289–290 Marcus Aurelius, 272 Marburg Colloquy, 132 Martyr, Justin, 191, 272 Mary I, 114, 122–123, 236, 250 Maryland, 8–9, 282 Massachusetts Bay, 8–9, 14, 17, 294–295 Matthew (Gospel), 310 Mauritius, 246 Mazarin, Jules, 193, 255 Mead, William, 10, 22 indictment of, 35–37, 37–44, 52–61 trial of, 28, 32, 45–52, 68–69 Melanchthon, Philip, 122–123, 132–133 Melito, 272 Messenians, 115–116 Michel, Henry, 35, 46, 50 Micklemote, 90–91 Milson, Charles, 35, 46, 50 moderation, 229, 234–275. See also liberty of conscience; religious toleration monarchies, 238–239, 254–256. See also monarchy (British); specific monarchs and dynasties church–state relationship in, 239–240 vs. commonwealths, 239 dissent in, 249–251 in Israel, 239–240 national religion and, 239–240 relationships among, 358–360 religious toleration and, 238, 249, 253–254 secured by toleration, 249–251, 254–255 succession and, 249–251, 350–351 universal monarchy, 358 monarchy (British), 232, 236, 269, 317. See also specific monarchs and dynasties Church of England and, 233, 234 interest of, 256–257, 260–261, 277–278 religious toleration and, 278 Moors, religious toleration and, 242 morals legislation, 283–284 Moravia, 242 Mordecai, 240 Moses, 173, 246, 287, 307–308 Naples, 115–116 national religion, 101, 165–166, 182, 217–218,

222–223, 235–236. See also church–state relationship Israel and, 239–240 monarchies and, 239–240 Navigation Acts, 342, 366 Nebuchadnezzar, 137, 178 Nero, 231–232, 277 New England, 294–295, 365 Newgate Prison, 160, 179 New Jersey, 9, 21, 282 New Netherland, 8–9 New York, 284 Noachical Principles, 190, 236–237, 239 Nonconformists, 161, 210, 215, 218–219, 245–246. See also Dissenters Normandy, 350 Normans, 89, 102 Novations, 241–242 Numa Pompilius, 287–288 oaths, 262 insecurity of, 225 replaced by affirmations, 283–284, 311 swearing, 223–226, 283–284, 311, 321 Odo, 98–99 Oecolampadius, Johannes, 122–124 Old Bailey, 28, 35, 41–42, 44–47, 67–68, 69–70 oligarchy, 317 Onofrio Panvinio, 258 Owen, Griffith, 338 ownership, 89–97. See also property rights papacy, 215–216, 222–223, 225 England and, 215–216 Holy Roman empire and, 246 limits to papal authority, 85–86 papists. See Roman Catholics Parker, Samuel, 33, 34–35 Parliament, 7, 9–12, 22, 31, 59–60, 126–128, 146, 169, 212, 256, 257 Acts of, 75, 104–105, 110, 143 (see also specific acts) Cavalier, 30, 140–141 elections of, 144–147 packed, 152, 154–155 religion and, 113 repeal of the penal laws & tests, 149–159



Index resistance to Declarations of Indulgence, 155, 161 Saxon, 90–91, 95–96, 98 Paul (saint), 7, 221, 264, 356 peace, 340, 341–342, 348–349, 357–358 advantages of, 345–346 Christianity and, 356–357 economic benefits of, 357 following from liberty of conscience, 341 justice and, 346–347 security and, 357–358 threats to, 349, 350–351 Peace of Augsburg, 244 “peace testimony,” 341 Peak, William, 35 Pemberton, Phineas, 338 penal laws, 31, 76, 110–111, 277–278, 302, 308–309, 327, 328, 330–331 for religion, 135, 136, 149–159 repeal of, 149–159 Penn, Gulielma, 12 Penn, Hannah. See Callowhill (Penn), Hannah Penn, Margaret, 9–10 Penn, Springett, 12 Penn, William, 4, 9–10, 12–13, 164–165, 253. See also Penn, William, works of as advisor to James II, 160, 284 as American “founder,” 5–6 on Conventicle Act, 200–204 debts of, 298–299 as Dissenter, 1–2, 4–6, 9, 169 education of, 9–10, 36–37 as governor of Pennsylvania, 325–326, 332–333, 336–337, 338 imprisonment of, 1, 4–5, 11–13, 160, 164–165, 179, 298–299 indictment of, 35–37–44, 52–61 joins Society of Friends, 10, 22 patent received from Charles II, 318–319, 329, 332 in Pennsylvania, 284 petitions Charles II for land, 10–11, 282 as political theorist, 22–23 as public figure, 22, 159–160 scholarly attention to, 2, 160–161 trial of, 28, 32, 45–46 Penn, William (father), 9–12, 251–252, 282, 318–319 Penn, William, Jr. (son), 12

Penn, William, works of A Brief and Plain Scheame How the English Colonies in the North parts of America, 342, 363–364 The Charter of Privileges, 332–338 England’s Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament, 140–148, 161–162 England’s Present Interest, 29–30, 83–140 An Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, 12, 340–341, 344–362 Frame of Government and Laws Agreed Upon in England, 283–284, 315–332 Fundamental Constitutions of Pennsylvania, 283–284, 299–315 The Great and Popular Objection Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws, 30–31, 149–159, 284 The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 6–7, 17–18, 160–161, 163–206 Letters from a Gentleman in the Country, 17–18 Mr. Penn’s Proposal for the Advancement of Trade in America, 365–367 One Project for the Good of England, 161– 162, 212–229 The Papers of William Penn, 284–285 The Peoples {Ancient and Just} Liberties Asserted, 10, 28–29, 32 A Perswasive to Moderation to Church Dissenters, 162, 230–279, 284 Proposal for the Advancement of Trade in America, 342–344 The Proposed Comprehension Soberly, and Not Unseasonably, Considered, 161, 207–211 Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania, 282–283, 286–299 Pennsbury, 3 Pennsylvania, 4–5, 11, 20–22, 281–285, 291–292, 295–298, 306–307, 312–313, 317-318, 327–328, 365. administration in, 321–322, 323–324, 329, 330 Charter of Privileges, 284–285, 332–338 civil liberties in, 336 conditions for settlement in, 292–295 constitution/frame of government of, 284, 299–332 debts in, 308, 327



Index Pennsylvania (cont.) education in, 305–306, 312, 321, 329 elections in, 307, 321–322, 324, 326, 335 founding of, 11, 22, 160, 282 General Assembly of, 17, 302–307, 315–316, 319–327, 330–331, 334–335, 337–338 governors of, 306, 320–325, 330–331 judicial system of, 309, 310, 311, 323–324, 326–327, 336 jury system in, 310, 327 laws of, 312–313, 317–318, 321, 325–332 legislation in, 334–337 legislators in, 324, 334–335 legislatures in, 337 (see also General Assembly) liberty of conscience in, 333–334, 336 patent to Penn for, 318–319, 329, 332 professions of faith in, 330, 334 Provincial Council of, 304–306, 307, 319, 319–320, 320–323, 324, 324–325, 326, 327, 330–331 religious toleration in, 330, 333–334 representation in, 324, 326, 334–335, 337 (see also elections) selling of, 12–13, 282 trade and, 291–292, 321 vocational training in, 312, 329 Pepin the Short, 246 Pequot War, 13 Persia, 193, 237–238, 242 person fundamental law of, 99, 101–102, 103–104 liberty of, 89, 92–93 persuasion, 125 as Christian, 223–224 vs. force, 121 Peter (saint), 268, 356 Petilia, 115–116 Petilians, 231–232, 277 Petition of Right, 74, 109–110, 283, 312–313 Pflug, Julius von, 132–134 Pharisees, 270 Philadelphia, 4, 337–338 Philip William, 244 Philo Judaeus, 191 Plantagenet, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, 104, 105 Plantagenet, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, 104, 105

plantations, 287–288, 290, 321. See also American colonies Plumsted, William, 35, 46, 50 Plutarch, 237 Plymouth, 294–295 Poland, 242, 351 religious toleration in, 243 political liberties, 27–32. See also specific liberties in England’s Great Interest, 140–148 in England’s Present Interest, 83–140 in The Great and Popular Objection, 149–159 in The Peoples {Ancient and Just} Liberties Asserted, 32 “The Poor Plowman’s Complaint,” 193 popery. See Roman Catholicism Popish Plot, 10–11, 22, 141, 161 Popple, William, 17 Portugal, 351 Potter, Richard, 251–253 praemunire, 86, 85–86, 198, 138-139 prerogative, 256, 257, 277–278 Presbyterianism, 122–123, 131–132 Presbyterians, 129–131, 161, 218, 256, 269–270 church government and, 208–210 tensions with Anglicans, 208–210 presbytery, 129, 129 Privernates, 231–232, 277 Proclus, 272–273 property, 89–93, 138–139 fundamental law of, 92 legislation and, 93–97 property rights, 29–30 in England’s Great Interest, 142 in England’s Present Interest, 84, 89, 93, 99, 101–104, 111–118, 122–128, 138 in A Perswasive to Moderation, 249–251 Prosoliti Domicilii, 239 Protestantism, 109–110, 112, 114, 116–117, 122–124, 127–129, 132–133, 141, 146, 147, 153–154, 156, 157, 215, 221. See also specific sects condemned in Council of Trent, 155–156 Dissenters and, 221 in England, 215, 215 in Holland, 220–221 Roman Catholicism and, 221–223, 227



Index Protestant Reformation, 132–133, 153–154, 165–166, 185–186, 203–204, 215–216, 236 Protestants, 79, 169, 186–187. See also specific sects in Catholic states, 242–243 disunity among, 217–218 Dutch, 194, 245, 340–341 persecution and, 118–182, 216, 222 in Sweden, 248 unity among, 22 Providence, Rhode Island, 14, 15–16 Provincial Council (in Pennsylvania), 283–284 in Frame of Government, 319–320, 320–323, 324–325, 326, 327, 330–331 in Fundamental Constitutions, 304–305, 305–306, 307, 313–314 Puritans, 122–123, 181 Pusey, Caleb, 338 Quadratus, 272 Quakerism, 1–2, 5–6, 283. See also Quakers, Society of Friends Quakers, 161, 169, 218, 269–270. See also Quakerism; Society of Friends assemblies of, 28, 35–36, 52–53, 57–58, 101, 200–204 persecution of, 29, 197–199 rights abrogated by Acts of Parliament, 143 Raleigh, Walter, 115, 194 “Rampjaar, het” 238, 353–354 Ravaillac, François, 361–363 Read, Richard, 38–39 reason, 171, 176–179 Reformers, German, 215–216 Rehoboam, 115–116 religion, 85, 212–213. See also national religion; religious coercion; religious liberty; religious persecution; religious toleration national religion, 165–166, 182 parliament and, 113 penal laws for, 135, 136, 149–159 promotion of, 88, 133–138, 139, 173 subverted by religious coercion, 117 (see also religious coercion) religious coercion, 150, 149–159, 173, 104–105, 185–186, 187, 179–190, 205,

219–220, 223–224, 263–264, 265–266. See also religious persecution collection of sources against, 190–200 consequences of, 181, 262–263 dangers of, 249, 251–252 ineffectiveness of, 264 invasion of divine prerogative by, 172 in monarchies, 239 as Popish, 223–224 as preventing eternal rewards, 174, 177, 178 as repugnant to Scripture, 174–176 religious liberty, 2, 4, 5–7, 12–13, 54, 79–80, 207, 302. See also liberty of conscience; religious toleration in England’s Present Interest, 84–87, 108– 109, 112–133, 135, 136, 139 theories of, 15, 17 religious persecution, 16–17, 28, 161, 171, 176–179, 182, 184, 205, 223–224, 239 Church of England and, 263, 266–267 consequences of, 181, 183–184, 219, 249, 254–255, 266, 278 dangers of, 249, 254–255, 278 definition of, 171 of Dissenters, 216, 219, 225, 256, 261–262, 263–264, 265, 266–267, 277–278 economic consequences of, 261 in England’s Great Interest, 147–148 in England’s Present Interest, 85–86, 87, 120–123, 124–126, 128–129 in The Great and Popular Objection, 150, 149–159 in The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 163, 164, 165, 166–167, 172, 176, 178–179, 187 invasion of divine prerogative by, 171, 172 as obstructing the promotion of the Christian religion, 173 as preventing eternal rewards, 174, 178, 177 Protestants and, 181–182, 216, 222, 256 of Quakers, 197–199 as repugnant to Scripture, 174–176 Roman Catholicism and, 181-182 Roman Catholics and, 181–182, 198 religious toleration, 5–7, 11–12, 20, 118–133, 139, 161, 162, 163–206, 224, 235, 245, 247–248, 256, 272, 276–277 among Gentiles, 270



Index religious toleration (cont.) among Jews, 236–237, 240, 270 among Turks, 270 benefits of, 262, 263, 275–276, 277–278 in Catholic states, 242–243 Christian or Protestant arguments for, 7 as Christian duty, 231, 277 Church of England and, 267 civil rights and, 249–250, 251 commonwealths and, 238, 239 criticisms of, 162 as danger to the state, 186, 210, 235, 235–249 debates over, 7–8 definition of, 235 in Denmark, 243–244 of Dissenters, 159–160, 224, 229, 232, 233, 234–275, 278, 341 due to interest, 256–257, 264–265 economic benefits of, 259, 275–276 in England’s Great Interest, 147, 148 in England’s Present Interest, 84, 85, 86–87, 88, 112–118, 122–133, 135, 136, 139, 138 epistemological arguments for, 7 in France, 193, 242, 243 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302 in Germany, 193, 244–245 historical arguments for, 7 in Holland, 193, 237–238, 242–243 Islam and, 242 Jews and, 190, 239–241, 245 the law and, 189, 193–194 monarchies and, 238, 249, 253–254, 278 Moors and, 242 objections to, 7–8, 186–190, 235–249, 279 in One Project for the Good of England, 212–229 in Pennsylvania, 330, 333–334 in A Perswasive to Moderation, 230–279 in Poland, 243 property rights and, 249–250, 251 prudence and reasonableness of, 249 Roman Catholicism and, 20, 129, 232, 233, 238, 256 Roman empire and, 119–120, 190, 237, 240–241, 242, 277 as securing the monarchy, 254–255, 259 sources in favor of, 272–275

in Spain, 242 in Spanish empire, 242–243 representation, 29–30, 102–104, 106, 138, 142–147, 176. See also elections in Charter of Privileges, 334–335, 337 in Frame of Government, 324, 326 in Fundamental Constitutions, 302–303, 304–305, 307 reprobation, 268 Restoration, 7, 9, 8, 160–161 Revolution of 1688, 1, 284, 340 Rhode Island, 14. See also Providence, Rhode Island; Williams, Roger Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 62–63, 107–108 Richard I, 92 Richard II, 246–247, 259 Richard III, 176, 246–247 Richelieu (Cardinal) (Armand-Jean du Plessis), 193, 247–248, 255 Richmond, Earl of, 246–247 Robinson, John, 35, 38, 44, 45 Rohan, Duke of, 247–248 Roman Catholic Church, 108–110, 116–117, 203–204, 216–217 interest in promoting disunity among Protestants, 217–218 as monarchical, 238 Protestant Reformation and, 215–217 toleration and, 238 Roman Catholicism, 108–109, 114, 122–123, 124, 131–133, 141, 146, 147, 148, 155, 161, 165–166, 216, 220–221, 223–224, 225–226, 242 Church of England and, 153–157, 158, 232, 233, 270 dispensations, 225, 225–226 France and, 247–248 in Holland, 220–221 of James II, 233–234 liberty of conscience and, 153–154, 155–156 oaths and tests disavowing, 226–228 Protestantism and, 221–223, 227 reformation of, 185–186. See also Protestant Reformation religious persecution and, 181-182 religious toleration and, 20, 129, 232, 233, 238, 256 Roman Catholics, 10–12, 78–79, 108–109, 147–148, 150, 155–157, 186–187,



Index 224–226, 256, 269–270. See also Roman Catholicism disguised as Protestant Dissenters, 224, 225–226, 228 in England, 248, 256–257 in Germany, 244–245 in Holland, 248 Protestant Dissenters as counterbalance to, 264–265 religious persecution and, 181–182, 198 religious toleration of, 232, 233, 256 Roman empire, 7, 115–116, 137, 231–232, 258, 317 Christians in, 240–242 dissent in, 240–242 Jews in, 240–241 religious toleration and, 119–120, 190, 237, 240–241, 241, 242, 277 Rome, 237–238, 238 Romulus, 287, 287–288 Royal African Company, 21 Rudyard, Thomas, 298–299, 298 Russia, 242, 351 Rutherford, Samuel, 130–131 Sadducees, 270 safety. See security Samuel, 247 Savoy, 340 Savoy, Duke of, 242 Saxons, 89, 93–98, 102 laws of, 90–91, 105–106 Schleswig-Holstein, 351 Scotland, 247, 256 Scott, Jonathan, 30 security, 123, 124, 125–126, 131–132, 138, 212–229, 358 of government, 224, 225, 228 not guaranteed by conformity, 245–248, 249 peace and, 357, 357–358 sedition, 54–55, 56, 101, 200, 201, 202, 203–204, 240 Selden, John, 30, 240 self-preservation, 114–115 Seneca, 200, 231–232, 277 Sermon on the Mount, 133 servants, 328 in Pennsylvania, 329

settlers, 294–295 conditions for, 292–295 need to recruit, 282–283, 286–299 Shelden, Joseph, 35 Shippen, Edward, 338 Sidney, Algernon, 10, 17, 22, 30 Sigismund, Johann, 350 Sigismund II Augustus, 195, 274 Sigismund III Vasa, 246, 250 simultaneum regime, 244–245 slavery, 21 Smith, Jeremiah, 253 Smith, John, 35 Smithfield, 217–219 Society of Friends, 2, 3, 8, 10. See also Quakerism; Quakers defense of, 10 mediation within, 341 meetings of, 8 Socinians, 269–270 Socrates, 166–167 Socrates Scholasticus, 191, 241–242, 258, 273 Solomon, 247 Sorbonists, 270 Soto, Dominicus, 193 sovereignty, 355, 361 Sowerby, Scott, 31 Sowle, Andrew, 230 Spain, 193, 255–256, 340, 351. See also Spanish empire Spanish Armada, 255 Spanish empire, 259 religious toleration in, 242–243 Spanish Inquisition, 79–80, 79 Spanish monarchy, 124, 259 succession and, 350 Sparta, 115 speech, freedom of. See freedom of speech Spelman, Henry, 89–90, 95–96 Spencers, 75, 109–110 Spenser, Edmund, 192 Starling, Samuel, 35, 41–42, 43, 45–47, 49, 50, 67–68, 77–78 Answer to a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, 28–29 state, church and, 235–236, 239–240. See also church–state relationship Stayner, Richard, 253 Stephen, King of England, 92, 95–96



Index Stephen, King of Poland, 195, 243, 246–247, 274 St. Germain, Christopher, 194 Stirria, 242 Story, Thomas, 338 Strabo, 237 Stuart monarchs, 9, 350. See also monarchy (British), James I, Charles I, James II Sully, Duke of, 341–342 Sweden, 242, 246, 248, 250, 351 Switzerland, 152, 238, 351 synderesis, 88–89, 179 Syracusans, 115–116 Tacitus, Cornelius, 89–90, 93–94, 136, 190, 191, 258. See also Agricola Tamerlan, 242 Tarquin, 137 Taylor, Jeremy, 195, 267 Taylor, Randal, 344 Temple, William, 361, 362 Ten Commandments, 133 Tertullian, 191, 200–201, 272 Test Acts repeal of, 149–159 Test Act of 1673, 233–234 Test Act of 1678, 10–11, 31 tests, 225–226, 228, 252, 262 civil magistrates and, 227–228 proposed new, 225–228 Thebes, 115 Themistius, 274 Theodosius Magnus, 119–120, 132, 241–242 Theseus, 287 Thirty-Nine Articles, 155–156, 232. See also Church of England. Tiberius, 191 toleration. See religious toleration Toleration Act, 20–21 tolerationist movement, 5–8, 10, 24, 13–15, 28, 30–32, 160–161, 340–341 tolerationist tradition, 17–21. See also tolerationist movement Tolles, Frederick, 21 Tories, 340–341 Tower of London, 246–247 trade, 21–22, 123–124, 288, 259, 261, 263, 275–276, 288, 305, 329–330, 342–344, 365–367

American colonies and, 291–292, 321, 342–344, 365–367 British empire and, 342–344 Pennsylvania and, 291–292, 321 Treaties of Nijmegen, 350 Treaty of Dover, 9 Treaty of Westminster, 21 Treaty of Westphalia, 249 Tresilian, Robert, 75, 109–110 Trinity, 8, 87 Turene, Viscount of (Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne), 248 Turks, 270, 341–342, 350, 351, 358. See also Islam tyranny, 142, 213, 317 Tyrrell, James, 17 understanding, 171, 177–179. See also religious toleration unity, 238–239 lost through religious persecution and coercion, 184 security and, 212–229 Valencia, 242 Valens, 274 Valentinian, 241 Varro, Marcus Terentius, 190–191, 237 Veer, Thomas, 35, 46, 50 Venetian balloting system, 307, 352 Venice, 238, 351 Virginia, 287–288, 365 settlement of, 294–295 Voltaire, 2 voting, 89, 93–97, 352, 352. See also elections Walklet, Gregory, 35, 46, 50 war. See also specific wars, economic consequences of, 341, 345–346 Washington, George, 6 Westminster, Matthew of (Matthew of Paris), 89–90, 93–94 Whigs, 10–11, 17, 233–234, 283, 340–341 Whitgift, John, 130 William of Normandy (the Conqueror), 60–61, 91, 93, 95–96, 101, 246–247 William of Orange (William III), 11, 12, 31, 238, 340 William I of Orange (the Silent), 258 William Rufus (William II), 92, 95–96, 246–247



Index Williams, Roger, 13–17, 195 “ship of state” letter, 15–16 theory of liberty of conscience, 16–17 Wittangemote, 90–91, 95–96, 98 Wycliffe, John, 193

Zachary (pope), 246 Zachery, Thomas, 197–198 Zedekiah, 137 Zwingli, Ulrich, 132–133 Zwinglians, 132–133



CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Titles published in the series thus far Aquinas Political Writings (edited and translated by R.W. Dyson) Aristotle The Politics and The Constitution of Athens (edited and translated by Stephen Everson) Arnold Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings (edited by Stefan Collini) Astell Political Writings (edited by Patricia Springborg) Augustine The City of God against the Pagans (edited and translated by R. W. Dyson) Augustine Political Writings (edited by E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro) Austin The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (edited by Wilfrid E. Rumble) Bacon The History of the Reign of King Henry VII (edited by Brian Vickers) Bagehot The English Constitution (edited by Paul Smith) Bakunin Statism and Anarchy (edited and translated by Marshall Shatz) Baxter Holy Commonwealth (edited by William Lamont) Bayle Political Writings (edited by Sally L. Jenkinson) Beccaria On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings (edited by Richard Bellamy; translated by Richard Davies) Bentham A Fragment on Government (edited by Ross Harrison) Bernstein The Preconditions of Socialism (edited and translated by Henry Tudor) Bodin On Sovereignty (edited and translated by Julian H. Franklin) Bolingbroke Political Writings (edited by David Armitage) Bossuet Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture (edited and translated by Patrick Riley) Botero The Reason of State (edited and translated by Robert Bireley) The British Idealists (edited by David Boucher) Burke Pre-Revolutionary Writings (edited by Ian Harris) Burke Revolutionary Writings (edited by Iain Hampsher-Monk) Cavendish Political Writings (edited by Susan James) Christine de Pizan The Book of the Body Politic (edited by Kate Langdon Forhan) Cicero On Duties (edited by E. M. Atkins; edited and translated by M. T. Griffin) Cicero On the Commonwealth and On the Laws (edited and translated by James E. G. Zetzel) Comte Conciliarism and Papalism (edited by J. H. Burns and Thomas M. Izbicki) Comte Early Political Writings (edited and translated by H. S. Jones) Condorcet Political Writings (edited by Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati) Constant Political Writings (edited and translated by Biancamaria Fontana) Dante Monarchy (edited and translated by Prue Shaw) Diderot The Dutch Revolt (edited and translated by Martin van Gelderen) Diderot Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists (edited and translated by Michael Gagarin and Paul Woodruff)

Diderot The Early Political Writings of the German Romantics (edited and translated by Frederick C. Beiser) Diderot Political Writings (edited and translated by John Hope Mason and Robert Wokler) Emerson The English Levellers (edited by Andrew Sharp) Emerson Political Writings (edited by Kenneth S. Sacks) Erasmus The Education of a Christian Prince with the Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria (edited and translated by Lisa Jardine; translated by Neil M. Cheshire and Michael J. Heath) Fénelon Telemachus (edited and translated by Patrick Riley) Ferguson An Essay on the History of Civil Society (edited by Fania Oz-Salzberger) Fichte Addresses to the German Nation (edited by Gregory Moore) Filmer Patriarcha and Other Writings (edited by Johann P. Sommerville) Fletcher Political Works (edited by John Robertson) Sir John Fortescue On the Laws and Governance of England (edited by Shelley Lockwood) Fourier The Theory of the Four Movements (edited by Gareth Stedman Jones; edited and translated by Ian Patterson) Franklin The Autobiography and Other Writings on Politics, Economics, and Virtue (edited by Alan Houston) Gramsci Pre-Prison Writings (edited by Richard Bellamy; translated by Virginia Cox) Guicciardini Dialogue on the Government of Florence (edited and translated by Alison Brown) Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (writing as ‘Publius’) The Federalist with Letters of ‘Brutus’ (edited by Terence Ball) Harrington The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics (edited by J. G. A. Pocock) Hegel Elements of the Philosophy of Right (edited by Allen W. Wood; translated by H. B. Nisbet) Hegel Political Writings (edited by Laurence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet) Hess The Holy History of Mankind and Other Writings (edited and translated by Shlomo Avineri) Hobbes Leviathan (edited by Richard Tuck) Hobbes On the Citizen (edited and translated by Michael Silverthorne and Richard Tuck) Hobhouse Liberalism and Other Writings (edited by James Meadowcroft) Hooker Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (edited by A. S. McGrade) Hume Political Essays (edited by Knud Haakonssen) King James VI and I Political Writings (edited by Johann P. Sommerville) Jefferson Political Writings (edited by Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball) John of Salisbury Policraticus (edited by Cary J. Nederman) Kant Political Writings (edited by H. S. Reiss; translated by H. B. Nisbet)

Knox On Rebellion (edited by Roger A. Mason) Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings (edited by Marshall Shatz) Lawson Politica Sacra et Civilis (edited by Conal Condren) Leibniz Political Writings (edited and translated by Patrick Riley) Lincoln Political Writings and Speeches (edited by Terence Ball) Locke Political Essays (edited by Mark Goldie) Locke Two Treatises of Government (edited by Peter Laslett) Loyseau Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (edited and translated by Harro Höpfl) Loyseau A Treatise of Orders and Plain Dignities (edited and translated by Howell A. Lloyd) Machiavelli The Prince, Second Edition (edited by Quentin Skinner and Russell Price) Joseph de Maistre Considerations on France (edited and translated by Richard A. Lebrun) Maitland State, Trust and Corporation (edited by David Runciman and Magnus Ryan) Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population (edited by Donald Winch) Marsiglio of Padua Defensor minor and De translatione Imperii (edited by Cary J. Nederman) Marsilius of Padua The Defender of the Peace (edited and translated by Annabel Brett) Marx Early Political Writings (edited and translated by Joseph O’Malley) James Mill Political Writings (edited by Terence Ball) J. S. Mill On Liberty and Other Writings (edited by Stefan Collini) Milton Political Writings (edited by Martin Dzelzainis; translated by Claire Gruzelier) Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws (edited and translated by Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone) More Utopia (edited by George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams) Morris News from Nowhere (edited by Krishan Kumar) Nicholas of Cusa The Catholic Concordance (edited and translated by Paul E. Sigmund) Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morality (edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson; translated by Carol Diethe) Paine Political Writings (edited by Bruce Kuklick) Plato Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras (edited by Malcolm Schofield; translated by Tom Griffith) Plato Laws (edited by Malcolm Schofield; translated by Tom Griffith) Plato The Republic (edited by G. R. F. Ferrari; translated by Tom Griffith) Plato Statesman (edited by Julia Annas; edited and translated by Robin Waterfield) Price Political Writings (edited by D. O. Thomas)

Priestley Political Writings (edited by Peter Miller) Proudhon What is Property? (edited and translated by Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith) Pufendorf On the Duty of Man and Citizen according to Natural Law (edited by James Tully; translated by Michael Silverthorne) Pufendorf The Radical Reformation (edited and translated by Michael G. Baylor) Rousseau The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings (edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch) Rousseau The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings (edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch) Seneca Moral and Political Essays (edited and translated by John M. Cooper; edited by J. F. Procopé) Sidney Court Maxims (edited by Hans W. Blom, Eco Haitsma Mulier and Ronald Janse) Sorel Reflections on Violence (edited by Jeremy Jennings) Spencer Political Writings (edited by John Offer) Stirner The Ego and Its Own (edited by David Leopold) Thoreau Political Writings (edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum) Tönnies Community and Civil Society (edited and translated by Jose Harris; translated by Margaret Hollis) Tönnies Utopias of the British Enlightenment (edited by Gregory Claeys) Vico The First New Science (edited and translated by Leon Pompa) Vitoria Political Writings (edited by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance) Voltaire Political Writings (edited and translated by David Williams) Weber Political Writings (edited by Peter Lassman; edited and translated by Ronald Speirs) William of Ockham A Letter to the Friars Minor and Other Writings (edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade; edited and translated by John Kilcullen) William of Ockham A Short Discourse on Tyrannical Government (edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade; translated by John Kilcullen) Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (edited by Sylvana Tomaselli)