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

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

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

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

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

not

not to mention any of the Proteftant Martyrs. • Therefore should they be tender.

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Fourthly, There is no injury done to the plantation to take your wORDS; if any, to you that suffer the fame penalty for a LYE, which is only due to PERJURY, and which the law, without your confent, ' does not inflict; your caution and pledge for ноNESTY is as large as he that fwears; for, as truthfpeaking fulfils the law, fo equal punishment with perjured perfons, satisfies it.

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

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

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

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

• Anno 1673.'

• W. PENN.'

• To

To J. H. and his Companions, JUSTICES in Mid⚫dlesex.

• Rickmerfworth, the 31ft of the ift month, • called March, 1674.

ECAUSE you are justices as well as neigh

'B bours, and reputed gentlemen, not only ci

vility, but duty, engages me to govern myself with all due refpect in this epiftle: which, as it proceeds out of love to your perfons, and that hearty defire I ⚫ have your actions may not fall fhort of that courtesy, • neighbourhood, confcience, and fundamental law • that becomes every man, much more a gentleman,

and he an Englishman and a justice too, but most ⚫ of all a true Chriftian, to square himself by, rather than any finifter end; fo, I beseech you, give it your perufal and serious confideration; and then, if you please, afford me your answer.

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

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

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

'were.

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

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maliter. It was not by an ACT of PARLIAMENT; and an ill precedent, faid the parliament. I further added, that the parliament had voted indulgence to the king's diffenting proteftant fubjects, and intended to ⚫ratify the former more firmly, at least to all proteftant diffenters; and that fuch we are.

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'I entreat you to perufe this short difcourfe against the papifts, to fay nothing of the vaft difparity and ' antipathy of OUR principles and worship. To these • latter allegations, you fingly and jointly answered, that the ACT was in force, by the repealing or can< celling of the declaration. True, ftrictly taken: but • do not you know, that there be many acts never formally repealed, that obtain no force among us; but are as much neglected as if they were abrogated by new laws? I much question if that very law, by which the proteftants were burnt for their noble teftimonies < against Rome, were ever revoked. This might be fufficient to you, that the KING diflikes it; that the • parliament declared their readiness to repeal the law ⚫ that countenanceth it; that all are quiet; that the • reason of the law ceafing, the law, as to its execucution, fhould ceafe alfo; that the king and council, in the preamble to the declaration, have dif• claimed all pretence to better fettlements, by severity ⚫ upon diffenters; that you have work enough to em

ploy yourselves about, in first living, and then exe<cuting all laws, that recover and preferve morality, mercy, juftice, fobriety, and godly living: and laftly, that you had nothing offenfive to the law before < your eyes, when you came among us.

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I farther urged, argumentum ad bominem, the king's power in ecclefiaftical matters: that if you acknow ledged him head of the church, it seemed fomewhat ⚫ unnatural, that any members ftraggle from the judg⚫ment and direction of the head. It was anfwered by

one of you, and the best thing said, "that the king " was head in civils too, yet he would not forbear re"covering a debt by law, though the king should in

terpofe his civil headship to prevent receiving it,'

or

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