sed myself to him: I say when all this is considered, any body that hath the least pretence to good nature, gratitude, or generosity, must needs know how to interpret my access to the king. Is any thing more foolish as well as false than that because I am often at Whitehall, therefore I must be author of all that is done there, that doth not please abroad. But supposing some such things to have been done; pray tell me if I am bound to oppose any thing I am not called to do: I never was a member of council, cabinet, or committee, where the affairs of the kingdom are transacted. I have had no office or trust, and consequently nothing can be said to be done by me; nor, for that reason, could I lie under any test or any obligation to discover any opinion of public acts of state and therefore neither can any such acts, nor any silence about them in justice be made my crime. Volunteers are blanks and ciphers in all governments. And unless calling at Whitehall once a day, upon many occasions, or my not being turned out of nothing, (for that no office is) be the evidence of my compliance in disagreeable things, I know not what else can with any truth be alleged against me.-I am not without apprehensions of the cause of this behaviour towards me; I mean my constant zeal for an impartial liberty of conscience. But if that be it, the cause is too good to be in pain about it. I

ever understood that to be the natural right of all men; and that he that had a religion without it, his religion was none of his own. For what is not the religion of a man's choice, is the religion of him who imposes it: so that liberty of conscience is the first step to have a religion. This is no new opinion with me, I have written many apologies within the last twenty years to defend it, and that impartially. Yet I have as constantly declared, that bounds ought to be set to this freedom, and that morality was the best; and that as often as that was violated under a pretence of conscience, it was fit the civil power should take place. Nor did I ever once think of promoting any sort of liberty of conscience for any body, which did not preserve the common protestancy of the kingdom, and the ancient rights of the government: for to say truth, the one cannot be maintained without the other.And till I saw my own friends, with the kingdom, delivered from the legal bondage which penal laws for religion had subjected them to, I could with no satisfaction think of leaving England, though much to my prejudice beyond sea, and at my great expence here, having in all this time had neither office, or pension, and always refusing the rewards or gratuities of those I have been able to oblige." From this little abstract of William Penn's Apology, it appears sufficiently what kind of liberty he defended;

and such a liberty afterwards took place in the reign of the next king.

Of George Fox I have been long silent, and I do not meet with any very remarkable transactions that concerned him, except that he wrote much, both for the edification of his friends, and for the instruction and admonition of others; for he was continually occupied with the care of the church, and that things might be kept in good order, which to perform the better, he now staid a long while in and about London.

In this year died William Dewsbury, one of the first preachers among those called Quakers; having been a very zealous teacher, and an eminent instrument to the conversion of many. He was born in Yorkshire, and in his youth was a shepherd, and afterwards put apprentice to a clothier; but when the civil wars broke out, he became a soldier and joined with those who said they fought for the gospel. Now though he was religious according to his knowledge; yet growing more and more serious, and turning his mind inwardly, he saw there were inward and spiritual enemies to encounter with, according to the saying of the apostle, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood; but against spiritual wickedness," &c. And this state was inwardly manifested to him in the words of our Saviour: "Put up thy sword into the sheath. If my kingdom were of this world, then would

my servants fight." This wrought so powerfully upon his mind, that he could no longer meddle with martial affairs but left the army; and returned to his former calling, endeavouring to improve in true godliness, in which he so advanced gradually, that when George Fox in the year 1651, came to Balby in Yorkshire, and preached the gospel there, he could not but consent to the doctrine declared by him, as being the same of which he himself was already convinced in his mind; viz. that beed ought to be given to the inward divine reprovings for that which is evil: which doctrine was preached by George Fox under the denomination of the true light, which enlighteneth every man coming into the world; and that heed must be given thereunto, as being the grace which brings salvation, of which the apostle speaks in his epistle to Titus ii. 11. saying, "That it hath appeared to all men." W. Dewsbury having heard such a sermon as this, agreed not only with G. Fox in this point of doctrine; but in process of time became himself also a very zealous preacher of it, for which he fell under great sufferings; insomuch that he was prisoner at Warwick nineteen years for religion's sake, besides the imprisonments he suffered on that account in other places. But being now releas ed, he came in the month, called May to London, and preached a sermon there concerning regen

eration, which was taken from his mouth in short-hand, and afterwards printed as underneath.* His intention was to have been at the

* A Sermon preached by William Dewsbury, at Gracechurch Street, the 6th of the 31 month 1688.

"My friends,

"Except you be regenerated and born again, ye cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

"This is the word of the Lord God to all people this day, this lies not in airy profession, and in vain imagination, and whatsoever else it is that you deck yourselves withal, you must every particular man and woman be born again, else you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. This was the doctrine of Christ in that prepared body wherein he appeared in the world, and preached to Nicodemus, that standing doctrine to this moment of time, and will be so while any man breathes upon the earth; there is no other way, no other gate to enter into life, but by this great work of regeneration. Now to enforce people to come to this great work, and to set forward from earth to heaven, all being driven out of Paradise by the cherubim set with a flaming sword, there is no returning to that blessed life, but by the loss of that life that did grieve the Spirit of God, and which did cause man to be driven out; there is no other way of return again but by this new birth. As you are all driven and forced out of Paradise, and the flaming sword and the cherubims are set to keep the way of the tree of life, so you must return into the favour of God again, by the light of Christ; and you have line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, to direct