Anna Maria Schurman, the gentlewomen Somerdykes, the French pastor Peter Yvon, and others. After some discourse from both sides, when Yvon had given a relation concerning John de Labadie, how he was bred among the Jesuits, and deserted them, and embraced the Protestant religion, and how becoming dissatisfied with the formal Protestants, he with some that adhered to him, had separated themselves from the vulgar assemblies, Anna Maria Schurman began to speak, and gave an account of her former life, of her pleasure in learning, and her love to the religion she was brought up in, but confessed she knew not God or Christ truly all that while. And though from a child God had visited her at times, yet she never felt such a powerful stroke, as by the ministry of John de Labadie and then she saw her learning to be vanity, and her religion like a body of death; and therefore resolved to despise the shame, desert her former way of living and acquaintance, and to join herself with this little family, that was retired out of the world. This and much more she spoke in a sensible frame, and with a serious mind, not without some trembling. And then one of the Somerdykes gave also an ample relation, concerning her inward state, and how she had been reached by the preaching of Labadie; and how before that time she had mourned because of the deadness and formality of the vulgar Christians, and said within herself, "O the pride, the lusts, the vain pleasures in which Christians live! Can this be the way to heaven? Is this the way to glory? Are these followers of Christ? O no! O God where is thy little flock? Where is thy little family that will live entirely to thee, that will follow thee? Make me one of that number." Then she told how being pricked to the heart, when she heard Labadie preach, she had resolved to abandon the glory and pride of this world; and further said, that she counted herself happy to have joined with this separated family. After some others had likewise given an account of their change, William Penn also gave a circumstantial relation, how he had been gradually drawn off from the vanity and pride of life; what adversities he had met with in the university at Oxford, because of his not joining with the VOL. II.

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debauchery committed there; and how, after having lived some time in France, he had been convinced by the effectual ministry of Thomas Loe, and so came to be joined with the despised Quakers. This his relation he concluded with a serious admonition how they ought to go on, and to grow in the true fear of God. At parting, one of the pastors asked him if the truth rose not first amongst a poor, illiterate, and simple sort of people. Yes, answered William Penn; and it is our comfort that we owe it not to the learning of this world.' To which the pastor returned, 'Then let not the learning of this world be used to defend that which the Spirit of God hath brought forth; for scholars now coming among you, will be apt to mix school learning amongst your simpler and purer language, and thereby obscure the brightness of your testimony.' W. Penn, having answered to the purpose, took his leave, and travelled by way of Groninghen to Embden, where the Quakers at that time were persecuted severely with imprisonments and banishments: but I wave the relation thereof, because it hath long ago been published in print, and the magistrates there, being afterwards moved to pity by the persecution the protestants suffered in France, came to a better resolution, as may be mentioned in the sequel.

When W. Penn came to Embden, he went to speak with the burgomaster André at his house, and asked him if he and the senate had not received a letter in Latin*

* Which being translated into English, runs thus, and deserves the serious consideration of all magistrates.

To the Council and Senate of the City of Embden.

The King of kings, and Lord of lords, who is God of all the families of the earth, incline your hearts to justice, mercy, and truth.

The noise of your severe treatment of several persons that are inhabitants of your state, reproachfully termed Quakers, hath reached these parts, and filled several with compassion and surprise: compassion

from an Englishman about two years since, concerning their severity towards the people called Quakers? The burgomaster said he had. W. Penn then replied, 'I am

to hear of the miseries of men innocent and upright, against whom you have nothing to object, but the pure exercise of their conscience to God; surprise, that you, a Protestant state, should employ your civil power to deter, punish and grievously afflict men for answering the convictions of their consciences, and acting according to the best of their understanding. Methinks you should not be oblivious of your own condition in the loins of your ancestors, who, you think, with great reason and justice, strenuously advocated the cause of liberty of conscience against the pope's bulls and the Spanish inquisition; how did they antichristian all force on conscience or punishment for non-conformity? Their own many and large apologies, and particularly their demands at the diets of Nurimburg and Spire, are pregnant proofs in the case; and your practice doth not lessen the weight of their reasons; on the contrary, it aggravates your unkindness, let me say, injustice.

Protestants, (and such you glory to be thought,) got their name by protesting against imposition; and will you turn imposers? They condemned it; and will you practise it? They thought it a mark peculiar to the beast; and can you repute it the care of a Christian magistracy? I mean, that persons must not live under your government, unless they receive your mark in the forehead or right hand? Which in plainer terms is, to submit their consciences to your cdicts, and to ask your leave what religion they should be of. Remember, that faith is the gift of God; and, that what is not of faith is sin: nothing can be more unreasonable, than to compel men to believe against their belief, or to trouble them for practising what they believe, when it thwarts not the moral law of God.

You doubtless take yourselves to be Christians, and would esteem it no little injury to be otherwise represented; yet what more unchristian, than to use external force to sway the consciences of men about the exercise of religious worship.

Christ Jesus, the Lord and author of the Christian religion, censured his own disciples, that would have had fire from heaven to destroy those that conformed not to what their blessed Master taught: are you surer of your religion? Are you better Christians? Or, have you more Christian authority, than they that were the chosen witnesses of Jesus? However, remember, they called but for fire from heaven; and can you kindle fire on earth to devour them? Them, I say, that are of your own people, merely for their religious dissent from you? Doubtless, if that was then thought no fit argument to induce men to conformity by him that was wiser than Solomon; it reflects greatly upon

* Our account says, some were cruelly beaten by order; others banished; some put in a dungeon, and fed with bread and water only; several fined greater sums of money, it is thought, than they had to pay.

that man, and am constrained in conscience to visit thee on their behalf,' &c. The burgomaster deported himself with more kindness than was expected, and gave some

your modesty and prudence, that you should find out new ways, or rather old exploded ones to effect so ill a design. Besides, you do not say you know all you ought to know, or that there is nothing further to be revealed; have a care therefore, that you persecute not angels, by being harsh to that which you call strange; think not ill, much less speak, and least of all act, that which is so against what you do not perfectly understand. I am well persuaded, that those you inflicted such severe penalties upon, mean well in what they believe, (to be sure much better than you think they do, or else you are extremely to blame,) and that the reason of their present distance from you, is not to introduce or insinuate dangerous or exotic opinions, but to live a life of more holiness, purity and self-denial, than before: they do not think that you walk up to your own principles; and have reason to believe the power of godliness is much lost among you; and having long lain under a decay and languishing of soul for want of true spiritual nourishment, they have now betaken themselves to that heavenly gift and grace of God in themselves for divine satisfaction, even that holy anointing that is able to teach them all things necessary for them to know; as the blessed apostle speaks; and they find the joys of the Holy Ghost in so doing and I am persuaded they are not less peaceable, sober, just, and neighbourly than formerly, and altogether as consistent with the prosperity of civil society; and I am sure it is both found and confest among us here by some men of quality, learning, and virtue. Further, be pleased to consider with yourselves, that you justify the ancient persecutions of the Christians and first reformers, whose superiors thought as ill of them, as you do of these men; nay, you show the Papists what to do in their dominions to your own brethren. Do as you would be done by if you would have liberty, give it; you know that God's witness in your hearts dictates this to you as an immutable law.

Could you give faith, it were more excusable for you to punish such as should resist; but since that is impossible, the other is unreasonable; for it is to afflict men for not being what they cannot be unless they turn hypocrites: that is the highest pitch your coercive power can arrive at ; for never did it convert or preserve one soul to God; instead thereof it offers violence unto conscience, and puts a man either upon the denial of his faith and reason, or being destroyed for acting according to them: but what greater disproportion can there be, than what lieth between the intellect of man, and prisons, fines, and banishments? They inform no man's judgment, resolve no doubts, convince no understanding: the power of persuasion is not to be found in any such barbarous actions, no more than the doctrine of Christianity. This course destroys the bodies and estates of men, instead of saving their souls were they in the wrong, it would become you to use God's weapons, his sword of the Spirit, that saveth the creature; and slayeth

faint hope of alteration; but it appeared sufficiently that the senate was not as yet so disposed, for persecution continued there yet a long while.

the evil in him; this course tends to heart-burnings and destruction; I am sure it is no gospel argument.

I beseech you for the sake of that Lord Jesus Christ, that suffered so patiently for his own religion, and so sharply prohibited making other men to suffer for theirs, that you would have a care how you exercise power over men's consciences. My friends, conscience is God's throne in man, and the power of it his prerogative: it is to usurp his authority, and boldly ascend his throne, to set lords over it. Were their conversation scandalous, and destructive to the good of your state, you were to be held excusable: but verily, no man of mercy and conscience, can defend your practice upon poor men so peaceable and inoffensive. Gamaliel will rise up in judgment against you, if you persevere in this course. Do not you help to fill the catalogue of persecutors: in much love I intreat you; but as becomes Christian men and true Protestants, leave men to their particular persuasions of affairs relative of the other world, which have no ill aspect on the affairs of this: but vice hath an evil consequence as to both: therefore punish vice, and affect truth and righteousness, and bend not your civil power to torment religious dissenters, but to retrieve good life, lamentably lost amidst the great pretences that are made to religion. Doubtless magistracy was both ordained of God, and elected by men, to be a terror of evil-doers, and not to them that do well, though of different judgments. You oppugn the Roman church for assuming infallibility to herself, and yet your own practice maketh you guilty of the same presumption or worse: for either you do exercise that severity upon an infallible knowledge, or you do not; if you do, you take that to yourselves, your principle denies to any church whatever, which is a contradiction; if you do not, you punish people for not conforming to what you yourselves deny any certainty about: and how do you know but you compel them to that which is false, as well as that which is true? Verily, this dilemma is not easily avoided, as well as that this inhuman practice will stain your profession, infame your government, and bring a blot upon your posterity. Remember that they are men as well as yourselves, born free, and have equal plea to natural and civil common privileges with yourselves: the different persuasion of their consciences about things relating to another life, can no ways render them unfit for this; it neither unmans nor uncivilizes them. They have the same right to their liberty and property as ever, having by no practice of theirs in the least forfeited any of those human advantages, the great charters of nature and Scripture have conferred upon them: and the opulency of your neighbours and prosperity of their affairs, prove to you'that indulgence is not inconsistent with policy; howbeit, you have now tried the sincerity of their procedure by what you have already inflicted, and they sustained; let the time past suffice, and make them not sacrifices for their con