you own the end, you allow the means, you refer the choice of your means to the fociety; and you, as well as we, expect a compliance with thofe rules. Then the question is, Whether, in fact, womens meetings be a part of that difcipline the church admits of?' And it is evident, that the church of God does, generally fpeaking, receive and practise it, with fatisfaction and advantage. I would therefore befeech you, friends, to ponder in your minds, upon what a narrow point your distance ftands, and that the main and tender point is allowed you, viz. Confcience is free, and unconcerned in the question;' and the vifible ground of distance being fo fmall, weigh with yourselves, by what has been, what may be, the confequence of this lamentable breach.

I am as much for liberty as any man; I ever was fo, and hope I ever shall be for it; but we must refer it to a proper object, or we fhall abuse what we do fo much prize, and pervert one of the greatest privileges we can pretend to. I do not mean, by the liberty that we are to refign to the benefit of Society, that which is private or perfonal: no, this does not enter into private or perfonal liberty, concerning which, the apoftles taught us to bear, and not offend one another; as about meats and drinks; I may add clothes, houses, trades, &c. fo as there be no excefs, (for that is every-where wrong): these things regard not fociety, but a man's felf, and his private liberty alone. What is it to the fociety, what or when I eat, what fort of clothing I wear, or boufe I live in, or trade I will be of, fo as excess or uncomelinefs be avoided? This is ftill in my own power, and many like things, hard to be numbered, about which fociety is not in the least concerned, nor in which any member of it is interrupted, or called in queftion. In the next place, we do alfo all agree, that faith must not be forced, nor worship conftrained, for that grates upon confcience, which God only can effectually enlighten or rightly perfuade. But that bears not upon our question, as I faid before; for the compliance defired in it, is about order, not

faith; and that not about worship, but conversation; in which if you fubmit your liberty, it is for the good of fociety, and you have the returns of it in the benefit and comfort thereof. Do you ferve, or take care of others, that before were free of that engagement? Others also were tied by the fame rules, to ferve and be concerned for you, that formally owed you no obligation and if you are under the notice and reproof of others, as to your perfonal conduct, they are equally under yours upon occafion; fo that you lofe nothing but what you get, nor give nothing but what you receive again; and to a right fpirit and a good mind, this mutual fervice will appear reasonable, chriftian, and requifite. And as in no age, the refifter and gainfayers of care and order, in any of the Lord's eminent fervants, have paffed without the mark of God's rebuke; fo thofe that have contested and opposed the wisdom of God in his faithful fervants, have ever failed of their purpose, and been finally manifested to have been led by a wrong fpirit. And as obfervable it is, that those by whom the Lord has eminently ap-. peared, and who were the firft inftruments of his feveral difpenfations to the fons of men, have always exercifed that authority among the people they have gathered, and have been conftantly preferved from falling away, though fome or other have rifen against them with that clamour, as if they had fet up themfelves, and were gone from what they taught or were, and took too much upon them. But what have they all come to? Read and judge.

Nor was it ever heard of, in the dealings of God with the fons of men, that he varied, or changed his difpenfations in the life-time of the inftruments of any of them, as fome have been ready to imagine; nor yet in that age in which he has brought them forth which engages me to befeech you, in the bowels of the love of CHRIST, our only root of life and light, and love and peace, "that you be like"minded with your friends and brethren," and fee that the life and the fellowship of the truth be pre

ferved in the enjoyment and practice of fellowship; which will be, if the love of God, which first made us love one another, be kept in; for that is a fovereign antidote against all the poison of difcontent, evil jealoufy, and the divifions that are wont to follow. And instead of reproaching our elders and brethren, whom God has honoured, and whom we have honoured, and could have laid down our lives for, and who know nothing by themselves, but that they are as true to the Lord, and in as good a condition in the truth as ever they were, and have done, and intended in what they have done, as much the benefit of the Lord's people; I fay, inftead of reproaching them with ufurping authority, and taking too much upon them, let us confider, that thofe whom we have received with fo much reverent love, and as worthy of double honour in the greater things, are not unworthy to be heard and followed by us in leffer matters: let us regard and value their care, and love them for it. So true is that faying among men, That is well Spoken which is well taken,' that the bent and purpofe of a man's fpirit, is that which gives the juft reafon of acceptance or rejection,

You have, dear friends, judged too much after an outward appearance; and, you may fee, not truly there neither. Open, therefore, your hearts, your fouls and fpirits, and tafte, with the divine fenfe of the tender and meek truth, the aim and end of brethren: herein be a little more truly free and univerfal in your minds, and you will perceive this care has a large and long profpect for good. The due exercife of your fpiritual fenfes will anfwer all your objections, and fatisfy every upright foul among you: but if you look out, mistake liberty, mistake impofition, miftake formality, mistake the nature and end of things, and the intention of your ancient friends and brethren in them, you will judge carnally, and be ready to think, as if outward rule and lordlinefs were aimed at, and a departing from the truth; even whilft our care, in the fight of the Lord, is for the honour of it, in refer

ence

ence to the young, the weak, and fuch as may be carelefs, and ready to fall asleep; for fuch fome yet are, and fuch are yet like to be; and for their fakes, a discipline, as to converfation, muft be; as well as that there are natural infirmities, as fickness, age, &c. that unavoidably call for it: nor did, or can ever, any community fubfift without it; and the heats, prejudice, and rents, that have arisen about the bow or manner of it, fhew the oppofition not to be right, nor of a good tendency; the end of that order, in the minds and hands of those from whom we joyfully received the teftimony of the truth, being the glory of God, and good of his people, as a primitive Chriftian fociety.

To conclude: as this is not a plea for impofition, nor forms of worship, but forms of difcipline, as to the government and behaviour of ourselves in our converse, both with those that are without, and those that are within; and that there is no visible communion, or fociety, in this world of bodies, but what is fubject to them, and muft in fome fort fubfift by them; I befeech you, that we, as becomes a reasonable and modeft people, and as dear children, may be of "one heart, and one mind, and walk together as "those that have been partakers of one life, and that "have drank into one fpirit;" for, "it is a comely "thing to fee brethren walk together in love."

O friends, let us labour against fecret animofities, watchings for evil, detractation, the fin that flung the angels out of their heavenly ftation: let us fee to our own fpirits, how they are, if meek, lowly, humble, tender, by which the true and preferving judgment is only known and felt; or, if not high, fierce, hard, and prejudiced; for a man may come to lofe a good frame of fpirit upon very trifles. It is not always what the matter is the difpute arifes upon, but how far the thing is efpoufed, and what place a man fuffers it to have in his mind: if jealoufy, reputation, revenge, or contradiction, prevail, divifion must follow: fome are apt to refent things too foon, and carry it too far, even to obstinacy, through the workings of the evil

one

one in a mystery; fo that though the pretence of the quarrel may be fome fact or other, yet that has the leaft fhare oftentimes in the difference, it being inflamed and increafed by the myfterious workings of the spirit of ftrife and variance in the mind, according to an old faying, "The greatest feuds oftentimes "arife from the flightest causes." Let me beseech and prevail with you to read and weigh the bent and force of the apoftle's fpirit in Rom. xii. alfo xiv. 19. and xv. 4, 5, 6. and especially xvi. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. verfes, Likewife 1 Cor. xiv. 32, 33. weighty places indeed. 2 Cor. xiii. Ephef. iv. 1, 2, 3, 4. Phil. iii. 16, 17, 18. Chap. iv. 8, 9. Col. iii. 12, 14, 15, 16, I Thef. v. 12, 13, 14. 2 Thef. iii. 4, 5, 6. He often commands order and obedience to the apoftolick tradition in this epiftle, Tit. i. 15. chap. ii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Heb. xiii. 1. And, 1 Pet. iv. 8. All which exhort to "peace, brotherly-kindnefs, to be of one "mind, to ftudy one thing." O follow the things that make for peace, and do not contend, difpute, and strive one with another. A bleffed doctrine, and it has a bleffed reward. The Lord God Almighty dif pose your minds, my friends, to a tender returning ftate; and frighten not yourselves with defigns (of the brethren) that have no being, but in jealousy and mifapprehenfion: I beseech you, in the Lord, lay down every mark or enfign of difference or feparation, and behold our arms as open as ever to receive you, and let your heart be as our heart, and then our meetings your meetings: let the fear and awe of the Lord, the becoming love of his precious truth, which is "Chrift

in us, the hope of our glory," who gave himself for us, to redeem us from the enmity, death, and curfe, which difobedience had laid us under, melt and cement us as one lump; flesh of flesh, and bone of bone; fo fhall our joy exceed our forrow, and tears be wiped from our eyes on this occafion; and GOD, our exceeding great and glorious rewarder, be our crown, portion, and diadem for ever. Yours,

In and for the truth,

WILLIAM PENN.

THE