OF ISAAC PENINGTON, SON OF ALDERMAN PENINGTON OF LONDON, AND AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN The Society of Friends, WHICH HE JOINED ABOUT THE YEAR 1658. FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. PHILADELPHIA: NATHAN KITE-50 NORTH FOURTH STREET. Joseph and William Kite, Printers. PREFACE. THE editor of the present volume, having been much instructed in perusing "Letters of Isaac Penington," &c. (published in the year 1796, by John Kendall of Colchester, and now, for a considerable time out of print,) was induced to turn his attention towards reviving them. In this object he was further encouraged, by the circumstance of having access to a large number of manuscript letters of the same author, some of which were originals. When the greater part of the materials now before the reader were nearly prepared for the press, it was ascertained, that the work above mentioned was compiled from an extensive collection of Isaac Penington's papers in the possession of John Kendall, which he eventually presented to the Society of Friends. This important document (copied with much assiduity and care by the son of I. P.) has been by permission examined; and those letters of the former publication, which are retained in the ensuing, (thirty-three in number,) have been revised and corrected by it; a few others being introduced from the same source. It will also be proper here to state, that slight verbal alterations, not affecting the sense of the author, have been adopted, where perspicuity seemed to require ; and that some portions of the letters have been occasionally excluded, when they appeared to bear too close a resemblance to other passages, or to be adapted rather to the circumstances of those times than the present. On producing from obscurity these valuable records, for the perusal of the Society of Friends and others, |