felves with outfides, with a name, a profession, a churchmembership, &c. For it is not what you fay, but what you do. But turn in and examine your own hearts, fee how they stand affected towards God, and his law and truth in your inward parts. Be ftrict and true in the fearch, as you would fave your fouls. If your minds be fet on heavenly things, and that holinefs and charity be the zealous bent thereof, well will it be with you for ever: to live, then, will be Chrift, and to die will be your eternal gain. "For bleffed is "that people and nation whofe God is the Lord."" But if the love and fpirit of the world prevail: if pride, covetousness, and luxury, envy, bitterness, and vainglory, that are fo very oppofite to the will and nature of God, and his holy Lamb; if these things have power over you, flatter not yourselves, you cannot be true Chriftians, nor in favour with God, for you take his name in vain: and your very prayers and oblations are an abomination to the Lord, in that state. God calls for the beart: "My Son give me thy heart :" he has given man the reft; but that God will have for himself, if man will have him for his God and friend. Cozen not yourselves, therefore, O ye fons and daughters of Adam! For, believe it, "Such as you fow, fuch you must reap;" and "there is no repentance in the grave." And a fhort, but great work will God do in the earth; and great judgments, of divers kinds, will begin it, and they are at the door.f Yea, they are begun, if ye could but fee

ce

them.

Ifa. li. 6. Jer. xxxi. 33. Heb. viii. 10, 11, 12. Phil. i. 12. Pfal. cxiv. 15. f Prov. xv. 8, 9. Isa. i. 15, 16, 17, 18. Prov. xxiii. 26. Ġal. vi. 7, 8. Rom. xiii. 11. I Cor. xv. 34. Ephef. 2 Tim. ii. 26. Joel ii. 3. Mal. iii. 2. chap. iv. 1. Mat. xxiv. 42, 43, 44, 46. chap. xxv. 13. chap. i. 21. I John iii. 5, 8. i Pet. ii. 9, 21. Mat, v. 8. Ifa. liv. 12. chap. xxii. 12. Jer. xxxi. 9. Pfal. xxxiv. 18. Pfal. li. 10.

v. 14.

Zech. xii. 11.

Rev. i. 7. Mat. vii. 21. Rom. ii. 13. Mat. xiii. 46. Prov. viii. 18, 21. Ifa. xlv. 3. Acts iii. 10. chap. i. 6, 7, 8. Pfal.

xlv. 6. Heb. i. 8. Ifa. ix. 6, 7. Rev. xxii. 26.

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O awake

O awake then, awake out of the sleep of this world! Behold the Judge is at hand, and the midnight cry is coming upon you as a thief in the night. Prepare, prepare, or you are excluded for ever! And remember, falvation is from fin, or it will never be from wrath: fo faid the angel, "Thou fhalt call his name "Jefus, for he fhall fave his people from their fins :” for it is the "pure in heart that fee God; and nothing "unlike him can please him, and lefs live with him for " ever."

The eternal God reach unto you by his powerful Spirit, break your peace in the broad way, touch you deeply with a fense of your disobedience to him, give you true contrition and repentance, and create in you a "clean heart," and renew a "C right fpirit" within you: to conclude, make you holy, make you zealous, and make you charitable; that you may do, as well as fay, and not only profefs, but poffefs, the truth of the living God in your inward parts; that pearl of price, that hidden and eternal treasure. So fhall you know that the times of refreshing are come from the presence of the Lord, and that the kingdom is again restored unto Ifrael! ISRAEL, the Prince of eternal peace, who hath prevailed with God for man; whofe fcepter is "a fcepter of righteousness, and of whofe dominion "there fhall be no end." So come, Lord Jefus ; come quickly. Amen.

Written, in behalf of the faid people, for the information and good of all, by

WILLIAM PENN.

A REPLY

A

REPLY

TO A

PRETENDED ANSWER,

BY A

NAMELESS AUTHOR,

то

W. PENN'S KEY.

IN WHICH

The PRINCIPLES of the People called QUAKERS are farther Explained and

Confirmed.

T

By W. PENN.

Published in the Year 1695.

HOUGH I fubmit to controversy as my drudgery, not my pleasure, otherwise than as it is my duty; yet, I cannot but fay, I am glad that the publick contradiction of a nameless author, to a small treatise of mine, called, A Key, clearing our principles from vulgar apprehenfions, gives me farther occafion to declare and justify them to the world: in the doing of which, I hall endeavour, with God's affistance, so to govern my

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self,

self, that my antagonist shall see it has not been in his power, with all his fcornful and abusive treatment of me, my friends, and our holy religion, to provoke me to any other towards him, in my reply, than what is fuitable to Chriftianity; whilft with great levity and prejudice, he will by no means allow us to be Chriftians.

My reply will be fhort, but I hope clear and fatiffactory; in order to which, I shall obferve this method:

I. His mistakes in point of fact, and the use he would make of them.

II. His infinuations and infincerity.

III. His abufive terms and taunts upon us.

IV. His pretended anfwers and interpretations of fcripture. And,

Our principles, fo far as declared, and by scripture defended in the KEY, maintained against the attempts of this author, and farther explained and confirmed for a publick good.

I.

His mistakes in point of fact, and the ufe he would

make of them.

He begins his anfwer with a paffage merely perfonal, and not at all relative to the nature of the difcourfe, viz, about a pamphlet, writ in defence of the bill for excluding the duke of York, intituled, "A few words "about the touchy point of fucceffion:" teaching the parliament, That when they had made first an address to the duke to relinquifh his right to the crown; if he refused, then (but not before) they might not only juftly, but civilly exclude him by act.- When,' (fays he) I had perused this piece, without judging the merits of the caufe, or the witnefs of the argument, < I concluded that W. P. was then a man principled for the civil liberties of his country.'

Answer,

Answer. But if I may be fo bold with this author, pray, why then principled for civil liberties, and not afterwards? And why this upon me at all? But why at this time, and upon this occafion, of fo differing a nature, to be brought in by head and shoulders, as the proverb is? But what if I never writ fuch a pamphlet? (as to be fure I did not) What is to be faid to, and of, fuch an author, in fuch a cafe, and in such a time, and to a man under my circumstances? Let him know then, that I did not only never write fuch a pamphlet, but I am fure that I do not remember I ever read one of fuch a title, or heard of it; nor was I of that principle, and therefore I return the civility of his conclufion to him again; for, I thank God, I was always fo much for civil liberties, that I thought no man ought to lose them for his religious principles. And farther, that they were never to be fecured by this or that man, but by a good and equal conftitution of government; as fome papers by me, which I writ at that time, as well as divers perfons yet living, of good reputation, can evidence for me.

But his next paragraph explains the matter; wherein he speaks thus: I could no otherwise reconcile the folly of his prevarication in the late reign, than by imputing them to his intemperate zeal for a boundlefs liberty of confcience, according to the doctrine of king James's declaration.'

In this he would be charitable, but let him first be juft: if there were no prevarication, then there is no need of an intemperate zeal for liberty to fhadow or reconcile them to any former principles. And I am fo much a friend to him and his brethren, that I wish them free from all intemperance, and prevarications too, and that in all reigns. And if it be poffible, or worth while, to reconcile him better to my conduct, let him peruse my "Great Cafe of Liberty of Confcience," printed 1671, and my "Letter to the Eftates of Embden, 1672," and my "Prefent State of England, 1675," and he will find I was the fame man then, and acted by the fame principles. Not more intemperate in the reign that favoured

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it,