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deserve and require that title. As for those gross terms of human flesh and human blood, I never spoke or wrote them since I knew the Lord's truth. And this I must needs say, we have been as poor tossed sheep up and down, much abused, vilified, and belied: but over all God is raising the strong horn of his salvation; and he has magnified his name in all these bustles and stirs; and ; Truth has manifestly gotten ground, and in no one thing more than our plain confessions of Christ: so much had the Devil roosted and nestled himself in them under their misapprehensions of our words in that particular and if any weakness attended the phrasing of it, I hope and believe the simplicity in which it was delivered will hide it from the evil watcher.". Here the

first sheet of the letter ends, the second being lost, and with it all further knowledge of this controversy, as well as of the proceedings of Hicks, or of those who were associated with him on this occasion.

The person who next to Hicks gave this year the most trouble to William Penn, was John Faldo. He had produced, as stated in the preceding chapter, his book, called "Quakerism

VOL. I.

K

Quakerism no Christianity," which had been answered: but in the present year he appeared in print by publishing “A Vindication" of his former work. This brought forward a rejoinder, called "The Invalidity of John Faldo's Vindication," from William Penn. Upon this Faldo sent his antagonist a challenge to meet him in public dispute. William Penn, however, declined it. His reason, he said, for so doing was, that the points, upon which he had been challenged, were then in discussion between the Quakers and other people. In his answer, however, to the challenge, he stated, "that he loved, and therefore that he should at any time convenient embrace, a sober discussion of the principles of religion, for that he aimed at nothing more than Truth's triumph, though to his own abasement." Modest as this declaration was, Faldo was not satisfied, but published "A Curb to William Penn's Confidence," which the latter immediately opposed by " A Return to John Faldo's Reply." After this Faldo did not renew the contest himself: but he became an instrument of continuing it; for he assembled a large council of Divines, by whose advice

his first work called "Quakerism no Christianity" was republished. This, the second edition of it, was accompanied by a commendatory preface produced by the joint labours of this learned body. As the work in its first form had attracted so much notice from William Penn, it may be easily supposed that it could not do less in the present. Accordingly he wrote a reply to it, which, on account of the number of clergymen concerned in the preface, he called "A just Rebuke to one-and-twenty learned and reverend Divines." After this the controversy ceased between them. I may just observe, with respect to the books written by William Penn on occasion of John Faldo, that Dr. Henry Moore, who was then considered one of the most learned and pious men in the Church of England, passed an encomium upon them. In a letter written to William Penn he expresses himself thus : "Indeed meeting with the little pamphlet of yours newly come out, wherein some twenty and odd learned and reverend Divines are concerned, I had the curiosity to buy and read it and though I wish there were no

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occasion for these controversies and contests betwixt those who have left the Church of Rome; yet I found such a taste both of wit and seriousness in that pamphlet, and the argument it was about so weighty, that I was resolved to buy all of John Faldo's and all of yours touching that subject; but before that little pamphlet, I never met with any of your writings." "As to your

other two books against John Faldo, whatever passages there be that may not be agreeable to my sentiments, you will easily perceive of what nature they are, by perusing my remarks upon G. K.'s immediate revelation. But there are sundry passages in those two books of yours nobly Christian, and for which I have no small kindness and esteem for you, they being testimonies of that, which I cannot but highly prize whereever I find it."

The persons who kept him employed next, were Henry Halliwell, who wrote an account of "Familism, as it was revived. and propagated by the Quakers," and Samuel Grevil, a clergyman living near Banbury, who wrote "A Discourse against the

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Testimony of the Light within." swer to the first he published "Wisdom justified of her Children," and to the other "Urim and Thummim, or the Apostolical Doctrines of Light and Perfection maintained."

He was now obliged to take up his pen against John Perrot, one of his own society. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit speaking as it were within men and guiding them into the way of truth, which was the great corner-stone of Quakerism, had been received by many of that persuasion in too large a latitude, so that these, interpreting every ordinary motion within themselves as springing immediately from the divine impulse, and obeying it in its several tendencies, ran out into extravagancies in various ways. This conduct began to bring the rising name of the Quakers into some dis-· repute. Hence, and on account of the error which gave birth to it, the society was obliged to notice it, and in consequence several so acting were disowned. Among these was John Perrot. The said John Perrot and John Luff, supposing themselves to have been moved in this manner, or to have

had

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