"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"

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APRIL

 8, 1681 --England. From London, William Penn writes his vassals and subjects in the New World:

     “My Friends -- I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These are to lett you know that it hath pleased God in His Providence to cast you within my Lot and Care. It is a business that though I never undertook before, yet God has given me an understanding of my duty, and an honest mind to do it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your change and the King's choice; for you are now fixed at the mercy of no Governor that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and of your will, a sober and industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution, and has given me His grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with. I beseech God to direct you in the way of righteousness, and therein prosper you and your children after you. I am your true Friend, (signed) William Penn

     "I will not abuse the love of God," he will declare, "nor act unworthy of His Providence by defiling what came to me clean. No; let the Lord guide me by His wisdom, to honor His name and serve His truth and people, that an example and a standard may be set up to the nations . . .."
     On May 5, 1682, He will declare, "For the matters of liberty I purpose, that which is extraordinary -- to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country." "It is the great end of government to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; for liberty without obedience is confusion and obedience without liberty is slavery."
     In 1666, on a journey in Ireland, he heard his old friend Thomas Loe speak of the faith that overcomes the world; and he at once renounced every hope for the path of integrity. It is a path into which, he says, "God in His everlasting kindness, guided my feet in the flower of my youth when about two and twenty years of age." The same he told the Viceroy of Ireland, "Religion is my crime and my innocence; it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own freeman.”

8, 1725 --Massachusetts. At Essex, John Wise dies. In 1688, he was imprisoned in the Boston jail, fined and deprived of his ministerial office by Governor Andros because he led the people of Ipswich to refuse to pay certain taxes which they declared had been arbitrarily imposed.        "Democracy is Christ's government in Church and State," he asserted. "We have a good God and a good King; we shall do well to stand to our privileges."
       "You have no privilege but not to be sold as slaves," one council member responded after the arraignment of Mr. Wise and the Selectmen.
     "Do you believe, Joe, and Tom may tell the king what money he may have?" demanded Governor Andros.
     The prisoners pleaded the Magna Carta.
     "Do you think the laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth?" one judge queried.
     The town paid his fine.
     In 1710, he opposed the "Proposals of 1705,” which the Mathers have approved and by which ministerial associations were granted authority over individual churches, and defended congregational polity.
     His tracts, "The Churches' Quarrel Espoused (1710), and "A vindication of the Government of New England Churches" (1717) have been called "the most able exposition of the democratic principles which modern Congregationalism has come to claim as its own that the eighteenth century produced."


 

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