"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."