Page:William Penn the Friend of Catholics.pdf/10

4 cause "it was a relic and a symbol of that Church."

For his religious principles he had suffered imprisonment and under laws designed to oppress Catholics. The law of 1582, which imposed on "Papists" a fine of $20 a month for absence from the Established Church, and the law of 1605 giving the option to the Sovereign of accepting this sum or all the personal and two-thirds of the real estate of the accused, were used by the enemies of the "Quakers" to oppress them.

When the Parliament of 1678 was considering the laws against "Popery," it was proposed to insert an oath by which the penalty could be avoided. The Friends objected to the oath. They wished their word, subject to the penalty of perjury, to be taken. On the 22nd of January, 1678, Penn appeared before a committee of Parliament in defense of the position of his people, His remarks give the key to his course towards Catholics and deserve attention therefor?

"That which giveth me more than ordinary right to speak at this time and place is the great abuse that I have received above any other of my profession for a long time. I have not only been supposed a Papist, but a seminary, a Jesuit, an emissary of Rome and in pay of the Pope, a man dedicating my endeavors to the interest and advancement of that party. Nor hath this been the report of the rabble, but the jealousy and insinuations of persons otherwise sober and discreet. Nay, some zealous for the Protestant cause have been so far gone in this mistake as not only to think ill of us and to decline our conversation, but to take courage to themselves to prescribe us as a sort of concealed Papist. All laws have been let loose upon us, as if the design were not to reform but to destroy us, and that not for what we are, but for what we are not. I would not be mistaken.

"I am far from thinking that Papists should be whipped for their consciences, because I exclaim against the injustice of whipping Quakers for Papists. No, for the hand pretended to be lifted up against them hath, I know not by what discretion, lit heavily upon us, and we complain, yet we do not mean that any should take a fresh aim at them or that they must come in our room. We must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves, for we have good will to all men and would have none to suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any hand."

To the charge that he was a Papists, he replied: [Letter to Wm. Popple, Oct. 20, 1688.]

"If the asserting of an impartial liberty of conscience, if doing to others as we would be done by, and an open avowing and a steady practising of these things at all times and to all parties, will justly lay a man under the reflection of being a Jesuit or Papist of any sort, I must not only submit to the character, but embrace it too."

To Archbishop Tillotson, who reported him "a Papist, perhaps a Jesuit," he wrote: "I am a Catholic, though not a Roman. I have bowels for mankind, and dare not deny others what I crave for myself. I mean liberty for the exercise of my religion, thinking faith, piety and providence a better security than force, and that if truth cannot prevail with her own weapons, all others will fail her I am no Roman Catholic but a Christian whose creed is the Scripture." ["Hazard's Register," Vol. ii. pp. 29-30.] Two principles of religion I abhor: Obedience upon authority without conviction: Destroying them that differ from me for God's sake. —Wm. Penn to Abp. Tillotson. [ibid.]

But that Penn could not object to the public celebration of Mass, take his testimony from his "Persuasion to Moderation:"

"By liberty of conscience I mean a free and open profession and exercise of one's duty to God, especially in worship." [Janney's Penn, p. 280, 2d Ed. 1882.] He cites instances of Catholics granting toleration, and asks, "Who should give liberty of conscience like the Prince that wanted it?" And again he repeats