What Isaac Pennington, being a prisoner, wrote about this time to the king and parliament, and published in print, was also very remarkable, being designed with Christian meekness to dissuade them if possible from going on with this mischievous work of persecution. In this paper, containing some queries, among many weighty expressions, I find these also:
‘After ye have done all ye can, even made laws as strong as ye can, and put them in the strictest course of execution ye can, one night from the Lord may end the controversy, and show whether we please the Lord in obeying him, or ye in making laws against us for our fidelity and obedience to him.
‘As the Lord is able to overturn you, so if ye mistake your work, misinterpreting the passages of his providence, and erring in heart concerning the ground of his former displeasure; and so, through the error of judgment, set yourselves in opposition against him, replanting the plants which he will not have grow, and plucking up the plants of his planting; do ye not in this case provoke the Lord, even to put forth the strength which is in him against you? We are poor worms. Alas, if ye had only us to deal with, we should be nothing in your hands! But if his strength stand behind us, we shall prove a very burdensome stone, and ye will hardly be able to remove us out of the place wherein God hath set us, and where he pleaseth to have us disposed of. And happy were it for you, if instead of persecuting us, ye yourselves were drawn to wait for the same begettings of God, which we have felt, out of the earthly nature into his life and nature, and did learn of him to govern in that; then might ye be established indeed, and be freed from the danger of those shakings, and overturnings, which God is hastening upon the earth.
‘Now, because ye may be apt to think, that I write these things for my own sake, and the sakes of my friends and companions in the truth of God, that we might escape the sufferings and severity which we are like to undergo from you, and not so mainly and chiefly for your sakes, lest ye should bring the wrath of God and misery upon your souls and bodies; to prevent this mistake in you, I shall add what followeth. Indeed this is not the intent of my heart: for I have long expected, and do still expect this cup of outward affliction and persecution from you, and my heart is quieted and satisfied therein, knowing that the Lord will bring glory to his name, and good to us out of it: but I am sure it is not good for you to afflict us for that which the Lord requireth of us, and wherein he accepteth us; and ye will find it the bitterest work that ever ye went about, and in the end will wish that the Lord had rather never given you this day of prosperity, than that he would suffer you thus to make use of it. Now that ye may more clearly see the temper of my spirit, and how my heart stands to this thing, I shall a little open unto you, my faith and hope about it, in these ensuing particulars:
‘First, I am assured in my heart and soul, that this despised people, called Quakers, is of the Lord’s begetting in his own life and nature. Indeed, had I not seen the power of God in them, and received from the Lord an unquestionable testimony concerning them, I had never looked towards them: for they were otherwise very despicable in my eyes. And this I cannot but testify concerning them, that I have found the life of God in me owning them, and that which God hath begotten in my heart, refreshed by the power of life in them: and none but the Lord knows the beauty and excellency of glory, which he hath hid under this appearance.
‘Secondly, The Lord hath hitherto preserved them against great oppositions, and is still able to preserve them. Every power hitherto hath made nothing of overrunning them; yet they have hitherto stood, by the care and tender mercy of the Lord; and the several powers which have persecuted them, have fallen one after another.
‘Thirdly, I have had experience myself of the Lord’s goodness and preservation of me, in my suffering with them for the testimony of his truth, who made my bonds pleasant to me, and my noisome prison, (enough to have destroyed my weakly and tenderly educated nature,) a place of pleasure and delight; where I was comforted by my God night and day, and filled with prayers for his people, as also with love to, and prayers for, those who had been the means of outwardly afflicting me, and others on the Lord’s account.
‘Fourthly, I have no doubt in my heart that the Lord will deliver us. The strength of man, the resolution of man is nothing in my eye in compare with the Lord. Whom the Lord loveth, he can save at his pleasure. Hath he begun to break our bonds and deliver us, and shall we now distrust him? Are we in a worse condition than Israel was, when the sea was before them, the mountains on each side, and the Egyptians behind pursuing them? He indeed that looketh with man’s eye, can see no ground of hope, nor hardly a possibility of deliverance; but, to the eye of faith, it is now nearer than when God began first to deliver.
‘Fifthly, It is the delight of the Lord, and his glory to deliver his people, when to the eye of sense it seemeth impossible. Then doth the Lord delight to stretch forth his arm, when none else can help: and then doth it please him to deal with the enemies of his truth and people, when they are lifted up above the fear of him, and are ready to say in their hearts concerning them, they are now in our hands, who can deliver them?