Excerpt from Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of William Penn While he was in Newgate, he had ample employment for his pen. Under standing that Parliament was about to take measures to enforce the Conventicle Act with still greater severity, he addressed a paper to that body in behalf of himself and friends, in which he stated in substance, that though the Quakers could not comply with those laws which prohibited them from worshiping God according to their consciences, it being the prerogative of Him alone to preside in all matters of religious faith, yet they owned civil government as God's ordinance, and were ready to yield Obedience to it in all temmral matters, and this for conscience sake; that they renounced all plots and conspiracies, as horrible impiety; and that, as they had conducted themselves patiently and peaceably under all the changes of the government that had taken place since their first appearance as a society, so it was their determination to continue in the same path. He concluded by expressing a hope, that Parliament, before it proceeded to extremities, would give them a free hearing, as it had done upon the first Act for uniformity, and that, upon a better knowledge of them as a people, it would remove their hard burthens. He wrote two letters about the same time; one to the Sheriffs of London, calling their attention to the keeper of Newgate prison, who had been abusive to some of the society, then in confinement there, on account of their religion; and another to a Roman Catholic, who, having been offended with his Seasonable Caveat against Popery, had replied to him m considerable warmth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.