e Fox, the first instrument thereof, and therefore
styled by me--The great and blessed apostle of our day. As this gave
birth to what is here presented to thy view, in the first edition of it,
by way of preface to George Fox's excellent Journal; so the consideration
of the present usefulness of the following account of the people called
Quakers, by reason of the unjust reflections of some adversaries that
once walked under the profession of Friends, and the exhortations that
conclude it, prevailed with me to consent that it should be republished
in a smaller volume; knowing also full well, that great books, especially
in these days, grow burthensome, both to the pockets and minds of too
many; and that there are not a few that desire, so it be at an easy rate,
to be informed about this people, that have been so much every where
spoken against: but blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, it is upon no worse grounds than it was said of old time of the
primitive Christians, as I hope will appear to every sober and
considerate reader. Our business, after all the ill usage we have met
with, being the realities of religion, an effectual change before our
last and great change: that all may come to an inward, sensible, and
experimental knowledge of God, through the convictions and operations of
the light and spirit of Christ in themselves; the sufficient and blessed
means given to all, that thereby all may come savingly to know the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to enlighten and redeem the
world: which knowledge is indeed eternal life. And that thou, reader,
mayst obtain it, is the earnest desire of him that is ever thine in so
good a work.

WILLIAM PENN.

CHAP. I.

_Containing a brief account of divers dispensations of God in the world_,
_to the time he was pleased to raise this despised people_, _called
Quakers_.

Divers have been the dispensations of God since the creation of the
world, unto the sons of men; but the great end of all of them, has been
the renown of his own excellent name in the creation and restoration of
man: man, the emblem of himself, as a God on earth, and the glory of all
his works. The world began with innocency; all was then good that the
good God had made: and as he blessed the works of his hands, so their
natures and harmony magnified him their Creator. Then the morning stars
sang together for joy, and all parts of his work said Amen to his law.
No