f the Puritan
reformers. He disliked their violence and harshness; while, on the other
hand, he was attracted and pleased by the gentle disposition and mild
counsels of Locke, and Tillotson, and the latitudinarians of the English
Church. He was the intimate personal and political friend of Algernon
Sydney; sympathized with his republican theories, and shared his
abhorrence of tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical. He found in him a man
after his own heart,--genial, generous, and loving; faithful to duty and
the instincts of humanity; a true Christian gentleman. His sense of
gratitude was strong, and his personal friendships sometimes clouded his
judgment. In giving his support to the measures of James in behalf of
liberty of conscience, it must be admitted that he acted in consistency
with his principles and professions. To have taken ground against them,
he must have given the lie to his declarations from his youth upward. He
could not disown and deny his own favorite doctrine because it came from
the lips of a Catholic king and his Jesuit advisers; and in thus rising
above the prejudices of his time, and appealing to the reason and
humanity of the people of England in favor of a cordial indorsement on
the part of Parliament of the principles of the declaration, he believed
that he was subserving the best interests of his beloved country and
fulfilling the solemn obligations of religious duty. The downfall of
James exposed Penn to peril and obloquy. Perjured informers endeavored
to swear away his life; and, although nothing could be proved against him
beyond the fact that he had steadily supported the great measure of
toleration, he was compelled to live secluded in his private lodgings in
London for two or three years, with a proclamation for his arrest hanging
over his head. At length, the principal informer against him having been
found guilty of perjury, the government warrant was withdrawn; and Lords
Sidney, Rochester, and Somers, and the Duke of Buckingham, publicly bore
testimony that nothing had been urged against him save by impostors, and
that "they had known him, some of them, for thirty years, and had never
known him to do an ill thing, but many good offices." It is a matter of
regret that one professing to hold the impartial pen of history should
have given the sanction of his authority to the slanderous and false
imputations of such a man as Burnet, who has never been regarded as an
authentic chronic