A very different man from Biddle,--one whom from his absurd manner of talking, we should suspect had in him a touch of insanity,--was Daniel Scargill, Fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge. In 1669, he formally and publicly, before the University, recanted the following opinions which he had formerly maintained: that all right of dominion is founded only in power--that moral righteousness is based on the law of the Magistrate--that the authority of Scripture rests on the same foundation--that whatsoever the Civil Government commanded is to be obeyed, although it may be contrary to Divine laws, and “that there is a desirable glory in being, and in being reputed an Atheist--which I implied when I expressly affirmed that I gloried to be an Hobbist and an Atheist.” These retractions indicate the previous entertainment of most extraordinary errors. In the next chapter I shall examine the mysticism of the Quakers before I proceed to the theology of the Puritans. CHAPTER XVII. George Fox was the father of Quakerism, but to William Penn belongs the distinction of being the first logical expounder of its principles. William Penn was the son of Admiral Penn. When only twelve years old he began “to listen to the voice of God in his soul:” and when a student at Oxford he suffered fines and expulsion for his incipient Nonconformity. His father, incensed by these religious peculiarities, turned him into the streets, but this did not in the least degree destroy his convictions; and subsequently, European travel, and education, which it might have been expected would dissipate his impressions, left them as deep as ever, combined with an accession of intelligence, and an acquisition of graceful manners which rendered him the admiration of polite society. He had learned to handle the rapier, with all the skill of a French gentleman, yet he remained imbued with “a deep sense of the vanity of the world, and the irreligiousness of its religions.” “Further,” to use his own language, “God, in His everlasting kindness, guided my feet in the flower of my youth, when about two-and-twenty years of age. Religion is my crime, and my innocence,--it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own freeman.” When the fashionable world laughed at the rumour of the accomplished William Penn becoming a Quaker, such ridicule did not move his purpose, he only showed more steadfastness of conviction, and avowed his adoption of Quaker habits by going to Court with his hat on. When the Bishop of London menaced him with imprisonment, “My prison shall be my grave,” the youth replied. When Charles sent Stillingfleet to talk with him, the youthful Dissenter, through that Divine, returned an answer to every threat--“The Tower is to me the worst argument in the world.” This was in 1668, the year in which he published his _Truth Exalted, or a Testimony to Rulers, Priests, and Bishops_; and the same year,