'When my Book, intituled The Sandy Foundation Shaken, came out, it being a further Detection of what we call Errors, and it happening that Socinians did the same, as if I was a rank Socinian (who had never read any one Socinian Book in all my Life, if look't into one at that Time) so these Men, at least T. F. was ready to believe me nearer akin to them, than God knows, I was', etc.
Collected Works of William Penn (1726), p. 453.
(as given by H.J. McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth Century England, Oxford, 1951, p. 306).
Beware of Author Error's, Some Controversialists, etc.
It seems to me that W. Penn could have meant that he 'had never read any one Socinian Book' by the time The Sandy Foundation was written — 'in all my Life, if look't into one at that Time', i.e. if someone looked into his life at the time the Sandy Foundation came out.
If so, then his import was misunderstood by H.J. McLachlan, as in the work cited — who interpreted the statement as applying to all Penn's life and therefore contradicting some other statements. Penn evidently had read the works by Socinus ; this could have been done after the 'Sandy Foundation' ; and it apparently was done soon thereafter, possibly because of his finding himself associated with the Socinian thought presumably because
WPT