The next day, 29 July, George Whitehead wrote to him that 'by his mad and wicked action he had brought a great reproach upon Friends, the devil having instigated him to burn their books'.
On 10 August the Quakers issued a paper declaring that they had no longer union or fellowship with Pennyman, whom they considered 'in a measure broken and discomposed in his mind and understanding'.
[2] Pennyman's first wife, Elizabeth, had died, aged 24, at Aldersgate Street, on 24 February 1667–8, of fever, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Chequer Alley.
His second wife, Dinah, daughter of Nicholas Bond of Pall Mall, St. James's, died on 23 August 1669 at her father's house, and was also buried at Chequer Alley.
[c] Immediately after she had taken up her quarters at his house, Pennyman engaged Merchant Taylors' Hall, and, in obedience to a 'command', invited all sects, and prepared food and drink for 250 persons, not to celebrate, but to announce his so-called marriage with the widow.
In January 1691–1692 he and his family went to live with John Barkstead, his son-in-law, at St. Helen's, Bishopsgate; but in October 1695 he was so ill that he gave directions for his burial, and wrote his epitaph.
[5] He recovered and moved to the country, where writings of Sir Matthew Hale fell into his hands, from which he had extracts printed, and distributed twenty thousand copies.
Shortly after he published Some of the Letters and Papers which were written by Mrs. Mary Pennyman, relating to an Holy and Heavenly Conversation, in which she lived to her Dying Day, London, 10 March 1701–2.
In August 1703 he finished A Short Account of the Life of Mr. John Pennyman, which, with some of his writings (relating to Religious and Divine Matters), are to be made Publik for the Weal and Benefit of all Mankind, London, 1703.