Part 6 (1/2)
He then continues:
”And this is the beginning of particular interest, buying and selling the Earth from one particular hand to another, saying 'This is mine,' upholding this particular propriety by a law of government of his own making, and thereby restraining other fellow-creatures from seeking nourishment from their Mother Earth.
So that though a man was bred up in a Land, yet he must not work for himself where he would, but for him who had bought part of the Land, or had come to it by inheritance of his deceased parents, and called it his own Land. So that he who had no Land was to work for small wages for those who called the Land theirs. Thereby some are lifted up in the chair of tyranny, and others trod under the footstool of misery, as if the Earth were made for a few, and not for all men.”
”As if the Earth were made for a few, and not for all men!” In these few pertinent and indignant words Winstanley strikes the keynote of all his subsequent writings, as that of those of many other later students of social problems, from John Locke,[71:1] who may be regarded as his immediate successor, to Thomas Spence, Patrick Edward Dove,[71:2] Thomas Paine,[71:3] and Henry George.
He then further emphasises his contention, in words similar to those that are to-day resounding throughout the advanced political centres of the world, as follows:
”And let all men say what they will, so long as such are Rulers as call the land theirs, upholding this particular propriety of Mine and Thine, the common people shall never have their liberty, nor the Land be ever freed from troubles, oppressions, and complainings, by reason whereof the Creator of all things is continually provoked. O thou proud, selfish, governing Adam, in this Land called England! know that the cries of the poor, whom thou layeth heavy oppressions upon, are heard.”
And in the closing pa.s.sage of the chapter he formulates his social ideals in the following words:
”This is the unrighteous Adam, that dammed up the water springs of universal liberty, and brought the Creation under the curse of bondage, sorrow, and tears. But when the Earth becomes a Common Treasury, as it was in the beginning, and the King of Righteousness comes to rule in every one's hearts, then He kills the first Adam--for Covetousness thereby is killed.
”A man shall have meat and drink and clothes by his labour in freedom, and what can he desire more in Earth? Pride and Envy likewise are killed thereby; for everyone shall look upon each other as equal in the Creation, every man, indeed, being a perfect Creation of himself. And so this second Adam, Christ the Restorer, stops or dams up the running of those stinking waters of self-interest, and causes the waters of life and liberty to run plentifully in and through the Creation, making the Earth one Store House, and every man and woman to live in the Law of Righteousness and Peace, members of one household.”
In a subsequent chapter (chap. vi.) he returns to this subject, and emphasises the differences of the views of the ethical-minded man and the ordinary conventional materialist, in the following suggestive pa.s.sage:
”The man of the flesh judges it a righteous thing that some men who are cloathed with the objects of the Earth, and so called rich men, whether it be got by right or wrong, should be Magistrates to rule over the poor; and that the poor should be servants, nay, rather slaves, to the rich. But the spiritual man, which is Christ, doth judge according to the light of equity and reason, that all mankind ought to have a quiet subsistence and freedom to live upon Earth; and that there should be no bondman nor beggar in all his holy mountain.”
For, he contends:
”Mankind was made to live in the freedom of the spirit, not under the bondage of the flesh. For everyone was made to be a Lord over the creation of the Earth, cattle, fish, fowl, gra.s.s, trees, not anyone to be a bond-slave and a beggar under the Creation of his own kind. That so everyone, living in freedom and love in the strength of the Law of Righteousness in him, not under straits of poverty, nor bondage of tyranny one to another, might all rejoice together in righteousness, and so glorify their Maker. For surely this must dishonor the Maker of all men, that some men should be oppressing tyrants, imprisoning, whipping, hanging their fellow-creatures, men, for those very things which those very men themselves are guilty of. Let men's eyes be opened, and it appears clear enough, that the punishers have and do break the Law of Equity and Reason more or as much as those who are punished by them.”
But, he adds rejoicingly, just
”As the powers and wisdom of the flesh hath filled the Earth with injustice, oppression, and complainings, by mowing the Earth into the hands of a few covetous unrighteous men, who a.s.sume a lords.h.i.+p over others, declaring themselves thereby to be men of the basest spirits. Even so, when the spreading of wisdom and truth fill the Earth, mankind, he will take off that bondage, and give a universal liberty, and there shall be no more complainings against oppression, poverty, or injustice.”
Winstanley, however, warns his readers that ”this is not to be done by the hands of a few, or by unrighteous men that would pull down the tyrannical government out of other men's hands and keep it in their own heart, as we feel this to be a burden of our age. But it is to be done by the universal spreading of the Divine Power, which is Christ in mankind, making them all to act in one spirit, and in and after one law of reason and equity.”
In the next chapter (chap. viii.) Winstanley describes his peculiar state of mind at the time he first arrived at his fundamental conclusions, which he evidently regarded as directly revealed to him, in the following mystic words:
”As I was in a trance not long since, divers matters were present to my sight, which here must not be related. Likewise I heard these words--_Work together: Eat bread together: Declare this all abroad_. Likewise I heard these words--_Whosoever it is that labors in the earth--for any person or persons that lift up themselves as Lords and Rulers over others, and that doth not look upon themselves as equal to others in the Creation, the hand of the Lord shall be upon that laborer. I the Lord have spoke it and I will do it. Declare this all abroad._”
He then continues:
”After I was raised up I was made to remember very fresh what I had seen and heard, and did declare all things to them that were with me, and I was filled with abundance of quiet peace and secret joy.
And since that time those words have been like very fruitful seed, that have brought forth increase in my heart, which I am much pressed in spirit to declare all abroad.”
He further explains the meaning of this revelation in the following words:
”The poor men by their labors in this time of the first Adam's government, have made the buyers and sellers of land, or rich men, to become tyrants and oppressors over them. But in the time of Israel's restoration, now beginning, when the King of Righteousness himself shall be Governor in every man, none then shall work for hire, neither shall any give hire, but everyone shall work in love, one with and for another, and eat bread together, as being members of one household, the Creation, in whom Reason rules king in perfect glory.”
Under these circ.u.mstances, he contends:
”No man shall have any more land than he can labor himself,[74:1]
or have others to labor with him in love, working together, and eating bread together, as one of the tribes or families of Israel, neither giving hire nor taking hire.”
After having given forcible expression to his profound contempt for all mere lip-professions of brotherhood, sympathy, and love, with which those whose actions are least in accord with the dictates of righteousness, equity, and reason are so often the most profuse, and reminding these that--”The talking of love is no love; it is the acting of love in righteousness which the Spirit Reason, our Father, delights in”; he addressed the following stirring warning to his fellow-workers: