The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social ReformerBerens, Lewis Henry
History
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer
Berens, Lewis Henry
Communism; Land use; Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-
"Secondly, A Fighting Army, called Soldiers in the Field, when the
necessity of preservation, by reason of a foreign invasion, or
inbred Oppression, doth move the people to arise in an Army to cut
and tear to pieces either degenerate Officers, or rude people, who
seek their own interests, and not Common Freedom, and through
treachery do endeavour to destroy the Laws of Common Freedom, and
to enslave both the Land and the People of the Commonwealth to
their particular wills and lusts.... The use or work of a Fighting
Army in a Commonwealth is to beat down all who arise to endeavour
to destroy the Liberties of the Commonwealth. For as in the days of
the Monarchy an Army was used to subdue all who rebelled against
Kingly Propriety, so in the days of a Free Commonwealth, an Army is
to be made use of to resist or destroy all who endeavour to keep up
or bring in Kingly Bondage again.... Therefore, you Army of
England's Commonwealth, look to it. The Enemy could not beat you in
the field, but they may be too hard for you by Policy in Counsel,
if you do not stick close to see Common Freedom established. For if
so be that Kingly Authority is set up in your Laws again, King
Charles has conquered you and your posterity by policy, though you
seemingly have cut off his head. For the Strength of a King lies
not in the visible Appearance of his Body, but in his Will, Laws,
and Authority, which is called Monarchial Government. But if you
remove Kingly Government, and set up true and free Commonwealth's
Government, then you gain your Crown and keep it, and leave peace
to your posterity: otherwise not. And thus doing makes a War either
lawful or unlawful."
Then follows this bold, manly challenge of the conduct of the Grandees
of the Army:
"AN ARMY MAY BE MURTHERERS AND UNLAWFUL.
"If an Army be raised to cast out Kingly Oppression, and if the
Heads of that Army promise a Commonwealth's Freedom to the
oppressed people, in case they will assist in person and purse, and
if the people do assist and prevail over the Tyrant, those Officers
are bound by the Law of Justice (who is God) to make good their
engagements. And if they do not set the Land free from the
branches of the Kingly Oppression, but reserve some part of the
Kingly Power to advance their own particular interest, whereby some
of their friends are left under as great slavery to them as they
were under the Kings, those Officers are not faithful
Commonwealth's Soldiers, they are worse Thieves and Tyrants than
the Kings they cast out, and that Honor they seemed to get by their
Victories over the Commonwealth's Oppressor, they lose again by
breaking Promise and Engagement to their oppressed friends who did
assist them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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