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-
"'Why,' saith the Elder Brother, 'this is His Word, and if you will
not believe it, you must be damned; but if you will believe it, you
will go to Heaven.'
"Well, the Younger Brother, being weak in spirit, and not having a
grounded knowledge of the Creation, nor of himself, is terrified,
and lets go his hold in the Earth, and submits himself to be a
Slave to his Brother, for fear of damnation in Hell after death,
and in hopes to get Heaven thereby after he is dead. And so his
eyes are put out, and his Reason is blinded. So that this divining
spiritual doctrine is a cheat. For while men are gazing up to
Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they
are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what are their
Birth-Rights, nor what is to be done by them here on Earth while
they are living. This is the filthy Dreamer and the Cloud without
rain. And indeed the subtle Clergy do know that if they can but
charm the people by this their divining doctrine, to look after
riches, Heaven and Glory when they are dead, that then they shall
easily be the inheritors of the Earth, and have the deceived people
to be their Servants.
"For my own part," he continues, "my spirit hath waded deep to find
the bottom of this divining spiritual Doctrine; and the more I
searched, the more I was at a loss. I never came to quiet rest and
to know God in my spirit, till I came to the knowledge of the
things in this Book. And let me tell you, They who preach this
divining doctrine are the murderers of many a poor heart, who is
bashful and simple, and who cannot speak for himself, but who keeps
his thoughts to himself."
Such, then, was Winstanley's final attack on the body of teachings he,
rightly or wrongly, hated and despised as the main supporter of the
prevailing social injustice. Correct thought he realised to be the
necessary precursor of right action; and he knew that correct thought is
impossible so long as old, inherited false ideas are unquestioningly
accepted and hold undisputed dominion over the human mind. Winstanley
seems to us to have realised that it was the ignorance of the many that,
in truth, maintained the privileges of the few; that the masses
themselves forge the fetters for their own enslavement, which, though
apparently as strong as iron bands, are, in truth, but things of
gossamer, easily to be broken by those who themselves have forged and
who themselves still maintain them.
In the next chapter (chap. v.) Winstanley briefly summarises his views
on education, and outlines the means by which he deemed both the
production and the distribution of wealth could be carried on without
having recourse to "the thieving art of buying and selling." It
commences as follows:
OF EDUCATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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