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-
[Here, as also in other Laws yet to follow, Winstanley, and as it
seems to us without sufficient grounds, gives up the position taken
up in The New Law of Righteousness, that capital punishment was
absolutely unjustifiable.]
4. The Laws shall be read by the Minister to the People four times in
the year, viz., every quarter; that everyone may know whereunto they are
to yield obedience, that none may die for want of knowledge.
5. No accusation shall be taken against any man unless it be proved by
two or three witnesses, or his own confession.
6. No man shall suffer any punishment but for matter of fact or reviling
words. But no man shall be troubled for his judgement or practice in the
things of his God, so he live quiet in the Land.
7. The accuser and the accused shall always appear face to face before
any Officer; that both sides may be heard, and no wrong to either party.
8. If any Judge execute his own will contrary to the Law, or where there
is no Law to warrant him in, he shall be cashiered, and never bear
Office more.
9. He who raises an accusation against any man, and cannot prove it,
shall suffer the same punishment as the other should, if proved. An
accusation is, when one man complains of another to an Officer, all
other accusations the Law takes no notice of.
10. He who strikes his neighbor shall be struck himself by the
executioner, blow for blow, and shall lose eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
limb for limb, life for life. And the reason is that men should be
tender of one another's bodies, doing as they would be done by.
11. If any man strike an Officer, he shall be made a servant under the
Task-master for a whole year.
12. He who endeavours to stir up contention among neighbors, by
tale-bearing or false reports, shall the first time be reproved openly
by the Overseers among the people. The second time he shall be whipped.
The third time he shall be a servant under the Task-master for three
months. And if he continue, he shall be a servant for ever, and lose his
Freedom in the Commonwealth.
13. If any give reviling or provoking words, whereby his neighbor's
spirit is burdened, if complaint be made to the Overseers, they shall
admonish the offender privately to forbear. If he continue to offend his
neighbor, the next time he shall be openly reproved and admonished
before the Congregation when met together. If he continue, the third
time he shall be whipped; the fourth time, if proof be made by
witnesses, he shall be a servant under the Task-master for twelve
months.
14. He who will rule as a Lord over his Brother, unless he be an Officer
commanding obedience to the Law, he shall be admonished as aforesaid,
and receive like punishment, if he continue.
LAWS FOR THE PLANTING OF THE EARTH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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