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-
"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, grass, 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 assume a lordship
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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