Chapter XVI: Conclusion

"And so I leave this in your hand, humbly prostrating myself and it
before you, and remain, A true lover of Commonwealth's Government,
Peace and Freedom.
"GERRARD WINSTANLEY.
"_November 5th, 1651._"

TO THE FRIENDLY AND UNBIASSED READER.

The somewhat long, though comprehensive, letter to Cromwell is followed by one addressed "To the Friendly and Unbiassed Reader," in which a very different tone is adopted, and which runs as follows:

"READER,--It was the Apostle's advice formerly to try all things,
and to hold fast that which is best. This Platform of Government
which I offer is the original Righteousness and Peace in the Earth,
though he hath been buried under the clod of Kingly Covetousness,
Pride and Oppression a long time. Now he begins to have his
Resurrection, despise it not while it is small; though thou
understand it not at the first sight, yet open the door and look
into the house; for thou mayst see that which will satisfy thy
heart in quiet rest."

SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF HIS PLAN.

"To prevent thy hasty rashness, I have given thee a short
compendium of the whole.

"_First_, Thou knowst that the Earth in all Nations is governed by
buying and selling, for all the Laws of Kings hath relation
thereunto. Now this Platform following declares to thee the
Government of the Earth without buying and selling, and the Laws
are the Laws of a free and peaceable Commonwealth....

"Every family shall live apart, as now they do; every man shall
enjoy his own wife, and every woman her own husband, as now they
do: every Trade shall be improved to more excellency than now it
is; all children shall be educated and trained up in subjection to
parents and elder persons more than now they are: The Earth shall
be planted and the fruits reaped and carried into Storehouses by
common assistance of every family: The Riches of the Storehouses
shall be the common stock to every Family: There shall be no idle
person nor beggar in the Land."

COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT AND KINGLY GOVERNMENT.

"The Commonwealth's Government unites all people in a Land into one
heart and mind. And it was this Government which made Moses to call
Abraham's seed one House of Israel, though there were many Tribes
and many Families. And it may be said, Blessed is the People whose
Earthly Government is the Law of Common Righteousness....

"The Government of Kings is the Government of the Scribes and
Pharisees, who count it no freedom unless they be the Lords of the
Earth and of their Bretheren. But Commonwealth's Government is the
Government of Righteousness and Peace, who is no respecter of
persons."

FINAL APPEAL TO THE READER.

"Therefore, Reader, here is a trial for thy sincerity. Thou shalt
have no want of food, raiment or freedom among bretheren in this
way propounded. See now if thou canst be content, as the Scriptures
say, Having food and raiment therewith be content, and grudge not
to let thy brother have the same with thee.

"Dost thou pray and fast for Freedom, and give God thanks again for
it? Why, know that God is not partial. For if thou pray, it must be
for Freedom to all; and if thou give thanks, it must be because
Freedom covers all people: for this will prove a lasting peace.

"Everyone is ready to say, They fight for their Country, and what
they do, they do it is for the good of their Country. Well, let it
appear now that thou hast fought and acted for thy Country's
Freedom. But if when thou hast power to settle Freedom in thy
Country, thou takest the possession of the Earth into thy own
particular hands, and makest thy Brother work for thee, as the
Kings did, thou hast fought and acted for thyself, not for thy
Country, and here thy inside hypocrisy is discovered.

"But here take notice, That Common Freedom, which is the Rule I
would have practiced and not talked on, was thy pretence, but
particular Freedom to thyself was thy intent. Amend, or else thou
wilt be shamed, when Knowledge doth spread to cover the Earth, even
as the waters cover the Seas. And so Farewell.
J. W."

To-day knowledge is commencing "to spread to cover the Earth even as the waters cover the Seas"; and the thinkers of our times are rapidly coming to realise, to use Shelley's words, that--"The most fatal error that ever happened in the world was the separation of political and ethical science": a separation against which, as we have seen, Winstanley in his time protested so vigorously. Hence it is, probably, that the teachings of our modern seers and prophets, of the leaders and inspirers of the advanced thought of to-day, of Ruskin, Tolstoy, and even of Henry George, almost seem to us but as the echoes of those of their great forerunner in the stirring days of the Commonwealth.

FOOTNOTES:

[163:1] _History of the Commonwealth_, vol. i. p. 446.

[163:2] _Ibid._ p. 471.

[164:1] King's Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 655. Also at the Guildhall Library and the Bodleian.

[164:2] At the very time this book was being written, some of the new settlements in America were making Church Fellowship a necessary condition of civil rights.

[165:1] See Carlyle's _Letters and Speeches_, Speech II., Sept. 4th, 1654, part viii. p. 20.

[166:1] This argument would have appealed strongly to Cromwell, who, in one of his Speeches to his First Parliament, said: "If I had not a hope fixed in me that this cause and this business was of God, I would many years ago have run from it. If it be of God, He will bear it up. If it be of man, it will tumble; as everything that hath been of man since the world began hath done. And what are all our Histories and other Traditions of Actions in former times but God manifesting Himself, that He hath shaken and tumbled down, and trampled upon everything that He had not planted."--Carlyle, _Letters and Speeches_, part viii. p. 89.

[168:1] With this contention, too, Cromwell would have found himself in complete sympathy. For "the truth of it is, There are wicked and abominable laws which will be in your power to alter," he said to one of his Parliaments on Sept. 17th, 1656. "To hang a man for Six-and-eight-pence, and I know not what; to hang for a trifle and acquit murder,--is in the ministration of the Law, through the ill framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable murders acquitted. And to see men lose their lives for petty matters: this is a thing God will reckon for. And I wish it may not lie upon this Nation a day longer than you have an opportunity to give a remedy; and I hope I shall cheerfully join with you in it. This hath been a great grief to many honest hearts and conscientious people; and I hope it is in all your hearts to rectify it."

[170:1] "And truly this is matter of praise to God:--and it hath some instruction in it, To own men who are religious and godly. And so many of them as are peaceable and honestly and quietly disposed to live within Government, and will be subject to those Gospel rules of obeying Magistrates and living under Authority. I reckon no Godliness without that circle! Without that spirit, let it pretend what it will, it is diabolical, it is devilish," and so on. See Cromwell's Speech to his Second Parliament, April 13th, 1657 (Carlyle, part x. p. 250). It would almost seem as if Winstanley had written the above paragraph to answer this explosive utterance of Cromwell, some six years before it took place. As a matter of fact, of course, he was only answering an objection which every little conventional upholder of existing abuses, in his time as in our time, would be sure to make in one form or other.