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 by Lewis Henry Berens
page 75 of 360 (20%)
page 75 of 360 (20%)
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some, yet others of them will necessarily be preserved to keep alive
their beliefs and to spread abroad their teachings, of the ultimate triumph of which he never seemed to doubt. However, in view of the perplexity of the times and of the dangers by which they were surrounded, he gave them the following somewhat worldly-wise advice--"For the appearance of God now is in the Saints that they worship the Father in spirit and truth in such a secret manner as the eye of the world cannot and does not always see": a practice of which, as we have already noticed, the adherents of the Family of Love were accused in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is, however, in the fourth and fifth chapters that Winstanley concisely and eloquently summarises the fundamental articles of his religious faith. In them he again emphatically warns his fellows against looking to others for knowledge of Divine revelations, and strongly advises them to look into their own hearts. In support of this view he quotes the Scripture text--"Light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil" (John iii. 19), which he then proceeds to explain as follows: "The world is mankind; and every particular man and woman is a perfect creation of himself, a perfect created world. If a particular branch of mankind desire to know what the nature of other men and women are, let him not look abroad, but into his own heart, and he shall see. So that I say, man is the world, a perfect creation, from whose poisoned flesh proceeds the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life: these are not of the Father. Now _light is come into the world_; that is, the Spirit of Right Understanding hath taken up his dwelling in this flesh. Hence man is called a reasonable creature, which is a name given to no |
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