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
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page 91 of 360 (25%)
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immediate successor, to Thomas Spence, Patrick Edward Dove,[71:2] Thomas
Paine,[71:3] and Henry George. He then further emphasises his contention, in words similar to those that are to-day resounding throughout the advanced political centres of the world, as follows: "And let all men say what they will, so long as such are Rulers as call the land theirs, upholding this particular propriety of Mine and Thine, the common people shall never have their liberty, nor the Land be ever freed from troubles, oppressions, and complainings, by reason whereof the Creator of all things is continually provoked. O thou proud, selfish, governing Adam, in this Land called England! know that the cries of the poor, whom thou layeth heavy oppressions upon, are heard." And in the closing passage of the chapter he formulates his social ideals in the following words: "This is the unrighteous Adam, that dammed up the water springs of universal liberty, and brought the Creation under the curse of bondage, sorrow, and tears. But when the Earth becomes a Common Treasury, as it was in the beginning, and the King of Righteousness comes to rule in every one's hearts, then He kills the first Adam--for Covetousness thereby is killed. "A man shall have meat and drink and clothes by his labour in freedom, and what can he desire more in Earth? Pride and Envy likewise are killed thereby; for everyone shall look upon each other as equal in the Creation, every man, indeed, being a perfect |
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