“And here I end, having put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance Righteousness.  I have writ; I have acted; I have Peace.  And now I must wait to see the Spirit do His own work in the hearts of others; and whether England shall be the first Land, or some other, wherein Truth shall sit down in triumph.

“But, O England, England, would God thou didst know the things that belong to thy peace before they be hid from thine eyes.  The Spirit of Righteousness hath striven with thee, and doth yet strive with thee, and yet there is hope.  Come in thou England, submit to righteousness before the voice go out, my Spirit shall strive no longer with flesh, and let not Covetousness make thee oppress the poor....

“Gentlemen of the Army, we have spoken to you; we have appealed to the Parliament; we have declared our Cause with all humility to you all; and we are Englishmen, your friends that stuck to you in your miseries, when those Lords of Manors that oppose us were wavering on both sides.  Yet you have heard them, and answered their request to beat us off; and yet you would not afford us an answer.

“Yet Love and Patience shall lie down and suffer; let Pride and Covetousness stretch themselves upon their beds of ease, and forget the afflictions of Joseph, and persecute us for Righteousness’ sake, yet we will wait to see the issue.  The Power of Righteousness is our God; the Globe runs round; the longest sunshine day ends in a dark night.  Therefore to Thee, O Thou King of Righteousness, we do commit our cause.  Judge Thou between us and them that strive against us, and those that deal treacherously with Thee and us; and do Thine own work, and help weak flesh in whom the Spirit is willing.”

“To thee, O thou King of Righteousness, we do commit our cause.  Judge Thou, and help weak flesh in whom the Spirit is willing.”  At this very hour the same prayer, the same cry for Justice, is still ascending to the throne of the King of Righteousness from the disinherited masses, on whose shoulders the weight of our civilisation rests, and whom it presses down to helpless poverty, misery, and wretchedness, and who are still suffering from the same fundamental injustice against which, as we have seen, Gerrard Winstanley protested so eloquently over two hundred and fifty years ago.

FOOTNOTES: 

[132:1] King’s Pamphlets.  British Museum, Press Mark, E. 587.

[133:1] In deference to prevailing conventionalities, we have ventured to alter this line.

[137:1] In the next chapter we shall learn something of those “Diggers that have caused scandal,” and whose actions and views Winstanley found it necessary to disown.

CHAPTER XIII

A VINDICATION; A DECLARATION; AND AN APPEAL