“For say the people, If the Lords of Manors and our Task-masters hold Title to the Earth over us from the old Kingly Power, behold that power is broken and cast out.  And two Acts of Parliament have been made.  The one to cast out Kingly Power, backed by the Engagement against King and the House of Lords.  The other to make England a Free Commonwealth.”

He then still further supports his fundamental contention in the following unanswerable manner: 

“If Lords of Manors lay claim to the Earth over us from the Army’s Victories over the King; then we have as much right to the Land as they, because our labors and blood and death of friends, were the purchasers of the Earth’s Freedom as well as theirs.  And is not this a slavery, say the people, that though there be land enough in England to maintain ten times as many people as are in it, yet some must beg of their bretheren, or work in hard drudgery for day wages for them, or starve, or steal, and so be hanged out of the way, as men not fit to live on the Earth?  Before they are suffered to plant the waste land for a livelihood, they must pay rent to their bretheren for it.  Well, this is a burthen the Creation groans under; and the subjects (so-called) have not their birth-right freedom granted them from their bretheren, who hold it from them by Club-Law, but not by Righteousness.”

WHAT IS TO RULE?

“And who now must we be subject to, seeing the Conqueror is gone?  I answer, We must either be subject to a law or to men’s wills.  If to a law, then all men in England are subject, or ought to be, thereunto....  You will say, We must be subject to the Rulers.  This is true, but not to suffer the Rulers to call the Earth theirs and not ours; for by so doing they betray their trust and run into the line of tyranny, and we lose our freedom, and from thence enmity and wars arise.  A Ruler is worthy double honor when he rules well; that is, when he himself is subject to the Law, and requires all others to be subject thereunto, and makes it his work to see the Law obeyed, and not his own will; and such Rulers are faithful, and they are to be subjected unto us therein:  For all Commonwealth’s Rulers are Servants to, not Lords and Kings over the people."[170:1]

THE LAND QUESTION.

“But you will say, Is not the land your brother’s? and you cannot take away another man’s right by claiming a share therein with him.  I answer, It is his either by Creation Right or by Right of Conquest.  If by Creation Right he calls the Earth his and not mine, then it is mine as well as his; for the Spirit of the whole Creation, who made us both, is no respecter of persons.  And if by Conquest he calls the Earth his and not mine, it must be either