“It may be here are some things inserted which you may not like, yet other things you may like; therefore I pray you read it, and be as the industrious bee, suck out the honey and cast away the weeds.  Though this Platform be like a piece of timber rough-hewed, yet the discreet workman may take it and frame a handsome building out of it.”

OF COMPENSATION.

“It may be you will say, If Tythe be taken from the Priests and Impropriators, and Copyhold Services from Lords of Manors, how shall they be provided for again; for is it not unrighteous to take their estates from them?

“I answer, When Tythes were first enacted, and Lordly Power drawn over the backs of the oppressed, the Kings and Conquerors made no scruple of conscience to take it, though the people lived in sore bondage of poverty for want of it; and can there be scruple of conscience to make restitution of this which hath been so long stolen goods?  It is no scruple arising from the Righteous Law, but from Covetousness, who goes away sorrowful to hear he must part with all to follow Righteousness and Peace.”

He then explains that under his scheme even the privileged classes would not be injured, since they would share with the rest of the community.

OF RICHES.

     “But shall not one man be richer than another?

“There is no need for that; for riches make men vainglorious, proud, and to oppress their bretheren, and are the occasion of wars.  No man can be rich but he must be rich either by his own labors, or by the labors of other men helping him.  If a man have no help from his neighbors, he shall never gather an estate of hundreds and thousands a year.  If other men help him to work, then are those riches his neighbors’ as well as his; for they be the fruits of other men’s labors as well as his own.  But all rich men live at ease, feeding and clothing themselves by the labors of other men, not by their own, which is their shame and not their nobility; for it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive.  But rich men receive all they have from the laborer’s hand, and what they give, they give away other men’s labors, not their own.  Therefore they are not righteous actors in the Earth.”

TITLES OF HONOUR.

     “But shall not one man have more Titles of Honor than another?

“Yes:  As a man goes through offices, he rises to Titles of Honor, till he comes to the highest nobility, to be a faithful Commonwealth’s Man in a Parliament House.  Likewise he who finds out any secret in Nature shall have a Title of Honor given him, though he be a young man.  But no man shall have any Title of Honor till he win it by industry, or come to it by age or Office-bearing.  Every man that is fifty years of age shall have respect as a man of honor from all others that are younger, as is shown hereafter.”

OF FAMILY LIFE.