The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth.

The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth.

Winstanley then carries the war into the camp of his clerical opponents, and that in so forcible a manner that we cannot refrain from quoting at length.  He says: 

“Let us now examine your Divinity, which you call heavenly and spiritual things; for herein speeches are made, not to advance knowledge, but to destroy the true knowledge of God.  For Divinity does not speak the truth, as it is hid in everybody, but it leaves the motional knowledge of a thing as it is, and imagines, studies or thinks what may be, and so runs the hazard of true or false.  This Divinity is always speaking words to deceive the simple, that he may make them work for him and maintain him, but he never comes to action himself, to do as he would be done by; for he is a monster who is all tongue and no hand.
“This Divining Doctrine, which you call spiritual and heavenly things, is the thief and the robber, he comes to spoil the Vineyard of a man’s peace, and does not enter in at the door, but he climbs up another way.  And this Doctrine is two-fold:  First, it takes upon him to tell you the meaning of other men’s words and writings, by his studying or imagining what another man’s knowledge might be, and by thus doing darkens knowledge, and wrongs the spirit of the Authors who did write and speak those things which he takes upon him to interpret.  Secondly, he takes upon him to foretell what shall befall a man after he is dead, and what that world is beyond the Sun and beyond the Moon, etc.  And if any man tell him there is no reason for what you say, he answers, you must not judge of heavenly and spiritual things by reason, but you must believe what is told you, whether it be reason or no.”

WHEREIN IT IS WANTING.

“There is a three-fold discovery of falsehood in this Doctrine.  First, it is a Doctrine of a sickly and weak spirit, who hath lost his understanding in the knowledge of the Creation, and of the temper of his own heart and nature, and so runs into fancies, either of joy or sorrow.  If the passion of joy predominate, then he fancies to himself a personal God, personal Angels, and a local place of glory, which he saith, he, and all who believe what he hath, shall go to after they are dead.  If sorrow predominate, then he fancies to himself a personal Devil, and a local place of torment that he shall go to after he is dead:  and this he speaks with great confidence.
Secondly, This is the doctrine of a subtle running spirit, to make an ungrounded wise man mad....  For many times when a wise understanding heart is assaulted with this Doctrine of a God, a Devil, a Heaven and a Hell, Salvation and Damnation after a man is dead, his spirit being not strongly grounded in the knowledge of the Creation nor in the temper of his own heart, he strives and stretches his brain to find out the depth of that doctrine and cannot
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.