The Mystery of God concerning the whole Creation, Mankind, is the title of Winstanley’s first published pamphlet, to which we have already referred, and which was written early in the year 1648, probably in April or May.  As already mentioned, it opens with a Dedicatory Epistle to “My beloved countrymen of the County of Lancaster,” in which he first apologises for venturing into print in the following suggestive words:  “Dear countrymen, when some of you see my name subscribed to this ensuing discourse, you may wonder at it, and it may be despise me in your hearts ... but know that God’s works are not like men’s; He does not always take the wise, the learned, the rich of the world to manifest Himself in, and through them to others, but He chooses the despised, the unlearned, the poor, the nothings of the world, and fills them with the good tidings of Himself, whereas He sends the others empty away.”  He further apprehends that his view, that “the curse that was declared to Adam was temporary,” and that ultimately the curse shall be removed off the whole Creation, and the whole of mankind shall be saved, will not be favourably received by those whom he is specially addressing.  But he avows it a necessary truth, and concludes his appeal by saying that since the pamphlet was written he had met with “more Scripture to confirm it, so that it is not a spirit of private fancy, but it is agreeable to the Written Word.”

The pamphlet opens with Winstanley’s interpretation of the story of the fall of Adam, the outline of which we have already given.  Subsequently he describes his own experiences:  how he lay under bondage to the serpent self-love, and saw not his bondage; how God had manifested His love to him by causing him to see that the things in which he did take pleasure were, in truth, his death and his shame.  He again repeats his contention that in due time God will not lose any of His work, but redeem “His own whole Creation to Himself.”  Though this, he holds, will not be done all at once, but in several dispensations, “some whereof are passed, some in being, and some yet to come.”  He quotes largely from the Scriptures, more especially from Revelation, in support of this view; and argues most vehemently against the objection that if this were true, if eventually all will be saved, then men need not trouble about their own individual salvation.  He also protests against the doctrine of an everlasting Hell, as unconfirmed by the Holy Scriptures, as destructive of God’s work, and as incompatible with His great goodness.

The prevalence of the belief in dispensations, past, present, and future, may be gathered from the following extract from one of Cromwell’s speeches to the Army Council, November 1st, 1647:  “Truly, as Lieut.  Col.  Goffe said, God hath in several ages used several dispensations, and yet some dispensations more eminently in one age than another.  I am one of those whose heart God hath drawn out to wait for some extraordinary dispensations, according to those promises He hath set forth of things to be accomplished in the latter time, and I cannot but think that God is beginning of them."[53:1]