The same idea reappears, in fact influences the whole of Winstanley’s second pamphlet, of some 127 closely printed duodecimo pages, as might almost be inferred from its title, The Breaking of the Day of God,[54:1] which is in itself a revelation of its main contents.  The Dedicatory Epistle, which is dated May 20th, 1648, some twelve months prior to the outbreak of the Digger Movement, already recorded, is the most interesting and suggestive portion of this long, wearisome, and almost unreadable volume.  It is addressed to—­“The Despised Sons and Daughters of Zion, scattered up and down the Kingdom of England.”  He first reminds them that “they are the object of the world’s hatred and reproach,” “branded as wicked ones,” “threatened with ruin and death,” “the object of every one’s laughter and reproach,” “sentenced to be put to death under the name of round-heads,” and so on.  That they “are counted the troublers of Kingdoms and Parishes where they dwell, though the truth is that they are the only peaceable men in the Kingdom, who love the People’s peace, the Magistrate’s peace, and the Kingdom’s peace.”  He continues—­“But what’s the reason the world doth so storm at you, but because you are not of this world, nor cannot walk in the dark ways of the world.  They hated your Lord Jesus Christ, and they hate you.  They knew not Him, and they know not you.  For if they had known Him, they would not have crucified Him; and if they did truly know the power of the God that dwells in you, they would not so despise you.”  “But, well,” he goes on to say, “these things must be.  It is your Father’s will that it shall be so; the world must lie under darkness for a time; that is God’s dispensation to them.  And you that are the Children of Light must lie under the reproach and oppression of the world;[54:2] that is God’s dispensation to you.  But it shall be but for a little time.  What I have here to say is to bring you glad tidings that your redemption draws near.”

In the pamphlet itself Winstanley attempts to prove that the coming reign of Righteousness, and the overthrow of the Covetous, Self-Seeking Power, are entirely in accordance with the prophesies of the Scriptures, more especially with Revelation and John.  In its final pages he vehemently protests against the continued union of Church and State, or rather against the continued upholding of the persecuting power of the Church by the secular authorities.  “The misery of the age” he attributes to the fact that men are still striving “to uphold the usurped Ecclesiastical Power, which God never made,” and that in upholding this they are “so mad and ignorant” as “to count Magistracie no government unless the Beast reign cheek by chaw with it, as formerly in the days of ignorance.”  This, however, he contends, should not be so, “for Magistracie in the Commonwealth must stand, it’s God’s ordinance.  But this Ecclesiastical power in and over the Saints must fall.”  “This Ecclesiastical