power,” he contends, “hath been a great troubler of Magistracie ever since the deceived Magistracie set it up.”  The function of Magistracie, “which is God’s Ordinance,” is “to be a terror to the wicked, and to protect them that do well; whereas by this Ecclesiastical power, established by deceived Magistracie, the sincere in heart that worship God in spirit and truth, according as God hath taught them and they understand, these are and have been troubled in Sessions, in Courts, and punished by fine and prisons.  But the loose-hearted that will be of any religion that the most is of, these have their liberty without restraint.  And so Magistracie hath acted quite backward, in punishing them that do well, and protecting in a hypocritical liberty them that do evil.  O that our Magistrates would let Church-work alone to Christ, upon whose shoulders they shall find the government lies, and not upon theirs.  And then, in the wisdom and strength of Christ, they would govern Commonwealths in justice, love, and righteousness more peaceably."[55:1]

This pamphlet concludes with the following wise and beautiful thought: 

“All that I shall say in conclusion is this:  Wait patiently upon the Lord; let every man that loves God endeavour by the spirit of wisdom, meekness, and love to dry up Euphrates, even this spirit of bitterness, that like a great river hath overflowed the earth of mankind.  For it is not revenge, prisons, fines, fightings, that will subdue a tumultuous spirit; but a soft answer, love and meekness, tenderness and justice, to do as we would be done unto:  this will appease wrath.  When this Sun of Righteousness and Love arises in Magistrates and people, one to another, then these tumultuous national storms will cease, and not till then.  This Sun is risen in some; this Sun will rise higher, and must rise higher; and the bright shining of it will be England’s liberty.”

The next fruit of Winstanley’s prolific pen is a volume of some 134 closely printed pages, entitled The Saint’s Paradise:  Or the Father’s Teaching the only Satisfaction to Waiting Souls,[56:1] from which in the previous chapter we have already quoted somewhat freely.  The words on its title-page, “The inward testimony is the Soul’s strength,” indicate the characteristic teachings of this remarkable book, which are also admirably suggested by the two biblical quotations that also appear thereon.  “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:  for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord” (Jer. xxxi. 34).  “But the annointing which ye have received of him abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you:  but as the same annointing teacheth you all things, and is truth” (1 John ii. 27).

As was his usual custom, Winstanley opens with a Dedicatory letter, addressed this time “To my Beloved Friends whose Souls hunger after sincere milk,” in which he relates his experience of the insufficiency of mere traditional, or book, or imparted knowledge, in the following words: