“So that observe the king is made by you your god on Earth, as God is the God of Heaven, saith the Lawyers....  Now, Friends, what have we to do with any of these unfruitful works of darkness?  Let us take Peter’s advice (1 Pet. iv. 3)—­The time past of our lives may suffice that we have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lascivious lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetting, and abominable idolatry. And let us not receive the Beast’s mark lest that the doom in Revelation (xiv. 9-10) befall us:  but let us oppose the Beast’s power, and follow the Lamb withersoever he goeth.”

The pamphlet then dwells on the chief causes impelling “wicked men,” the privileged classes and their parasites, to stand up for a king: 

     “Rich men cry for a king, so that the Poor should not claim his
     right, which is his by God’s gift.

     “The horseleech Lawyer cries for a king, because else the supreme
     power will come into the People’s representatives lawfully
     elected....

“The things, Lords, Barons, etc., cry for a king, else their tyrannical House of Peers falls down, and all their rotten honour, and all Patents and Corporations:  their power being derived from him; if he go down, all their tyranny falls too.”

But now, it continues: 

“The honest man that would have liberty cries down all interests [or special privileges, as they would be termed to-day] whatsoever; and to this end he desires Common Rights and Equity:  which consist of these particulars following: 

     “1.  A just portion for each man to live, that so none need to beg
     or steal for want, but everyone may live comfortably.

     “2.  A just Rule for each man to go by, which Rule is to be found in
     Scripture.

     “3.  All men alike under the said Rule, which Rule is, to do to one
     another as another should do to him....

“4.  The government to be by Judges, called Elders, men fearing God and hating Covetousness, to be chosen by the people, and to end all controversies in every town or hamlet, without any other or further trouble or charge.”

These, then, were the four points of the People’s Charter of 1648; the four fundamental reforms which Winstanley, if Winstanley be the author of this pamphlet, as we believe, deemed necessary to secure the peace and well-being of the masses of the people.  The pamphlet then indicates where the people are to look for their model, in the following words: 

“And in the Scriptures the Israelite’s Common-wealth is an excellent pattern....  Now in Israel if a man were poor, then a public maintenance and stock were to be provided to raise him again.  So would all Bishops Lands, Forest Lands, and Crown Lands do in your Land, which the apostate Parliament men give one to another, and to maintain the needless thing called a king.