The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth, by Lewis H. Berens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer Author: Lewis H. Berens Release Date: January 8, 2006 [eBook #17480] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIGGER MOVEMENT IN THE DAYS OF THE COMMONWEALTH*** E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Louise Pryor, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously made available by the Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries 1 Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/diggermovement00bereuoft Transcriber's note The original has a number of inconsistent spellings and punctuation. A few corrections have been made for obvious typographical errors; they have been noted individually. A list of specific items will be found at the end of the file. THE DIGGER MOVEMENT IN THE DAYS OF THE COMMONWEALTH 2 THE DIGGER MOVEMENT IN THE DAYS OF THE COMMONWEALTH AS REVEALED IN THE WRITINGS OF GERRARD WINSTANLEY, THE DIGGER MYSTIC AND RATIONALIST, COMMUNIST AND SOCIAL REFORMER BY LEWIS H. BERENS AUTHOR OF “TOWARDS THE LIGHT”ETC. ETC. “Was glänzt ist für den Augenblick geboren; Das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.” GOETHE. LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO. LTD. 1906 3 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT) TO WHOM THE WORLD OWES MORE THAN IT YET RECOGNISES AND WHOSE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES THE AUTHOR HAS LEARNED TO LOVE AND ADMIRE WHILST WRITING THIS BOOK 4 ii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 1 II. THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 12 III. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 23 IV. THE DIGGERS 34 V. GERRARD WINSTANLEY 41 WINSTANLEY’S EXPOSITION OF THE QUAKER VI. 52 DOCTRINES VII. THE NEW LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 68 VIII. LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 79 IX. THE DIGGERS’ MANIFESTOES 90 X. A LETTER TO LORD FAIRFAX, ETC. 100 XI. A WATCHWORD TO THE CITY OF LONDON, ETC. 112 A NEW YEAR’S GIFT FOR THE PARLIAMENT AND XII. 132 ARMY XIII. A VINDICATION; A DECLARATION; AND AN APPEAL 146 GERRARD WINSTANLEY’S UTOPIA: THE LAW OF XIV. 162 FREEDOM XV. THE SAME CONTINUED 179 XVI. THE SAME CONTINUED 206 XVII. CONCLUDING REMARKS 228 APPENDIX A. THE TWELVE ARTICLES OF THE 235 GERMAN PEASANTRY, 1525 APPENDIX B. CROMWELL ON TOLERATION 241 APPENDIX C. WINSTANLEY’S LAWS FOR A FREE 244 COMMONWEALTH BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 INDEX 257 5 1 THE DIGGER MOVEMENT CHAPTER I THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY “Whatever the prejudices of some may suggest, it will be admitted by all unbiassed judges, that the Protestant Reformation was neither more nor less than an open rebellion. Indeed, the mere mention of private judgment, on which it was avowedly based, is enough to substantiate this fact. To establish the right of private judgment, was to appeal from the Church to individuals; it was to increase the play of each man’s intellect; it was to test the opinion of the priesthood by the opinions of laymen; it was, in fact, a rising of the scholars against their teachers, of the ruled against their rulers.”—BUCKLE. What is known in history as the Reformation is one of those monuments in the history of the development of the human mind betokening its entry into new territory. Fundamental conceptions and beliefs, cosmological, physical, ethical or political, once firmly established, change but slowly; the universal tendency is tenaciously to cling to them despite all evidence to the contrary. Still men’s views do change with their intellectual development, as newly discovered facts and newly accepted ideas come into conflict with old opinions, and force them to reconsider the evidence on which these latter were based. Prior to the Reformation, many such conceptions and beliefs, at one time holding undisputed dominion over the human mind, had been called into question, their authority challenged, undermined, and 6 weakened, and they had commenced to yield pride of place to others more in accordance with increased knowledge of nature and of life. The revival of classical 2 learning, geographical and astronomical discoveries, and more especially, perhaps, the invention and rapid spread of the art of printing, had all conspired to give an unparalleled impetus to intellectual development,—and the Reformation was, in truth, the outward manifestation in the religious world of this development. Prior to the Reformation, wherever a man might turn his steps in Western Europe, he found himself confronted with what was proudly termed the Universal Church: one hierarchy, one faith, one form of worship, in which the officiating priests were assumed to be the indispensable mediators between God and man, everywhere confronted him. Religion was then much more intimately blended with the life of man than it is now; and on all matters of religion, Western Europe seemed to present a united front and to be impervious to change. Appearances, however, are proverbially deceitful. Beneath this apparent uniformity and general conformity, there lurked countless forces, spiritual, intellectual, social and political, making for change. Dissent and dissatisfaction, with myriads of tiny teeth, had undermined and weakened the stately columns that upheld the imposing structure of the Universal Church. Even within the Church itself there was seething inquietude, and thousands of its purest souls longed, prayed and struggled for its practical amendment. To emancipate the Church from the clutches of the autocracy of Rome; to remove the abuses that, in the course of centuries, had grown round and sullied its primitive purity; to lighten the fiscal oppression of the Papacy and to check the rapacity of the Cardinals; to reform and discipline the priesthood; even to modify certain doctrines and dogmas: such were the aspirations of some of the most devout, eminent and cultured sons of the Church. Outside its communion there were many forms of heresy, which, though generally regarded as disreputable and often treated as criminal, the apparently all-powerful Church had never been able entirely to eradicate. And, at first at least, both these forces favoured the efforts of the early Lutheran Reformers. The influence of the Reformation, of “the New Learning,”on theological, ethical, 3 social and political thought can scarcely be overestimated. Under the supremacy of the Church of Rome, men, educated and uneducated, had come to rely almost entirely on authority and precedent, and had lost the habit of self-reliance, of unswerving dependence on the dictates of reason, which was one of the distinguishing characteristics of the classical philosophers and their disciples, as it is of the modern scientific school of thought. In short, concerning matters spiritual and temporal, Faith had usurped the function of Reason. Hence any innovations, 7 whatever their abstract merit, were regarded not only with justifiable suspicion and caution, but as entirely unworthy of consideration, unless, of course, they could be shown to be in accordance with accepted traditions and doctrines, or had received the sanction of the Church. But even the Church itself was popularly regarded as bound by tradition and precedent; and when the Papacy sanctioned any departure from established custom, it was understood to do so in its capacity of infallible expounder of unalterable doctrines. The habits of centuries still enthralled the early Reformers. Circumstances compelled them to attack some of the doctrines and customs of their Mother Church, of which at first they were inclined to regard themselves as dutiful though sorrowful sons. The logic of facts, however, soon forced them outside the Church. Then, but then only, for the authority of the Church, they substituted the authority of the Scriptures. To apply to them Luther’s own words, “they had saved others, themselves they could not save.” In their eyes Reason and Faith were still mortal enemies,—as unfortunately they are to this day in the eyes of a steadily diminishing number of their followers,—and they did not hesitate to demand the sacrifice of reason when it conflicted, or appeared to conflict, with the demands of faith: and that, indeed, as “the all-acceptablest sacrifice and service that can be offered to God.”In a sermon in 1546, the last he delivered at Wittenberg, Luther gave vent, in language that even one of his modern admirers finds too gross for quotation, to his bitter hatred and contempt for reason, at all events when it conflicted with his own 4 interpretation of the Scriptures, or with any of the fundamental dogmas and doctrines he had himself formulated or accepted. While even in milder moments he did not hesitate to teach that 4:1— “It is a quality of faith that it wrings the neck of reason and strangles the beast, which else the whole world, with all creatures, could not strangle. But how? It holds to God’s word: lets it be right and true, no matter how foolish and impossible it sounds. So did Abraham take his reason captive and slay it.... There is no doubt faith and reason mightily fell out in Abraham’s heart, yet at last did faith get the better, and overcame and strangled reason, the all- cruelest and most fatal enemy to God. So, too, do all other faithful men who enter with Abraham the gloom and hidden darkness of faith; they strangle reason ..