The law of freedom in a platform: or, True magistracy restored Humbly presented to Oliver Cromwel, General of the Common-wealths army in England. And to all English-men my brethren whether in church-fellowship, or not in church-fellowship, both sorts walking as they conceive according to the order of the Gospel: and from them to all the nations in the world. Wherein is declared, what is kingly government, and what is Commonwealths government. By Jerrard Winstanley.

I, but saith the zealous, but ignorant Professor,

This is a low and carnal ministry indeed, this 〈◊〉〈◊〉 men to know nothing, but the knowledge of the earth, and the secrets of nature, but we are to look after spiritual and beavenly things. I answer.

To know the secrets of nature, is to know the works of God; And to know the works of God within the Creation, is to know God himself, for God dwels in every visible work or body.

And indeed if you would know spiritual things, it is to know how the spirit or power of wisdom and life, causing motion, or growth, dwels with∣in, and governs both the several bodies of the stars and planets in the hea∣vens above; and the several bodies of the earth below; as grass, plants, fishes, beasts, birds, and mankinde; for to reach God beyond the Creation, or to know what he will be to a man, after the man is dead, if any otherwise, then to scatter him into his Essences of fire, water, earth and air, of which he is compounded, is a knowledge beyond the line, or capacity of man to attain to while he lives in his compounded body.

And if a man should go to imagine, what God is beyond the Creation, or what he will be in a spiritual demonstration after a man is dead, he doth as the proverb saith, build castles in the air, or tells us of a world beyond the Moon, and beyond the Sun, meerly to blinde the reason of man.

Ile appeal to your self in this question, what other knowledg have you of God, but what you have within the circle of the Creation?

For if the Creation in all its dimentions be the fulness of him, that fills all with himself, and if you your self be part of this Creation, where can you finde God but in that line or station wherein you stand?

God manifests himself in actual knowledge, not in imagination; he is still in motion, either in bodies upon earth, or in the bodies in the heavens, or in both; in the night and in the day, in Winter, in Summer, in cold, in heat, in growth, or not in growth.

But when a studying imagination comes into man, which is the devil, for it is the cause of all evil, and sorrows in the world; that is he who puts

out the eyes of mans Knowledg, and tells him, he must beleeve what others have writ or spoke, and must not trust to his own experience: And when this bewitching fancy sits in the chair of Government, there is nothing but saying and unsaying, frowardness, covetousness, fears, con∣fused thoughts, and unsatisfied doubtings, all the days of that mans reign in the heart.

Or secondly, Examine your self, and look likewise into the ways of all Professors, and you shall finde, That the Enjoyment of the Earth be∣low, which you call a low and a carnal Knowledg, is that, which you and all professors (as well as the men of the world, as you call them) strive and seek after.

Wherefore are you so covetous after the World, in buying and selling? counting your self a happy man, if you be rich, and a miserable man if you be poor. And though you say, Heaven after death is a place of glory, where you shall enjoy God face to face, yet you are loth to leave the Earth to go thither.

Do not your Ministers preach for to enjoy the Earth? Do not profess∣ing Lawyers, as well as others, buy and sell the Conquerors Justice, that they may enjoy the Earth? Do not professing Soldiers fight for the Earth, and seat themselves in that Land, which is the Birth-Right of o∣thers, as well as theirs, shutting others out? Do not all professors strive to get Earth, that they may live in plenty by other mens labors?

Do you not make the Earth your very Rest? Doth not the enjoying of the Earth please the spirit in you? and then you say, God is pleased with your ways, and blesseth you. If you want Earth, and become poor, do you not say, God is angry with you, and crosseth you?

Why do you heap up riches? why do you eat and drink, and wear clothes? why do you take a woman, and lie with her to beget children? Are not all these carnal and low things of the Earth? and do you not live in them, and covet them as much as any? nay more then many which you call men of the world?

And it being thus with you, what other spiritual or heavenly things do you seek after more then others? And what is in you more then in o∣thers? If you say, there is; then surely you ought to let these earthly things alone to the men of the world, as you call them, whose portions these are, and keep you within the compass of your own sphere, that o∣thers seeing you live a life above the world in peace and freedom, neither working your self, nor deceiving, nor compelling others to work for you, they may be drawn to embrace the same spiritual life by your single∣hearted conversation. We'l, I have done here.