“The man of the flesh judges it a righteous thing that some men who are cloathed with the objects of the Earth, and so called rich men, whether it be got by right or wrong, should be Magistrates to rule over the poor; and that the poor should be servants, nay, rather slaves, to the rich.  But the spiritual man, which is Christ, doth judge according to the light of equity and reason, that all mankind ought to have a quiet subsistence and freedom to live upon Earth; and that there should be no bondman nor beggar in all his holy mountain.”

For, he contends: 

“Mankind was made to live in the freedom of the spirit, not under the bondage of the flesh.  For everyone was made to be a Lord over the creation of the Earth, cattle, fish, fowl, grass, trees, not anyone to be a bond-slave and a beggar under the Creation of his own kind.  That so everyone, living in freedom and love in the strength of the Law of Righteousness in him, not under straits of poverty, nor bondage of tyranny one to another, might all rejoice together in righteousness, and so glorify their Maker.  For surely this must dishonor the Maker of all men, that some men should be oppressing tyrants, imprisoning, whipping, hanging their fellow-creatures, men, for those very things which those very men themselves are guilty of.  Let men’s eyes be opened, and it appears clear enough, that the punishers have and do break the Law of Equity and Reason more or as much as those who are punished by them.”

But, he adds rejoicingly, just

“As the powers and wisdom of the flesh hath filled the Earth with injustice, oppression, and complainings, by mowing the Earth into the hands of a few covetous unrighteous men, who assume a lordship over others, declaring themselves thereby to be men of the basest spirits.  Even so, when the spreading of wisdom and truth fill the Earth, mankind, he will take off that bondage, and give a universal liberty, and there shall be no more complainings against oppression, poverty, or injustice.”

Winstanley, however, warns his readers that “this is not to be done by the hands of a few, or by unrighteous men that would pull down the tyrannical government out of other men’s hands and keep it in their own heart, as we feel this to be a burden of our age.  But it is to be done by the universal spreading of the Divine Power, which is Christ in mankind, making them all to act in one spirit, and in and after one law of reason and equity.”

In the next chapter (chap. viii.) Winstanley describes his peculiar state of mind at the time he first arrived at his fundamental conclusions, which he evidently regarded as directly revealed to him, in the following mystic words: