He forces home his argument in the following words:
“You say you have the just copies of their writings. You do not know that but as your Fathers have told you, which may be as well false as true, if you have no other better ground than tradition. You say that the interpretation of Scripture into our mother tongue is according to the mind of the spirit. You cannot tell that neither, unless you are able to say that those who did interpret those writings have had the same testimony of spirit as the pen-men of Scripture had. For it is the spirit within that must prove these copies to be true.”
He then turns the tables by accusing them of being “the very men that do deny God, Scriptures, and the Ordinances of God; and that turn the truths of the Spirit into a lie, by leaving the letter, and walking in their own inferences”; and also “by holding forth spiritual things by the imagination of the flesh, and not by the law and testimony of the Spirit within.” And he contends that, in truth, he and his fellows are “those men that do advance God, Christ, Scriptures, and Ordinances in the spirituality of them.”
In the opening chapter of the book itself, Winstanley, with more than his usual directness, plunges into the heart of his subject in the following suggestive words:
“I have said that whosoever worships God by hearsay, as others tell him, and knows not what God is from light within himself; or that thinks God is in the heavens above the skies, and so prays to that God which he imagines to be there and everywhere, but from any testimony within, he knows not how nor where: this man worships his own imagination, which is the Devil. But he who is a true worshipper must know who God is and how He is to be worshipped, from the Power of Light shining within him, if ever he have true peace.”
“Hence,” he continues, “a report is raised, and is frequent in the mouth of the teachers, that I deny God. Therefore, first, I shall give account of what I see and know Him to be; and let the understanding in heart judge me.”
Winstanley then endeavours to formulate his theistic views and beliefs in a series of questions and answers, from which we feel compelled to quote the following:
“Q. What is God?
“A. I answer, He is the incomprehensible Spirit Reason;[63:1] who as He willed the Creation should flow out of Him, so He governs the whole Creation in righteousness, peace, and moderation. And He is called the Father, because as the whole Creation comes out of Him, so He is the life of the whole Creation, by whom every creature doth subsist.
“Q. When can a man call the Father his God?