“At this very day poor people are forced to work, in some places for 4, 5, and 6 pence a day, in other places for 8, 10, and 12 pence a day, for such small prices that now, corn being dear, their earnings cannot find them bread for their families. Yet if they steal for maintenance, the murdering Law will hang them.... Well this shows that if this be Law, it is not the Law of Righteousness. It is a murderer; it is the Law of Covetousness and Self Love. And this Law that frights people and forces people to obey it by prisons, whips and gallows, is the very Kingdom of the Devil and Darkness, which the Creation groans under at this day.”
After this characteristic outburst, he gives them the following equally characteristic advice:
“Come, make peace with the Cavaliers, your enemies, and let the oppressed go free, and let them have a livelihood. Love your enemies, and do to them as you would have had them do to you, if they had conquered you. Well, let them go in peace, and let Love wear the Crown. For I tell you and your Preachers, that Scripture which saith ‘The Poor shall inherit the Earth,’ is really and materially to be fulfilled. For the Earth is to be restored from the bondage of Sword-propriety, and is to become a Common Treasury in reality to the whole of mankind. For this is the work for the true Saviour to do, who is the true and faithful Leveller, even the Spirit and Power of Universal Love, that is now rising to spread itself in the whole Creation, who is the Blessing, who will spread as far as the Curse has spread, to take it off and cast it out, and who will set the Creation in peace.”
The pamphlet then concludes with the following words:
“The time is very near when the people generally shall loathe and be ashamed of your Kingly Power, in your preaching, in your Laws, in your Councils, as now you are ashamed of the Levellers. I tell you Jesus Christ, who is that powerful Spirit of Love, is the Head Leveller: and as He is lifted up, He will draw all men after Him, and leave you naked and bare.... This Great Leveller, Christ our King of Righteousness in us, shall cause men to beat their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, and Nations shall learn war no more. Everyone shall delight to let each other enjoy the pleasures of the Earth, and shall hold each other no more in bondage. Then what will become of your power? Truly he must be cast out as a murderer. I pity you for the torment your spirit must go through, if you be not fore-armed as you are abundantly fore-warned from all places. But I look on you as part of the Creation that must be restored; and the Spirit may give you wisdom to fore-see a danger, as he hath admonished divers of your rank already to leave those high places and to lie quiet and wait for the breaking forth of the powerful day of the Lord. Farewell, once more, Let Israel go free.”
As a sort of appendix to this pamphlet there appears the following interesting document:
“A Bill of Account of the most remarkable Sufferings that the Diggers have met with since April 1st, 1649, which was the first day they began to dig and to take possession of the Commons for the Poor on George Hill in Surrey.
“1. The first time divers of the Diggers were carried prisoners into Walton Church, where some of them were struck in the Church by the bitter Professors and rude multitude; but after some time they were freed by a Justice.
“2. They were fetched by above a hundred rude people, whereof John Taylor was the leader, who took away their spades, and some of them they never had again: and carried them first to prison in Walton, and then to a Justice in Kingston, who presently dismissed them.
“3. The enemy pulled down a house which the Diggers had built upon George Hill, and cut their spades and hoes to pieces.