Note 170:1 — Chapter XIV · GERRARD WINSTANLEY’S UTOPIA: THE LAW OF FREEDOM

“And truly this is matter of praise to God:—and it hath some instruction in it, To own men who are religious and godly. And so many of them as are peaceable and honestly and quietly disposed to live within Government, and will be subject to those Gospel rules of obeying Magistrates and living under Authority. I reckon no Godliness without that circle! Without that spirit, let it pretend what it will, it is diabolical, it is devilish,” and so on. See Cromwell’s Speech to his Second Parliament, April 13th, 1657 (Carlyle, part x. p. 250). It would almost seem as if Winstanley had written the above paragraph to answer this explosive utterance of Cromwell, some six years before it took place. As a matter of fact, of course, he was only answering an objection which every little conventional upholder of existing abuses, in his time as in our time, would be sure to make in one form or other.