SOURCE: "Gerrard Winstanley's Experimental Knowledge of God (The Perception of the Spirit and the Acting of Reason)," The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 39, No. 2, April, 1988, pp. 184-201.

[In the following essay, Baxter examines Winstanley's religious pamphlets in a study of Winstanley's use of words, language, and concepts.]

This essay is an attempt to find out what Winstanley meant by certain terms, using close textual analysis. Extensive work has already been done in locating Winstanley in political, theological and, as far as possible, intellectual terms. This will receive only cursory treatment here. A scholarly tradition can be traced from Bernstein, through Petergorsky and Margaret James to Christopher Hill, which places Winstanley at the beginning of the development of materialist socialism although, it is suggested, his ideas proved to be a false start and went underground for a century or more.¹ This view derives from his later works, especially The Law of Freedom, with its practical design of tilling the land communally, and sees his mysticism either as a cloak for revolutionary aims or as an undeveloped stage in his thought which he later left behind and which is thus of secondary importance. Work has been done, sometimes by the same scholars, to map out the tenets of his religious beliefs in the context of contemporary radical Puritanism, considering whether he was, for instance, a mortalist, a universalist or a millenarian, and how far he was any of these. For such doctrinal identification one can look to W. S. Hudson, the cooperative study of L. Mulligan, J. K. Graham and J. Richards and to Christopher Hill, for all of these have compared and contrasted his beliefs with those of Seekers, Ranters, Fifth Monarchists and Quakers.² Hill himself, however, has pointed out the difficulties of placing Winstanley in a particular group because of the fluidity of the borders between one sect and another; sects sharing certain beliefs while differing in others and changing character internally with changing political circumstances.

It is dangerous to try and trace Winstanley's ideas to literary sources, since he was not himself an intellectual. However, a recent work by T. W. Hayes shows how he was unconsciously continuing a tradition of poet-prophets by dealing originally with established sources of language and imagery.³ His imagery was biblical and his language was apocalyptic; his use and treatment of them can be compared with Joachim of Fiore and the Anabaptists and Zwickau Prophets of a century earlier. Out of these materials he forged his own symbolism, elaborating the myth of the Norman Yoke by synthesising biblical 'myth' (as he saw it) with historical 'fact'; these constructions, inspired by an inner light and a belief in a utopia, reveal him as a creative artist. Hayes states in his preface that he believes an analysis of language and imagery to be the key to the content of the religious or political thought of a writer. This approach comes nearest to this writer's intention, since the aim of this paper is not to label Winstanley's thought definitively, but to observe patterns running through the works. By studying his terms, key words will emerge that seem to reflect the development of his ideas and thus uncover the unifying principles in his thought.

Gerrard Winstanley was born in 1609 in Lancashire.⁴ It is known that he was a cloth merchant in London at the beginning of the Civil War, and that around 1643 his business, like many others, went bankrupt. He was forced to accept the hospitality of friends in Cobham, Surrey, where, until 1649, he seems to have made a precarious living pasturing neighbours' cattle.

His first pamphlet was The Mysterie of God, issued shortly before The Breaking of the Day of God (20 May 1648), both of which coincided with the outbreak of the Second Civil War and interpreted the national troubles in religious terms as a struggle between the flesh and the spirit.⁵ The two preceding years had witnessed tremendous uncertainty and insecurity in the country, politically, socially and economically. The king had been defeated, but he was hardly treated as an enemy, and the victors were made up of diverse religious and social groupings who were almost as much opposed to each other as to the king. The bad harvest of 1647, the lack of evidence of change in their fortunes and the continuation of heavy taxes carried over from the war, left the common people understandably dissatisfied. In October, the Levellers voiced their disappointment in the form of the Putney Debates, but they received no real answers to demands made in the light of what they had been promised and the principles on which they believed the war had been fought. Winstanley wrote two more theological pamphlets in 1648, The Saints Paradise and Truth Lifting up its Head Above Scandal.⁶ By the time he came to write The New Law of Righteousness (26 January 1649), in which he put forward the idea of communistic tilling of the earth, the king had been declared guilty of treason;⁷ he was executed at the end of the month. Winstanley's new plan of action was paralleled by the renewed efforts of the Levellers at this time to press for the civil rights of the individual. Over the next few months it became apparent that their radical constitutional demands would not be met, and they were finally crushed by Cromwell.

This final failure of the Levellers may have made Winstanley more convinced that alternative action was necessary. On 20 April, The True Levellers Standard Advanced was published as the manifesto of the Diggers: God had directed Winstanley in a revelation to till the soil communally; and now, with like-minded individuals he set about doing this in Surrey, according to the Spirit, with the aim of gaining a living by the planting and reaping of their own crops.⁸ While the digging continued and the community grew in number (as local opposition likewise increased), numerous pamphlets appeared justifying their action, defending their right to the common land and publicising the illtreatment they had received at the hands of English law. By April 1650, the economic experiment had failed because of sabotage and legal action. In March 1650, Fire in the Bush had been published, an elaboration of Winstanley's theology which may have been a lastminute attempt to win sympathy by explaining the purpose behind their action.⁹ The next pamphlet to appear was The Law of Freedom in a Platform in 1652.¹⁰ Written probably a year before, this elaborated a political programme for the institution of a Commonwealth in England and is very different in character from the earlier pamphlets, suggesting to some scholars that Winstanley had become a rationalist and a materialist.¹¹

It seems worthwhile to look first at how Winstanley thought words worked, that is, how they come to be valid conveyors of meaning. Examples can be taken from a cross-section of his pamphlet; it is not necessary to pursue the particular issue raised in the context of his overall argument for the moment. Winstanley, as a self-conscious writer, is aware of the games that can be played with words. His writing is full of puns and he takes what might be called poetic licence in changing the spelling of words to emphasise the point he is trying to make; as he writes, Divines becomes Day-vines, David Davider and Adam A-dam. To define a word by another word, he wishes to say, is as futile as worrying about how a word is spelt as neither helps towards understanding. Yet learned clergy and professors use mere words as absolutes to quell curiosity and silence questioning: 'The People demands, What is the Gospel? You say, it is the Scriptures. The People replies again; How can these Scriptures be called the everlasting Gospel, seeing it is torn in peeces daily amongst your selves, by various translations, inferences and conclusions?¹² Words, written and spoken, must be made subject to 'spiritual judging' or 'tryall¹³ if they are to ring true or be authentic in usage.

In one of the prefaces to Truth Lifting up its Head Winstanley explains why he will henceforward call God by the name of Reason. It is to break the circle of words that form men's conceptions since Reason suggests an actual quality:

If I demand of you, who made all things? And you answer God. If I demand what is God? You answer the spirituall power; that as he made; so he governs and preserves all things, so the sum of all is this, God is the chief Maker or Govemor and this Maker and Governor is God: Now I am lost in this wheel that runs round and lies under darkness.¹⁴

'Maker' and 'Governor' are just nouns, external labels which do not tell what is involved in the act of making or governing. Winstanley's own reply to the same question entails describing the process by which an absolute is translated into the sphere of experience:

Reason is that living power of light that is in all things: It is the salt that savours all things … It lies in the bottom of love, of justice, of wisdome; for if the Spirit Reason did not uphold and moderate these they would be madnesse; nay they could not be called by their names; for Reason guides them in order, and leads them to their right end, which is not to preserve a part, but the whole creation.¹⁵

Reason is not to be understood as a definitive name or an abstract term, but as a condition or state of reasonableness, and people must therefore identify how the Spirit works in them before naming God for themselves. 'Every one must give him a name according to that spirituall power that they feel and see rules in them, carrying them forth in action to preserve their fellow creatures."¹⁶

The word 'God' had acquired a mystique. For this reason, Winstanley abandoned it in favour of a word which better expressed his experience of that spiritual power which was God; men should no longer rest upon 'words without knowledge'. Winstanley's criticism of the clergy was often founded on their veneration of Scripture as if the words themselves represented God's power when, in fact, 'they are dry shells until God gives experience of his love such as the prophets had'.¹⁷ People must 'therefore learne to put a difference between the Report, and the thing Reported of. The spirit that made flesh is he that is reported of. The writings and words of Saints is the report."¹⁸ To speak Scripture is not to witness the Spirit for the only test of its presence is if it moves a man actually to 'live of the gospel', which churchmen often fail to do. 'Well, your word Divinity darkens knowledge; you talk of a body of Divinity and of Anatomyzing Divinity: 0 fine language! But when it comes to triall, it is but a husk without the kernell; words without life … and the spirit is not in your service, for your publique service stinks before him … Love and righteous acting within the Creation is not to be found in your hands."¹⁹

For Winstanley, pious words are empty of meaning unless the speaker has experienced the Spirit within, for the Spirit does not move through words: it moves individuals. Discerning good from bad spirits was a tradition in Christianity, and the chaos and confusion of the Civil War period made it an issue of immediate concern to everyone in the land and, collectively, to both sides, for all believed themselves to be acting in God's name. Many of the specific grievances brought up at the Putney Debates resolved into discussion about where the Spirit lay, for the Spirit in man was a guarantee of an objective good or righteousness not swayed by self-interest.²⁰ The problem was to identify the Spirit. Cromwell suggested that it could be recognised by the 'appearance of meekness and gentleness … and a desire to do good to all, and to destroy none that can be saved'.²¹ These criteria would not have satisfied Winstanley, however, for whom the Spirit was known by the actual bringing about of justice in the world.

In Winstanley's work, the word 'Spirit' is often accompanied by the word 'Reason' as in 'the Spirit Reason', or in the sentence 'The Spirit or Father is pure Reason'. They are often used synonymously and they have in common certain attributes; they are life-giving and life-preserving and are found within men. However, a distinction can be made which throws a light on Winstanley's concept of God. Winstanley did not believe in the separation of God, the Holy Spirit and Christ. Similarly, just as he uses the words 'Christ' and 'God' almost synonymously since Christ as an historical figure is not necessary to man's salvation, Reason and Spirit seem to represent two aspects of God. These two aspects of God correspond to the stages which constitute the individual's experience or knowledge of Him. One is the simple sensation of God and the other is the carrying forward of the effects of that sensation to others. The Oxford Dictionary defines the Spirit of God as 'active essence, essential power of Deity, conceived as a creative, animating or inspiring influence'. For Winstanley, it was all this, but he would have described it in more palpable terms. G. F. Nuttall has made an extensive study of the place of the Spirit in radical Puritanism and shows how it was conceived of as a physical reality, so that one might rather say that it was perceived—'a spiritual perception analogous to physical perception of the senses'.²² This is why it was talked of as light or heat, for this objective reality distinguished it from man's reason. Uneducated people (of whom Richard Baxter said, 'their knowledge is more sensible and experimental and beneficial to them') were thus deemed more suitable candidates for witness to the Spirit, since discursive powers inhibited immediate and intuitive apprehension.²³ Experience of the Spirit was the touchstone of faith, and the touchstone of this experience was sensual perception.

In his earliest pamphlets Winstanley still uses the word 'God' and has not yet drawn the distinction in God between Spirit and Reason. Where he talks about 'God' in the examples that follow, he might later use the word 'Spirit'. He tells how he was converted from his old form of worship and that he did not arrive at his present state of mind by his own intellectual powers: 'This I know, first, by my own experience. Though I lay under bondage to the Serpent, I saw no bondage until God caused me to see that I was dead in sin … I could not deny self until God pulled me out of selfish striving and gave me peace.'²⁴ Winstanley here stresses his passivity in the course of the change, as his will had to be put aside for God to work in him. His guarantee that this was the Spirit and not his reason is that he felt an outside agent at work in him. He refers to this experience elsewhere as 'experimental persuasions in me … of God's own working'.²⁵ Likewise, when defending the divine origin of his communist revelation, 'I understood it from thy teaching first within me'.²⁶ It is for this reason that Winstanley looks to the common people as a vehicle of God's Spirit working in the world: they are more responsive to sensible stimuli. 'God's teaching shall never cease, for it gives a feeling experience to the heart which can never be forgot. This alone overcomes the self-conceit and evil inclinations of the flesh. Not the Apostles' writings but the spirit that dwelt in them and inspired their hearts gives life and peace."²⁷

By the time he wrote Fire in the Bush (1650), he had arrived at his mature descriptive language. Now he talks of the Spirit as an inward friend. Although it is within him, it is apart from him, having the status of 'other', so that he can see it as he would see something that was really outside his body: 'Oh that I could see and feele Love … and peace live and rule in power in me … if all my outward friends and objects forsooke me; yet if I had familiar friendship, with that sweet spirit within, I should have peace enough.'²⁸ The Spirit is felt and, to this extent, the individual plays a passive role; but friendship implies an active relationship where both move towards each other. From the effects worked in him by the Spirit he has peace, that is, he is peaceful in himself. The work of the Spirit is extended in a second stage of the experience of God, making the individual peaceable. He is now disposed to peace, working to bring about peace in others, as the Spirit has done in him.

The word 'communion' is never far from the word 'Spirit'. It is constituted of two similar but distinct parts, union and communion: the former represents that part of the experience of God in which the individual perceives the Spirit within him, the latter the extension of the Spirit's work in one's relations with others. A man who has the Spirit within is united to it and joined with it, and he partakes of the benefits of the Spirit and love lives in him. But when he lives in love, that is, practises love towards others, he is in active communion with the Spirit in others: 'Souls have no peace until they have community with the Spirit within them, but when they feel the spirit of righteousness governing their flesh, they begin to know God and they will be brought into community with the whole globe.'²⁹ Community is a stronger version of unity, suggesting not simply juxtaposition but active participation and a shared social life. The Spirit is not a static presence but a dynamic power which operates in the individual, engendering a motion which he will continue. If a man is open to the workings of the Spirit within, he will be inclined to replicate the process in his relations with others who also have the Spirit working in them. The more people who have or recognise the Spirit in themselves the more love becomes an effective mover. 'Thus men will knit together in one body and will cease to teach, for everyone will be taught of the Father.'³⁰

Many other radical Puritans, especially Quakers, used another word to express the same idea as community. 'Tenderness' implies 'openness to the workings of God's Spirit within and consequent sensitiveness to the Spirit's workings in others also, according to their measure'.³¹ In fact, a sign of the Spirit within was awareness of it in others, and this, in turn, was signified by spontaneous acts of charity and justice towards others. The acting out of love (living in charity) is a sign of someone who is already sharing in the gifts of the Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit and the administering of its benefits to others are virtually simultaneous: man moved to act in love expresses in outward form the inner work of the Spirit.

There was opposition to those who lived by the dictates of the Spirit since it was seen as a licence for anarchy, each man being his own governor and seeking his own ends to the inevitable disadvantage of others. But for Winstanley, precisely the opposite is true, since acts of charity are evidence of the Spirit whereas self-love is a mark of the workings of man's reason. Winstanley's Reason—which is expressed in actions inspired by the Spirit—is almost the opposite of man's reason. Within, God is felt as the Spirit. In relations with others, He is known through the carrying out of reasonable acts which link one man to another. Like the Spirit, reason was often invoked as a criterion for the justice or rightness of an act, but this also was sometimes difficult to identify. To some, reason was man's intellectual power, God given, to be used with His aid: with God's grace to guide it, all men's reason would reach the same ends. This idea of 'right reason' was used by Milton as the basis for his argument for freedom from censorship in Areopagitica. The discussion also pervades the debates at Putney where reason was sometimes seen as a touchstone in this way.³² It was also seen, however, as a possible barrier to God's will, for, if man tried to work out what was right by his own standards, he lacked the larger perspective to see beyond his own interests.³³ If Winstanley's Reason was not man's reasoning then neither was it any kind of rationalist theology. In fact it referred not so much to rationality as to reasonableness, or righteousness. Christopher Hill says that Reason is Winstanley's new name for God, but goes on to discuss it as if man's reason is his new God, as if the concept had changed instead of the word. Winstanley did indeed write that Reason is the highest name that can be given to the Father. Taken on its own, this could sound as if he meant that Reason exists independently of the Father. According to Hill's paraphrase of Winstanley, 'in a non-exploitative society Reason might have a chance of rising in men and women, on the basis of their own social experience, and of being universally accepted as a guide to conduct'.³⁴ Translated into modern, secular speech this is what Winstanley said, but such literalism neglects to define his terms.

In his essay on reason in the seventeenth century, Hill aims to show how 'right reason' became a social concept of usefulness. While this comes close to Winstanley's notion of Reason being socially defined, he would have found it overly reliant on man's own estimation of what was good for him.³⁵ Reason does not replace God: it is merely another name for Him since it comes nearer to expressing what His power constitutes and how it works through man to the benefit of all mankind. It is not something man can arrive at on his own. 'The further you dive into Reason, the more incomprehensive hee will appeare; for he is infinite in wisdom, and mighty in power, past finding out by flesh, till the flesh be made to see light in his light.'³⁶ Reason (God) is outside man but works through him as a spirit of righteousness, making him act reasonably; 'and the same Spirit that made the Globe, dwels in man to Govern the Globe; so that the flesh of man being subject to Reason, his Maker, hath him to be his Teacher and Ruler within himself.³⁷ Although Spirit and Reason are interchangeable as words, Winstanley is describing two parts of one process: the act of creation and the residing of the Creator in the Creation to work in it. The Spirit felt internally is seen outwardly as Reason.

But now the Spirit Reason, which I call God [i.e. which is what I call God], the Maker and Ruler of all things, is that spirituall power, that guides all men's reasoning in right order, and to a right end: for the Spirit Reason, does not preserve one creature and destroy another; as many times mens reasoning doth… but it hath a regard to the whole creation; and knits every creature together into a oneness; making every creature to be an upholder of his fellow; and so every one is an assistant to preserve the whole.³⁸

Only God, outside Creation, can understand the whole in relation to its parts and is therefore able to move through it for the preservation of all.

Truth Lifting up its Head addresses the question, how one should know if one's God is the Father and if one is witness to His Spirit. He describes a two-sided sensation: when the Spirit is first perceived within and is at once recognisable in others. 'When thou art, by that spirit, made to see him, rule and governe, not onely in them, but in the whole creation: so that thou feels and sees that the spirituall power that governes in thee, hath a community in thee with the whole globe … Now thou mayst call him God warrantably, for thou knowst him to be the might governour.'³⁹ A man moved by the Spirit is made subject to God's will; and the righteous acts acknowledge that this is the 'wisdom of the Father' channelled through man: 'When flesh becomes subject to the reason (King of righteousness) within it, it can never act unrighteously … but it does as it would be done by.'⁴⁰ Man's part in this process is not wholly passive, however, since he has, in the first place, to relinquish his will and open his heart to God's ruling.

The Spirit within man links him through Reason to the Spirit in other men. The Spirit is tested against the same in others, and the practice of Reason in the community is a sign of the Spirit's presence in its members: in these two ways it is experienced and tried. Without the Spirit, man has no native guide to help him interpret what is beyond himself. The result is the predominance of man's reason, which Winstanley calls 'unexperienced Imagination' since it is not correcting itself according to an objective standard.⁴¹ He also calls reasoning the 'powers of the flesh', which echoes Cromwell's warning against mistaking carnal imagination and carnal reasonings for faith. Imagination—far from Coleridge's later idea of it, but akin to his definition of fancy—is suspect since it colours what is actually seen and heard; for this reason, the Quakers referred to it as 'notions'. As the Spirit is recognized by external, reasonable acts which help others, so the work of the flesh is characterised by deeds that serve the individual and bypass the welfare of the community.⁴² This wilful individualism results from inclinations that arise when the Spirit is not felt within; it is shown in the desire to own objects and in exaggerated fears not grounded in reality. The two go hand in hand, since insecurity engineers a desire to possess things, and possessiveness leads to jealousy and suspicion.

They that live upon outward objects are filled with inward trouble … they dare not live in the life of free community, or universall Love; least others jeare, hate, and trouble them; or least they come to want food and rayment; for Imagination thinks, if they love and succour others, yet others will not love them againe; These know not the Spirit, they live without [exteriorly] upon the Earth.⁴³

This selfish power is a product of the combination of man's natural inclinations and the temptations placed before him.⁴⁴ There has been much debate about whether, for Winstanley, the external object creates the desire to have it, or whether the desire is already in man's heart. He implies both on different occasions, which is why proponents of both views may be literally correct. Taken overall, his terms admit no contradiction.

In Fire in the Bush, Winstanley gives a full account of his version of man's fall, which daily enacts the Original Fall. Man's primary sin is self-love, a desire to promote himself above others and be equal with God. Before this happens, however, he is in an innocent state, living instinctively by his five pure senses. However before the Spirit is his, he cannot judge what is good or bad and wants whatever is placed before him. At this stage, man is leading a good life in the itnage of God, yet lacks the strength' and life of God: 'It is wise, but not wisdome it selfe; it is just but not Justice; it is loving but not Love it selfe. It rejoyces, but is not Joy it selfe … '.⁴⁵ Winstanley, as before, notes the difference between a passive state, in which the imprint of God is received, and the active disposition, in which His will is realised in actual deed. In this receptive condition, still untried by experience, man is open to temptation since the heart will take the imprint of whatever is before it: 'The outward objects of riches, honours, being set before the living soul, Imaginary covetousnesse, which is the absence of true Light, moves the man to close with those objects, and to seeke content without [outside] him.'⁴⁶ This move towards objects is the reaction of an inward disposition with external stimuli. The two-way process is described by Winstanley as a 'league';⁴⁷ as in the friendship with the Spirit, it is a case of being influenced by something and then responding actively to it.

Elsewhere he makes clearer his belief that no external object can affect a man unless a corresponding impulse exists within him:

Now I desire any man to show by experience, any other Devill, or darker power, than these two, that is, The objects without, and the powers of the curse within, joyning in consent together, to enslave the … innocencie of the five Sences … While these two joyne together and meet in consent, Mankinde enters into sorrow … But when the power of Lust is killed within, by the blessing … then outward objects troubles not, nor enslaves the man.⁴⁸

Winstanley breaks up the phrase 'joyning in consent together' into its two constituent parts: 'joyne together' echoes a union, a weaker form of communion which is suggested by the more active 'meet in consent'. Man has to consent to the temptation before it can have any power over him; the presence of the Spirit within gives him the freedom to ignore it.

The period after man's fall into the sin of self-love, and before his restoration, is marked by the Dominance of Imagination. The misguidedness is the result of seeking enjoyment from outside objects. However, the restoration is characterised by God's entering the creation, and it is this stage in Winstanley's theology which has led some historians to see him as a materialist. This would not appear to be the case if his early and late theology are reconciled and his understanding of outward forms as declarations of an inner power is borne in mind.

According to Winstanley, man's restoration is characterised by Christ's rising within man and God's manifesting himself in Creation. However, this does not mean that outside objects will become the reference point for knowledge of good or evil. Christopher Hill, again paraphrasing Winstanley, describes the manifestation of God as follows: 'Given the spirit of Christ within, man needs no other preachers than "the objects of the creation", the material world.'⁴⁹ The full quotation, however, paints a significantly different picture: 'And your Preachers shal be all the objects of the Creation, through which the Father wil convey himself unto you, and manifest himself before you: these shal be your outward Preachers. And the same word of power speaking it, and to your hearts, causing your hearts to open to his voyce, shall be your Teacher within.'⁵⁰ The Spirit within does not merely give access to knowledge imparted by objects, it also teaches the heart directly. Nor are the objects themselves preachers, even once the Spirit has opened man to material objects, for they are merely shells of the Spirit within them. The Father is manifested in this way, but a manifestation is something different from the thing manifested.

The terms in which the manifestation is described reveal something about what Winstanley meant by it. He calls it alternatively a description, a declaration, 'the breakings forth of that glorious power that is seated within and manifested abroad' and 'what proceeds out of himself'.⁵¹ All these suggest the outward form of an inner power, or a moment of its surfacing, but not the vital essence of that power. He talks of God filling Creation. That does not mean that created matter equals the sum of God, but rather implies that God is an infinite source of power that cannot be used up.⁵² Similarly, Christ dwelling in man does not mean that, in total, Christ will amount to man, but merely that he is using him as a medium. Another metaphor used is that of breathing: God will 'make the earth subject to himself and fill all with his holy breathing'.⁵³ While this implies that he will reside in and breathe through man, it also means that he must remain a power beyond man as well, breathing new life into him. The manifestation is almost always presented from a double perspective, so that something is seen from both sides simultaneously. 'The Spirit in this great mystery of truth being manifested in flesh, burns up that drosse out of the Creation and draws in all things back again into himself and declares himself to be the alone wisdom and power of Righteousnesse, that rules, dwels, that governs and preserves both in and over the whole Creation.'⁵⁴ He seems to be saying, quite deliberately, that God can be both immanent and transcendent, as when he talks of God's revelation 'in us, and to us',⁵⁵ and he stresses that the immanent God is as traditional as the God without: 'It is the same report that the Pen-men of Scriptures gave for the everlasting Gospel, "God with us" or "God manifest in flesh". The Father exalted above all, and in all; for the Prophets and Apostles declare these two things.'⁵⁶ The terms are not mutually exclusive; God is outside us, near us, and also in us. Winstanley's dialectic has been studied by T. W. Hayes, who notes how he combines references to internal and external forces whenever he gives causal explanations.⁵⁷ Hill also notes this dialectical way of thinking, but his comments often fail to show an awareness of the distinction Winstanley makes between source and final expression. He interprets Winstanley as saying that 'matter is God'.⁵⁸ He seems to take the word 'Creation' to mean 'matter', but the two are not necessarily the same. By 'Creation' Winstanley chiefly means mankind, in part animals and in part 'creature-objects', a term which includes intangibles such as 'victories' and 'prosperity'.⁵⁹ He would not, anyway, have said that the creation is God since he distinguished it as God's clothing, so it is created by Him for His use.

In The Law of Freedom, Winstanley puts forward a practicable political programme in which he appears to be nearer to being a materialist as he states that, 'to know the secrets of nature, is to know the Works of God'. While his emphasis has changed, it is still necessary to qualify statements made by Hill to the effect that this shows a respect for natural science; Winstanley was not observing the individual properties of natural objects, but observing rather the power that ran through all of them.⁶⁰ Reason, or God, was never an abstraction for Winstanley, but a vital energy giving life to all things, 'for God is an active Power, not an imaginary Fancy'. He says, too, that there is a limit to what we can know of God in this life, until we become spiritualised and joined with Him. 'To reach God beyond the Creation, or to know what he will be to a man, after the man is dead … is a Knowledge beyond the line, or capacity of man to attain while he lives in his compounded body.⁶¹'While God will manifest Himself in outside objects, He is working through them as a power, exhibited as a process of how one thing is related to another.⁶² He is the law of behaviour that moves them and is observable as such. 'To see him in the Sun, Moon, Stars, Clouds, Grasse, Trees, Cattle, and all the Earth, how he hath sweetly caused every one of these to give in assistance to preserve each other Creature: or rather how he Himself in these gives forth preservation and protection from one another, and so unites the whole Creation together, by the unity of himself.'⁶³ Seeing God in the creation is similar to seeing Him in the Scriptures or in the historical Christ, which are only descriptions: God is perceived outside the self, in how He works, but He is not felt working within. 'And when any attains to see Christ in these outward discoveries, it is full of sweet delight, but this settles no true peace; for that delight that is fetching in from things at a distance from us, may be lost againe, and return into its proper seat againe.'⁶⁴ It is better thus, living 'on the Creation' as man does when he lives by Imagination, for he is now living upon the Spirit in Creation.

This is still not the most direct experience of Him. To think that seeing the Spirit of God, exhibited as Reason, in exterior objects is seeing God himself, is like believing that He dwells in the blue sky and that Christ lived and died two thousand years ago. It is still knowledge of the Spirit within which provides experience of God, since this is to 'know feelingly'.

But now to see the King sitting in his banqueting-house, to see the Law of Rightiousnesse and peace ruling and dwelling in the heart, and to be refreshed with those sweet-smelling spices, the discoveries of the Father's love within; This is the Word of God; This is sweeter than the honey-comb, for this is to see him near at hand, even within the heart ruling and resting there.⁶⁵

Only when the Spirit is perceived sensually within (sweet), can Reason be seen in other things or people: 'All creatures teats are to be dried up, that the soul can suck no refreshing milk from them, before the Lord teach it knowledge.'⁶⁶ However, too large a separation should not be made between the initial, inward sensation of knowing the Spirit and the experience of seeing it in others, for the 'bridging' is immediate and spontaneous. Winstanley writes that Christ will 'manifest himself to be the indweller of the five senses'. In this capacity, the Spirit acts as a connecting line between man and outside objects, rather than being in one or the other, or first in one and then in the other. Knowledge of the Spirit within 'unblocks' the senses, making possible a correspondence with the Spirit that already exists in other people or objects.

The exchange with the outside world is thus not strictly an exchange, since 'other' no longer exists when there is direct, instinctive communion with the Spirit in others, and that Spirit is the same as one's own. Recognition of the Spirit in others completes knowledge of it in oneself. 'This holy breathing is the Kingdom of Heaven within you, when he rules within you and the Kingdom of Heaven without you likewise, when you see the same glory rule in others, in which you rejoyce.'⁶⁷ 'The Kingdom of Heaven within you' is inclusive, and partly made up, of seeing the Kingdom of Heaven in others. Observing Reason as a working principle in natural phenomena is not so direct, since man is not himself subject to it. The restoration of mankind has to be seen as a reciprocal exchange: God comes into creation, not to be reduced to matter, but to charge the world with his life-giving spirit. Man is taken up to a higher spiritual plane, enabling a more direct relationship with God, through the Spirit in himself and by contact with the same in others. God entering creation and man dwelling in God are merely two ways of saying the same thing, that a oneness or reintegration of Spirit has been established between God and man, and man and man. Those who have the right relation with God can meet their fellows in the light of that knowledge.

Then man is drawne up into himself againe; or new 'Jerusalem', which is the spirit of truth, comes down to Earth, to fetch Earth up to live in that life … that is a life above objects … This is the life, that will bring in true community; and destroy murdering propriety. Now mankinde enters into the garden of God's rest, and lives for ever … This Seed is he (Love/Reason) that leads mankinde into Truth, making every one to seeke the preservation and peace of others, as of themselves; This teaches man inwardly to know the nature and necessity of every body, and to administer to every body accordingly.⁶⁸

Matter seems almost to be transcended, allowing direct communication and free-flowing traffic between Spirits, without the resistance or interference of substance which traps and particularises things.

When Winstanley talks of 'a new heaven and a new earth', he is not saying that heaven is something attained after death. Rather, it is marked by a transition into a new realm of experience: Heaven is not a place in the sky, not a paradise on earth as we know it, but the endowment of a special intuitive sense once the Spirit has entered the individual and united him with the Spirit in others. What takes place is thus a return to man's state before the Fall, when relations were based on implicit understanding through direct spiritual communication and conducted on the principle of mutual help. 'In the beginning of time the whole Creation lived in man, and man lived in his Maker, the Spirit of Righteousness and peace … Then … there was a sweet communion of Love in the creation: and as the Spirit was a common Treasurie of Unitie and peace within, so the Earth was a common Treasurie of Delight for the preservation of their bodies without.'⁶⁹ The creatures did not literally live in man, nor man in his Maker; this is just a way of saying that no creature was opposed to another, and man was not alienated from God. It is as if all shared the same body and worked together as members of it.

Community was what existed before the Fall—before self-love and covetousness—but not with absolute equality for, as Winstanley points out, man ruled creatures and was ruled by God. It was the acknowledgement of this order that brought about spiritual harmony. This was what Winstanley was trying to regain when he set about tilling the land communally—unity of spirit among men which reflected their subjection to God. That Winstanley was also responding to immediate economic circumstances is not in question: the venture was undertaken to alleviate material hardship caused by the disruption of two wars, and he himself was earning a precarious living off the land. This practical motive for the digging has been dealt with elsewhere. There was another, equally important, motive, to restore community of spirit. Generally, the historiography of the digging has either regarded it as an 'economically necessary step' or seen as a sign or symbol.⁷⁰ Hill grants that it was a 'symbolic challenge', but the diggers were not, in fact, aiming to be provocative: their only worldly concern was the simple need to feed themselves; their action was not intended as a mere political gesture. W. S. Hudson offers an man, nor alternative and more substantial version of the symbolic line of interpretation, but he also makes too great a distinction between the sign of what is to come and the action whose immediate end is material realisation. He sees the digging as an eschatological sign 'demanding attention to a message from the Lord'; its purpose 'was not to do something but to say something'.⁷¹ Those who declared the revelation by action were proclaiming the will of God by obeying His command, and assuring believers (and warning nonbelievers) that God would fulfil this promise in the future and Himself establish a communion of Saints. Such a sign gave inner peace to the individual who declared it.⁷²

This misleading separation of saying and doing in Hudson's interpretation is similar to his separation of life on earth and life after death. Only after this life would God establish a communion of Saints. Community here on earth could be no more than a foundation, an interim Holy Commonwealth by which God makes men ready to accept His Commonwealth. Practising Christian love was a rehearsal. Winstanley has said, throughout his writing, that two parts complete the Blessing: peace received from the Spirit, and the fulfilment of peace coming with the practice of the Law of Love. It is not an individualistic Salvation, since attention to the Spirit within draws the individual automatically to the Spirit in others. Any approach to the significance of the digging should therefore bear in mind Winstanley's habit of synthesising opposites. A sign is empty if it is not expressed in deed, and words are hollow that are not carried over into action; sign and deed, word and act are reconciled, made consistent by the same power moving through both. Winstanley refers to his action as a declaration, and, as he also calls words declarations of something inward, the principle can be followed through. He declared his revelation in writing to put forth the Spirit, the thing declared, into a form accessible to others. 'The words of a man's mouth are the declaration of the spirit or power within; and are created by the spirit, and so hold forth as a creature to the creation.'⁷³ He wrote pamphlets, not for the sake of creating dissension (although aware that they might do so), but for the benefit of those who also knew the Spirit within: 'Some may have their joy fulfilled in seeing a conjecture of experience between me and them.'⁷⁴ His writing, although only a declaration of the Spirit within, does not serve merely to point to the presence of the Spirit. A declaration is not addressed to a void but to receptive ears and hearts. Being witness to the Spirit in others completes the work of the Spirit within. The establishment of sympathy between hearts lays the foundation for community: 'I only hold forth to my fellow creature, man … that others from me, and I from them may be witnesses each to other, of our Maker how he shines forth in his own light, through each other to the profit of the Creation.'⁷⁵ Nevertheless, to talk of the Spirit is not enough on its own. The 'manifestation of a righteous heart shall be known' by the application of what is professed. 'They that do worship the Father, shall worship him by walking righteously in the Creation, in the strength of the Law of Love and equity one to another.'⁷⁶ Winstanley always stresses man as part of creation, living among men and acting in this social condition. He places the direct and personal relationship between the individual and God in the context of man's living with man; thus communion with one's neighbours is an extension of familiarity with God, since He dwells also in them.

Words declare the Spirit and action reinforces that declaration; this is the first function of the digging and gives peace to the individual who has obeyed the Spirit. But this 'peace in the Spirit' is, for Winstanley, a prelude to the time when 'the spirit of the poor, shall be drawn forth… to act materially this Law of Righteousnesse', when others show that they have also received the Spirit's message by declaring it in their action: 'his new Law, that is to be writ in every man's heart, and acted by every man's hand … that they may serve him together, in community of spirit, and in community of the earthly treasure'.⁷⁷ As more people practise the Law of Righteousness, so more spiritual channels are made clear for communion, since doors are opened to each others' hearts. Love is an objective reality felt inwardly as the Spirit which impels love to be directed towards others; its kinetic nature means that the outward practice realises the love within. The absence of righteous acting is a sign that the Spirit is not present in individuals. Such action brings in community of spirit, and with it community of earth, these being one community in two branches. They come in together, each making the other a closed possibility. Even though the diggers plant the crops themselves, they rely on God's blessing to make the crop a good one: 'And they … wait upon him, saying, do thine own work.'⁷⁸ But their action is not a distinct introduction to God's work since they are already acting in the knowledge of His Spirit.

It is significant that the words of the revelation 'Eat bread together' have obvious overtones of Holy Communion. English Protestants normally believed that, in receiving communion, they were not doing something 'merely symbolic', but actually receiving nourishment and life from Christ. In a similar way the action of digging was not, for Winstanley, 'just' a symbolic act and not just a practical one. It was justified, not in the mere act of obedience to the Spirit, nor in the visible harvest, but in spiritual 'nourishment' gained by digging together in a state of spiritual communion. The Spirit's work in man was completed when it opened him to a knowledge of the Spirit in others, and the act of digging showed outwardly in whom the Spirit lay.

Justice cannot be done to Winstanley and his works unless they are approached on the level of the language he employed. To translate his ideas into modem, secular language changes the concepts themselves. Equally, to isolate Winstanley's words, and interpret them literally, is to lose the spirit of his whole argument. A uniformity must be found in his use of certain terms and a continuity in his way of thinking, so that details of inconsistency do not stand in the way of an appreciation of the habits of mind and ways of conceiving and interpreting the world which are displayed through the writing. Winstanley believed in the Spirit as an aspect of God because he felt it within him as a physical presence or sensation, and he understood all outward forms as the declaration of an infinite being. Thus he was never a thorough-going materialist. His God existed within him, as the Spirit, and outside of him, as the Creator who brought justice to creation by working as Reason in man's relation to man. One knew or experienced God internally and externally, and this simultaneity of perception is shown in the dialectical pattern of his thought. What has been interpreted as political radicalism in his action of digging was, for him, primarily a fellowship of spirits, an extension of the Spirit within united with the Spirit in one's neighbours. Like the mystical idea of oneness which had held him back from Puritan individualism, his feeling for the reality of symbolic communion suggests a rather traditional sensibility.

Notes

¹ E. Bernstein, Cromwell and Communism, London 1961; D. W. Petergorsky, Left-wing Democracy in the English Civil War, London 1940; W. James, Social Problems and Policy during the Puritan Revolution; C. Hill (ed.), The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, Harmondsworth 1973.

² W. S. Hudson, 'The economic and social thought of Gerrard Winstanley', Journal of Modern History xvii (1946), 1-21; L. Mulligan, J. K. Graham and J. Richards, 'Winstanley: a case for the man as he said he was', this JOURNAL xxviii (1977), 57-75; C. Hill, 'The religion of Gerrard Winstanley,' Past and Present, Supp. v (1978).

³ T. W. Hayes, Winstanley the Digger, Harvard 1978.

⁴ For biographical details see The Works of Gerrard Winstanley (hereinafter cited as Works), ed. G. H. Sabine, New York 1941, introduction.

⁵ Ibid. 81-3, 87-90. Both pamphlets are reproduced in abstract only, as is a third pamphlet of 1648, The Saints Paradise, in ibid. 93-6. The remaining pamphlets are reproduced in full.

⁶ For Truth Lifting up its Head, see ibid. 97-146.

⁷ Ibid. 147-245.

⁸ Ibid. 249-66.

⁹ Ibid. 443-97.

¹⁰ Ibid. 499-602.

¹¹ A lot of work has been done to discover whether Winstanley returned to practising a trade and died a Quaker, which would show that his 'materialist' phase was a temporary one and that he became a pacifist, see R. T. Vann, 'The later life of Gerrard Winstanley', Journal of the History of Ideas xxvi (1965), 133-6; James Alsop, 'Gerrard Winstanley's later life', Past and Present lxxvii (1979), 73-81.

¹²Truth, 100.

¹³ Ibid. 101.

¹⁴ Ibid. 104.

¹⁵ Ibid. 104-5.

¹⁶ Ibid. 105.

¹⁷The Breaking of The Day of God, abstracted in Works, 87-90, esp. at p. 88.

¹⁸Truth, 124.

¹⁹The New Law of Righteousness, in Works, 147-245, esp. at p. 242.

²⁰ See the remarks of General Ireton reproduced in Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents in Puritanism, ed. A. S. P. Woodhouse, London 1950, 21.

²¹ Quoted in ibid. 106.

²² G. F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, London 1947, 38.

²³Puritanism and Liberty, 59-60.

²⁴Mystery of God, 81-2.

²⁵Breaking of The Day, 89.

²⁶A Watchword to the City of London, 315-39 esp. at pp. 328-9.

²⁷The Saints Paradise in Works, 93-4.

²⁸ In Works, 459.

²⁹Paradice, abstract in Works, 93.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Nuttall, Holy Spirit, 115.

³² Col. Rainborough, quoted in Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty, 55.

³³ Capt. J. Clarke quoted in ibid. 38.

³⁴ Hill, 'Religion', 37-9.

³⁵ C. Hill, 'Reason and reasonableness', in C. Hill (ed.), Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-century England, London 1974.

³⁶Truth, 199.

³⁷The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649), in Works, 247-66 esp. at p. 251.

³⁸Truth, 105.

³⁹ Ibid. 108.

⁴⁰Paradice, 96.

⁴¹Fire in The Bush, in Works, 462; cf. Lawrence Clarkson, 'A single eye all light, no darkness', in Norman Cohn. The Pursuit of the Millennium, London 1957, 113.

⁴²Fire, 456.

⁴³ Ibid. 458.

⁴⁴ Ibid. 494.

⁴⁵ Ibid. 481.

⁴⁶ Ibid. 489.

⁴⁷ Ibid. 485.

⁴⁸ Ibid. 495.

⁴⁹ C. Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: radical ideas during the English Revolution, Harmondsworth, 1982, 140.

⁵⁰New Law, 224-5.

⁵¹ Ibid. 216, 217.

⁵²The Law of Freedom, in Works, 501-602 esp. at p. 565.

⁵³New Law, 229.

⁵⁴ Ibid. 162-3 (my emphasis).

⁵⁵True Levellers, 256.

⁵⁶New Law, 169.

⁵⁷ Hayes, Winstanley the Digger, 15.

⁵⁸ Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 150.

⁵⁹New Law, 231.

⁶⁰ Hill, op. cit. 142.

⁶¹Law of Freedom, 565.

⁶² See also G. Rupp, Patterns of Reformation, London 1969, part iii, ch. xxi (Thomas Muntzer, Hans Huth and the 'Gospel of All Creatures').

⁶³New Law, 231.

⁶⁴ Ibid. 165.

⁶⁵ Ibid. 221.

⁶⁶ Ibid. 226.

⁶⁷ Ibid. 229.

⁶⁸Fire, 453.

⁶⁹New Law, 155. A New-Years Gift for the Parliament and Armie, in Words, 353-96 esp. at p. 376.

⁷⁰ Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 131.

⁷¹ Hudson, 'Economic and social thought', 8, 21.

⁷² 'The peace they experienced in their hearts was the final justification of the digging', ibid. 11.

⁷³Truth, 134.

⁷⁴New Law, 243-4.

⁷⁵ Ibid. 155.

⁷⁶ Ibid. 185.

⁷⁷ Ibid. 195.

⁷⁸New-Years Gift. 369.