heard and
seen from God, and of what great things God hath done for their
souls.... It is very possible that a man may attain to a literal
knowledge of the Scriptures, of the Prophets and Apostles, and may
speak largely of the history thereof, and yet both they that speak
and they that hear may be not only unacquainted with, but enemies
to that Spirit of truth by which the Prophets and Apostles
writ.[58:1] "For it is not the Apostles' writings, but the spirit
that dwelt in them, that did inspire their hearts, which gives life
and peace to all."

In the second chapter Winstanley consoles those whom he is specially
addressing by expressing his conviction that though their enemies may
think to kill all the Saints, and though God may suffer them to kill
some, yet others of them will necessarily be preserved to keep alive
their beliefs and to spread abroad their teachings, of the ultimate
triumph of which he never seemed to doubt. However, in view of the
perplexity of the times and of the dangers by which they were
surrounded, he gave them the following somewhat worldly-wise
advice--"For the appearance of God now is in the Saints that they
worship the Father in spirit and truth in such a secret manner as the
eye of the world cannot and does not always see": a practice of which,
as we have already noticed, the adherents of the Family of Love were
accused in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

It is, however, in the fourth and fifth chapters that Winstanley
concisely and eloquently summarises the fundamental articles of his
religious faith. In them he again emphatically warns his fellows against
looking to others for knowledge of Divine revelations, and strongly
advises them to look into their own hearts. In support of this view he
quotes the Scripture text--"Light is come into the world, and men love
darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil" (John iii.
19), which he then proceeds to explain as follows:

"The world is mankind; and every particular man and woman is a
perfect creation of himself, a perfect created world. If a
particular branch of mankind desire to know what the nature of
other men and women are, let him not look abroad, but into his own
heart, and he shall see. So that I say, man is the world, a perfect
creation, from whose poisoned flesh proceeds the lust of the eye,
the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life: these