ity: which consist
of these particulars following:

"1. A just portion for each man to live, that so none need to beg
or steal for want, but everyone may live comfortably.

"2. A just Rule for each man to go by, which Rule is to be found in
Scripture.

"3. All men alike under the said Rule, which Rule is, to do to one
another as another should do to him....

"4. The government to be by Judges, called Elders, men fearing God
and hating Covetousness, to be chosen by the people, and to end all
controversies in every town or hamlet, without any other or further
trouble or charge."

These, then, were the four points of the People's Charter of 1648; the
four fundamental reforms which Winstanley, if Winstanley be the author
of this pamphlet, as we believe, deemed necessary to secure the peace
and well-being of the masses of the people. The pamphlet then indicates
where the people are to look for their model, in the following words:

"And in the Scriptures the Israelite's Common-wealth is an
excellent pattern.... Now in Israel if a man were poor, then a
public maintenance and stock were to be provided to raise him
again. So would all Bishops Lands, Forest Lands, and Crown Lands do
in your Land, which the apostate Parliament men give one to
another, and to maintain the needless thing called a king. And
every seven years the whole Land was for the poor, the fatherless,
widows, and strangers, and at every crop a portion allowed them.

"Mark this, poor people, what the Levellers would do for you. Oh
why are you so mad as to cry up a king? It is he and his Court and
Patentee-men, as Majors Aldermen, and such creatures, that like
cormorants devour what you should enjoy, and set up Whipping-posts
and Correcting-houses to enslave you. 'Tis rich men that oppress
you, saith James.

"Now in this right Common-wealth he that had least had no want.
Therefore the Scriptures call them a Family or Household of Israel.
And amongst those who received the Gospel, they were gathered into
a Family, and had all things common (Acts 2. 44); yet so that each
one was to labor and get his own bread. And this is Equity as
aforesaid. For it is not lawful nor fit for some to work and the
others to play; for it's God's command that all work, let all eat.
And if all work alike, is it not f