? Will you be Slaves and Beggars still
when you may be Freemen? Will you live in straits and die in
poverty when you may live comfortably? Will you always make a
profession of the words of Christ and Scripture, the sum whereof is
this--Do as you would be done unto, and live in love? And now it is
come to the point of fulfilling that Righteous Law, will you not
rise up and act? I do not mean act by the Sword, for that must be
left. But come, take plow and spade, build and plant, and make the
waste land fruitful, that there may be no beggar or idle person
among you. For if the waste land of England were manured by her
children, it would become in a few years the richest, the
strongest, and the most flourishing Land in the world, and all
Englishmen would live in peace and comfort. And this Freedom is
hindered by such as yet are full of the Norman base blood, who
would be Free-men themselves, but would have all others bond-men
and servants, nay Slaves to them....

"Well Englishmen, the Law of the Scriptures gives you a free and
full warrant to plant the Earth, and to live comfortably and in
love, doing as you would be done by, and condemns that covetous
kingly and lordly power of darkness in men, that makes some men
seek their freedom in the Earth and deny others that freedom. And
the Scriptures do establish this Law, to cast out kingly and lordly
self-willed and oppressing power, and to make every Nation in the
World a Free Common-wealth. So that you have the Scriptures to
protect you in making the Earth a Common Treasury for the
comfortable livelihood of your bodies, while you live upon Earth.

"Secondly, you have both what the Army and the Parliament have done
to protect you.... Our Common-wealth's Army have fought against the
Norman Conquest, and have cast him out, and keeps the field.... And
by this victory England is made a Free Common-wealth; and the
common land belongs to the younger brother, as the enclosures to
the elder brother, without restraint.... The Parliament since this
victory have made an Act or Law to make England a Free
Common-wealth. And by this Act they have set the people free from
King and House of Lords that ruled as conquerors over them, and
have abolished their self-will and murdering Laws with them that
made them. Lik