er's
tender care is to remove all grievances from the oppressed
children, not respecting one before another; so a Parliament are to
remove all burdens from the people of the Land, and are not to
respect persons who are great before those who are weak; but their
eye and care must be principally to relieve the oppressed ones, who
groan under the Tyrant's Laws and Powers: the strong, or such as
have the Tyrant's Power to support them, need no help.

"But though a Parliament be the Father of a Land, yet by the
Covetousness and Cheats of Kingly Government the heart of this
Father hath been alienated from the children of the Land, or else
so overawed by the frowns of a Kingly Tyrant, that they could not
or durst not act for the weaker children's ease. For hath not
Parliament sat and rose again, and made Laws to strengthen the
Tyrant in his Throne, and to strengthen the rich and the strong by
those Laws, and left Oppression upon the backs of the oppressed
still?"

HIS HOPES FOR THE FUTURE.

Here Winstanley checks himself, and continues:

"But I'll not reap up former weaknesses, but rather rejoice in hope
of amendment, seeing our present Parliament hath declared England
to be a Free Commonwealth, and to cast out Kingly Power: and upon
this ground I rejoice in hope that succeeding Parliaments will be
tender-hearted Fathers to the oppressed children of the Land. And
not only dandle us upon the knee with good words and promises till
particular men's turn be served, but will feed our bellies and
clothe our backs with good actions of Freedom, and give to the
oppressed children's children their birthright portion, which is
Freedom in the Commonwealth's Land, which the Kingly Law and Power,
our cruel step-fathers and step-mothers, have kept from us and our
fathers for many years past.

"THE PARTICULAR WORK OF A PARLIAMENT IS FOUR-FOLD--FIRSTLY,

"As a tender Father, a Parliament is to empower Officers and give
orders for the free planting and reaping of the Commonwealth's
Land, that all who have been oppressed, and kept back from the free
use thereof by Conquerors, Kings, and their Tyrant Laws, may now be
set at liberty to plant in Freedom for food and raiment, and are to
be a protection to them who labor the Earth, and a punisher of them
who are