"
As to how far Winstanley owes the views that find expression in his
earlier pamphlets--which deal exclusively with cosmological or
theological speculations--to others, or to the writings of earlier
mystics, we have no means of knowing.[43:1] From them we gather,
however, that he had learned or had come to regard the whole Biblical
narrative as an allegory, of which he gives a most poetical
interpretation. The Creation is mankind. The Garden of Eden is the mind
of man, which he describes as originally filled with herbs and pleasant
plants, "as love, joy, peace, humility, delight, and purity of life."
The serpent he holds to be self-love, the forbidden fruit to be
"selfishness," following the promptings of which "the whole garden
becomes a stinking dunghill of weeds, and brings forth nothing but
pride, envy, discontent, disobedience, and the whole actings of the
spirit and power of darkness." And he argues that--"If the creature
should be honored in this condition, then God would be dishonored,
because his command would be broken.... And if the creature were utterly
lost ... then likewise God would suffer dishonor, because his work would
be spoiled." Hence he maintains that "the curse that was declared to
Adam was temporary," and that eventually the whole creation, the whole
of mankind, shall be saved, and "the work of God shall be restored from
this lost, dead, weedy and enslaved condition."[44:1]
Winstanley, however, regarded the word "God" as too vague satisfactorily
to denote the supreme spiritual power which pervades, upholds and
governs the whole universe.
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