Nothing else will go to the cause of the evil--in nothing else is
there the slightest hope."--HENRY GEORGE, 1877-1878.
In the pamphlet we have considered in the previous chapter we heard that
"there have some come among the Diggers that have caused scandal," and
whose ways were disowned by Winstanley and his associates. A few weeks
subsequent to its publication, Winstanley judged it necessary publicly
and formally to dissociate himself and his companions from them, which
he did, in a manner quite in accordance with his own principles, in a
small pamphlet of some eight pages, which was published under the title:
"A VINDICATION OF THOSE WHOSE ENDEAVOURS IS ONLY TO MAKE THE EARTH
A COMMON TREASURY, CALLED DIGGERS: Or Some Reasons given by
them against the immoderate use of creatures, or the excessive
community of women, called Ranting or rather Renting,"[146:1]
which, after a long condemnation of "the Ranting Practice," runs as
follows:
"There are only two things I must speak as an advice in Love.
"First, Let everyone that intends to live in peace set themselves
with diligent labour to till, dig and plow the common and barren
land, to get them bread with righteous, moderate working, among a
moderate-minded people; this prevents the evil of idleness, and the
danger of the Ranting power.
"Secondly, Let none go about to suppress that Ranting power by the
punishing hand; for it is the work of the Righteous and Rational
Spirit within, not thy hand without, that must suppress it.
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