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 idle.
"But some may say, What is that I call Commonwealth's Land? I
answer, All that land which hath been withheld from the inhabitants
by the Conqueror, or Tyrant Kings, and is now recovered out of the
hands of that oppression by the joint assistance of the persons and
purses of the Commoners of the Land.
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