英国平等派

The Levellers were to work with the officers again, and they were to moderate their claim that England was now reduced to a state ofnature. But in 1649, after the Army had finally decided it could not work with the king and an unpurged parliament - after it had executed the king and set up a commonwealth on the basis that 'the people are, under God, the original of all just power'-Lilburne told the judge at his trial for treason in 1649 that there was 'no magistracy in England either upon principles of law or reason'. He was asking of Cromwell what Cromwell had asked of them in 1647: what gave a few men the right to constitute authority in England? It certainly could not be simply that they had swords in their hands, though subsequent Leveller activity and doctrine (text 13), while it denied that proposition in so far as the New Model officers held the sword, did not deny its use to an armed common soldiery.　　At this point we must ask who the Levellers thought had the right not only to speak about and complain about the organisation of magis- tracy, but also to constitute, to be members of, to oversee, even to overpower governments, and why. Their answer throughout their careers was clear enough but in no way capable of being institutional- ised. They believed that God ordained, and God's creation - nature - displayed, the existential equality of authority among human beings, their natural right to sustain and defend themselves and their natural duty to defend and succour others. Such creatures were duty-bound to God, and through God to others, to erect and sustain political society. The only way they could constitute authority was by their consent; and the only proper authority - the only authority which they could consti-tute and subsequently obey - would be o'ne which they in fact continu-ally consented to and which acted as the trustee of each and every one of them for the purpose of attaining the common weal. The men who held magistracy could be only those committed to those ends.　　……