Sunday Sermon

As socialists we promote a belief in science as opposed to religion and idealism. We see humanity as its own liberator, rather than trust in some supernatural being.

The helplessness of primitive man could only rely on prayers, incantations, sacrifices and other rituals to try to prevent sickness, famine, storms and other catastrophies. these terrible things were attributed to God’s wrath. Unable to ward off disaster, people were susceptible to the view that these were really good things or things ordered by God for reasons that we cannot understand. After death we are to be either rewarded for our virtue and suffering here, or condemned to eternal damnation for our wickedness. The complex nature of modern society and the worsening conditions for the majority of the people still present mysteries which they are unable to solve for a lack of science. Therefore they still turn to God to explain their misery here on earth. The real riddle of the universe is the conservative working man. This weird anachronism who finds Hell surrounding him, and votes for it. He finds a system that crucifies his wife, and supports it: a system that steals his baby's milk, and he fights for it; a system that snatches his daughter’s virtue, and he defends it. He finds a system that makes his son die for it and he refuses to condemn it.

Many apparently radical proponents tell us of the Diggers spokesperson Gerrald Winstanley’s use of the “Good Book” to advocate a communistic society.  It was the custom of the times  for the Bible to be quoted on every occasion and for meanings to be read into the text.

But lets remind ourselves of the atheistic Leveller William Walwyn.

Walwyn is alleged to have endeavoured to corrupt the young people who frequented his house.

His challenge to others was : “How can you prove that the Bible is God’s Word? What better proof have you for the divine authorship of the Bible than the Turk has for his Koran?” He would then explain how “the great mysteries of life and salvation through Jesus Christ as well as the doctrines of justification through His death, resurrection, sanctification, and condemnation by His spirit as mere fancies, as ridiculous, nonsensical, vapid, and empty conceptions” He is said to have taken the young people on Sundays to the various churches, one after another, to let them hear how the preachers of the one inveighed against those of the other, pointing out to them the contradictions and absurdities in the sermons. He  said to some pupils that  the Proverbs and Psalms were composed by kings, solely for their own ends, that the Song of Songs was a poem written by Solomon about one of his whores, that hell is nothing but the bad conscience of evil men in this life, and that it was inconceivable that God should torment men throughout all eternity for a short period of sinful life. King David and the patriarch Jacob had been a couple of sly foxes and cunning knaves. It was absurd to engage in continuous prayer. The Protestant priests were most of them greedy fellows; even the Catholics had not been as bad as they were to the poor.  It is laid to Walwyn’s charge, as a particularly heinous offence, that he even defended suicide, whereby a friend of his wife, who suffered from an incurable disease, had actually been encouraged to kill herself.

Walwyn went on to say the only true religion consisted in helping the poor:
“What an inequitable thing it is for one man to have thousands and another want bread! The pleasure of God is that all men should have enough, and not that one man should abound in this world’s goods, spending it upon lusts, and another man (of far better deserts and far more useful to the commonwealth) not to be worth twopence.” He says that “the world shall never be well until all things be common”. It would not by any means be “such difficulty as men make it to be to alter the course of the world in this thing; a very few diligent and valiant spirits may turn the world upside down if they observe the seasons and shall with life and courage engage accordingly”. To the objection that this would upset all and every Government, he answered: “There would then be less need of Government; for then there would be no thieves, no covetous persons, no deceiving and abuse of one another, and so no need of Government. If any difference do fall out, take a cobbler from his seat, or any other tradesman that is an honest and just man, and let him hear the case and determine the same, and then betake himself to his work again.”

Walwyn’s writings  on religious and political questions, no longer exist. We know of his ideas only seCond-hand through his critics.