Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/132

 what was expedient for himself and his fellows. The Mosaic code, the law of God himself, was simply the most perfect of exemplifications of the law of reason. It necessarily followed that any human government could be just only in so far as its laws accorded with the principles of right reason and justice implanted in the hearts of all mankind.

Three months before Innocency And Truth Justified appeared, an anonymous pamphlet entitled Englands Lamentable Slaverie had expounded far more radical doctrine. After a few passing compliments in which the author assured Lilburne of his personal regard notwithstanding their differences of religion, he cited with approval Lilburne’s stand for his constitutional rights against Parliament. For, while he was not the first to go to prison, rather than answer illegal questions of committees, the unknown assured him, he was the first to ground his refusal plainly on Magna Charta, or to draw the obvious and illuminating comparison with the Star-Chamber procedure. He must have known that such assertions would not meet the approval of Parliament men who considered their power absolute and unrestrained by Magna Charta or by any other law. “Others there are,” the author continued, “(as good Wise and juditious