"the standing ponds of stinking waters"

"[B]y the one they deceive the souls of people, for they preach the letter of the Spirit, and by the other they pick their purses. (...) those writings which they live by, were not writings that proceeded produced from any Schollars, according to humane art, but from Fishermen, Shepherds, Husbandmen, and the Carpenters son, who spake and writ as the Spirit gave them utterance, from an inward testimony. Yet now these learned schollars have got the writings of these inferior men of the world so called, do now slight, despise and trample them under feet, pressing upon the powers of the earth, to make laws to hold them under bondage, and that lay-people, trades-men, and such as are not bred in schools, may have no liberty to speak or write of the Spirit. Any why so? Because out of these despised ones, doth the spirit rise up more and more so clearer light, making them to speak from experience (....) But now the learned schollars having no inward testimony of their own to uphold their trade by a customary practice, they hold fast the old letter, getting their living by telling the people the meanings of those trades-mens words and writings; but alas, they mightily corrupt their meaning, by their multitude of false expositions and interpretations; for no man knows the meaning of the spirit, but he hath the spirit."

- Gerrard Winstanley, "The New Law of Righteousness"