Thou City of London, I am one of thy sons by freedom, and I do truly love thy peace; while I had an estate in thee, I was free to offer my mite into thy public treasury, Guildhall, for a preservation to thee and the whole land; but by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the war, I was beaten out both of estate and trade, and forced to accept the good will of friends crediting of me, to live a country life; and there likewise by the burden of taxes and much freequarter, my weak back found the burden heavier than I could bear. Yet in all the passages of these eight years' troubles I have been willing to lay out what my talent was, to procure England's peace inward and outward, and yet all along I have found such as in words have professed the same cause to be enemies to me. Not a full year since, being quiet at my work, my heart was filled with sweet thoughts, and many things were revealed to me which I never read in books, nor heard from the mouth of any flesh, and when I began to speak of them, some people could not bear my words, and amongst those revelations this was one: that the earth shall be made a common treasury of livelihood to whole mankind, without respect of persons; and I was made to write a little book called The new Law of righteousness [completed January 1649], and therein I declared it; yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted, and thoughts run in me that words and writings were all nothing and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou cost not act, thou cost nothing.
Source: Hill, editor (1973) The Law of Freedom, pp. 1278.