LEVELERS, a party which arose in the army of the long parliament, when it over aived that body, and sent the king to Hampton Court in 1647. They determined to level all ranks and establish an equality of titles and estates throughout the kingdom. Several of the officers belonging to this party were cashiered in 1649, and on the departure of Cromwell for Ireland, at the close of that year, they raised mutinies in various quarters, and were put down by Fairfax with bloodshed. John Li'burn, one of the chiefs of the faction—of whom it was said that, if none but he were left alive in the World, John would quarrel with Li'burn—published in 1649 his ..ilanifestations from J. Lilbnrn and others, styled Levelers. They were not only treated as traitorsby the king, but persecuted by Cromwell as dangerous to the state. One of their own works, The Leveler, or the _Principles and Maxims concerning Government and Religion of those commonly called Levelers, shows that in politics their fundamental principles included: 1. The
impartial authority of the law; 2. The legislative power of parliament; 3. Absolute equality before the law; 4. The arming of the people for securing the enforcement of the laws, and the protection of their liberties. In religion they claimed: 1. Absolute liberty of conscience; 2. Freedom for every one to act according to bis knowledge, even if this knowledge should be false; 3. Religion to be considered intwo aspects—one as the correct understanding of revelation, which is a private affair, the other as its effects manifested in actions, which are subject to the authorities; 4. They condemned all strife on matters of faith and forms of worship. This sect disappeared at the time of the restoration