Think backwards, move forwards

'But the further back the Golden Age is placed, the more uncertain the evidence about it becomes: the greater the possibility of disagreement. The appeal of the free Anglo-Saxons meant something very different for Levellers and Diggers from what it had meant for Sir Edward Coke; Presbyterians and Quakers drew different lessons from the primitive church. Really backward-looking theory becomes forward-looking, creatively revolutionary.'

God's Englishman. Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution -Christopher Hill, 1970.