To the Christians.
Devils are False Religions
“Saul Saul” “Why persecutest thou me.”
I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heavens gate,
Built in Jerusalems wall.
We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we may lose no time
from the Work of the Lord. Every moment lost, is a moment that cannot
be redeemed every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of our
station is a folly unredeemable & is planted like the seed of a wild flower
among our wheat. All the tortures of repentance. are tortures of self-reproach
on account of our leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy,
the struggles of intanglement with incoherent roots. I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body &
mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination Imagination the real
& eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow
& in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when
these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more. The Apostles knew of no
other Gospel. What were all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine
Spirit? is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain?
What is the Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent
which it is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts of the Gospel, are they not all
Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & in
Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man? O ye
Religious discountenance every one among you who shall pretend to despise
Art & Science! I call upon you in the Name of Jesus! What is the
Life of Man but Art & Science? is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body
more than Raiment? What is Mortality but the things relating to the
Body, which Dies? What is Immortality but the things relating to the
Spirit, which Lives Eternally! What is the Joy of Heaven but Improvement
in the things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance,
Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the Spirit[?]
Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend
to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of
the Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think
at all & not pronounce heartily! That to Labour in Knowledge. is to
Build up Jerusalem: and to Despise Knowledge, is to Despise Jerusalem
& her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental
Gift in another; calling it pride & selfishness & sin; mocks Jesus the
giver of every Mental Gift, which always appear to the ignorance-loving
Hypocrite, as Sins. but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man, is
not so in the sight of our kind God.
Let every Christian as much as in him lies engage himself openly &
publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit for the Building
up of Jerusalem
I stood among my valleys of the south
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation and devourd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth
By it the Sun was rolld into an orb:
By it the Moon faded into a globe,
Travelling thro the night: for from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One
Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion
I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus
This terrible devouring sword turning every way
He answerd; Jesus died because he strove
Against the current of this Wheel: its Name
Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death
Of sin, of sorrow, & of punishment;
Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion
But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
Creating Nature from this fiery Law,
By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.
Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name
Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease
Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
To smite with terror & with punishments
Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees
Crucifying & encompassing sea & land
For proselytes to tyranny & wrath.
But to the Publicans & Harlots go!
Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace
For Hell is opend to Heaven; thine eyes beheld
The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free.
England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy Sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death?
And close her from thy ancient walls.
Thy hills & valleys felt her feet,
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zions ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult & Londons towers,
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In Englands green & pleasant bowers.
PLATE 78
