The Everlasting Gospel

The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision-s greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
Socrates taught what Meletus
Loath-d as a nation-s bitterest curse,
And Caiaphas was in his own mind
A benefactor to mankind.
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read-st black where I read white.

Was Jesus gentle, or did He
Give any marks of gentility?
When twelve years old He ran away,
And left His parents in dismay.
When after three days- sorrow found,
Loud as Sinai-s trumpet-sound:
-No earthly parents I confess-
My Heavenly Father-s business!
Ye understand not what I say,
And, angry, force Me to obey.
Obedience is a duty then,
And favour gains with God and men.-
John from the wilderness loud cried;
Satan gloried in his pride.
-Come,- said Satan, -come away,
I-ll soon see if you-ll obey!
John for disobedience bled,
But you can turn the stones to bread.
God-s high king and God-s high priest
Shall plant their glories in your breast,
If Caiaphas you will obey,
If Herod you with bloody prey
Feed with the sacrifice, and be
Obedient, fall down, worship me.-
Thunders and lightnings broke around,
And Jesus- voice in thunders- sound:
-Thus I seize the spiritual prey.
Ye smiters with disease, make way.
I come your King and God to seize,
Is God a smiter with disease?-
The God of this world rag-d in vain:
He bound old Satan in His chain,
And, bursting forth, His furious ire
Became a chariot of fire.
Throughout the land He took His course,
And trac-d diseases to their source.
He curs-d the Scribe and Pharisee,
Trampling down hypocrisy.
Where-er His chariot took its way,
There Gates of Death let in the Day,
Broke down from every chain and bar;
And Satan in His spiritual war
Dragg-d at His chariot-wheels: loud howl-d
The God of this world: louder roll-d
The chariot-wheels, and louder still
His voice was heard from Zion-s Hill,
And in His hand the scourge shone bright;
He scourg-d the merchant Canaanite
From out the Temple of His Mind,
And in his body tight does bind
Satan and all his hellish crew;
And thus with wrath He did subdue
The serpent bulk of Nature-s dross,
Till He had nail-d it to the Cross.
He took on sin in the Virgin-s womb
And put it off on the Cross and tomb
To be worshipp-d by the Church of Rome.

Was Jesus humble? or did He
Give any proofs of humility?
Boast of high things with humble tone,
And give with charity a stone?
When but a child He ran away,
And left His parents in dismay.
When they had wander-d three days long
These were the words upon His tongue:
-No earthly parents I confess:
I am doing My Father-s business.-
When the rich learnèd Pharisee
Came to consult Him secretly,
Upon his heart with iron pen
He wrote -Ye must be born again.-
He was too proud to take a bribe;
He spoke with authority, not like a Scribe.
He says with most consummate art
-Follow Me, I am meek and lowly of heart,
As that is the only way to escape
The miser-s net and the glutton-s trap.-
What can be done with such desperate fools
Who follow after the heathen schools?
I was standing by when Jesus died;
What I call-d humility, they call-d pride.
He who loves his enemies betrays his friends.
This surely is not what Jesus intends;
But the sneaking pride of heroic schools,
And the Scribes- and Pharisees- virtuous rules;
For He acts with honest, triumphant pride,
And this is the cause that Jesus dies.
He did not die with Christian ease,
Asking pardon of His enemies:
If He had, Caiaphas would forgive;
Sneaking submission can always live.
He had only to say that God was the Devil,
And the Devil was God, like a Christian civil;
Mild Christian regrets to the Devil confess
For affronting him thrice in the wilderness;
He had soon been bloody Caesar-s elf,
And at last he would have been Caesar himself,
Like Dr. Priestly and Bacon and Newton-
Poor spiritual knowledge is not worth a button
For thus the Gospel Sir Isaac confutes:
-God can only be known by His attributes;
And as for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost,
Or of Christ and His Father, it-s all a boast
And pride, and vanity of the imagination,
That disdains to follow this world-s fashion.-
To teach doubt and experiment
Certainly was not what Christ meant.
What was He doing all that time,
From twelve years old to manly prime?
Was He then idle, or the less
About His Father-s business?
Or was His wisdom held in scorn
Before His wrath began to burn
In miracles throughout the land,
That quite unnerv-d the Seraph band?
If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He-d have done anything to please us;
Gone sneaking into synagogues,
And not us-d the Elders and Priests like dogs;
But humble as a lamb or ass
Obey-d Himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not man to humble himself:
That is the trick of the Ancient Elf.
This is the race that Jesus ran:
Humble to God, haughty to man,
Cursing the Rulers before the people
Even to the Temple-s highest steeple,
And when He humbled Himself to God
Then descended the cruel rod.
-If Thou Humblest Thyself, Thou humblest Me.
Thou also dwell-st in Eternity.
Thou art a Man: God is no more:
Thy own Humanity learn to adore,
For that is My spirit of life.
Awake, arise to spiritual strife,
And Thy revenge abroad display
In terrors at the last Judgement Day.
God-s mercy and long suffering
Is but the sinner to judgement to bring.
Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray-
And take revenge at the Last Day.-
Jesus replied, and thunders hurl-d:
-I never will pray for the world.
Once I did so when I pray-d in the Garden;
I wish-d to take with Me a bodily pardon.-
Can that which was of woman born,
In the absence of the morn,
When the Soul fell into sleep,
And Archangels round it weep,
Shooting out against the light
Fibres of a deadly night,
Reasoning upon its own dark fiction,
In doubt which is self-contradiction?
Humility is only doubt,
And does the sun and moon blot out,
Rooting over with thorns and stems
The buried soul and all its gems.
This life-s five windows of the soul
Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not thro-, the eye
That was born in a night, to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in the beams of light.

Did Jesus teach doubt? or did He
Give any lessons of philosophy,
Charge Visionaries with deceiving,
Or call men wise for not believing?...

Was Jesus born of a Virgin pure
With narrow soul and looks demure?
If He intended to take on sin
The Mother should an harlot been,
Just such a one as Magdalen,
With seven devils in her pen.
Or were Jew virgins still more curs-d,
And more sucking devils nurs-d?
Or what was it which He took on
That He might bring salvation?
A body subject to be tempted,
From neither pain nor grief exempted;
Or such a body as might not feel
The passions that with sinners deal?
Yes, but they say He never fell.
Ask Caiaphas; for he can tell.-
-He mock-d the Sabbath

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