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, and He mock’d
The Sabbath’s God, and He unlock’d
The evil spirits from their shrines
And turn’d fishermen to divines
O’erturn’d the tent of secret sins
And its golden cords and pins
In the bloody shrine of war
Pour’d around from star to star
Halls of justice, hating vice
Where the Devil combs his lice
He turn’d the devils into swine
That He might tempt the Jews to dine
Since which, a pig has got a look
That for a Jew may be mistook
“Obey your parents.”—What says He?
“Woman, what have I to do with thee?
No earthly parents I confess
I am doing my Father’s business.”
He scorn’d Earth’s parents, scorn’d Earth’s God
And mock’d the one and the other’s rod
His seventy Disciples sent
Against Religion and Government
They by the sword of Justice fell
And Him their cruel murderer tell
He left His father’s trade to roam
A wand’ring vagrant without home
And thus He others’ labour stole
That He might live above control
The publicans and harlots He
Selected for His company
And from the adulteress turn’d away
God’s righteous law, that lost its prey.’
Was Jesus chaste? or did He
Give any lessons of chastity?
The Morning blushèd fiery red
Mary was found in adulterous bed
Earth groan’d beneath, and Heaven above
Trembled at discovery of Love
Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair
They brought the trembling woman there
Moses commands she be ston’d to death
What was the sound of Jesus’ breath?
He laid His hand on Moses’ law
The ancient Heavens, in silent awe
Writ with curses from pole to pole
All away began to roll
The Earth trembling and naked lay
In secret bed of mortal clay
On Sinai felt the Hand Divine
Pulling back the bloody shrine
And she heard the breath of God
As she heard by Eden’s flood
‘Good and Evil are no more!
Sinai’s trumpets cease to roar!
Cease, finger of God, to write!
The Heavens are not clean in Thy sight
Thou art good, and Thou alone
Nor may the sinner cast one stone
To be good only, is to be
A God or else a Pharisee
Thou Angel of the Presence Divine
That didst create this Body of Mine
Wherefore hast thou writ these laws
And created Hell’s dark jaws?
My Presence I will take from thee
A cold leper thou shalt be
Tho’ thou wast so pure and bright
That Heaven was impure in thy sight
Tho’ thy oath turn’d Heaven pale
Tho’ thy covenant built Hell’s jail
Tho’ thou didst all to chaos roll
With the Serpent for its soul
Still the breath Divine does move
And the breath Divine is Love
Mary, fear not! Let me see
The seven devils that torment thee
Hide not from My sight thy sin
That forgiveness thou may’st win
Has no man condemnèd thee?’
‘No man, Lord.’ ‘Then what is he
Who shall accuse thee? Come ye forth
Fallen fiends of heavenly birth
That have forgot your ancient love
And driven away my trembling Dove
You shall bow before her feet
You shall lick the dust for meat
And tho’ you cannot love, but hate
Shall be beggars at Love’s gate
What was thy love? Let Me see it
Was it love or dark deceit?’
‘Love too long from me has fled
’Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread
’Twas covet, or ’twas custom, or
Some trifle not worth caring for
That they may call a shame and sin
Love’s temple that God dwelleth in
And hide in secret hidden shrine
The naked Human Form Divine
And render that a lawless thing
On which the Soul expands its wing
But this, O Lord, this was my sin
When first I let these devils in
In dark pretence to chastity
Blaspheming Love, blaspheming Thee
Thence rose secret adulteries
And thence did covet also rise
My sin Thou hast forgiven me
Canst Thou forgive my blasphemy?
Canst Thou return to this dark hell
And in my burning bosom dwell?
And canst Thou die that I may live?
And canst Thou pity and forgive?’
Then roll’d the shadowy Man away
From the limbs of Jesus, to make them His prey
An ever devouring appetite
Glittering with festering venoms bright
Crying ‘Crucify this cause of distress
Who don’t keep the secrets of holiness!
The mental powers by diseases we bind
But He heals the deaf, the dumb, and the blind
Whom God has afflicted for secret ends
He comforts and heals and calls them friends.’
But, when Jesus was crucified
Then was perfected His galling pride
In three nights He devour’d His prey
And still He devours the body of clay
For dust and clay is the Serpent’s meat
Which never was made for Man to eat

Seeing this False Christ, in fury and passion
I made my voice heard all over the nation
What are those…

I am sure this Jesus will not do
Either for Englishman or Jew