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, 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