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 G