THE VISION
OF CHRIST that thou dost see
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Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
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Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
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Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
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Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
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Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
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Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
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Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
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Socrates taught what Meletus
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Loath’d as a nation’s bitterest curse,
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And Caiaphas was in his own mind
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A benefactor to mankind.
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Both read the Bible day and night,
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But thou read’st black where I read white.
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Was Jesus gentle, or did He
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Give any marks of gentility?
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When twelve years old He ran away,
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And left His parents in dismay.
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When after three days’ sorrow found,
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Loud as Sinai’s trumpet-sound:
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‘No earthly parents I confess—
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My Heavenly Father’s business!
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Ye understand not what I say,
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And, angry, force Me to obey.
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Obedience is a duty then,
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And favour gains with God and men.’
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John from the wilderness loud cried;
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Satan gloried in his pride.
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‘Come,’ said Satan, ‘come away,
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I’ll soon see if you’ll obey!
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John for disobedience bled,
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But you can turn the stones to bread.
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God’s high king and God’s high priest
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Shall plant their glories in your breast,
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If Caiaphas you will obey,
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If Herod you with bloody prey
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Feed with the sacrifice, and be
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Obedient, fall down, worship me.’
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Thunders and lightnings broke around,
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And Jesus’ voice in thunders’ sound:
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‘Thus I seize the spiritual prey.
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Ye smiters with disease, make way.
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I come your King and God to seize,
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Is God a smiter with disease?’
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The God of this world rag’d in vain:
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He bound old Satan in His chain,
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And, bursting forth, His furious ire
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Became a chariot of fire.
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Throughout the land He took His course,
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And trac’d diseases to their source.
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He curs’d the Scribe and Pharisee,
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Trampling down hypocrisy.
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Where’er His chariot took its way,
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There Gates of Death let in the Day,
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Broke down from every chain and bar;
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And Satan in His spiritual war
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Dragg’d at His chariot-wheels: loud howl’d
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The God of this world: louder roll’d
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The chariot-wheels, and louder still
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His voice was heard from Zion’s Hill,
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And in His hand the scourge shone bright;
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He scourg’d the merchant Canaanite
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From out the Temple of His Mind,
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And in his body tight does bind
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Satan and all his hellish crew;
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And thus with wrath He did subdue
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The serpent bulk of Nature’s dross,
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Till He had nail’d it to the Cross.
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He took on sin in the Virgin’s womb
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And put it off on the Cross and tomb
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To be worshipp’d by the Church of Rome.
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Was Jesus humble? or did He
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Give any proofs of humility?
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Boast of high things with humble tone,
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And give with charity a stone?
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When but a child He ran away,
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And left His parents in dismay.
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When they had wander’d three days long
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These were the words upon His tongue:
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‘No earthly parents I confess:
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I am doing My Father’s business.’
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When the rich learnèd Pharisee
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Came to consult Him secretly,
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Upon his heart with iron pen
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He wrote ‘Ye must be born again.’
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He was too proud to take a bribe;
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He spoke with authority, not like a Scribe.
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He says with most consummate art
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‘Follow Me, I am meek and lowly of heart,
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As that is the only way to escape
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The miser’s net and the glutton’s trap.’
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What can be done with such desperate fools
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Who follow after the heathen schools?
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I was standing by when Jesus died;
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What I call’d humility, they call’d pride.
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He who loves his enemies betrays his friends.
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This surely is not what Jesus intends;
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But the sneaking pride of heroic schools,
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And the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ virtuous rules;
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For He acts with honest, triumphant pride,
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And this is the cause that Jesus dies.
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He did not die with Christian ease,
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Asking pardon of His enemies:
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If He had, Caiaphas would forgive;
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Sneaking submission can always live.
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He had only to say that God was the Devil,
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And the Devil was God, like a Christian civil;
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Mild Christian regrets to the Devil confess
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For affronting him thrice in the wilderness;
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He had soon been bloody Caesar’s elf,
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And at last he would have been Caesar himself,
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Like Dr. Priestly and Bacon and Newton—
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Poor spiritual knowledge is not worth a button
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For thus the Gospel Sir Isaac confutes:
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‘God can only be known by His attributes;
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And as for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost,
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Or of Christ and His Father, it’s all a boast
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And pride, and vanity of the imagination,
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That disdains to follow this world’s fashion.’
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To teach doubt and experiment
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Certainly was not what Christ meant.
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What was He doing all that time,
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From twelve years old to manly prime?
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Was He then idle, or the less
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About His Father’s business?
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Or was His wisdom held in scorn
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Before His wrath began to burn
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In miracles throughout the land,
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That quite unnerv’d the Seraph band?
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If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
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He’d have done anything to please us;
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Gone sneaking into synagogues,
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And not us’d the Elders and Priests like dogs;
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But humble as a lamb or ass
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Obey’d Himself to Caiaphas.
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God wants not man to humble himself:
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That is the trick of the Ancient Elf.
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This is the race that Jesus ran:
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Humble to God, haughty to man,
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Cursing the Rulers before the people
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Even to the Temple’s highest steeple,
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And when He humbled Himself to God
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Then descended the cruel rod.
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‘If Thou Humblest Thyself, Thou humblest Me.
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Thou also dwell’st in Eternity.
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Thou art a Man: God is no more:
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Thy own Humanity learn to adore,
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For that is My spirit of life.
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Awake, arise to spiritual strife,
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And Thy revenge abroad display
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In terrors at the last Judgement Day.
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God’s mercy and long suffering
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Is but the sinner to judgement to bring.
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Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray—
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And take revenge at the Last Day.’
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Jesus replied, and thunders hurl’d:
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‘I never will pray for the world.
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Once I did so when I pray’d in the Garden;
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I wish’d to take with Me a bodily pardon.’
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Can that which was of woman born,
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In the absence of the morn,
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When the Soul fell into sleep,
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And Archangels round it weep,
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Shooting out against the light
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Fibres of a deadly night,
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Reasoning upon its own dark fiction,
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In doubt which is self-contradiction?
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Humility is only doubt,
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And does the sun and moon blot out,
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Rooting over with thorns and stems
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The buried soul and all its gems.
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This life’s five windows of the soul
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Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
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And leads you to believe a lie
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When you see with, not thro’, the eye
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That was born in a night, to perish in a night,
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When the soul slept in the beams of light.
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Did Jesus teach doubt? or did He
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Give any lessons of philosophy,
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Charge Visionaries with deceiving,
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Or call men wise for not believing?…
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Was Jesus born of a Virgin pure
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With narrow soul and looks demure?
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If He intended to take on sin
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The Mother should an harlot been,
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Just such a one as Magdalen,
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With seven devils in her pen.
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Or were Jew virgins still more curs’d,
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And more sucking devils nurs’d?
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Or what was it which He took on
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That He might bring salvation?
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A body subject to be tempted,
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From neither pain nor grief exempted;
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Or such a body as might not feel
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The passions that with sinners deal?
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Yes, but they say He never fell.
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Ask Caiaphas; for he can tell.—
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‘He mock’d the Sabbath, and He mock’d
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The Sabbath’s God, and He unlock’d
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The evil spirits from their shrines,
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And turn’d fishermen to divines;
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O’erturn’d the tent of secret sins,
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And its golden cords and pins,
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In the bloody shrine of war
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Pour’d around from star to star,—
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Halls of justice, hating vice,
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Where the Devil combs his lice.
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He turn’d the devils into swine
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That He might tempt the Jews to dine;
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Since which, a pig has got a look
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That for a Jew may be mistook.
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“Obey your parents.”—What says He?
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“Woman, what have I to do with thee?
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No earthly parents I confess:
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I am doing my Father’s business.”
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He scorn’d Earth’s parents, scorn’d Earth’s God,
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And mock’d the one and the other’s rod;
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His seventy Disciples sent
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Against Religion and Government—
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They by the sword of Justice fell,
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And Him their cruel murderer tell.
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He left His father’s trade to roam,
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A wand’ring vagrant without home;
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And thus He others’ labour stole,
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That He might live above control.
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The publicans and harlots He
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Selected for His company,
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And from the adulteress turn’d away
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God’s righteous law, that lost its prey.’
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Was Jesus chaste? or did He
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Give any lessons of chastity?
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The Morning blushèd fiery red:
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Mary was found in adulterous bed;
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Earth groan’d beneath, and Heaven above
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Trembled at discovery of Love.
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Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair.
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They brought the trembling woman there.
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Moses commands she be ston’d to death.
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What was the sound of Jesus’ breath?
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He laid His hand on Moses’ law;
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The ancient Heavens, in silent awe,
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Writ with curses from pole to pole,
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All away began to roll.
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The Earth trembling and naked lay
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In secret bed of mortal clay;
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On Sinai felt the Hand Divine
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Pulling back the bloody shrine;
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And she heard the breath of God,
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As she heard by Eden’s flood:
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‘Good and Evil are no more!
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Sinai’s trumpets cease to roar!
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Cease, finger of God, to write!
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The Heavens are not clean in Thy sight.
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Thou art good, and Thou alone;
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Nor may the sinner cast one stone.
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To be good only, is to be
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A God or else a Pharisee.
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Thou Angel of the Presence Divine,
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That didst create this Body of Mine,
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Wherefore hast thou writ these laws
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And created Hell’s dark jaws?
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My Presence I will take from thee:
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A cold leper thou shalt be.
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Tho’ thou wast so pure and bright
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That Heaven was impure in thy sight,
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Tho’ thy oath turn’d Heaven pale,
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Tho’ thy covenant built Hell’s jail,
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Tho’ thou didst all to chaos roll
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With the Serpent for its soul,
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Still the breath Divine does move,
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And the breath Divine is Love.
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Mary, fear not! Let me see
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The seven devils that torment thee.
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Hide not from My sight thy sin,
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That forgiveness thou may’st win.
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Has no man condemnèd thee?’
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‘No man, Lord.’ ‘Then what is he
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Who shall accuse thee? Come ye forth,
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Fallen fiends of heavenly birth,
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That have forgot your ancient love,
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And driven away my trembling Dove.
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You shall bow before her feet;
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You shall lick the dust for meat;
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And tho’ you cannot love, but hate,
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Shall be beggars at Love’s gate.
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What was thy love? Let Me see it;
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Was it love or dark deceit?’
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‘Love too long from me has fled;
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’Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread;
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’Twas covet, or ’twas custom, or
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Some trifle not worth caring for;
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That they may call a shame and sin
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Love’s temple that God dwelleth in,
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And hide in secret hidden shrine
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The naked Human Form Divine,
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And render that a lawless thing
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On which the Soul expands its wing.
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But this, O Lord, this was my sin,
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When first I let these devils in,
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In dark pretence to chastity
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Blaspheming Love, blaspheming Thee,
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Thence rose secret adulteries,
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And thence did covet also rise.
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My sin Thou hast forgiven me;
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Canst Thou forgive my blasphemy?
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Canst Thou return to this dark hell,
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And in my burning bosom dwell?
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And canst Thou die that I may live?
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And canst Thou pity and forgive?’
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Then roll’d the shadowy Man away
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From the limbs of Jesus, to make them His prey,
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An ever devouring appetite,
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Glittering with festering venoms bright;
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Crying ‘Crucify this cause of distress,
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Who don’t keep the secrets of holiness!
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The mental powers by diseases we bind;
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But He heals the deaf, the dumb, and the blind.
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Whom God has afflicted for secret ends,
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He comforts and heals and calls them friends.’
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But, when Jesus was crucified,
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Then was perfected His galling pride.
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In three nights He devour’d His prey,
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And still He devours the body of clay;
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For dust and clay is the Serpent’s meat,
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Which never was made for Man to eat.
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Seeing this False Christ, in fury and passion
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I made my voice heard all over the nation.
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What are those…
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I am sure this Jesus will not do,
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Either for Englishman or Jew.
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