Was Jesus Humber? 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 learned 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 & lowly of heart,'
As that is the only way to escape
The Miser’s net & 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’ & Pharisees’ Virtuous Rules.
For he acts with honest, triumphant Pride;
And this is the cause that Jesus died.
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 & Bacon & 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 ass to the Indwelling of the Holy ghost
Or of Christ & his Father, it’s all a boast
And Pride & Vanity of the imagination,
That disdains to follow this World’s Fashion.’
To teach Doubt & Experiment
Certainly as 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
Abut 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 Caiaphas’ hand?
If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He’d have done any thing to please us;
Gone sneaking into Synagogues,
And not us’d the Elders & Priests like dogs,
But Humble as a Lamb or Ass
Obey’d himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not Man to Humble himself:
This is the trick of the ancient Elf.
This is the Race that Jesus ran:
Jumble 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 Judgment day.
God’s Mercy & Long Suffering
Is but the Sinner to Judgment to bring.
Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray,
And take Revenge at the Last Day.’
Jesus replied, & 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 & Moon blot out,
Rooting over with thorns & stems
The ruied Sould & all its gems.
This Life’s dim 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.
