# Jerusalem. The Emanation of the Giant Albion/To the Christians

Written and etched 1804-1820. Source: Blake: The Complete Poetry & Prose (David. V. Erdman) In the internet: www.blakearchive.org. See also: I give you the end of a golden string.
To the Christians.
| Devils are | I give you the end of a golden string, |
| False Religions | Only wind it into a ball: |
| "Saul Saul" | It will lead you in at Heavens gate, |
| "Why persecutest thou me." | Built in Jerusalems wall. |
We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we may lose no time from the Work of the Lord. Every moment lost, is a moment that cannot be redeemed every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of our station is a folly unredeemable & is planted like the seed of a wild flower among our wheat. All the tortures of repentance. are tortures of self-reproach on account of our leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy, the struggles of intanglement with incoherent roots. I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body & mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.
Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more. The Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies & Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man? O ye Religious discountenance every one among
[Begin Page 232] you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science? is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance, Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the Spirit[?]
Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think at all & not pronounce heartily! That to Labour in Knowledge. is to Build up Jerusalem: and to Despise Knowledge, is to Despise Jerusalem & her Builders.
And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another; calling it pride & selfishness & sin; mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift, which always appear to the ignorance-loving Hypocrite, as Sins. but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man, is not so in the sight of our kind God.
Let every Christian as much as in him lies engage himself openly & publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit for the Building up of Jerusalem
* I stood among my valleys of the south
* And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
* Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
* From west to cast against the current of
* Creation and devourd all things in its loud 5
* Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth
* By it the Sun was rolld into an orb:
* By it the Moon faded into a globe,
* Travelling thro the night: for from its dire
* And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up 10
* Into a little root a fathom long.
* And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One
* Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion
* I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus
* This terrible devouring sword turning every way 15
* He answerd; Jesus died because he strove
* Against the current of this Wheel: its Name
* Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death
* Of sin, of sorrow, & of punishment;
* Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion 20
* But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
* Creating Nature from this fiery Law,
* By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.
* [Begin Page 233]
* Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name
* Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease 25
* Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
* To smite with terror & with punishments
* Those that are sick, like the Pharisees
* Crucifying &,encompassing sea & land
* For proselytes to tyranny & wrath, 30
* But to the Publicans & Harlots go!
* Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
* Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace
* For Hell is opend to heaven; thine eyes beheld
* The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free. 35
* England! awake! awake! awake!
* Jerusalem thy Sister calls!
* Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death?
* And close her from thy ancient walls.
* Thy hills & valleys felt her feet, 5
* Gently upon their bosoms move:
* Thy gates beheld sweet Zions ways;
* Then was a time of joy and love.
* And now the time returns again:
* Our souls exult & Londons towers, 10
* Recieve the Lamb of God to dwell
* In Englands green & pleasant bowers.
* [The Real Self[hood] in the
* is the ?Imagination Divine ?Man ] t

## Notes

* ↑ 77: 1-4 I give you . . . wall] Four lines from Blake's Notebook (p 46 reversed)
* ↑ 77:1 give] have given 1st ms rdg del
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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