Forgiveness for Evil

Blake: 1. "Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice
Such are the Gates of Paradise"
(GP-SexesPrologue2; E259|)

2. "There is not one Moral Virtue that Jesus Inculcated
but Plato & Cicero did Inculcate before him; what then did
Christ Inculcate: Forgiveness of Sins This alone is the
Gospel & this is the Life & Immortality brought to light
by Jesus."

"Forgive us our sins." Quakers don't like to think about
sin, but you must become aware of your sins before
forgiveness can happen. Can you say you haven't sinned
today? this week? I once knew a lady who believed that
she was living above sin; I wondered! Blake said, "There
is none that liveth & Sinneth not!" closely paralleling
Psalm 53:1.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:"
Blake did not abrogate good and evil. He abrogated the
ideas of good and evil propagated by the conventional
church-- a very different thing. In MHH he identified
with the devil's party (and even gave that appelation to
John Milton), but it was the ventilation of an angry
young man furious at the hypocritic holiness of a
destructive ruling political and religious establishment.

His poetry is full of good and evil, unfortunately more
evil than good, much like Isaiah and the other 'big men';
but like they did, he interposed among the pages of
imprecations some gems of the purest, crystalline
goodness -- no! holiness itself.

People think that the Last Judgment is the greatest Evil,
or at least the great misfortune (yet to come), but Blake
said that the Last Judgment is the greatest blessing
that can come to us, as often as it happens, especially
when we forgive ourselves or someone else.

Good certainly triumphed in Blake's last hour. We're told
he was singing when he died; he obviously heard - or
anticipated - the Heavenly Choir.

Ah those golden bells! even though we never dared to
believe it.