Fox and Blake

First posted Oct 2009.

George Fox of course lived in the 17th century; Blake in the late 18th and early 19th century. But what did they have in common?

Anyone familiar with the Pendle Hill pamphlets should look at No 177: Woolman and Blake

Jerusalem, Plate 52, (E 201) 

"Those who Martyr others or who cause War are Deists, but never
can be Forgivers of Sin.  The Glory of Christianity is, To
Conquer by Forgiveness.  All the Destruction therefore, in
Christian Europe has arisen from Deism, which is Natural
Religion. 

 I saw a Monk of Charlemaine 
Arise before my sight 
  I talkd with the Grey Monk as we stood
In beams of infernal light

  Gibbon arose with a lash of steel         
And Voltaire with a wracking wheel
  The Schools in clouds of learning rolld 
Arose with War in iron & gold.

  Thou lazy Monk they sound afar          
In vain condemning glorious War           
  And in your Cell you shall ever dwell    
Rise War & bind him in his Cell.

  The blood. red ran from the Grey Monks side
His hands & feet were wounded wide
  His body bent, his arms & knees          
Like to the roots of ancient trees

  When Satan first the black bow bent
And the Moral Law from the Gospel rent
  He forgd the Law into a Sword
And spilld the blood of mercys Lord.
     
  Titus! Constantine!  Charlemaine!       
O Voltaire! Rousseau! Gibbon! Vain
  Your Grecian Mocks & Roman Sword      
Against this image of his Lord!

  For a Tear is an Intellectual thing;           
And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King
  And the bitter groan of a Martyrs woe     
Is an Arrow from the Almighties Bow!"

Titus! Constantine! Charlemagne Luther: what did all these men have in common? Blake cited them as names of churches (heavens), but what else did they have in common? They were all involved in war!

Many Christians consider Constantine a great hero because he legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Less well known is the fact that he ordained (and required) uniformity of belief among Christians. Thereafter it was the non-orthodox who were illegal, a long line of them going all the way down to Quakers and beyond. What they all had in common was insisting on a direct relationship with God, not through a priest. Blake was one of them!

Why Luther? well he supported the Protestant Princes' war against the Pope (it was called the Thirty Years War). On occasion he incited people to violence.

Blake virtually equated the state church with war; he wrote:

Songs of Experience, Songs 46, (E 26)

London

"How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

Every black'ning Church appalls;

And the hapless Soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls".

People don't allow themselves to be oppressed en mass without resisting, to be ruled by foreigners. Oh no! In the New Age Blake looked forward to the end of war:

"Empire is no more! and now the
lion and wolf shall cease."

British Museum 

Watercolor Illustration for

Young's Night Thoughts 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 25, (E 44)

"A Song of Liberty 

... 
Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease.                         
                          Chorus

Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy.
Nor his accepted brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the roof.
Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that wishes but acts not!
For every thing that lives is Holy"