Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/257

Rh The nature of hatred and envy, and of all the mischiefs in the world, is here depicted. No one envies or hates one of his own party; even the devils love one another in their own way. They torment one another for other reasons than hate or envy: these are only employed against the just. Neither can Seth envy Noah, or Elijah envy Abraham; but they may both of them envy the success of Satan, or of Og, or Moloch. The horse never envies the peacock, nor the sheep the goat; but they envy a rival in life and existence, whose ways and means exceed their own. Let him be of what class of animals he will, a dog will envy a cat who is pampered at the expense of his own comfort, as I have often seen. The Bible never tells us that devils torment one another through envy; it is through this that they torment the just. But for what do they torment one another? I answer: For the coercive laws of hell, moral hypocrisy. They torment a hypocrite when he is discovered—they punish a failure in the tormentor who has suffered the subject of his torture to escape. In Hell, all is self-righteousness; there is no such thing there as forgiveness of sin. He who does forgive sin is crucified as an abettor of criminals, and he who performs works of mercy, in any shape whatever, is punished and, if possible, destroyed—not through envy, or hatred, or malice, but through self-righteousness, that thinks it does God service, which god is Satan. They do not envy one another: they contemn or despise one another. Forgiveness of sin is only at the judgment-seat of Jesus the Saviour, where the accuser is cast out, not because he sins, but because he torments the just, and makes them do what he condemns as sin, and what he knows is opposite to their own identity.

It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.

The player is a liar when he says: 'Angels are happier than men, because they are better.' Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good