Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/59

 Rh work. In reading it one must remember that Jehovah, in the persons of the Elohim, and by the agency of the Angel of the Divine Presence, created this dark world as an act of mercy and of cruelty. It is of mercy because it enables the weak emotions to look through symbols upon prophecy, and also because it passes away, being under Time. It is of cruelty because it cuts off joys of mind and adds on pains of mind — of that lower and shrunken part called body. It is also Satanic, because it is the region where the Accuser triumphs by means of the law which is "the strength of sin," as the lesson in the Anglican burial service reminds us. Satan is the Accuser. Accusation is the great mental sin. Other sin is merely physical, and belongs to the things of Time that pass. Accusation is not the only mental sin. Denial is equally deadly. Satan is not only the moral accuser but the denier of Imaginative truth, for he would have Reason and Memory only considered to be intellectual attributes. With these he builds the dark fiction of error — a belief in that delusive Goddess Nature, who is the mother of physical morality, and of mental immorality. She is Mary, the pure, and Rahab the Harlot. She is Rahab because she binds the red cord of blood in the eyes, the windows of the soul. She is Mary, because it is of that cord the red robe of flesh is made that was put on by Christ at the incarnation. Thus Mary is the greater Rahab. Rahab's harlotry is typical of mental mixture of convictions. It may be found in the physically pure. She is therefore called the Harlot-Virgin.

The Image of God in which man was made is the form of the Imagination. This is common to all men and will end by becoming One Form. It will unite all. It will survive all. It will redeem all, saving them from violation or experience and the slavery of belief in nature, in accusation, and in the mental permanence of sin. In a word it saves them from Satan, God of this world. Reason and memory tend also to unite men's personalities into one great Temporary Delusion. This is the great Satan, opposite of the great Saviour. It is negative,