GOD & MAN

British Museum
Young's Night Thoughts

Blake's relationship with God was intimate. God was brother and friend to him. God was within his breast, his brain and his hand. His Imagination was filled with God. Human nature was God's image which man should adore.

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
"I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!"

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 11, (E 38)
"Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."

Annotation to Berkley, (E 664)
"Man is All Imagination God is Man & exists in us & we in him What Jesus came to Remove was the Heathen or Platonic Philosophy which blinds the Eye of Imagination The Real Man"

Annotations to Lavater, (E 597)
"human nature is the image of God"

Everlasting Gospel, (E 520) "God wants not Man to Humble himself
This is the trick of the ancient Elf This is the Race that Jesus ran 
Humble to God Haughty to Man Cursing the Rulers before the People  
Even to the temples highest Steeple And when he Humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me  
Thou also dwellst in Eternity        Thou art a Man God is no more
Thy own humanity learn to adore For that is my Spirit of Life" 

Milton, Plate 2, (E 96)  "Come into my hand  
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms In likeness of himself. "
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