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The Bible and William Blake – 13 August 2006

Leafing through an old book of poems, I came across these familiar lines by William Blake which brought to mind 1 John 1:5 and Romans 1:20 of the Bible:

From: Auguries of Innocence
By William Blake (1757-1827)

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A horse misus’d upon the road
Calls to Heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded on the wing,
Doth make a cherub cease to sing.
…………………………………………..
A riddle or the cricket’s cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
Make lame Philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
……………………………………………..
God appears and God is Light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.

Blake’s description of God’s creatures and his lines “He who doubts from what he sees/ Will ne’er believe, do what you please.” and “…God is Light” remind me of Romans 1:20 and 1 John 1:5: That God is “clearly seen” and “understood through what has been made, so they [people] are without excuse.” and that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

Romans 1:20

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
~ New American Standard Bible

1 John 1:5

5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
~ New American Standard Bible

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