A Memorable Fancy Plates 12-13

(PLATES 12-13) The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them
how they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whatever they
did not think at the time that they would be so misunderstood, & so be the
cause of imposition. Isaiah answer'd: 'I saw no God, nor heard any, in a
finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every
thing, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm'd, that the voice of
honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences, but
wrote.' Then I asked: 'Does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?'
He replied: 'All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this
firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm
perswasion of any thing.' Then Ezekiel said: 'The philosophy of the east
taught the first principles of human perception: some nations held one
principle for the origin, & some another; we Israel taught that the poetic
genius (as you now call it) was the first principle and all the others merely
derivative, which was the cause of our despising the priests & philosophers
of other countries, and prophecying that all gods would at last be proved to
originate in ours & to be tributaries of the poetic genius; it was this that
our great poet king David desired so fervently & invokes so pathetic'ly,
saying this he conquers enemies & governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God,
that we cursed in his name all the deities of surrounding nations and asserted
that they had rebelled; from this opinions the vulgar came to thin that all
nations would at last be subjected to the Jews. 'This' he said 'like all firm
perswasions, is come to pass; for all nations belive the Jews' code and
worship the Jews' God, and what the greater subjection can be?' I heard this
with some wonder, & must confess my own convivtion. After dinner I ask'd
Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works; he said none of equal value
was lost. Ezekiel the same of his. I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked
and bare foot three years? He answer'd: 'The same that made our friend
Diogenes, the Grecian.' I then asked Ezekiel why he eat dung, & lay so long
on his right & left side? He answer'd 'The desire of raising other men into
perception of the infinite: this the North American tribes practise, & is he
honest who resists his genius or conscience for this sake of present ease or
gratification? (PLATE 14) The ancient tradition that the world will be
consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard
from hell. For the Cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave
his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be
consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite &
corrupt. This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment, but
first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged;
this I shall do by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in
hell are salutary and in medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and
displaying the infinite which was hid. If the doors of perception were
cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is. Infinite. For man has
closed himself up, till he sees things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.