Bible Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers: they represent Education. On the side next the Lord's Supper, the Holy Family, consisting of Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Zacharias, and Elizabeth, receiving the bread and wine, among other spirits of the Just made perfect. Beneath these, a cloud of women and children are taken up, fleeing from the rolling cloud which separates the wicked from the seats of bliss. These represent those who, though willing, were too weak to reject error without the assistance and countenance of those already in the truth: for a man can only reject error by the advice of a friend, or by the immediate inspiration of God. It is for this reason, among many others, that I have put the Lord's Supper on the left hand of the throne, for it appears so at the Last Judgment for a protection.
The painter hopes that his friends, Anytus, Melitus, and Lycon, will perceive that they are not now in ancient Greece; and, though they can use the poison of calumny, the English public will be convinced that such a picture as this could never be painted by a madman, or by one in a state of outrageous manners; as these bad men both print and publish by all the means in their power. The painter begs public protection, and all will be well.
Men are admitted into heaven, not because they have curbed and governed their passions, or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate, uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into heaven, let him be ever so holy: holiness is not the price of entrance into heaven. Those who are cast out are all those who, having no passions of their own, because no intellect, have spent their lives in curbing and governing other people's by the various arts of poverty, and cruelty of all kinds. The modern Church crucifies Christ with the head downwards. Woe, woe, woe to you, hypocrites! Even murder, which the Courts of Justice (more merciful than the Church) are
