What tho' first, In years unseason'd, I attun'd the lay To idle Passion and unreal Woe? Yet serious Truth her empire o'er my song Hath now asserted; Falsehood's evil brood, Vice and deceitful Pleasure, she at once Excluded, and my Fancy's careless toil Drew to the better cause! An 'Argument' followed on a separate page:-- Introduction. Person of Christ. His prayer on the Cross. The process of his Doctrines on the mind of the Individual. Character of the Elect. Superstition. Digression to the present War. Origin and Uses of Government and Property. The present State of Society. The French Revolution. Millenium. Universal Redemption. Conclusion. [110:1] Τὸ Νοητὸν διῃρήκασιν εἰς πολλῶν Θεῶν ἰδιότητας. DAMAS. DE MYST. AEGYPT. _Footnote_ to line 34, _1797_, _1803_, _1828_, _1829_. [This note, which should be attached to l. 33, is a comment on the original line 'Split and mishap'd' &c., of 1796. The quotation as translated reads thus:--'Men have split up the Intelligible One into the peculiar attributes of Gods many'.] [110:2] See this _demonstrated_ by Hartley, vol. 1, p. 114, and vol. 2, p. 329. See it likewise proved, and freed from the charge of Mysticism, by Pistorius in his Notes and Additions to part second of Hartley on Man, Addition the 18th, the 653rd page of the third volume of Hartley, Octavo Edition. _Note_ to line 44, _1797_. [David Hartley's _Observations on Man_ were published in 1749. His son republished them in 1791, with Notes, &c., from the German of H. A. Pistorius, Pastor and Provost of the Synod at Poseritz in the Island of Rügen.] [112:1] And I heard a great voice out of the Temple saying to the seven Angels, pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. Revelation, xvi. 1. _Note_ to line 91, _Notes_, 1796, p. 90. [112:2] Our evil Passions, under the influence of Religion, become innocent, and may be made to animate our virtue--in the same manner as the thick mist melted by the Sun, increases the light which it had before excluded. In the preceding paragraph, agreeably to this truth, we had allegorically narrated the transfiguration of Fear into holy Awe. _Footnote_ to line 91, _1797_: to line 101, _1803_. [114:1] If to make aught but the Supreme Reality the object of final pursuit, be Superstition; if the attributing of sublime properties to things or persons, which those things or persons neither do or can possess, be Superstition; then Avarice and Ambition are Superstitions: and he who wishes to estimate the evils of Superstition, should transport himself, not to the temple of the Mexican Deities, but to the plains of Flanders, or the coast of Africa.--Such is the sentiment convey'd in this and the subsequent lines. _Footnote_ to line 135, _1797_: to line 143, _1803_.