Date: 1718

"And now the fair Ideas, which possest / Your Mind, by loose and vicious Thoughts opprest, / How will you wing your Way to Realms above, / And feast your Soul with Extasies of Love"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: First performed February 17, 1720.

"What were Dominion, Pomp, / The Wealth of Nations, nay of all the World, / The World it self, or what a thousand Worlds, / If weigh'd with Faith unspotted, heav'nly Truth, / Thoughts free from Guilt, the Empire of the Mind, / And all the Triumphs of a God-like Breast / Firm and unmov'd in the gr...

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1722

"An empire, which thy [Jesus'] armies did not gain, / Not purchas'd by the blood of thousands slain, / But by thy own; an empire o'er the mind / Erected, and for heavenly ends design'd."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"[E]rring conscience must as well controll /Our acts, as when it moves and guides the soul"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"He, who the revelation owns, yet brings / The sacred truths and high mysterious things / Of Christian faith, which heav'nly light reveals, / To reason's bar, to a wrong court appeals."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"For reason, reason's self being judge, by laws, / That rule her province, can't decide the cause."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"The sole business of reason in this case is to examine and judge of the evidence that is brought to prove that any proposition about the nature of God is clearly revealed by himself."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"When they followed the dictates for reason, they bore the torment of ungratify'd inordinate appetites; and when they chose to obey their passions, reflection fill'd them with terror and remorse: and in this sense, it is true, that all men are born in a state of war; that is, they felt in themsel...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"Though the world was thoroughly sensible of this calamity, yet they were ignorant of the cause that produc'd it, and did not for a long time apply themselves to find out any means of cure, and ways of methods, by which this unhappy state might be retriev'd; by restoring reason the empire of the ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"When religious passions, namely, love, desire, hope and delight are exalted in the highest degree, and agitate the soul with the greatest vehemence, while reason presides as sovereign, holds the reins, and directs all their motions; this is so far from being a wild and extravagant temper of mind...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)