Date: 1641

"But if the entire soul is something of this kind, why should you, who may be thought of as the noblest part of the soul, not be regarded as being, so to speak, the flower, or the most refined and pure and active part of it?"

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1652

"And truly he might as well phansie such implanted Ideas, such seeds of light in his external eye, as such seminal principles in the eye of the minde."

— Culverwell, Nathanael (bap. 1619, d. 1651)

Date: 1665

"And, as the Exercise, I would perswade, will help to keep us from Idleness, so will it, to preserve us from harbouring evil Thoughts, which there is no such way to keep out of the Soul, as to keep her taken up with good ones; as Husbandmen, to rid a piece of rank Land of Weeds, do often find it ...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed / Sown with contrition in his heart, than those / Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees / Paradise could have produced."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So from the root / Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves / More aerie, last the bright consummate floure / Spirits odorous breathes: flours and thir fruit / Mans nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd / To vital Spirits aspire, to animal, / To intellectual, give both life and s...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1675, 1746

"The Ground needs no other midwifery in bringing forth Weeds, than only the neglect of the Husbandman's Hand to pluck them up; the Air needs no other Cause of Darkness, than the Absence of Sun; nor water of Coldness, than its Distance from the Fire, because these are the genuine Products of ...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"The brain that sows not corn plants thistles."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"Corn is cleansed with the wind, and the soul with chastning."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1678

"I believe that what both you, and all the rest of you say about that matter, is but the fruit of distracted braines."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1682

"There are sown the Seeds of Divine Things in Mortal Bodies. If the Mind be well Cultivated, the Fruit answers the Original; and, if not, all runs into Weeds."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)