Date: 1667

"So Age and Death by slow approches come, / And by that just inevitable doom / By which the Soul (her cloggy dross once gone) / Puts on Perfection, and resumes her own."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood / Praying; for from the mercy-seat above / Prevenient grace descending had removed / The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh / Regenerate grow instead."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Him there they found / Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, / Assaying by his devilish art to reach / The organs of her fancy, and with them forge / Illusions, as he list, phantasms and dreams."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1679

God "can wash off the soil [from the soul], refine the Ore, / And make it shine fairer than heretofore."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1679

One may be "from all base alloy refin'd, / "More to resemble the Eternal Mind,"

— Woodford, Samuel (1636-1700)

Date: 1679

"It is attracting Love, its nature's such, / 'Tis like the Loadstone; hadst thou once a touch, / 'Twould make thy Iron-heart with speed to move, / Nay, cleave to him in bonds of purest Love."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1679

"No Orator on Earth like him could speak, / So powerfully, and sweet enough to break / And melt a breast of Steel, or heart of Stone"

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1679

"With him [Chirst] I live, his word I hear, yet feel / No yielding to him in this heart of Steel."

— Slater, Samuel (c.1629-1704)

Date: 1679

"From Heav'n was with a Silver Cord let down, / And into the Souls mass divinely thrown, / To be its Salt, miraculously contriv'd"

— Woodford, Samuel (1636-1700)

Date: 1681

"Some livelier spark of heaven, and more refined / From earthly dross, fills the great poet's mind."

— Duke, Richard (1658-1711)