Date: 1660

"Things that the least of drossy mixture hold, / Last longest; my Hearts flames Ætherial be, / More pure than seven times refined Gold / Than Cedar's flames: rays of a Deitie / They are."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1661

"What difference is there 'twixt a man and beast, / (None sure at all, or little to be guest) / If't wan't for Reason, and an immortal spark, / Which hides it self within his hollow Ark?"

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1674

"And as for the Bipartition of this Sensitive Soul into two principle members as it were, or active sourses; vix. the Fiery part, upon which Life depends; and the Lucid, from whence all the faculties Animal are, like so many distinct rayes of light, derived."

— Charleton, Walter (1620-1707)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"It's a lightening before death ... This is generally observed of sick persons, that a little before they die their pains leave them, and their understanding and memory return to them; as a candle just before it goes out gives a great blaze."

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

Date: 1678

"I writing of the Way / And Race of Saints, in this our Gospel-Day, / Fell suddenly into an Allegory / About their Journey, and the way to Glory, / In more than twenty things, which I set down; / This done, I twenty more had in my Crown, / And they again began to multiply, / Like sparks that from...

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1678

"The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of Grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts Water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1678

"Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his House, he would sell me for a Slave."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1679

"The Soul's God's Candle, a light of acceptation"

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1681

"In Pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of Disgrace. / A fiery Soul, which working out its way, / Fretted the Pigmy-Body to decay; / And o'r inform'd the Tenement of Clay."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1682

"Judge then what my Heart Feels, who, like a fire but lightly cover'd o're with the cold Ashes of Despair, with the least blast, breaks out into a flame."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)