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)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"As soon as ever the Parts begin to be form'd by Nature, this Animal and active Principle begins to exert its Heat and Force, being lodged in the Heart as in the Centre of the Body, from whence, as the Vessels begin also to be form'd, it distributes it self towards the extreme Regions, communicat...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1688

"I will be deaf and blind, and guard my Heart with Walls of Ice, and make you know, that when the Flames of true Devotion are kindled in a Heart, it puts out all other Fires; which are as ineffectual, as Candles lighted in the Face of the Sun."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1688

"But Love, who had hitherto but play'd with her Heart, and given it naught but pleasing, wanton Wounds, such as afforded only soft Joys, and not Pains, resolv'd, either out of Revenge to those Numbers she had abandon'd, and who had sigh'd so long in vain; or to try what power he had upon so fickl...

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)