Date: 1657

"O be thou pleas'd to purge away my dross: / Calcine my soul; obliterate my sins; / And make me pure against that day begins."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1657

"Alas! alas! my flesh is too too weak, / And may be conquer'd; thou maist eas'ly break / This brittle Casket: but my inward minde / A jewel is which thou shalt never finde."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1657

"Above three thousand being hid in caves, / VVere stifled by these marble-hearted slaves."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1657

Fancy is "The forge of shapes and dreams."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1658

"And in the furnace of affliction, / Their drossie souls thou dost refine"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"Our hearts all vice, as Amphitane gold draws, / The Load-stone iron, as the Amber strawes."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"As by instinct the Loadstone draws / The iron, as the Amber straws; / So let thy grace mine heart attract, / Dear Lord!"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"O make me have respect / To all thy righteous Laws, begin / To purge out all my dross: my Tinn / Remove far from me"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"Cleanse me from soul infecting sin, / And purely purg away my dross, / O do thou take from me my Tin;"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"When God had framed man with wondrous art, / He after made his soul the nobler part; / He did his dross with sacred fire refine / And breath'd in him a soul, a soul divine."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)