Date: 1762, 1868

"Hasten, Lord, the day of rest / From this indwelling sin, / Vindicate Thy church oppress'd, / And still enslaved within; / Burst our bonds, and let us go / From every thought of evil freed, / Pure in heart, and saints below, / And like our sinless Head."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: w. 1764, published 1820

"Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined, / Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: September, 1766

"Deliver me, gracious Lord from the bondage of doubt and from all evil customs, and take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but enable me so to spend my remaining days, that by performing thy will I may promote thy glory, and grant that after the troubles and disappointments of this mortal state I may ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779-1780, 1781

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 1783

"Death broke at once the vital chain, / And free'd his soul the nearest way."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1785

"In fetters confined Our body complains, / Oppress'd is our mind , With heavier chains."

— Wesley, Charles (1707-1788)

Date: February 3, 1788

"The spirit of the Gospel 'proclaims liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound:' but these men rivet the chains of slavery; 'the iron enters into the Negro's soul,' while while his mind is left in all the darkness of ignorance, without one ray of those comforts ...

— Agutter, William (1758-835)