Date: 1680

"Art thou with pow'r come down to make us leave / Those conquer'd Souls, which by our wiles we have / Fetter'd, with a design to make them be / Companions with us in our misery"?

— Chamberlayne, Sir James (c.1640-1699)

Date: 1687

"And Monarch's can depose, or can create: / With secret Chains their Subjects Conscience binds, / And lays inchanted Fetters on their Minds."

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)

Date: 1693

"Let Thirst of Glory meaner Souls inspire, / And haunt their Dreams! these, nobler Things desire; / Nor envy such as Bodies only bind, / While they in Truth's soft Chains secure the Mind."

— Wesley, Samuel, The Elder (bap. 1662, d. 1735)

Date: 1697

"Amazing Power of Guilt! one great Offence / Benumbs the Mind, and stupifys the Sense, / Binds fast reluctant Conscience with its Charms, / And of its Sting the Worm within disarms."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1706, 1709

"We are a little Kingdom; But the Man / That chains his Rebel Will to Reasons Throne, / Forms it a large one."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706

"But oh the crowds of wretched [married] souls / Fetter'd to minds of different moulds, / And chain'd t'eternal strife!"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1723

"Thou [God] only can'st the wond'rous Links descry / That Minds unbody'd to a Body tye."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Thou know'st the downy Chains that softly bind / Our slumb'ring Sense, when waiting Objects find / No Avenue left open to the Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Can Pains and Prisons Errour's Force controul, / And the chain'd Body loose the fetter'd Soul?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1743

"He began there to be uneasy; for it shock'd him to find he was commanded to believe against his own judgment in points of Religion, Philosophy, &c. for his genius leading him freely to dispute all propositions, and call all points to account, he was impatient under those fetters of the free-born...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)