Date: 1661

"GRACE though she could have with one single dart / The stubborn Will pierc'd th'row her Steely heart."

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

Date: 1679

"With him [Chirst] I live, his word I hear, yet feel / No yielding to him in this heart of Steel."

— Slater, Samuel (c.1629-1704)

Date: 1685

"Look, as iron put into the fire becomes all fiery, so the soul dwelling in the God of dove, becomes all love, all delight, all joy."

— Flavell, John (bap. 1630, d. 1691)

Date: 1761, 1790

"Such then is God, a spirit pure refin'd / From all material dross, and such the human mind."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"She [Nature] employs it [spiritual substance] as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"And does any thing steel the breast of judges and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflections on necessity and public interest?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1778

"Education, and good company are necesary to polish the mind----but can any education, or any company, convey a fine understanding, where it has not been given by nature?"

— Caulfield (fl. 1778)

Date: 1781

"But the difference is much greater between the ideas of sense, the materials upon which the mind first begins its work, and the truths produced by its operations, than between the rough marble, and the statue formed by the skill of PHIDIAS."

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)

Date: 1781

"Let matter then be allowed to furnish the first materials; the enlightened mind, which by its operations upon these discovers truth, and pursues it through all its distant connections, must have powers as far superiour to that which gave the first impression, as PHIDIAS is superiour to the marble."

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)