“When men _feel_ in themselves the heavy burden of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, and behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell; they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, and cannot but accuse themselves, and open their grief unto Almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied, partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathsomeness (or loathing) of all worldly things and pleasure cometh in place. So that nothing then liketh them, more than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour of body to shew themselves weary of life.” Now what if your wife, or daughter, or acquaintance, after hearing one of these field-preachers, should come and tell you, that they _saw damnation_ before them, and _beheld with the eye of their mind the horror of hell_? What if they should _tremble and quake_, and be so taken up _partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation,_ as _to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour to shew themselves weary of life_; would you scruple to say, that they were _stark mad_? That these fellows had driven them _out of their senses_? And that whatever writer it was, that _talked at this rate_, he was fitter for _Bedlam_ than any other place? You have overshot yourself now to some purpose. These are the very words of our own church. You may read them, if you are so inclined, in the first part of the _homily on fasting_. And consequently, what you have peremptorily determined to be _mere lunacy and destruction_, is that _repentance unto life_, which, in the judgment both of the church and of St. _Paul_, is _never to be repented of_. 13. I grant, thirdly, that _extraordinary_ circumstances have attended this conviction in some instances. A particular account of these I have frequently given. While the word of God was preached, some persons have dropped down as dead; some have been, as it were, in strong convulsions; some roared aloud, though not with an ♦articulate voice; and others spoke the anguish of their souls. ♦ “articlute” replaced with “articulate” This, I suppose, you believe to be perfect madness. But it is easily accounted for, either on principles of reason or scripture.