Wesley Corpus

Sat. 12.--I concluded my second course of visiting, in which I inquired particularly into two things: 1. The case of those who had almost every night the last week cried out aloud, during the preaching. 2. The number of those who were separated from us, and the reason and occasion of it. As to the former I found, 1. That all of them (I think, not one excepted) were persons in perfect health; and had not been subject to fits of any kind, til] they were thus affected. 2. That this had come upon every one of them in a moment, without any previous notice, while they were either hearing the word of God, or thinking on what they had heard. 3. That in that moment they dropped down, lost all their strength, and were seized with violent pain. This they expressed in different manners. Some said, they felt just as if a sword was running through them; others, that they thought a great weight lay upon them, as if it would squeeze them into the earth. Some said, they were quite choked, so that they could not breathe ; that their hearts swelled ready to burst: others, that it was as if their heart, as if their inside, as if their whole body, was tearing all to pieces. These symptoms I can no more impute to any natural cause, than to the Spirit of God. J can make no doubt, but it was Satan tearing them, as they were coming to Christ. And hence proceeded those grievous cries, whereby he might design both to discredit the work of God, and to affright fearful people from hearing that word, whereby their souls might be saved.