PART III.. of gracious "get-lions. 177 excited in the Imagination, or fome pleafant bodily Senfation. St, when Perfons have an imaginary Revelation of fome fecret Fast, 'tis by exciting external Ideas ; either of fome Words, implying a De- claration of that Faa, or Tome vifible or fenfible Circumffancts of fuch a FaC. So the fuppofed Leading of the Spirit, to do the \V,ll of God, in outward Behaviour, is either by exciting the Idea of Words ( which are outward Things) in their Minds, either the Words of Scripture, or other Words, which they look upon as an immediate Command of God ; or elfe by exciting and irnpreffing ffrongly the Ideas of the outward Anions themfelves. So when an Interpretation of a Scripture Type or Allegory, is immediately, in an extraordinary Way, f'crongly fuggeffed, it is by fuggeffing Words, ait tho' one fecretly whifper'd, and told the Meaning ; or by exciting other Ideas in the Imagination. Such Sort of Experiences and Difcoveries as thefe commonly raise the Affections of fuch as arc deluded by them, to a great Height, and make a mighty Uproar in both Soul and Body. And a very great Part of the falle Religion that has been in the World, from one Age to another, confrffs in fuch Difcoveries as thefe, and in the Affeaions that flow from them. In fuch Things confifted the Experiences o the ancient Pythagoreans among the Heathen, and many others a- mong them, who had ffrange Extafys and Raptures, and pretended to a divine Alùatus, and immediate Revelations from Heaven. In fuch Things as thefe feem to have confined the Experiences of the .:Effines, an ancient Sea among the :fetus, at, and after the Times of the Apoftles. In fuch Things as thefe confiffed the Experiences of many of the ancient Gno/licks, and the Montans, and many other Seas of ancient Hereticks, in the primitive Ages of the chriflian. Church. And in fuch Things as thefe confined the pretended im- mediate Converte, with God and Chriff, and Saints and Angels of Heaven, of the Monks, flnchorites, and Reclufes, that formerly aboun- ded in the Church of Rome. In fuch Things confined the preten- ded high Experiences, and great Spirituality of many Seas of Enthu- flails, that fwarm'd in the World after the Reformation ; fuch as the Anabaptills, Alntinonians, and Familills, the Followers of N. Stork, Th. Muncer, fo.Becold, Henry Pfeifer, DavidGeorge, Cafper Swenck- field, Henry Nicolas, fohannes Agricola Eebius ; and the many wild Enthufiaf s that were in England in the Days of Oliver Cromwell ; and the Followers of Mrs. Hutchinfon, in New- England ; as appears by the particular and large Accounts given of all thefe Seas, by that eminently holy Man, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, in his Difplay of the fpiritual ifntichrifl. And in fuch Things as thefe confrffed the Ex- periences of the late French Prophets, and their Followers. And in thefe Things feems to lie the Religion of the many Kinds of Enthu- fiaffs of the prefent Day. 'Tis by fuch Sort of Religion as this chief- ly
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