an himself, Rutherford,
Brainerd, M'Cheyne, and many others crowd in upon the mind. I shall but
instance John Flavel and Mrs. Jonathan Edwards, and so close. John
Flavel being once on a journey set himself to improve the time by
meditation, when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such
ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such a full assurance of his
interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world
and all its concerns, so that for hours he knew not where he was. At
last, perceiving himself to be faint, he sat down at a spring, where he
refreshed himself, earnestly desiring, if it were the will of God, that
he might there leave the world. His spirit reviving, he finished his
journey in the same delightful frame, and all that night the joy of the
Lord still overflowed him so that he seemed an inhabitant of the other
world. The only other case of love-sickness I shall touch on to-night I
take from under the pen of a sin-sick and love-sick author, who has been
truthfully described as "one of the first, if not the very first, of the
masters of human reason," and, again, as "one of the greatest of the sons
of men." "There is a young lady in New-haven," says Edwards, "who is so
loved of that Great Being who made and rules the world, that there are
certain seasons in which this Great Being in some way or other invisible
comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, so that she
hardly cares for anything but to meditate upon Him. She looks soon to
dwell wholly with Him, and to be ravished with His love and delight for
ever. Therefore, if you present all this world before her, with the
richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is
unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her
mind, and a singular piety in her affections; is most just and
conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do
anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her the whole world. She
loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have
some one invisible always communing with her." And so on, all through
her seraphic history. "Now, if such things are too enthusiastic," says
the author of _A Careful and a Strict Enquiry into the Freedom of the
Will_, "if such things are the offspring of a distempered brain, let my
brain be possessed evermore of that blessed distemper! If this be
distraction, I pray God that th