“While many within the bounds of those [southern and western] Presbyteries have been, as is hoped, effectually called…, there have been multitudes of instances in which great bodily agitations, and other circumstances out of the usual course of religious exercise, have attended the work….”
“[The Presbytery] is hereby enjoined on all the members of this Presbytery to prevent as far as may be in their power, all extraordinary bodily exercises which appear voluntary & ostentatious…”
“There appears…reason to believe that in certain places, some instances of these bodily affections have been of such a nature, and proceeded to such lengths as greatly tended to impede the progress and to tarnish the glory of what, in its first stages, was so highly promising….”
“Bodily exercise profiteth little….”
“[Robert Pearce] Lived about 79 years; came to believers when about 40 years old, rec’d Faith through one Mikel Dodd; who told him that he was jerked about like a circus actor….”
“In the southern parts of our bounds, the extraordinary revivals of religion have considerably declined; bodily agitations are gradually disappearing….”
