FRENCH PROPHETS
Forty years later, about the end of the seventeenth century, another sect of convulsionists, being driven out of France, “found an asylum in Protestant countries [and] carried with them the disease, both of mind and body, which their long sufferings had produced.” They spread into Germany and Holland, and in 1706 reached England, where they became known as “French prophets.” Their meetings were characterized by such extravagance of convulsion and trance performance that they became the wonder of the ignorant and the scandal of the more intelligent classes, notwithstanding which the infection spread far and wide. We are told that they “were wrought upon in a very extraordinary manner, not only in their minds, but also in their physical systems. They had visions and trances and were subject to violent agitations of body. Men and women, and even little children, were so exercised that spectators were struck with great wonder and astonishment. Their powerful admonitions and prophetic warnings were heard and received with reverence and awe.”
At one time Charles Wesley had occasion to stop for the night with a gentleman who belonged to the sect. Wesley was unaware of the fact until, as they were about to go to bed, his new friend suddenly fell into a violent fit and began to gobble like a turkey. Wesley was frightened and began exorcising him, so that he soon recovered from the fit, when they went to bed, although the evangelist confesses that he himself did not sleep very soundly with Satan so near him.
Some time afterward Wesley with several companions visited a prophetess of the sect, as he says, to try whether the spirits came from God. She was a young woman of agreeable speech and manner. “Presently she leaned back in her chair and had strong workings in her breast and uttered deep sighs. Her head and her hands and by turns every part of her body were affected with convulsive motions. This continued about ten minutes. Then she began to speak with a clear, strong voice, but so interrupted with the workings, sighings, and contortions of her body that she seldom brought forth half a sentence together. What she said was chiefly in spiritual words, and all as in the person of God, as if it were the language of immediate inspiration.” ([Southey’s] Wesley, I, and [Evans’] Shakers.)