Definition of "vehemency"

Preachers know that the emotion which surpriseth them whilst they are in their earnest speech doth animate them towards belief, and that being angrie we more violently give our selves to defend our proposition, emprint it in our selves, and embrace the same with more vehemencie and approbation than we did being in our temperate and reposed sense.

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter XII, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]

The truth of my Third Accuſation is confeſt, but the guilt, not acknovvledged; ſince that vvhich excites men to endleſs bavvlings, and altercations; Schiſms, Hereſies and Rebellions, by the vehemencies of Diſpute, is it ſeems vvith our Author no more noxious and criminal, then the Sun that ſtirrs men up to their vvork in the morning, by the importunity of it's beams.

1665, Joseph Glanvill, “Scire/i tuum nihil est: Or, The Authors Defence of the Vanity of Dogmatizing; against the Exceptions of the Learned Tho. Albius [i.e., Thomas White] in His Late Sciri”, in Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], page 74