During which stage of the writing process do you explore a topic and organize ideas

During the prewriting stage, writers explore a topic and plan the structure and content of the eventual piece of writing. They may also identify the audience and define the purpose of the essay, and begin to gather ideas about the topic.

Explanation:

edwards uses the phrase "o who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! " in order to illustrate that this type of suffering is unimaginable. the word "express" denoted that the state of a suffering soul is required to be described by any person, but it would not happen because no one can imagine how this suffering is felt.  

-show what might happen if the reader disobeys edwards is not correct because this is described trhough the text, not by the phrase used.

-describe what endless suffering looks and feels like is not correct because this description might be the porpuse of the excerpt provided, not the porpuse of using the phrase during the writting.

-prove that few people have survived limitless suffering is not correct because it is implied that the soul of a person is already suffering and doesn't have any way to escape.