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146 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
an avowed enemy to both,* ) so hastily and unworthily
lent himself, must be received with due respect by every
candid and unprejudiced mind.
" It appears, then, that the report of Swedenborg’s
having been seized with a fever, in the height of which
he broke from Mr. Brockmer, ran into the street naked,
and proclaimed himself the Messiah, is totally false.
But even supposing it to be true, that he once had a
fever accompanied with delirium, an affliction to which
the wisest and best of men are subject, what has this to
do with the general tenour of his writings, composed
while he was in perfect health ? Is the character of a
man to be estimated by what he says or does in such a
state ? Would Mr. Wesley, or any other person, wish to
be judged in this way ?
"Mr. Brockmer died a few months after he made the
declaration above recited : but the peruke-maker alluded
to by Mr. Wesley, namely, Mr. Richard Shearsmith,†
who lived in Coldbath Fields, Clerkenwell, and at whose
house Swedenborg afterwards lodged and died, survived
Mr. Brockmer many years. Him also I well knew, and
have often had occasion to speak to him of the character,
habits, and manners of Swedenborg: and he uniformly
gave the most unequivocal and honourable testimony
concerning him, both with respect to the goodness of his
heart, and the soundness of his understanding. He
declared himself ready to attest, (upon oath, if required,)
that, from the first day of his coming to reside at his
house, to the last day of his life, he always conducted
himself in the most rational, prudent, pious, and christian
like manner and he was firmly of opinion, that every
report injurious to his character had been raised merely
from malice or disaffection to his writings, by persons of
a bigotted and contracted spirit.’ Mr. Shearsmith has
been dead now for some years. I saw him not long before
his death ; and he continued to bear the same testimony,
which he had so often repeated in my hearing during the
course of the thirty years that I had known him.
* See above pp. 136–141 . See above p. 106.
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