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REFUTATION OF MR. WESLEY’S FALSE REPORTS. 149
*
6
fever and consequent delirium in any authentic source of
information : and the Chevalier de Sandel, we have seen
above, not only declares, that Swedenborg, being en
dowed with a strength of faculties truly extraordinary, in
the decline of his age, soared to the greatest heights to
which the intellectual faculty can rise,’-for this might be
the case notwithstanding his having had a fever and
delirium ; but he asserts, further, that he enjoyed such
excellent health, that he scarcely ever experienced the
slightest indisposition.’ Could this general assertion have
been made, if so terrible an exception to it had ever hap
pened ? In short, what with the inherent inconsistencies
in the story itself, and the virtual refutation of it by
Sandel, there is enough to evince its utter falsehood,
could no direct contradiction of it be given. But such
direct contradiction of it, taken from the lips of Mr.
Brockmer, does exist, testified by the Rev. R. Hindmarsh,
who was still living to confirm it. Thus the whole
origin of the story was evidently no more than this :
Swedenborg mentioned freely to Brockmer the com
mencement of his spiritual intercourse : Brockmer talked
of it : and from the idle reports which thus got abroad,
Mathesius, nearly forty years afterwards, fabricated the
tale with which he imposed on Mr. Wesley. This fact is
alone sufficient to fix the brand of imposture on the whole
story. The charge against Swedenborg of mental de
rangement, is built upon circumstances alleged to have
occurred forty years before the charge was brought
forward, and which had never been heard of in the
whole of the intermediate period ! What more palpable
mark of fabrication could exist ?
"But iffrom the story of the fever and delirium, (con
tinues Mr. Noble, ) assumed as true, any should continue
to argue that Swedenborg remained insane ever after ; with
much more plausibility might it be argued, that a man
* Page 2. + Page 23.
When the first edition of the " Appeal, &c." was published.
See above p. 144.
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