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112 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
but the peruke-maker alluded to by Mr. Wesley, namely, Mr, Richard Shear-
smith,* who lived in Coldbath Fields, Clerkenwell, and at whose house Sweden-
borg afterwards lodged and died, survived Mr. Brockmermany 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 unequiv-
ocal and honorable testimony concerning him, both with respect to the good-
ness of his heart, and the soundness of his understanding. He declared him-
self 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 disaff’ection to his writings, by persons of a bigoted
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.
" The other person, whom Mr. Wesley names as having given him the same
information as Mr. Brockmer had done, was Mr. Mathesius, a Swedish clergy-
man. Of the credit due to this Mathesius, the following extract of a letter from
Christopher Springer, Esq., a Swedish gentleman of distinction then resident in
London, and the intimate friend of Swedenborg, will enable the reader to form
a just and correct estimate. Speaking of Swedenborg’s death, he observes,t
* When the deceased found his end approaching, and expressed a wish to have
the communion administered to him, somebody present at the time proposed
sending for Mr. Mathesius, the officiating minister of the Swedish Church. This
person was known to be a ’professed enemy of Swedenborg’s, and had set his face
against his writings. It was he ’that raised and spread the false account of Swe-
denborg’s having been deprived of his senses. Swedenborg therefore declined
taking the sacrament from him, and actually received it from the hands of
another ecclesiastic of his own country, named Fernelius, who at that time was
a reader of Swedenborg’s writings, and is said to have continued to do so ever
since, at Stockholm, where he is now living (in 1786) ; and I have been assured,
that, on this occasion, Swedenborg expressly exhorted him^o continue steadfast in
the truth. Mr. Mathesius is said to have become insane himself,| a short time
after this ; and becoming thereby incapable of his function, has existed ever
since, in that melancholy state, upon the bounty of the king of Sweden.’
" What now are we to say of the report first invented by Mr. Mathesius the
Lutheran divine, afterwards propagated by Mr. Wesley the Arminian divine,
and lastly by Mr. Pike the Baptist divine, but that they each found it the easiest
and most convenient argument to be drawn against the heavenly doctrines
contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg ? When the theologians of
former days found themselves unable to withstand the new, but powerful, doc-
trines of divine truth delivered by the Saviour of the world, some said, ’ He is a
good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people’ (John vii. 12). ’He is
* See above p. 86.
t See above p. 85. We repeat the extract here for the sake of the connexion.
i See above p. 78.
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