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REFUTATION OF MR. WESLEY’S FALSE REPORTS. 113
beside himself (Mark iii. 21). •
And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is
mad; why hear ye him ? But others said, these are not the words of him that
hath a devil : can a devil open the eyes of the blind ?’ (John x. 20, 21.) Now we
know the truth of our Lord’s words, when He saith, • The disciple is not above
his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple to be as his
master, and the servant as his lord : if they have .called the master of the house
Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household’ (Matt. x. 24,
25). And again, ’
The servant is 7iot greater than his lord. If they have perse-
cuted me, they will also persecute you’’ (John xv. 20). In all ages of the church,
divine truth has been persecuted in the persons of those who have been its most
strenuous asserters and advocates ; and in general according to the degree in
which they have manifested their sincerity, integrity, and faithfulness in the dis-
charge of their duty, in the same degree have they been subjected to the derision
and scorn of the world. It was not therefore to be expected, that Swedenborg,
the distinguished and devoted servant of his Lord, would escape the malevolent
and bitter attacks of his enemies, who either through ignorance of the doctrines
he taught, or through envy at their success, are disposed to treat the disciple in
the same ungenerous manner as their predecessors of old had treated his Divine
Master. But as Michael the archangel, in disputing with the devil about the
body of Moses (the historical sense of the Word), durst not bring against him a
railing accusation, so it is the duty of those who are engaged in the defence of
a good cause, to imitate so illustrious an example, and to leave all judgment to
him who cannot err."
" There is no trace of any allusion, (says the Rev. S. Noble, in his ’
Appeal ^c,"
p. 244,) to this tale of the fever and consequent delirium in any authentic source
of information : and the Chevalier de Sandel, we have seen above,* not only de-
clares, that Swedenborg, ’being endowed with a strength of faculties truly ex-
traordinary, 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 indisposi-
tion.’ Could this general assertion have been made, if so terrible an exception
to it had ever happened ? 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, testi-
fied by the Rev. R. Hind marsh, who was still living to confirm it.:}: Thus the
whole origin of the story was evidently no more than this : Swedenborg men-
tioned freely to Brockmer the commencement of his spiritual intercourse : Brock-
mer 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 derangement, is built upon
* Page 23. t Page 36.
^ When the first edition of the *’
Appeal, 8rc" was published. See above p. 110.
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