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Doc. 268.] 569
JOHN WESLEY’S TESTIMONY.
was strong indeed ; so much so, that were it not certain that
his mind must have been at that time under a very powerful
influence in Swedenborg’s favour, he might be suspected to have
spoken ironically. This I observed in my letter to Mr. Clowes;
to which he replies, ’I can hardly conceive, from the manner
in which it was expressed by Mr. Houghton, that irony had
any thing to do with it: and Mr. Houghton must have known
with certainty whether it had or not. His repeating Mr. Wesley’s
observation to Mr. Clowes, as an inducement to him to peruse the
writings of Swedenborg, is a complete proof that Mr. Houghton
believed it to mean what it expresses. But an examination of
dates will shew, that Mr. Wesley’s statement to that gentleman
was made while the impression from Swedenborg’s supernatural
communication was acting in all its force. Mr. Clowes’ interview
with Mr. Houghton was in the spring of 1773. Mr. Wesley
does not appear to have been at Liverpool between that time
and the 10th of the preceding October, when he returned from
his last great circuit. In that circuit he did visit Liverpool,
and was there early in April, 1772. This, then, must be the
"late visit" mentioned by Mr. Houghton ; and this was within
six weeks after he had received the extraordinary communication
from Swedenborg. This is certain : and it is also highly pro
bable, that, at the time of his visiting Liverpool, the effect of
that communication was greatly strengthened, by the verification
ofthe announcement, which, we have seen, Swedenborg had made
to him, of the day of his own death. He died, as he had
announced, on the 29th of March: there can be little doubt
that a notice of it appeared in the papers ; it would thence,
it is highly probable, be known to Mr. Wesley when he was
at Liverpool, about a fortnight afterwards: and the words he
then uttered to Mr. Houghton will not appear stronger than
he might be expected to use, when two such recent and com
pletely incontrovertible proofs of the truth of Swedenborg’s
claims were operating on his mind.
"Yet Mr. Wesley, thus miraculously convinced of the truth
of Swedenborg’s claims, (as far, at least, as relates to his
intercourse with the spiritual world,) afterwards exerted himself
to check the extension of the same conviction to others! in
which, however, he only afforded a proof of Swedenborg’s
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