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570 [Doc. 268.
TESTIMONY OF CONTEMPORARIES.
constant assertion, that miraculous evidence is inefficacious for
producing any real or permanent change in a man’s confirmed
religious sentiments. When Mr. Wesley uttered the strong
declaration respecting Swedenborg and his writings, he spoke
of the latter, rather from what he expected to find them, than
from what he actually knew them to be. The probability is,
that he at this time knew little more of them than he had
learned from the tract ’ On the Intercourse:
" which contains
probably nothing that he would except against ; especially as
it is certain, as will be seen presently, that even the treatise
On Heaven and Hell, which gives the main results of Sweden
borg’s spiritual experience, was not condemned by him. But
when he came to find that Swedenborg’s writings militated
against some of the sentiments that he had strongly confirmed
in his own mind; these, which were his interior convictions,
gradually threw off the exterior conviction arising from merely
outward though miraculous evidence : hence he afterwards
accepted the false report of Mathesius,118 [See Document 270, A]
and promoted its circulation. Indeed, there can be no doubt
that, then, such a statement as that of Mathesius would operate
as a relief to him ; for though he could not receive the whole
of Swedenborg’s doctrines, the positive proof he possessed of
the author’s supernatural knowledge must often have disturbed
him in his rejection of them: he must therefore have been
glad to meet with anything which could make him, in regard
to that rejection, better satisfied with himself. Finally, perhaps,
other causes assisted to strengthen his opposition. When first
he published the slanderous report (in 1781), he still seems
to have had some misgivings ; hence he prefaced it with the
acknowledgment, that Swedenborg was ’ a very great man,’ and
that in his writings ’there are many excellent things: when he
afterwards seemed less inclined to admit so much, although,
no doubt, he still spoke sincerely, a little human frailty,
perhaps, influenced his judgment. It is well known that
Mr. Wesley was always prompt in taking measures to put
down any thing like rebellion among his disciples, -any thing
that tended to the diminution of his authority over their minds.
Now it is a certain fact, that Mr. Smith was not the only one
of his pupils who began to think the doctrines ofthe New Church
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