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584 [Doc. 270.
REFUTATION OF FALSE REPORTS.
A.
JOHN WESLEY238 ON EMANUEL SWEDENBORG IN 1783.
In the "Arminian Magazine" for 1783 (Vol. VI, p. 437 et seq.)
John Wesley writes in a lengthy article entitled, "Thoughts on
the Writings of Baron Swedenborg," as follows :
In paragraph 1 he first gives some extracts from Sweden
borg’s "Autobiography" (Document 2), and then concludes :
"This account is dated, London, 1769 ; I believe Swedenborg
lived nine or ten years longer."
99*
In paragraph 2 he continues : "Many years ago the Baron
came over to England, and lodged at one Mr. Brockmer’s:
who informed me (and the same information was given me by
Mr. Mathesius,118 a very serious Swedish clergyman, both of
whom were alive when I left London, and, I suppose, are so
still,) that while he was in his house he had a violent fever;
in the height of which, being totally delirious, he broke from
Mr. Brockmer, ran into the street stark naked, proclaimed
himself the Messiah, and rolled himself in the mire. I suppose
he dates from this time his admission into the Society of
Angels. From this time we are undoubtedly to date that
peculiar species of insanity which attended him, with scarce
any intermission, to the day of his death.
3. "In all History I find but one instance of an insanity
parallel to this : I mean that related by the Roman poet, of
the gentleman at Argos, in other respects a sensible man,
Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos
In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro.
Who imagined himself to hear admirable tragedies, and
undoubtedly saw as well as heard the actors, while he was
sitting alone, and clapping them in the empty theatre. This
seems to have been a purely natural disorder, although not
* Compare therewith Wesley’s testimony concerning Swedenborg in
1771 and 1773; from which it appears that he was then very well acquainted
with the real time when Swedenborg died. See Document 268.
The whole of this paragraph, so far as it rests on the testimony of
Brockmer, is declared by that gentleman to be "entirely false ;" see Docu
ment 270, p. 601.
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