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Doc. 270.J 585
WESLEY ON SWEDENBORG.
easy to account for. Whether any thing preternatural was
added in the case of the Baron, I do not undertake to
determine.*
4. "The accounts of those ’admirable tragedies’ which he
has published, take up many quarto volumes. I have read
little more of them than what we have in English, except his
inimitable piece (De nuptiis cœlestibus,) of marriages in heaven.
To the reading of this I acknowledge I was invited by the
newness of the subject. And I cannot doubt, but the same
circumstance (though they were not sensible of it) contributed
much to the pleasure which those pious men, Mr. Cl[over?],t
Mr. Ha[rtley], and Mr. Cl[owe]s,218 have received from his
writings. The same pleasure they naturally desired to impart
to their countrymen by translating, publishing, recommending,
and propagating them with their might. They doubtless found
an additional pleasure from the huge admiration wherewith
many received them. And I should not wonder if some of
these should be adopted into the Society of Angels, just as
the Baron himself was : nay, I cannot but apprehend, that they
have already attained to a degree of the same illumination .‡
5. "Desiring to be thoroughly master of the subject, I
procured the translation of the first volume of his last and
largest theological work, entitled ’True Christian Religion.’
* Mr. Beatson in his reply to Mr. Wesley (see " Magazine of Knowledge,"
Vol. II, p. 97) says, "You say, you find but one instance parallel to Sweden
borg’s in all history, viz. the gentleman at Argos. Sure you forgot St. John,
Ezekiel, and many other patriarchs, and apostles : for I will undertake to
find as unintelligible and incomprehensible matter in their writings, as any
Mr. Wesley can in the relations and spiritual communications of Sweden
borg; but with this difference, that he has brought a key along with him,
not only for the opening of his own visions, but likewise of the patriarchs,
prophets, and apostles."
See Document 266, no. 7, p. 555.
On this paragraph of Mr. Wesley’s article Mr. Beatson expresses
himself thus (Ibid., p. 97), “Your fourth subject seems to be calculated
only to convey the ridicule you think you have raised against Swedenborg,
to those friends of mankind, who have taken the trouble of translating his
works. Now I think their judgments were too mature to be imposed upon,
merely by the novelty of the subject ; as you doubt not but they were,
though you at the same time very charitably suppose they were not
conscious of it themselves."
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