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586 [Doc. 270.
REFUTATION OF FALSE REPORTS.
(The original the Baron himself presented me with, a little
before he died.*) I took an extract thereof from the beginning
to the end, that I might be able to form a more accurate
judgment. And one may trace through the whole, remains
of a fine genius, ’Majestic, though in ruins ! From the whole
I remark, that what Mr. Law oddly imputes to Sir Isaac
Newton, is truly imputable to the Baron. He ’ ploughed with
Jacob Behmen’s heifer,’ and that both in Philosophy and
Divinity. But he far exceeded his master: his dreams are
more extraordinary than those of Jacob himself," & c.
In an earlier part of his " Arminian Magazine," January,
1781 , he had previously published the following account by
Mathesius, to which he evidently refers in no. 2 of the above
article.
B.
MATHESIUS118 ACCOUNT OF SWEDENBORG.§
Mr. Wesley introduces this account with the following
words: "The following authentic account of a very great man
* Compare this statement with what Wesley says in no. 1 of his account.
Swedenborg never read Jacob Boehme ; see Note 41.
Mr. Beatson continues (Ibid., p. 204), "Your fifth paragraph begins
very curiously. To become thoroughly master of Swedenborg’s com
prehensive and voluminous works, you procure the first volume of his last
and you say ’his largest work,’ which is contrary to the truth ; the last it
was, but his largest theological work is the ’Arcana Coelestia,’ in which his
system of correspondences of natural with spiritual things is most wonder
fully demonstrated. This is the key before alluded to, which explains not
only his own memorable relations, &c., but likewise the whole Word. But
however, to become thoroughly master of the subject, you make extracts
from beginning to end- of what? —of the first volume of his last work.
Admirably well prepared you must be, to pass so peremptory and decided
a judgment upon his truly systematic writings .... So might, in all prob
ability would, a person of good capacity pronounce upon astronomy, or
any other of the sciences, supposing only the results were proposed to
him, independent of the mode of acquirement .... Probably, on his first
cursory view of many of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, he would, like you,
have pronounced him mad, and exclaimed, "Though this man is evidently
mad, yet one may trace through the whole, remains of a fine genius,
Majestic, though in ruins! "
§ Mr. White in his "Life of Swedenborg," instead of publishing the
account furnished by Mathesius to Mr. Wesley in 1781, prints what purports
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