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606 [Doc. 270.
REFUTATION OF FALSE REPORTS.
was Mr. Mathesius, a Swedish clergyman. Of the credit due
to this Mathesius, the following extract from a letter by
Christopher Springer, Esq., a Swedish gentleman of distinction
then resident in London, and the intimate friend of Baron
Swedenborg, will enable the reader to form a just and correct
estimate. Speaking of Swedenborg’s death, he observes, ’When
the deceased found his end approaching, and expressed a wish
to have the communion administered to him, somebody present
at the time proposed sending for Mr. Mathesius, the officiating
minister of the Swedish Church. This person was known to
be a professed enemy of Baron Swedenborg, and had set his
face against his writings. It was he that raised and spread
the false account of Swedenborg’s having been deprived of
his senses. Swedenborg therefore declined taking the sacrament
from him, and actually received it from the hands of another
ecclesiastic of his own country, named Ferelius, who at that
time was a reader of Baron Swedenborg’s writings, and is
said to have continued to do so ever since, at Stockholm,
where he is now living (in 1786) ; and I have been assured,
that, on this occasion, Swedenborg expressly exhorted him to
continue steadfast in the truth. Mr. Mathesius is said to have
become insane himself, a short time after this ; and becoming
thereby incapable of his function, has existed ever since, in
that melancholy state, upon the bounty of the King of Sweden.’
4. "What now are we to say of the report first invented
by Mr. Mathesius the Lutheran divine, afterwards propagated
by Mr. Wesley the Arminian divine, and lastly by Mr. Pike
the Baptist divine, but that they each found it the easiest
and most convenient argument to be drawn against the heavenly
doctrines contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg ?
When the theologians of former days found themselves unable
to withstand the new, but powerful, doctrines of Divine Truth
delivered by the Saviour of the world, some said, ’He is a
good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people
’ (John
vii, 12). ’He is beside himself’ (Mark iii, 21). ’And many of
them said, He hath a devil, and is mad ; why hear ye him ?
But others said, these are not the words of him that hath a
devil : can a devil open the eyes of the blind ? ’ (John x, 20,
21). Now we know the truth of our Lord’s words, when He
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