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REV. JOHN CLOWES. 1167
pay a tribute of respect to the memory of Clowes, and also from
a sermon which he preached in memory of him at the New Jerusalem
Church in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, on June 19, 1831 :
Mr. Clowes was a native of Manchester, where he was born in
the year 1743, being a son of Joseph Clowes, Esq., who for many
years practised as a barrister in that town and neighbourhood. He
had an excellent education, and went at an early age to the univer
sity of Cambridge ; where, while yet very young, he highly distinguished
himself in his academic pursuits, took the degree of M. A., and was
elected Fellow of Trinity College. When he was twenty-six years
of age, in 1769, the rectorship of St. John’s in Manchester was
offered to him, and as he had just passed through a severe and
protracted illness, which brought him to what he considered a
happy state of humiliation, to use his own words, "he accepted this
office with cheerfulness, as a boon of Providence, intended for the
improvement and security of his eternal good ;" and he continued
the contented incumbent of this small living for the very unusual
period of sixty-two years, refusing more than one subsequent offer of
high preferment in the church.
Four years after his acceptance of the rectorship the writings of
Swedenborg fell into his hands under the following interesting circum
stances : He formerly had an intimate friend, the late Richard
Houghton, Esq., of Liverpool (see pp. 568 and 569), who was also
the intimate friend of the celebrated John Wesley. Mr. Clowes
being on a visit to this gentleman was asked by him whether he
had seen Swedenborg’s Latin work then recently published, entitled
Vera Christiana Religio (The True Christian Religion) ; and on
Mr. Clowes replying in the negative, he exacted a promise from him
that he would procure it. On returning home, Mr. Clowes did
procure it accordingly: but when he had got it, being much engaged,
he felt no desire to peruse it ; and it lay many months upon the
table in his library without his looking into it. When he was one
day about to set out to spend some time at the house of a friend
who lived at some distance in the country, in passing out of his
study to mount his horse, he threw open the book which had so
long lain untouched upon the table; when his eye caught the words
Divinum Humanum (Divine Humanity). He merely thought it an
odd sort of phrase- read no further, closed the book,-and rode
off to his friend’s. He awoke next morning with a most brilliant
appearance before his eyes, surpassing the light of the sun: and in
the midst of the glory were the words Divinum Humanum. He did
not then recollect having ever seen those words before: he thought
the whole an illusion,-rubbed his eyes, got up, and made every
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