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JOHN CLOWES. 1169
meetings at his house for inquiry, conversation, and reading on the
same subjects; and he had communication with numerous inquirers
from far and near, whose attention was awakened by the rumours
which were speedily spread abroad. As translations of the works
of Swedenborg became accessible, societies of readers of them were
formed in numerous places : and Mr. Clowes did the work of an
apostle and missionary, by visiting the towns and villages round the
district of Manchester, for the purpose of exhorting, instructing, and
encouraging these little flocks. Very many excellent original publi
cations also proceeded from his indefatigable pen. When, as fre
quently happened, the principles he had espoused were attacked,
they commonly found in Mr. Clowes a most able vindicator, and one
whose refutations were always as mild and winning in expression
as they were powerful in argument. He printed several volumes of
most impressive sermons, in which he interprets important parts of
Scripture according to the ideas resulting from the opening of their
spiritual sense, yet familiarly adapted to the apprehension of the
simplest minds ; and most of them are introduced by ample and most
valuable prefaces, explaining the principles of the interpretation, and
vindicating the source from which it is derived. He was the author,
likewise, of numerous other works, besides his controversial ones,
all devoted to the elucidation and recommendation of the same dis
coveries of Divine Truth and Goodness. At one time he occupied
himself in composing beautiful little tracts for children. At another
he prepared new translations of the four Gospels, with elucidations
of all the passages which are anywhere explained in the writings
of Swedenborg, and enriched with observations of his own. His
labours were finally broken off when he had nearly completed a work
of the same kind on the book of Psalms.
It is not to be supposed that he could pursue this open, fearless,
and undeviating course in the promotion of what he was convinced was
the genuine cause of truth and goodness, without meeting with enemies ,
and encountering much both of public and of individual opposition. His
church was always well attended, chiefly by the superior classes of
the inhabitants of Manchester : but, while the whole congregation
was edified and delighted by the pure and sublime representations
of the Christian life which he continually set before them, a great
portion never entered into, or regarded, the peculiar views of doctrine
with which they were connected ; and by some these, and he himself
as their propounder, were, during the earlier part of his ministry,
vehemently opposed. Efforts were more than once made, though in
vain, to procure his suspension or removal by the bishop of the
diocese. In Mr. Clowes’s work entitled, Pure Evangelical Religion
74
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