Wesley Corpus

Who told him that these “obscure Preachers ” made “preten sions to divine illumination ?” How often has that silly calumny been refuted to the satisfaction of all candid men? However, they “found means to lay the whole kingdom under April, 1779.] JOURNAL. 149 contribution.” So does this frontless man, blind and bold, stumble on without the least shadow of truth ! Meantime, what faith can be given to his history? What credit can any man of reason give to any fact upon his authority ? In travelling this week I looked over Baron Swedenborg’s “Account of Heaven and Hell.” He was a man of piety, of a strong understanding, and most lively imagination; but he had a violent fever when he was five-and-fifty years old, which quite overturned his understanding. Nor did he ever recover it; but it continued “majestic, though in ruins.” From that time he was exactly in the state of that gentleman at Argos, Qui se credebat miros audire tragaedos, In vacuo lastus sessor plausorque theatro. Who wondrous tragedies was wont to hear, Sitting alone in the empty theatre. His words, therefore, from that time were agri somnia, the dreams of a disordered imagination; just as authentic as Quevedo’s “Visions of Hell.” Of this work in particular I must observe, that the doctrine contained therein is not only quite unproved, quite precarious from beginning to end, as depending entirely on the assertion of a single brain-sick man; but that, in many instances, it is contradictory to Scripture, to reason, and to itself. But, over and above this, it contains many sentiments that are essentially and dangerously wrong. Such is that concerning the Trinity; for he roundly affirms God to be only one person, who was crucified: So that he revives and openly asserts the long-exploded heresy of the Sabellians and Patripassians ; yea, and that of the Anthropo morphites; affirming that God constantly appears in heaven in the form of a man. And the worst is, he flatly affirms, “None can go to heaven, who believes three persons in the Godhead: ” Which is more than the most violent Arian or Socinian ever affirmed before.