rule in controversy, we are to take no authorities at second hand.”— p. 45.

Now, sir, you are doubtless ready with me to subscribe to all the above excellent rules in controversy; but what shall we say, or what shall we think, if Mr. Wesley himself, ten years after he laid down these rules, and loudly remonstrated against the breaking of them by Mr. Hill, coolly and without the least personal provocation, broke through them all, and wantonly and repeatedly transgressed them? Well might St. Paul say, "Happy is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth !"

I shall now proceed, sir, to lay before you proofs, the condemning proofs, of this serious charge, which I have advanced against the Rev. Mr. Wesley.

And 1st. Previous to Mr. Wesley's attack upon the Baron, did he read all the theological works of the man whose religious system he was about to refute? Let us hear what Mr. Wesley himself has said upon this subject in the 5th No. or paragraph of his "Thoughts on the Writings of Baron Swedenborg."

"Desiring to be thoroughly master of the subject, I procured the translation of the FIRST Volume of his LAST and LARGEST Theological work, entitled "TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION" (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."

What! form an accurate judgment of the contents of a system, which fills about thirty other volumes, equally large with the one he alludes to, by merely looking into that one? "Impossible in the nature of things," as Mr. Wesley rightly observed in his printed remarks in his answer to Mr. Hill.

This accurate gentleman egregiously erred likewise, in assuring his readers that the work entitled "TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION," was the largest of all the Baron's Theological works, when the truth is that his work entitled "ARCANA CELESTIA" (written long before) is at least six times as large as the former! On this article, therefore, may we not add, with great propriety, and in the language of Mr. Wesley himself in his printed remarks before alluded to, "So then, any man of understanding may judge, before he opens Mr. Wesley's book, what manner of Thoughts' it is likely to contain."

2d. Has not Mr. Wesley transgressed his own stated rules in controversy, also, by never referring his numerous and implicit readers, in any one single instance, to the No. or page of the Baron's works from whence he made his extracts? And could he expect any answer to his remarks on Swedenborg's doctrine, when he only reflected for a moment on his own stated rule in controversy, to wit: "He that names no page (in controversy) has no right to an answer." The truth is, that Mr. Wesley wished no such answer to be made to his attack upon the Baron, any more than he wished his readers to consult the originals from whence these mutilated, disjointed, and studiously obscure extracts are said to be taken, lest thereby his own want of justice and liberality might be disclosed, and the pure light

of genuine truth, from the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem, break in upon their souls.

When Mr. Wesley tells his readers that the Baron was insane, and that he "rolled himself in the mire," &c.; does he add that he himself saw this? Far from it; on the contrary (regardless of another of his stated rules in controversy) he runs to mere second hand authority," though ten years before he could "beg leave to put Mr. Hill in mind that we are to take no authorities at second hand."

66

And who were these second hand authorities that Mr. Wesley brings forward to substantiate this charge of madness against the Baron? Why, a Mr. Brockmer, at whose house the Baron lodged, and a "very serious Swedish clergyman, a Mr. Mathesius." Now it is a fact, that this very Mr. Brockmer publicly testified that he never opened his mouth to Mr. Wesley on the subject (See Mag. of Knowledge for the New Church, Vol. II. p. 92). And also that this Rev. Mr. Mathesius (like some other Rev. gentlemen,) was, with all his "seriousness," a violent and bitter enemy to the Swedenborgian Theology and actually became insane himself a little after he propagated this report of the Baron, and was dismissed from his congregation in London, and sent back to Sweden to live upon the bounty of his country.

One thing seems, however, very singular, with respect to the Baron, that all the time he was insane and "rolling himself in the mire," he took care to keep his pen clean!-clean from ever contradicting himself, or calumniating any of his fellow-Christians. This is more than some of his most popular opponents have done; for let us hear what Mr. Wesley himself confesses, in the pamphlet already alluded to (p. 11), in reply to Mr. Hill. "You charge me likewise, and that more than once or twice, with maintaining contradictions: I answer, if all my sentiments were compared together from the year 1725 to 1768, there would be truth in the charge, for during the latter part of this period I have relinquished several of my former sentiments."

And again, in the 33d page of this same memorable little pamphlet (which indeed is all of Mr. Wesley's writings now in my possession), Mr. Wesley himself, being run hard by Mr. Hill, on a certain point of doctrine, is fairly compelled to own that after he had assumed the dignity of a commentator on the Holy Scriptures, and had actually published notes on the New Testament, he had no just ideas respecting the nature of indwelling sin in the regenerate children of God!

In the first edition of Wesley's Notes on the New Testament (2 Epis. to the Cor. v. ch. 4th verse), we have it as follows: Text-" For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened."

Wesley's notes.-"That is, with numberless infirmities, temptations and sins."

But in his reply to Mr. Hill, above alluded to, in order to steer clear of Calvinism, and keep his neck out of the noose that Mr. Hill had prepared for him, he hesitates not to contradict himself, and deny the truth of his former comment. Hear his own words on this occa

sion; "This is wrong; it is not the meaning of the text; I will put it out if I live to print another edition !!!"

Meantime, however, his former and confessedly erroneous edition remained in the hands of thousands of his innocent followers, many of whom, doubtless, were to indigent to purchase a new edition of Wesley's notes on the New Testament as often as their hasty author was compelled to reject the old.

But it is only fair play to admit Mr. Wesley's own defence of himself on this occasion, which may be found in the 11th page of his aforesaid reply to Mr. Hill, in the following words:

"The plain case is this. I have written on various heads, and always as clearly as I could, yet many have misunderstood my words, and raised abundance of objections. I answered them by explaining myself, showing what I did not mean, and what I did. One and another of the objectors stretched his throat, and cried out evasion! evasion! And what does all this outery amount to? Why, exactly thus much they imagined they had tied me so fast that it was impossible for me to escape; but presently the cobwebs were swept away, and I was quite at liberty."

Bravo! But then may it not be asked, in the name of sympathy and Christian charity, why could not Mr. Wesley reflect that it might be possible for him also to misunderstand the Baron's words and meaning, at a time too when it was no longer in the power of the latter to explain himself, and show what he did not mean, and what he did? And why was this celebrated preacher of Christian faith and practice so willing, and so hasty in reverberating with the malicious and unhappy Mathesius, Madman! Madman!

One more observation may be proper here, in order to show still more strikingly the shameful and shocking disregard for justice, truth or charity, which the Rev. Mr. Wesley has evinced in his unprovoked attack on Baron Swedenborg. This observation, it is true, did not escape the notice of Mr. Beatson, and it is as follows:

"In Wesley's Thoughts on the Writings of Baron Swedenborg,' No. 8, he inserts the following words, as an extract from the Baron's work entitled 'True Christian Religion;'- There is no faith in an invisible God!" "

Now, sir, what will the admirers of Mr. Wesley's honesty and candor think, or say, when they are assured that in all the Baron's voluminous works there is no such expression! "O! tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the uncircumcised be glad." Or, in other words, lest the evil affections of the enemies of revealed religion be gratified in perceiving the little regard Mr. Wesley has paid to his own excellent and stated rules of religious controversy, any more than to the rules of justice, faith and Christian charity in his unprovoked attack on Baron Swedenborg.

Indeed the manner of his commencing this attack, by introducing a disjointed paragraph or two from a letter written by the Baron to his Rev. and learned friend Mr. Hartley, and on the earnest request of the latter, is truly singular and peculiar to himself. Destitute of

any order or introduction, modesty or mercy, he denounces the truly systematic and learned founder of the New Jerusalem Church as a madman, before he had finished his third paragraph; and this too merely because Swedenborg had announced that the Lord had "opened to him a sight of the spiritual world !"

But if this high and gracious privilege constitutes a madman, then how plainly will it follow that most of the holy prophets and apostles of old were madmen also? Except Mr. Wesley can prove that the arm of the Lord is shortened since their days, and that however loudly the state of his Church may require such gracious vouchsafements, to arrest infidelity and banish superstition, yet he hath "forgotten to be gracious," or is now too angry to confer any more such ancient favors on his Church.

It is not my design, sir, in this letter, to make any reply of a doctrinal nature to the various objections which Mr. Wesley has made to the Theology of the Lord's New Church; but chiefly to offer a few remarks on the manner, the unfair and ungenerous manner, which he has taken to answer the end he had in view. It may be appropriate however, with this plan, to make one more remark with respect to the concluding words of Mr. Wesley's primary thoughts on Baron Swedenborg; where, after retailing a paragraph of the Baron's letter to the Rev. and learned Thomas Hartley, written, let it be remembered (for Mr. Wesley has not seen proper to insert that part of the letter) at the earnest request of Mr. Hartley, Mr. Wesley thus concludes, "This is dated London 1769, I think he (the Baron) lived nine or ten years longer."

Now had Mr. Wesley condescended to make any inquiry into this matter, previous to favoring the world with his "Thoughts on the Writings of Baron Swedenborg," or looked into that admirable eulogium delivered on the occasion of the death of Swedenborg, in the hall of the house of nobles, in the name of the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, the 7th of October, 1772, by Monsieur Sandel, knight of the polar star, and member of the said Academy, he might have made his first thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg more correct by about seven years.

But the good man had not time for this. So eager was he to break a lance with the dead; or rather to arrest the progress of the Baron's doctrines among his own societies, several of whom, both preachers and people, began about the period Mr. Wesley wrote his "Thoughts," &c. to receive the Heavenly doctrines of the Lord's New Church. Now what makes the uncorrectness of Mr. Wesley's primary thoughts on our favorite author the more astonishing to me will appear from the following extract of a letter, received some time ago from the Rev. Mr. Pownal, minister of the New Jerusalem Church in Bristol, Great Britain, the original of which I have carefully filed among my religious documents. This letter is dated the 6th October 1804, and is as follows:

"Our Methodist brethren here have not that tender spirit of love for us that we have manifested towards them. I was in communion with them above twenty years. That amiable, worthy and much

honored man, Rev. John Wesley, made his abode in my house about six weeks, the last Conference he held in this city. I loved him sincerely, and revere his name. His prejudice arose from wrong information given him of the Hon. E. Swedenborg's writings; and he did not read them sufficiently to understand their author's meaning. He once said at supper, in my house, that he was surprised at one circumstance which took place just before E. Swedenborg's death. A messenger came to him from the Baron, informing him that if he had a desire to see him it must be in fourteen days time. Mr. Wesley said he had for some time past much desired to see him, but had never told it to any person, upon which he set out with a design to see him but was met by a person who informed him of immediate business to be attended to by himself, on which business he proceeded and forgot to call on the Baron. But to his great astonishment, at the end of fourteen days, he heard that the Baron was dead, when the neglect of calling on him was viewed with much surprise! But had Mr. Wesley sufficiently perused the writings of Swedenborg, his surprise would have ceased when informed of the LORD's open communications to him, from the spiritual world."

Thus far the Rev. Mr. Pownal-by which it is evident that Mr. Wesley's "Thoughts," in that part of them which respects the death of Swedenborg, might have been more correct, by about seven years, had he only allowed himself a little leisure to think upon the time when this very singular circumstance took place, which was certainly in the year 1772.

It is true Mr. Wesley did not pen his "Thoughts on the Writings of Baron Swedenborg" until the year 1782, about ten years after the death of the latter; at which period he was about fourscore years of age, a period of life in which, we might charitably conclude, his memory at least, if not his understanding, was much on the decline. Had he not so fully evidenced the contrary by the general tenor of his subsequent writings on various occasions, as well as by the continuance of his former strength and vigor of his corporeal powers also; some other concerns then of a more interesting or pleasing nature, must certainly have occupied Mr. Wesley's mind about that period.

You see, sir, I am willing to find an excuse for Mr. Wesley's forgetful frame of mind about the year 1782, or rather a little before; and I am the more inclined to do this from my knowledge of a circumstance which must have taken place about that period; namely, a violent attachment of the good old man, towards (to use his own expression,)" one of the most perfect works of created nature;" or, in plainer words, towards a pretty little Irish girl of about twenty-three! And here, lest some warm and honest advocate of Mr. Wesley's exalted state of self-denial, and deadness to sensual enjoyments should doubt the truth of Mr. Wesley's courtship to the" charming Eliza❞ as he calls her, I feel at liberty to affirm that Dr. Coke, Bishop of the Methodist E. Church, confessed to the truth of this fact, in my presence, and in answer to my interrogatory on that subject, in the house of the late Mr. Caleb Dorsey on Elk-ridge, the very first year that the Doctor