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I had prepared for you an account of a pseudo-prophet who excited much attention in London here at the beginning of the last war, when, almost by accident, I was made acquainted with some singular circumstances which are in some manner connected with him, and which therefore should previously be told. These circumstances are as authentic as they are extraordinary, and supply a curious fact for the history of the French Revolution.
We were talking one evening of the Abbé Barruel’s proofs of a
conspiracy against the governments, religion and morality of Christendom. Illuminati—and
dedicated to destroying the Catholic Church and the states that supported
it.
In proof of this he stated the sum of what I shall relate more at length from the book to which he referred as his authority, and which I obtained from him the next morning. Its title is this,—
John Wright, the author
of this narrative, was a working carpenter of Leeds in Yorkshire; a man of
strong devotional feelings, who seems, like the first Quakers, to have hungered
and thirsted after religious truth in a land where there was none to impart it.
Some travelling Swedenborgian preachers having heated his imagination, he was
desirous of removing to London to find out the New Jerusalem Church.
Bryan was a journeyman copperplate-printer. J.’s friend saw him
once at the house of one of the Brotherists;
Bryan told him of a society of prophets at Avignon,
Bryan’s wife, not being in a state of belief, was greatly offended with Wright, thinking that if it had not been for him her husband would not have left her. His own wife was in a happier temper of mind, and encouraged him to go. She had a son by a former husband who was some little support to her, and who acquiesced in the necessity of this journey. He seems indeed to have communicated something of his own fervour to all about him. A young man with whom he was intimate bought him several things for his journey, and gave him a guinea; this same person befriended his family during his absence. At three in the morning he rose to depart: his son-in-law prepared breakfast, and they made the watchman who had called him partake of it, for it was severely cold. ‘I then’, says Wright, ‘turned to my children, who were all fast asleep, and kissed them, and interceded with the great and merciful God, relating to him their situation, in which, for his sake, they were going to be left without any outward dependence;—and at that time some of them were lying on a bed of shavings that I used to bring from my shop; at the same time imploring him that he would be pleased to bless them, and if one friend failed, another might be raised up, as I did not know whether I ever should see them any more; for although our first journey was to Avignon, we did not know it would end there’.
He then went to Bryan’s wife, whom his own was nursing in child-bed. The poor woman’s resentment had now given way, the quiet self-devotion of her husband and his friend had almost persuaded her to believe also; she burst into tears when she saw him, and saluted him, as he says, in the fear and love of God, in which she bade him remember her to her husband. Wright then went to the coach. Soon after they left London it began to rain and snow, and he was on the outside. He was of a sickly habit, always liable to take cold, and had at this time a bad cough. A doubt came upon him that if the Lord had sent him he would certainly have caused it to be fine weather. Besides this, he began to fear that Bryan would already have crost the channel, in which case when he got to Dover he should have no money to pay his passage. Was it not better therefore to turn back? But the testimony of God’s power in his heart, he says, was greater than all these thoughts.
The wind had been contrary, and detained Bryan. They crossed over to Calais, took some food at an inn there, and got their money changed, inquired the names of bread, wine, and sleeping, in the language of the country, and which way they were to go, and then set off on their journey. They travelled on foot to Paris. Wright’s feet were sorely blistered; but there was no stopping, for his mind was bound in the spirit to travel on. They carried their burthen by turns when both were able, but it generally fell upon Bryan as the stronger man. Change of climate, however, aided probably by the faith which was in him, removed Wright’s cough. Their funds just lasted to Paris; here Bryan had an acquaintance, to whose house they went. This man had received a letter to say who were coming, and that they were bad men, Wright in particular, whom it advised him to send back. As you may suppose he was soon fully satisfied with them—he entertained them three days, and then dismissed them, giving them five louis d’or to bear them on. The whole journal of their way is interesting: it relates instances of that subsiding of overwrought feelings which bodily exhaustion produces, and which enthusiasts call desertion; of natural thoughts and fears recurring, remembrances of home, and depression which sometimes occasioned self-suspicion and half repentance:—with these symptoms the Church is well acquainted, as common to the deluded, and to those who are in truth under the influence of divine inspiration, and they prove the sincerity of this narrative.
At length they came in sight of Avignon. They washed some linen in the river, sat down under the bushes till it was dry, then put it on; and, having thus made their appearance as decent as they could, proceeded to the house of the prophets, to which as it appears they had brought with them a sufficient direction. The door was opened by one of the brethren and by a person who could speak English, and who had arrived there a day or two before from another part of the world. After they had washed and shaved, they were taken across the street to another house and shown into a large room, where there was a table spread nearly the whole length; they were told that table was provided by the Lord, and when they wanted any thing to eat or to drink they were to go there, and they would find a servant ready to wait upon them. The brethren also provided them with cloth and whatever else they needed, and with money to give to the poor, saying they had orders from the Lord to do so. In a short time their Paris friend arrived, and was admitted a member of the society before them, that he might be their interpreter. I wish the form of initiation had been given. They met every evening to commemorate the death of our Lord by eating bread and drinking wine. Very often, says Wright, when we have been sitting together, the furniture in the room has been shaken as though it were all coming to pieces; and upon inquiring what was the cause, we were told that it announced the presence of angels; when these were not heard the brethren were always afraid that something was amiss, and so inquired at the Word of the Lord.
You will easily suppose that they had orders to keep to society
secret till the appointed time. I much wish that the book had stated how their
answers from the Lord were received, but on this it is silent. The drift and
character of the society are, however, sufficiently manifested by the Extracts
which Wright has published from their Journals, and of which I here subjoin
enough to satisfy you:
‘You will soon see the pride of the Mahometan in the field:
several sovereigns will unite to lay it low. It is then that the great light
will appear. These perfidious enemies of the name of God will keep themselves
for a time in their obstinacy, and in the mean time will grow up he who shall
destroy them. Before the end of this year they will begin to show their
fierceness, and you will hear of extraordinary things and memorable feats. You
will hear that the world is filled with trouble and dissension; father, son,
relations, friends, all will be in motion; and it is in this year (1789) that
all will have its beginning.
‘Remember that the face of the world will be changed, and you
shall see it restored to its first state. The thrones shall be overturned, the
earth shall be furrowed and change its aspect. They who shall be alive at that
time will envy the fate of the dead.
The world will very soon be filled with trouble. Every where
people will experience misfortunes. I announce it to you before-hand. The
shepherd will forsake his flock; the sheep will be dispersed. He will oppress
another land, and the nations will rise up in arms.
‘You will learn very soon that a part of the world is in
confusion; that the chiefs of nations are armed one against another. The earth
will be overflowed with blood. You will hear of the death of several sovereigns;
they give themselves up to luxury, they live in pleasures, but at last one of
them will fall and make an unhappy end.
‘All the events of this century have been foreseen, and no century
has been distinguished by so many prodigies, but the ensuing will be filled with
much greater still.
‘The fire is kindled, the moment is come, the Mahometan is going
to fall. Asia and Africa are staggering; fear pursues them, and they have a
glimpse of the fate that awaits them.
‘The cross of Jesus Christ shall be set up and triumph in those
vast countries where it has been so long despised. Then Palestine will become
again the most fortunate country on the earth; it shall be the centre of the
faith of which it was the cradle, and from thence faith will spread itself all
over the earth. All the people will embrace it. The world will become again what
it was in the beginning. The enlightened Jews will embrace the Catholic faith.
All people will acknowledge God, the only true God. They will be guided by one
only Pastor, and governed by one sole Master.
‘The second Zion has contributed the most to misguide the spirits
of men. She has introduced new Gentiles still more monstrous than those who have
reigned upon the earth. She only wants the statues of the Gods to resemble the
ancient times. Yea, they have been replaced by these carnal divinities to which
they render a sacrilegious adoration, and lavish an incense to them which they
refuse to God.
‘The end of this century will be a series of calamities of the
people. Very few men are struck with the rapid decline of the present age. All
the nations will be enlightened to see their dangerous errors. They will
acknowledge how much they have been deceived by the masters who have instructed
them, and they will be desolated at the thoughts of having lost so precious a
treasure for having believed such rascals. But at the marked time how many
errors will they not abjure, when our children every where, in the name of God,
shall make their impious and monstrous errors disappear!—And thou, Crescent, who
so much at this day applaudest thyself, the lustre with which thou shinest is
soon to be eclipsed;—thy unjust conquests have long enough spun out the time of
thy empire, and thy power from one pole to another is far enough extended. Thou
dost not suspect that thy ruin is so near, and thou dost not know him who is
growing up to operate it.
‘Here is the time in which God will break the laws made by the
children of the earth. Here is the time wherein he will reprove the science of
men, and here is the time of his justice. This is the time that we must believe
all those who announce the new reign of the Lord, for his spirit is with
them.
‘The ages have not now long to linger for the accomplishment of
the promises of the Eternal.—The Eternal calls the times which walk in the
shadows and days of darkness, without light and without strength, to come and
change the face of the world, and commence his new reign. This is the time of
the new Heavens and the new Earth.
‘The Eternal has spoken, I shall simplify all things for the
happiness of my elect. The moment is at hand when the confusion of languages
shall no more be an obstacle to the knowledge of the truth.
When the impious and his superb eagle in his fury will dare to
declare war against the God of Heaven, every thing will give way immediately to
his pride. He will dare to make victims for himself among the saints whom Heaven
has chosen; he will dare to profane their asylums, to appropriate to himself the
gifts of the Eternal by the blackest of crimes, and by his success strengthening
his pride he will believe himself master of the world. Then—then—Heaven will
stop him: a feeble child will subdue his valour, and his fall will testify that
in the sight of the Eternal there is no other power but the power of his
arm.
‘Already the measure is filled; already the times are
accomplished, and the reign of the Word is at hand. Terror will precede to
enlighten the blind who go astray, to humble the obstinate high-minded men, and
to punish the impious.’
These are no common prophecies. Honest fanaticism has had no share
in manufacturing them. Vague as the language necessarily is, there is an end and
aim in it not to be mistaken; and it is almost startling to observe how much of
what was designed has taken place, and how much may still be applied to these
immediate times.
Among these communications ‘For the Benefit and Instruction of all Mankind’, are others which are addressed to Wright and Bryan, and to those who, like them, were the unsuspecting tools of the society. I copy them with their cyphers and forms.
QuestionFebruary 9, 1789. H. W. We supplicate thee to give us thy orders about the two Englishmen B. and W. who arrived here on Thursday the 19th instant. Answer.O thou who walkest before them to show them the way, Son of the Voice, tell them that very soon the instruction will grow in their souls; they will believe it and love it. Then, Son of the Voice, I shall let thee know what Heaven ordains about their fate. Question.March 18, 1789. By 2. I. 9. H. W. Let me know the moment in which B. and W. should be consecrated. Answer.Son of the Voice, fidelity and happiness will in the first instance be the fruit of their union, the second will fill them with love and zeal. The moment hastens that is to call them near to us and to you.
Some things seem to have been inserted in their journal in condescension to the weaker brethren, who required to be amused. Such as the following instances:—
‘In the month of June, 1789, we received a letter from the Union at Rome, which informed us that the weather was as cold there as it is in England in the month of January, and the Archangel Raphael asked the brethren and sisters if the cold made them uneasy, and said, Have a little patience, and the weather will be warm enough. ‘The 17th of June, 1789, we received a letter from the Union at Rome, in which they informed us of a sister, the daughter of a Turk, whom Brother Brimmore baptized at Silesia, in the dominions of the king of Prussia, between ten and fifteen years ago; after having lived some time in the enjoyment of the Christian faith, she was suddenly taken by her father, and carried to Alexandria in Egypt, which is in the dominions of the Turk, where she lived with her father in much sorrow and trouble. After her father was dead she was ordered by the Archangel Raphael to dress herself in a soldier’s dress, and fly into a Christian country; which she did, and got aboard a Spanish ship, and from this date has been between two and three months at sea.’
But though the society occasionally accommodated itself to the capacity of the weaker brethren, its oracles were more frequently delivered to correct troublesome credulity, or repress more troublesome doubts.
Question.April 12, 1789. H. W. The three knocks which I. 4. 7. heard in the night, was it any thing supernatural? Answer.To 2. I. 9. Ask no more questions, if thou hast none to make of more importance. Question.April 14, 1789. H. W. If it please thee, I. 4. 7. would be glad to know if the offering which he made on the mountain was acceptable to the Lord his God. Answer.If Wisdom hath called thee, if Wisdom hath been thy guide, my son why dost thou stop? Leave to thy God the care of thy conduct; forget—forget thyself in approaching to him, and his light will enlighten thy soul, and thy spirit shall no more make the law. Believe—believe, my son, that docility is the way which leadeth to knowledge; that with love; and simplicity thou shalt have nothing to fear from the snares of Hell, and that Heaven cannot lead thee astray, for it is Heaven which hath marked to thee thy route. Question.July 8, 1789. H. W. I. 4. 7. prays to know if it is the will of Heaven that he should cause his wife to come with Duché According to J. F. C. Harrison, to be consecrated.The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 (Piscataway, NJ, 1979), p. 243, probably Thomas Spence Duché (1763-90), an artist who visited the Avignon society, and son of the preacher, former American revolutionary and Swedenborgian Jacob Duché (1737-98). Duché’s Swedeborgian meeting had been visited by Grabianka in 1785-86.Answer.Heaven sees thy motive, my son, and approves thy zeal: but in order that it may take place ************* do not think of it; thy hope is vain. Question.April 16, 1789. I. 2. 3. prays the H. W. to let him know if the Eternal has accepted of his incense. Answer.Raphael is the spirit which thy heart followed, my son, when thou camest into these countries to seek for science and rest: but the spirit which confuses thy idea is not the spirit of Raphael. Mistrust, son that art called, the father of lies. Submit thy spirit to my voice. Believe—believe, my son, and thy God forgives thee, and then thy incense is accepted, and thy return will cover thee with glory. August 11, 1789. for the B. 12 April, 1756. Of I. 2. 3. C. 24 March. April 1. If the ardour which animates thee gives at last to thy heart over thy spirit the victory and the empire; if thy desire renounces to discover, before the time, the secret of the mysteries which simple reason is not able to conceive, nothing can, my son, convey an obstacle to that happiness which awaits thee. Walk without fear, and chase from thy soul the deceiving spirit who wants to lead thee astray. Believe—believe, my son, every thing that I reveal to our elect in the name of the Eternal, and the Eternal will make thee the forerunning instrument of his glory in the places where his clemency wants to pardon those of thy nation whom the enemy seduces by his prestiges. Question.August 21, 1789. I. 4. 7. prays the H. W. to inform him if it is the will of Heaven for him also to return with I. 2. 3.* * [I. 4. 7. and I. 2. 3 seem to mean the two Englishmen. H. W. is evidently Holy Word.] Answer.Yes. Son called, thou canst yet hearken to what I have to say unto thee. Thy fate is in thy hands. It will be great if thou makest haste to offer to thy God who chooseth thee the vain efforts of a useless knowledge, when it is only necessary to obey. Forget—forget thy knowledge: it fatigues thy spirits, it hurts thy heart, and retards from thy soul the influence of Heaven. Renounce, in fine, to search into the sublime mysteries of thy God. Believe—believe, and the Eternal will bless thy return, and thy simplicity will confound the knowledge, the pride, and the prepossession of the senseless man, who believeth in his own wisdom much more than in the wisdom of his God.
The subject is so curious that I think you will be pleased to see
the character of this mysterious society further exemplified by a few of the
sentences, moral maxims, and spiritual instructions, which they delivered as
from Heaven. The first is sufficiently remarkable:
This narrative, and these extracts, require no comment. They prove incontestably the existence of a society of political Jesuits; they prove also, that however little may have been the religion of these men themselves, they were convinced how indispensably necessary it was for mankind; and that, instead of plotting to break up the system of social order by destroying faith and morals, faith was the engine which they employed to prepare society for some imaginary amelioration, forgetting that nothing which is founded upon delusion can be permanent.
The two Englishmen remained at Avignon six months, and were then informed by the Spirit that they might return. The Brethren supplied them with money, so that they went back with more comfort than they came, and had a handsome sum left when they landed in England, where they both returned to their former employments, expecting the accomplishment of the mighty changes which had been foretold. The Revolution brake out.—They who had raised the storm could not direct it: they became its victims—and knavery reaped what fanaticism had sown, as they who lag in the assault enter the breach over the bodies of the brave who have won the passage for them. What became of the Avignon society Heaven knows. The honest dupes whom they had sent abroad, fully prepared to welcome any novelty as the commencement of the Millennium, were left to their own direction. A king of the Hebrews appeared in England, and Wright and Bryan were, as you may suppose, among the first to acknowledge him. They imagined that the appointed time was come, and published these secrets of the society which they had been ordered to keep concealed. Of the King of the Hebrews in my next.
MY FORMER letters must have shown you that these English, whom we are accustomed to consider as an unbelieving people, are in reality miserably prone to superstition; yet you will perhaps be surprised at the new instance which I am about to relate.
There started up in London about the beginning of the late war, a new pseudo-prophet, whose name was Richard Brothers, And who called himself King of the Hebrews, and Nephew of God. He taught that all existing souls had been created at the same time with Adam, and his system was, that they had all lived with him in Paradise, and all fallen with him in consequence of their joint transgression; for all things which they saw and knew were in God, and indeed were God, and they desired to know something besides God, in which desire they were indulged, fatally for themselves, for the only thing which is not God is Evil. Evil was thus introduced, and they for their punishment cast into hell, that is to say, upon this present earth; and in this hell they have remained from that time till now, transmigrating from one human body to another. But the term of their punishment is now drawing towards its close: the consummation of all things is at hand, and every one will then recover the recollection of all the scenes and changes through which he has passed. This knowledge has already been vouchsafed in part to Brothers himself, and it is thus that he explained the extraordinary relationship to the Almighty which he laid claim to, asserting that in the days of our Lord he was the son of James the brother of Christ. You know the heretics, in their hatred to virginity and to Mary the most pure, maintain that when Christ’s brethren are mentioned in the Gospels, the word is to be understood in its literal and carnal sense; consequently he was then the Nephew of the second Person in the Trinity.
Human fancy, it has been said, cannot imagine a monster whose
constituent parts are not all already in existence; it is nearly as impossible
for a new heresy to be now devised, so prolific has human error been. This
metempsychosis not only bears a general resemblance to that doctrine as held by
the Orientals and by Pythagoras,
Brothers had been a lieutenant in the navy, and was known to be
insane; but when a madman calls himself inspired, from that moment the disorder
becomes infectious. The society at Avignon had unintentionally trained up
apostles for this man. Wright and Bryan had now for some years been looking for
the kingdom of Christ, and teaching all within the circle of their influence to
expect the same promised day. Of what had been announced to them much had been
too truly accomplished. The world was indeed filled with troubles and
dissension, the fire was kindled, the thrones of Europe were shaken, and one of
its kings had been brought to an unhappy end, according to the prediction. The
laws made by the children of the earth were broken, the reign of terror was
begun, and the times disastrous to the full measure of their prophecies. They
had been instructed to look for a miraculous deliverer and Lord of the earth,
and here was one who laid claim to the character. There were however some
difficulties. At Avignon they had been informed that he who was to be the Leader
of the Faithful, and to overthrow the kingdom of the world, was at that time
twelve years old, and living at Rome; even his name had been revealed. Neither
in this, nor in age, nor country did Brothers answer the prophecy. One of these
men
The new King of the Hebrews had not perhaps a single Jew among his
believers. These people, who have in old times suffered well nigh as severely
for their credulity in false Messiahs as for their rejection of the true one,
are less disposed to lend ear to such delusions now than in any former time, and
here than in any other country. Here they have no amelioration of their
condition to wish for; the free exercise of their religion is permitted, what
they gain they enjoy in security, and are protected by the state without the
trouble of self-defence. The flesh pots of England are not less delicious than
those of Egypt, and a land flowing with milk and honey not so attractive for the
sons of the Synagogue as one which abounds with old clothes for the lower order,
and loans and contracts for their wealthier brethren. The land of promise offers
nothing so tempting to them as scrip and omnium.
Besides the prophets from Avignon, Brothers succeeded in making
two other useful and extraordinary disciples. The one, an engraver of first-rate
skill in his art, who published a masterly portrait of him, with these words
underneath, Fully believing this to be the man whom God hath
appointed, I engrave his likeness.
Brothers wrote letters to the king and to all the members of both houses of parliament, calling upon them to give ear to the word of God, and prepare for the speedy establishment of his kingdom upon earth. He announced to his believers his intention of speedily setting out for Jerusalem to take possession of his metropolis, and invited them to accompany him. Some of these poor people actually shut up their shops, forsook their business and their families, and travelled from distant parts of the country to London to join him, and depart with him whenever he gave the word. Before he went, he said, he would prove the truth of his mission by a public miracle, he would throw down his stick in the Strand at noon day, and it should become a serpent; and he affirmed that he had already made the experiment and successfully performed it in private. A manifest falsehood this, but not a wilful one; in like manner he said that he had seen the Devil walking leisurely up Tottenham-Court-road;—the man was evidently in such a state of mind that his waking dreams were mistaken for realities. He threatened London with an earthquake because of its unbelief, and at length named the day when the city should be destroyed. Many persons left town to avoid his threatened calamity; the day passed by, he claimed the merit of having prevailed in prayer and obtained a respite, and fixed another.
The business was becoming serious. All the madmen and enthusiasts
in England, a land wherein there is never any lack of them, made a common cause
with this King of the Hebrews. Pamphlets in his favour swarmed from the press;
the prophecy of some old heretic was raked up, which fixed the downfall of the
church as destined now to be accomplished; and the number of the Beast was
explained by Ludovicus XVI. One madman printed his dreams, another his
day-visions; one had seen an angel come out of the sun with a drawn sword in his
hand, another had seen fiery dragons in the air, and hosts of angels in battle
array; these signs and tokens were represented in rude engravings, and the lower
classes of people, to whose capacity and whose hungry superstition they were
addressed, began to believe that the seven seals were about to be opened, and
all the wonders in the Apocalypse would be displayed. Government at last thought
fit to interfere, and committed Brothers to the national hospital for
madmen.
Thus easily and effectually was this wild heresy crushed. Brothers
continued to threaten earthquakes, fix days for them, and prorogue them after
the day was past; but his influence was at an end. The people had lost sight of
him; and being no longer agitated by signs and tokens, dreams and denunciations,
they forgot him. A few of his steadier adherents persisted in their belief, and
comforted him and themselves by reminding him of Daniel in the lions’ den, and
of Jeremiah in the dungeon. He was lucky enough to find out better consolation
for himself. There was a female lunatic in the same hospital, whom he discovered
to be the destined Queen of the Hebrews; and as such announced her to the world.
At present he and this chosen partner of the throne of David are in daily
expectation of a miraculous deliverance, after which they are to proceed to
Jerusalem to be crowned, and commence their reign. Plans and elevations of their
palace and of the new Temple have been made for them, and are now being engraved
for the public;
IN THE early part of the thirteenth century there appeared an English virgin in
Italy, beautiful and eloquent, who affirmed that the Holy Ghost was incarnate in
her for the redemption of women, and she baptized women in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of herself. Her body was carried to Milan and burnt
there. An arch-heretic of the same sex and country is now establishing a sect in
England, founded upon a not dissimilar and equally portentous blasphemy. The
name of this woman is Joanna Southcott; she neither boasts of the charms of her
forerunner, nor needs them. Instead of having an eye which can fascinate, and a
tongue which can persuade to error by glossing it with sweet discourse, she is
old, vulgar, and illiterate. In all the innumerable volumes which she has sent
into the world, there are not three connected sentences in sequence, and the
language alike violates common sense and common syntax. Yet she has her
followers among the educated classes, and even among the beneficed clergy.
The patient and resolute obedience with which I have collected for
you some account of this woman and her system, from a pile of pamphlets half a
yard high, will, I hope, be imputed to me as a merit. Had the heretics of old
been half as voluminous, and half as dull, St. Epiphanius would never have
persevered through his task.
She was born in Devonshire about the middle of the last century, and seems to have passed forty years of her life in honest industry, sometimes as a servant, at others working at the upholsterers’ business, without any other symptom of a disordered intellect than that she was zealously attached to the Methodists. These people were equally well qualified to teach her the arts of imposture, or to drive her mad; or to produce in her a happy mixture of craziness and knavery, ingredients which in such cases are usually found in combination. She mentions in her books a preacher who frequented her master’s house, and, according to her account, lived in habits of adultery with the wife, trying at the same time to debauch the daughter, while the husband vainly attempted to seduce Joanna herself. This preacher used to terrify all who heard him in prayer, and make them shriek out convulsively. He said that he had sometimes, at a meeting, made the whole congregation lie stiff upon the floor till he had got the evil spirits out of them; that there never was a man so highly favoured of God as himself; that he would not thank God to make him any thing, unless he made him greater than any man upon earth, and gave him power above all men; and he boasted, upon hearing the death of one who had censured him, that he had fasted and prayed three days and three nights, beseeching God to take vengeance upon that man and send him to eternity. Where such impious bedlamites as this are allowed to walk abroad, it is not to be wondered at that madness should become epidemic.
Joanna Southcott lived in a house which this man frequented, and where, notwithstanding his infamous life, his pretensions to supernatural gifts were acknowledged, and he was accustomed to preach and pray. The servants all stood in fear of him. She says, he had no power over her, but she used to think the room was full of spirits when he was in prayer; and he was so haunted that he never could sleep in a room by himself, for he said his wife came every night to trouble him: she was perplexed about him, fully believing that he wrought miracles, and wondering by what spirit he wrought them. After she became a prophetess herself, she discovered that this Sanderson was the false prophet in the Revelation, who is to be taken with the Beast, and cast alive with him into a lake of burning brimstone.
Four persons have written to Joanna upon the subject of her
pretended mission, each calling himself Christ! One Mr. Leach, a Methodist
preacher, told her to go to the Lord in his name, and tell
the Lord that he said her writings were inspired by the
Devil. These circumstances show how commonly delusion, blasphemy, and madness
are to be found in this country, and may lessen our wonder at the phrensy of
Joanna and her followers. Her own career began humbly, with prophecies
concerning the weather, such as the popular English almanacks contain, and
threats concerning the fate of Europe and the successes of the French, which
were at that time the speculations of every newspaper, and of every ale-house
politician. Some of these guesses having chanced to be right, the women of the
family in which she then worked at the upholstering business, began to lend ear
to her, and she ventured to submit her papers to the judgement of one Mr.
Pomeroy, the clergyman whose church she attended in Exeter. He listened to her
with timid curiosity, rather wanting courage than credulity to become her
disciple; received from her certain sealed prophecies which were at some future
time to be opened, when, as it would be seen that they had been accomplished,
they would prove the truth of her inspiration; and sanctioned, or seemed to
sanction, her design of publishing her call to the world. But in this
publication his own name appeared, and that in such a manner as plainly to
imply, that if he had not encouraged her to print, he had not endeavoured to
prevent her from so doing. His eyes were immediately opened to his own
imprudence, whatever they may have been to the nature of his call, and he
obtained her consent to insert an advertisement in the newspaper with her
signature, stating that he had said it was the work of the Devil. But here the
parties are at issue: as the advertisement was worded, it signifies that Mr.
Pomeroy always said her calling was from the Devil; on the other hand, Joanna
and her witnesses protest that what she had signed was merely an acknowledgment
that Mr. Pomeroy had said, after her book was printed, the Devil had instigated
her to print his name in it. This would not be worthy of mention, if it were not
for the very extraordinary situation into which this gentleman has brought
himself. Wishing to be clear of the connection in which he had so unluckily
engaged, he burnt the sealed papers which had been intrusted to his care. From
that time all the Joannians, who are now no inconsiderable number, regard him as
the arch-apostate. He is the Jehoiakim who burnt Jeremiah’s roll of
prophecies,
The books which she sends into the world are written partly in prose, partly in rhyme, all the verse and the greater part of the prose being delivered in the character of the Almighty! It is not possible to convey any adequate idea of this unparalleled and unimaginable nonsense by any other means than literal transcript. Her hand-writing was illegibly bad, so that at last she found it convenient to receive orders to throw away the pen and deliver her oracles orally; and the words flow from her faster than her scribes can write them down. This may be well believed, for they are mere words and nothing else: a rhapsody of texts, vulgar dreams and vulgar interpretations, vulgar types and vulgar applications;—the vilest string of words in the vilest doggerel verse, which has no other connection than what the vilest rhymes have suggested, she vents, and her followers receive, as the dictates of immediate inspiration. A herd, however, was ready to devour this garbage as the bread of life. Credulity and Vanity are foul feeders.
The clergy in her own neighbourhood were invited by her, by private letters, to examine her claims, but they treated her invitation with contempt: the bishop also did not choose to interfere;—of what avail, indeed, would it have been to have examined her, when they had no power to silence her blasphemies! She found believers at a distance. Seven men came from different parts of the country to examine—that is—to believe in her; these were her seven stars; and when at another time seven more arrived upon the same wise errand, she observed, in allusion to one of those vulgar sayings from which all her allusions are drawn, that her seven stars were come to fourteen. Among these early believers were three clergymen, one of them a man of fashion, fortune, and noble family. It is not unlikely that the woman at first suspected the state of her own intellects: her letters appear to indicate this; they express a humble submission to wiser judgments than her own; and could she have breathed the first thoughts of delusion into the ear of some pious confessor, it is more than probable that she would have soon acknowledged her error at his feet, and the phrensy which has now infected thousands would have been cut off on its first appearance. But when she found that persons into whose society nothing else could ever have elevated her, listened to her with reverence, believed all her ravings, and supplied her with means and money to spread them abroad, it is not to be wondered at if she went on more boldly;—the gainfulness of the trade soon silencing all doubts of the truth of her inspiration.
Some of her foremost adherents were veterans in credulity: they had been initiated in the mysteries of animal magnetism, had received spiritual circumcision from Brothers, and were thus doubly qualified for the part they were to act in this new drama of delusion. To accommodate them, Joanna confirmed the authenticity of this last fanatic’s mission, and acknowledged him as King of the Hebrews,—but she dropt his whole mythology. Her heresy in its main part is not new. The opinion that redemption extended to men only and not to women, had been held by a Norman in the sixteenth century, as well as by the fair English heretic already mentioned. This man, in a book called
The immediate object of her call is to destroy the Devil: of this the Devil was aware, and that it might not be said he had had foul play, a regular dispute of seven days was agreed on between him and Joanna, in which she was to be alone, and he to bring with him as many of the Powers of Darkness as he pleased: but he was not to appear visibly; for, as he did not choose to make his appearance on a former occasion when some of her elders went to give him the meeting, but had disappointed them, he was not to be permitted to manifest himself bodily now. The conditions were, that if she held out with argument against him for seven days, the Woman should be freed and he fall; but if she yielded, Satan’s kingdom was to stand, and a second fall of the human race would be the consequence. Accordingly, she went alone into a solitary house for this conference. Joanna was her own secretary upon this occasion, and the process-verbal of the conference has been printed, as literally taken down; for she was ordered to set down all his blasphemies, and show to the world what the language of Hell is. It is by no means a polite language;—indeed the proficiency which Satan displays in the vulgar tongue is surprising.
Of all Joanna’s books this is the most curious.
The Moon which is under her feet in the Revelation,
This phrensy would have been speedily cured in our country; bread
and water, a solitary cell, and a little wholesome discipline are specifics in
such cases. Mark the difference in England. No bishop interferes; she therefore
boldly asserts that she has the full consent of the bishops to declare that her
call is from God, because, having been called upon to disprove it, they keep
silent. She who was used to earn her daily bread by daily labour, is now taken
into the houses of her wealthy believers, regarded as the most blessed among
women, carried from one part of England to another, and treated every where with
reverence little less than idolatry. Meantime dictating books as fast her
scribes can write them down, she publishes them as fast as they are written, and
the Joannians buy them as fast as they are published. Nor is this her only
trade. The seals in the Revelation furnished her with a happy hint. She calls
upon all persons ‘to sign their names for Christ’s glorious and peaceable
kingdom to be established and to come upon earth, and his will to be done on
earth as it is done in heaven, and for Satan’s kingdom to be destroyed, which is
the prayer and desire of Joanna Southcott’. They who sign this are to be sealed.
Now if this temporal sealing, which is mentioned by St. John in the Revelation,
had been understood before this time, men would have begun sealing themselves
without the visitation of the Spirit; and if she had not understood it and
explained it now, it would have been more fatal for herself and for all mankind
than the fall of Eve was. The mystery of sealing is this: whosoever signs his
name receives a sealed letter containing these words: The Sealed
of the Lord, the Elect, Precious, Man’s Redemption, to inherit the Tree of
Life, to be made Heirs of God, and Joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.
Signed Joanna Southcott. I know not what the price of this
initiation is; but she boasts of having sealed above eight thousand persons, so
that the trade is a thriving one.
And these things are believed in England! in England, where Catholic Christians are so heartily despised for superstition; in England, where the people think themselves so highly enlightened,—in this country of reason and philosophy and free inquiry! It is curious to observe how this age in which we live is denominated by every writer just as its temper accords with his own views: with the infidel, it is the Age of Reason; with the Churchman, the Age of Infidelity; with the Chemist, the Age of Philosophy; with Rulers, the Age of Anarchy; with the People, the Age of Oppression, every one beholding the prospect through a coloured glass, and giving it sunshine or shade, frost or verdure, according to his own fancy, none looking round him and seeing it fairly as it is. Yet surely if we consider the ignorance of the great majority of the English, the want of anchorage for their faith, the want of able directors for their souls, the rapidity with which novelties of any kind are circulated throughout the country, the eagerness with which the credulous listen to every new blasphemy, the contemptuous indifference of the clergy to any blasphemy provided it does not immediately threaten themselves, the unlimited toleration shown to Jews, Gentiles, and Heretics of every description, above all if we remember that every person has the power of comparing these delusive books with the Bible, of which they are instructed to consider themselves competent expounders,—we must acknowledge that there never was any age or any country so favourable to the success of imposture and the growth of superstition, as this very age and this very England.
I have to add concerning Joanna, that she prophesies how she and her believers are to be tried in the ensuing year, and that this awful trial will be only second to that of our blessed Lord at Pilate’s bar! What new juggle is in preparation I pretend not to divine. Thus much is certain, that her believers are proof against conviction, and you will agree with me in thinking no further trial necessary to prove that she and her abettors ought either to be punished as impostors, or silenced as lunatics.*
*[Southey’s note:] The Translator has been curious enough to inquire the event of this trial, which may be related in few words. None but her believers assembled; they provided an attorney to give their proceedings some of the ceremonials of legality, examined witnesses to prove the good character of the prophetess, signed a profession of belief in her,—and afterwards published an account of all this folly under the title of
D. Manuel might well say that nothing but literal transcript could
convey an idea of this woman’s vulgarity and nonsense; witness the passages
which he has selected,
It is speaking within compass to say, that she has sent into the world above
twenty thousand of such verses as these, as the dictates of the Spirit!
What follows is in the words of one of her chosen disciples; ‘On Monday morning Joanna received a letter from Exeter, which informed her she would have Mr. Jones’s answer about Mr. Pomeroy in the evening; and her fears for him flung her into a violent agitation; every nerve in her shook, and she fell sick as though she would have fainted away. She could not keep in her bed, but laid herself on the floor in agonies, and said she knew not whether to pity or condemn him; but at last got up in a rage against the Devil, and said her revenge would be sweet to see the Devil chained down, and she should like, with a sharp sword, to cut him in pieces. She then got into bed, exclaiming against the clergy, and asked for a glass of wine; but she brought it up immediately. Soon after the bason was set upon the bed, she took it up and dashed it violently across the room, and broke it to pieces. After that she had some lamb brought up for her dinner; she tried to swallow a mouthful but could not, but spit it into another bason, and said she could neither swallow the wine nor the lamb, but found the fury of the Lord break in upon her, and she dashed the second bason on the floor. She then said she felt herself happier and easier since she had broken both the basons; for so would the Lord, in his anger, break the clergy.’
This is from a book with the following curious title:
MR. JOSEPH SOUTHCOTT, THE BROTHER OF
JOANNA SOUTHCOTT, WILL NOW COME FORWARD AS DINAH’S BRETHREN DID, THAT THEY SHALL NOT DEAL WITH HIS SISTER AS THEY WOULD WITH A HARLOT, FOR SO THEY ARE NOW DEALING WITH HER. AND HE WILL PROVE TO THE WORLD WHERE THE ADULTERY IS COMMITTED, BY MEN WHO ARE UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART AND LIFE: AND NOW HE WILL EXPEND ALL THAT HE HAS IN THE WORLD, IF REQUIRED, IN THE HONEST DEFENCE OF HER CHARACTER, TILL HE HAS SLAIN THE UNCIRCUMCISED PHILISTINES, AND ENTIRELY FREED HIS SISTER FROM THE REPROACHES OF THEIR ADULTERY.
A few flowers of infernal eloquence should be added from The Dispute with the
Powers of Darkness. Satan says to her, ‘Thou infamous B---ch! thou hast been
flattering God that he may stand thy friend. Such low cunning art I despise.Thou
wheening devil! stop thy d-mn d eternal tongue; thou runnest on so fast all the
Devils in Hell cannot keep up with thee.—God hath done something to chuse a b-ch
of a woman that will down-argue the Devil, and scarce give him room to
speak.’‘If the woman is not ashamed of herself the Devil
cannot shame her’.
If the language of Joanna herself is grovelling in the very mud
and mire of baseness and vulgarity, one of her elders has soared into the
sublime of frenzy. The passage is long, but deserves insertion, as, perhaps,
there does not exist elsewhere so complete a specimen of a prophet rampant. The
gentleman begins in some plain prose reflections upon the Fall, and goes on
addressing the Devil, till he has worked himself up, and begins thus to rave in
rhythm.
‘—Then where’s thy ground on earth? receive thy doom, the pit,
there twist in flames, and there thy like deceive!—Then Cain receive thy doom
from Abel’s blood. Then where is Pharoah and his host? Judge then, need Moses
fear! Where is the Lion fallen! and the pit has oped its mouth,—the covering’s
dropt; the Lamb has nought to fear—then roar no more to shake the earth and sea.
Where now’s the eagle and vultur’d host—thy wings are pluck’d on earth, she
stands defenceless, the fatal net beneath.—The Dove now has protection; she
ranges earth and sea, and soars aloft unhurt, unfeared, to carry peace to
all.—The Ark is opened now, she brings the olive branch,—the floods are past,
where’s now the giant race?—Who pressed on Lot? ’Twas thee the proud oppressor!
Where art thou now?—Where is thy pride and city? Knowest thou the words, come
out! come out! let Sodom feel its doom. Where now is Lot? At Zoar safe! Where is
his wife? Is she not salt all?—The writing’s on the wall.—Thou lewdly revellest
with the bowls of God.—Thy kingdoms past away—Now see my Daniel rise—Who cast
him in his den?—’Twas thee—Thou rolledst the stone, thou sealedst his doom—the
roaring Lion thee! Then let the stone return, the seal be broke, and go thou in
his stead. Where is the image gold and Bel? Where is proud Babel’s builder?
Confusion is thy name: confusion is thy doom! Let Bel asunder burst! the pitch,
and tar, and walls of wood expose thy make, deceit, and craft,—and pass in
flames away. The God of Daniel stands—Daniel rise up! Six days are past—the
seventh now is here—seven times refined and purified in innocency come.—The
emerald, unhurt in fire, displays great Judah’s son.—Let Urim’s light and
Thummim shine in bright perfection’s day. The twelve men stand upon the
plate—the fourth denotes great Judah’s son, who is the rightful heir. The stones
denote all Jacob’s sons, their light and quality—they shine as stars in Jesus’
crown upon the Woman’s head.—The Sun unveil’d shall now arise—The Moon from
scarlet shall emerge—The stars from darkness now appear to light the midnight
hour—Then where art thou, O Satan! Where are thy heads, and horns, and dragon’s
tail, which slew and hurt the living stars! Where are thy rays of fire—thy
watery floods—behold they are past away—The woman’s fears of thee are o’er—the
wilderness receives her child, whose iron rod now feel. The pit has oped its
mouth—thou art now cast, shut up and sealed—the saints now judge the earth. The
Omnipotent is here in power and spirit in the word—The sword, white horse, and
King of Kings has drawn the flailing sword! Rejoice, ye saints, rejoice! The
Beast and Dragon, mountain, tree, no more shall hurt, devour, becloud, the
Saint, the gold and vine. The gold and gems appear—The mighty earthquake now
displays the hidden son of God. The rod and smitten rock gush forth, and smite
and slay, and make alive, now saves and now destroys. The cloud and glory,
Jonah’s sign, display the virtues of the word, the light and darkness shews. The
Gospel brings the light, and life, and death—and death as men obey or mock. The
six denotes the suffering time to show the Son of Man—The sign within the
Sun—The fowls now feast on thee! Then where’s thy former reign? Beneath the rod
of Moses see thy fall from Heaven’s height. Son of the Morning, Lucifer, no more
oppress—be thou a fallen star! Great Gog and Agag, where are ye? The walls of
Jericho art thou; fall flat! Joshua’s ram’s horns, the seven and twelve, pass
Jordan’s stream.—Where is the Lion, Bear, Goliath huge, but in the center thee.
David appears, a stripling youth, now tears and slays, and slings the stone, and
smites thy dragon’s head. Now see great David’s reign—The temple’s stones,
unhewed by man in those days, unite, the King of Peace amidst the seven in oil
unite, and in a stone with seven eyes appears, The stately fabric now is laid,
founded and topped with gems of every hue. The ark of Moses now is built—The
words, the laws, the sceptre, all unite, and Aaron’s budded rod—He now is
chosen; eat the bread, prepare the sacrifice. John eats the book, which sweet
and bitter is—He prophecies; the temple metes, and stands before the Lamb. The
temple measures, and anoints, and Moses’ tabernacle. The witnesses, Matthew and
John, as olive trees appear.—The broken stones of Moses now uplift, renewed in
books arise from death.—The Lord’s anointed reigns—The rods, or laws, of Ephraim
ten, unite is one and hold by Judah’s skirt—The Son of Man o’er Israel
reigns—The dry bones now arise—Here ends thy earthly reign—The bond of union now
is come—The marriage ring appears—The Bride is come—The Bridegroom now receives
the marriage seal—The Law and Gospel now unite—The Moon and Sun appear—Caleb and
Joshua pass the stream in triumph to restore. Where now thou Canaanite art thou?
Where all thy maddened crew?
‘These are a small part of the thoughts of the judgments of God
pronounced on Satan,’ concludes the writer, who is a gentleman of vast
respectability.
One of her books has the title printed on the last page, because it was ordered that the book should contain neither more nor less than forty-eight pages. Another has a seal in the middle of it bearing the letters J. C.—the J., it is said, being meant for Jesus and Joanna!!