other roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned. And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? Therefore thus saith the Lord, of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him, and his seed, and his servants, for their iniquity." Now did the unbelief of Jehoiakim prevent the evils that the Lord had threatened against him? And did not the Lord command Jeremiah to waru Jehoiakim again, of the evil that he had done in burning the roll? Yet, when he did it, I suppose he judged Jeremiah as a deluded man as you judge me a deluded woman; but his judgment did not prevent the Lord from ordering Jeremiah to trouble him again; nor prevent the judgments that were threatened against him. Now the ridiculous judgment you have drawn of me, as being a deranged woman, does not make me so, no more than the unbelief of Jehoiakim made Jeremiah a false prophet; or the unbelief of Lot's sons proved their father an old fool; or the unbelief of the Jews proved that our Saviour was not the Messiah that was prophesied of. I do not tell you what my judgment is of you; neither do I ask you what your judgment is of me; I only ask for equity, justice, and truth; and that you have denied me. So I do not marvel at the ridiculous manner you have spoken of me; for people often hate those they have injured. And now the words of the Lord concerning you, are like the words of the Lord to Jeremiah, concerning Jehoiakim. In three things you have provoked the Lord to anger against you: in turning me from the sacrament, in betraying your trust, in burning the roll wherein the words of the Lord were contained; and so you have done despite to the Spirit of God. Now judge for yourself; if you say your honour is gone, who robbed you of that honour, but your own wrong conduct? Why have you not done in the first place, as you now say you would do, if you had got them now, you would return them? But why did you not return them when you had got them? Why did you burn them? Your saying what you would do now, is like a man that has committed murder, when he is called to take his trial, say if the man were now alive I would not kill him; and so I hope the judge will forgive me; because it is impossible for me now to bring the man to life: and so I know it is impossible for you to recall the wrong principles that you have acted with; but if you have any regard for the glory of God, or any regard for your own honour as a minister, you would now come forward to clear up every truth. I would not lie under the slander of your letter without coming forward to clear myself if you would give me a million of money. If I were to do so, I must disgrace my God and Saviour, whose servant I profess to be; and to know his will and obey it is the study and practice of my life and the advice you gave me, in your letter, is like the advice of the serpent to Eve, and much more fatal than her end was, my end must be if I take it. So now if you wish to clear your honour, you must come forward with every truth. You see your letter is in print, as your false accusations cannot injure my innocence; for by the answer I have sent you, every man upon earth, that hath a grain of sense must know you cannot clear yourself if you are silent now. The letter that I sent you before, I shall put in print likewise; and I have not printed a word concerning you but I can affirm to be truth, and can bring forward witnesses to prove it. And now I see the wisdom of the Lord, why he ordered me to take witnesses with me, when I went to your house on any deep and weighty subject, which you know I told you I was ordered to do. And now, Sir, if you will come forward, and acknowledge every truth, tell who persuaded you to burn the letters, assign your reasons for listening to such wrong advice, then you may clear that honour you say you have lost; but you cannot fight against God and prosper. I know my calling to be of God; and I want nothing of you, but to acknowledge the truth of what was put in your hands; every particular concerning you and me I was ordered to put in print. And shall I disobey the command of the Lord, to be a man-pleaser? I tell you No. Who ought we to obey, God or man, judge ye? Now, Sir, I shall conclude with saying, if I had put in print as false an accusation against you, as you wrote to Mr. Bruce against me, I should despise my name, and hate myself for ever. What do you make of that benevolent God, whom you mention, if you judge him another such as yourself, first to tell man he is in the right road, and at the end to tell him that road was destruction? For just so was your good advice to me; for you always assured me, my writings were not from the Devil, before I put your name in print; but I confess you did give me good advice, to say it would be fatal for me, if my foreknowledge and my writings came from myself, and I had placed it to the Lord; but this advice I never wanted of any man, for I had a deeper sense of that sin than any man living could tell me; so I myself am the judge there. Now as you boast so much of your goodness, you have made all your good be evil spoken of, and the best of your goodness towards me, is the duty of every minister upon earth; for when any one is strongly visited by a spirit invisible, it is the duty of a minister to try to search out what that spirit is. So if other ministers neglected their duty, is it any excuse for you to copy after thein? You say, Sir, you wish my friends to persuade me to trouble you no more; at this I do not marvel, for if you owed a person £ 5000, and you were not able to pay him, you would be glad to get a friend to prevail on the man not to trouble you for the money. You are now running yourself deeper and deeper in debt to treat me in this manner, to rob me of all truth and innocence. I am sorry to say you began in the spirit, and end in the flesh. The Lord grant you may see your errors before it is too late. This is my answer to your insolent and abusive letter, that you cannot come forward to answer in a word, to justify the letter you have sent; for I tell you it is full of falsehood and lies. But From your injured friend, To the Rev. J Pomeroy, Bodmin, Cornwall. REV. SIR, Oct. 8, 1804. As no letters go to Joanna Southcott, but through my hands, the letter you sent to the Rev. Stanhope Bruce, concerning her, was brought to me, and I read it to her, and saw the agitation of her spirit, being provoked to hear your letter, that she affirmed was entirely false; and I have every reason to believe it is false, from what I have heard from Miss Fanny Taylor, who was with me a quarter of a year, and said she copied many of the letters for Joanna to you; especially that of the 1797, foretelling the events of England; and Italy, and many other letters, that had come true; and she perfectly remembered hearing her mother say, all that Joanna had said of you was true, who knew more particulars of private conversation than she did. Now from this assertion of Miss Fanny Taylor, and the spirited manner Joanna immediately answered for herself, ordering your letter to be put in print, giving her answer so clearly to it, that she is ready to come forward to answer to every truth, and demanding your coming forward to answer for yourself; and having daily seen Joanna ever since the 20th of April, that she came to my house in London; and having seen in her the most perfect, upright, just, and innocent dealings; that she acts with no deceit, no falsehoods, or arts, and perfectly answers the character I had heard of her, from many respectable people, that she was truth, innocence, and simplicity and perfectly so I have found her. This makes me think you, Sir, are the transgressor, and that she is innocent of what you have laid to her charge. But if you come forward, and can prove your assertions to be true, I shall be open to conviction; but you must think you were writing to madmen and fools, if you think we should persuade Joanna to be silent to your slan derous letter against her; then you and the world might think we are supporting falsehood and deceit for which I should despise myself; and as her books that are lately printed, have been taken by my hand from her mouth, I should disgrace myselfif I were not to call you to an explanation of your letter, that I may know if she had told me ע |