THE REV. MR. POMEROY. 5g 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 inust 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 them? 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 50001. 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. But 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. THE REV. MR. POMEROY. 61 : TO THE REVEREND J. POMEROY, 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, foretell.. ing 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 20 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 slanderous 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 myself if I were not to call you to an explanation of your letter, that I may know if she had told me any thing false. If you can prove that, I have done; but I cannot rely on your words, except you come forward to prove your assertions. Joanna is ready to meet you at the trial, and demands nothing of you but the truth. Now if you are not ashamed to own the truth, you will certainly come forward to clear yourself. If you do not, what must you think of yourself, to injure the character of an innocent woman, to try to set all her friends against her; which you must do, if we believe your assertions to be true; but if you cannot prove your assertions, I have more reason to believe an evil spirit visits you than her; as I am convinced from the manner the words flow from her mouth, since she has given up her pen, and the beautiful manner that the Bible is explained, for the glory of God, and good of mankind, it cannot come from an evil spirit; and it is impossible for a woman of herself to go on with the explanations as she doth, as the words frequently flow faster than I can pen them. Now, Sir, what must the world think of me, after having so warmly espoused her cause, and asserted publicly my belief that her writings came from the true and living God, if, after perusing your letter to the Rev. Stanhope Bruce, I did not boldly step forward to clear her character, if she is innocent of your charges against her, and demand you to come forward and prove your assertions ? It is a duty I owe to my God, to Joanna, myself, and all those friends who ! THE REV. MR. POMEROY, 63 own ex are fellow labourers with me in the Lord's vineyard : for a cause like this cannot be trifled with; and for my own honour and credit, if you do not come forward like a gentleman, to clear up every truth, I shall compel you to do so. Now, Sir, you talk of Joanna's injuring your character. I must appeal to your own conscience, whether you have not injured it yourself? You must be assured, if Joanna's calling is of God, which I as firmly believe as my own istence, (and Joanna saith she is sure of it,) that the Lord will clear her innocence, and support me in vindicating her cause. Now I shall conclude my letter with the words, (6th chapter of Esther, 13th verse) that Haman's wife and the wise men said unto him: "If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him." So if Joanna's calling be of God, and your honour begin to fall before her, I know you will never prevail against her, but will assuredly fall before her; because you have turned the grace of God into a lie, by saying she is led by an evil spirit. Now, Sir, I must intreat an answer to my letter immediately, after you receive this, or your silence will prove you guilty, and then you must expect to hear from me again: for in support of innocence and truth I fear no man. As a christian, you have my best wishes, that this letter may awaken you to a proper sense of your honour and duty to your God, Joanna Southcott, and yourself, and I remain, Rev. Sir, Your humble servant, Please to direct to me at the Rev. Stanhope Brace's, Inglesham, near Lechlade, Gloucestershire. |