yielded to the solicitations even of very obscure. authours to read their manuscripts, or more liberally assisted them with advice and correction.67 01199£ He found himself very happy at Squire Dilly's, e where there is always abundance of excellent fare, andq hearty welcome. My ya 4 Hem & engiasiqui or On Sunday, June 3, we all went to Southill churchos which is very near to Mr. Dilly's house. If beingɔð the first Sunday in the month, the holy sacramentɔj was administered, and I staid to partake of it. Whenai I came afterwards into Dr. Johnson's room, he said, b "You did right to stay and receive the communionus I had not thought of it." This seemed to implyi that he did not choose to approach the altari without d a previous preparation, as to which good men entert tain different opinions, some holding that it is arregì verent to partake of that ordinance without convo siderable premeditation; others, that whoever¤isswa sincere Christian, and in a proper frame of mind too discharge any other ritual duty of our religion, máy, ¶ without scruple, discharge this most solemn pnetw A middle notion I believe to be the just one, which is, that communicants need not think a long train of y preparatory forms indispensably necessary; but neither q should they rashly and lightly venture upon so awfull and mysterious an institution. Christians must judge, each for himself, what degree of retirement and selfas examination is necessary upon each occasion.-: benoi Being in a frame of mind which I hope, for the felicity of human nature, many experience, in fime † weather, at the country-house of a friend, consoled and elevated by pious exercises,-I expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my "Guide, Philosopher, and Friend." My dear sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very good now. I fear God, and honour the king; I wish to do no ill, and to be benevolent to all mankind." He looked at me with a benignant indulgence; but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. "Do not, sir, accustom yourself to trust to impressions. There is a middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy, of which many are unconscious. By trusting to impressions, a man may gradually come to yield to them, and at length be subject to them, so as not to be a free agent, or what is the same thing in effect, to suppose that he is not a free agent. A man who is in that state should not be suffered to live; if he declares he cannot help acting in a particular way, and is irresistibly impelled, there can be no confidence in him, no more than in a tiger. But, sir, no man believes himself to be impelled irresistibly; we know that he who says he believes it, lies. Favourable impressions at particular moments, as to the state of our souls, may be deceitful and dangerous. In generalino man can be sure of his acceptance with God; some, indeed, may have had it revealed to them. St. Paul, who wrought miracles, may have had a miracle wrought on himself, and may have obtained supernatural assurance of pardon, and mercy, and beatitude; yet St. Paul, though he expresses strong hope, also expresses fear, lest having preached to others, he himself should be a castaway.' The opinion of a learned bishop of our acquaintance, as to there being merit in religious faith, being mentioned:-JOHNSON. "Why, yes, sir, the most licentious man, were hell open before him, would not take the most beautiful strumpet to his arms. We must, as the apostle says, live by faith, not by sight'. 199 [There seems much obscurity here. If the bishop used the word merit in a popular sense, and meant only to say, colloquially, that a religious faith was meritorious or praiseworthy," the observation was hardly worth recording; yet, it is not, on the other hand, likely that he meant, speaking theologically, to attribute merit towards salvation to any act or operation of the human mind, "for that were" (as the Homily forbids) "to count ourselves to be justified by some act or virtue which is within us.' But on either interpretation it seems VOL. IV. K K I talked to him of original sin', in consequence of the fall of man, and of the atonement made by our Saviour. After some conversation, which he desired me to remember, he, at my request, dictated to me as follows: "With respect to original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; for whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently and confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth are insufficient to restrain them from crimes. "Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vicarious punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession of mankind in all ages. There is no nation that has not used the practice of sacrifices. Whoever, therefore, denies the propriety of vicarious punishments, holds an opinion which the sentiments and practice of mankind have contradicted from the beginning of the world. The great sacrifice for the sins of mankind was offered at the death of the Messiah, who is called in Scripture The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.' To judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption it must be considered as necessary to the government of the universe that God should make known his perpetual and irreconcileable detestation of moral evil. He might indeed punish, and punish hard to discover the connexion or meaning of the reply attributed to Dr. Johnson. The bishop's opinion is evidently very imperfectly stated, and there must have been some connecting links in the chain of Johnson's reasoning which Mr. Boswell has lost. The passage not quite accurately quoted by Dr. Johnson is in St. Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians, v. 7. We walk by faith, and not by sight."-ED.] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon " On the Articles of the Christian Faith,” with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin, and misery, which we find in this life: " It would be severe in God, you think, to degrade us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to place us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to look for its amendment."-BOSWELL. only the offenders; but as the end of punishment is not revenge of crimes but propagation of virtue, it was more becoming the divine clemency to find another manner of proceeding, less destructive to man, and at least equally powerful to promote goodness. The end of punishment is to reclaim and warn. That punishment will both reclaim and warn, which shows evidently such abhorrence of sin in God, as may deter us from it, or strike us with dread of vengeance when we have committed it. This is effected by vicarious punishment. Nothing could more testify the opposition between the nature of God and moral evil, or more amply display his justice, to men and angels, to all orders and successions of beings, than that it was necessary for the highest and purest nature, even for Divinity itself, to pacify the demands of vengeance by a painful death; of which the natural effect will be, that when justice is appeased, there is a proper place for the exercise of mercy; and that such propitiation shall supply, in some degree, the imperfections of our obedience and the inefficacy of our repentance: for obedience and repentance, such as we can perform, are still necessary. Our Saviour has told us, that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil to fulfil the typical law, by the performance of what those types had foreshown, and the moral law, by precepts of greater purity and higher exultation." Here he said "God bless you with it." I acknowledged myself much obliged to him; but I begged that he would go on as to the propitiation being the chief object of our most holy faith. He then dictated this one other paragraph. "The peculiar doctrine of christianity is, that of an universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation'. 1 [See ante, vol. iv. p. 41, n. This passage proves the justice of the observation which the Editor made in that note as to Johnson's opinion on this important point.-ED.] Other prophets only proclaimed the will and the threatenings of God. Christ satisfied his justice." The Reverend Mr. Palmer', fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, dined with us. He expressed a wish that a better provision were made for parishclerks. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, a parish-clerk should be a man who is able to make a will or write a letter for any body in the parish." I mentioned Lord Monboddo's notion that the ancient Egyptians, with all their learning and all their arts, were not only black, but woolly-haired. Mr. Palmer asked how did it appear upon examining the mummies? Dr. Johnson approved of this test. Although upon most occasions I never heard a more strenuous advocate for the advantages of wealth than Dr. Johnson, he this day, I know not from what caprice, took the other side. "I have not observed," said he, " that men of very large fortunes enjoy any thing extraordinary that makes happiness. What has the Duke of Bedford? What has the Duke of Devonshire? The only great instance, that I have ever known of the enjoyment of wealth was that of Jamaica Dawkins, who going to visit Palmyra, and hearing that the way was infested by This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister to a congregation of the sect who call themselves Unitarians, from a notion that they distinctively worship one God, because they deny the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity. They do not advert that the great body of the christian church in maintaining that mystery maintain also the unity of the Godhead: "the Trinity in Unity!-three persons and one God." The church humbly adores the Divinity as exhibited in the holy Scriptures. The unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define the Almighty. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent constitution as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a jury, the court of justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence was made by some members of both houses of parliament; but both houses approved of it by a great majority, and he was conveyed to the settlement for convicts in New South Wales.-BoSWELL. Mr. T. F. Palmer was of Queen's College in Cambridge, where he took the degree of master of arts in 1772, and that of S. T. B. in 1781. He died on his return from Botany Bay in the year 1803.—MALONE. 2 Taken from Herodotus.-BOSWELL. |