previous preparation, as to which good men entertain different opinions, some holding that it is irreverent to partake of that ordinance without considerable premeditation; others, that whoever is a sincere Christian, and in a proper frame of mind to discharge any other ritual duty of our religion, may, without scruple, discharge this most solemn one. A middle notion I believe to be the just one, which is, that communicants need not think a long train of preparatory forms indispensably necessary; but neither should they rashly and lightly venture upon so awful and mysterious an institution. Christians inust judge, each for himself, what degree of retirement and self-examination is necessary upon each occasion. 66 We must, as the apostle says, live by faith, not by sight." I talked to him of original sin 2, 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. sins of the world.' To judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption it "Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vicarious punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession of Being in a frame of mind which I hope, mankind in all ages. There is no nation for the felicity of human nature, many ex- that has not used the practice of sacrifices. perience, in fine weather, at the country- Whoever, therefore, denies the propriety house of a friend,-consoled and elevated of vicarious punishments, holds an opinion by pious exercises, I expressed myself which the sentiments and practice of manwith an unrestrained fervour to my "Guide, kind have contradicted from the beginning Philosopher, and Friend." My dear sir, of the world. The great sacrifice for the I would fain be a good man; and I am very sins of mankind was offered at the death good now. I fear God, and honour the of the Messiah, who is called in Scripture king; I wish to do no ill, and to be benevo-The Lamb of God, that taketh away the lent 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 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 general no 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." agent. 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. [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 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.] 2 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."-Bos WELL. 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 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. Other prophets only proclaimed the will and the threatenings of God. Christ satisfied his justice." The Reverend Mr. Palmer 2, fellow of 1 [See ante, p. 127, n. This passage proves the justice of the observation which the Editor made in that note as to Jolinson's opinion on this important point.-ED.] Queen's College, Cambridge, dined with us. He expressed a wish that a better provision were made for parish-clerks. 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 3 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 robbers, hired a troop of Turk ish horse to guard him 4." Dr. Gibbons 5 the dissenting minister, being mentioned, he said, "I took to Dr. Gibbons." And addressing himself to Mr. Charles Dilly, added, "I shall be glad to see him. Tell him, if he'll call on me, and dawdle over a dish of tea in an afternoon, I shall take it kind.” 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 seditions 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 majori ty, 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. 3 Taken from Herodotus.-BOSWELL. [Henry Dawkins, Esq., the companion of Wood and Bouverie in their travels, and the patron of the Athenian Stuart.-ED.] 66 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 [Thomas Gibbons, a Calvinist" (says the Unitarians, from a notion that they distinctively Biog. Dict.) "of the old stamp, and a man of worship one God, because they deny the mysteri- great piety and primitive manners." He wrote ous doctrine of the Trinity. They do not advert a Life of Dr. Watts, and assisted Dr. Johnson with hat the great body of the christian church in some materials for the Life of Watts in the Engmaintaining that mystery maintain also the unitylish Poets. He died by a stroke of apoplexy m of the Godhead: "the Trinity in Unity!-three 1785, ætat. sixty-five.—ED.] The Reverend Mr. Smith, vicar of South- | you be too sure of that2." He made two ill, a very respectable man, with a very or three peculiar observations; as, when agreeable family, sent an invitation to us to shown the botanical garden, "Is not every drink tea. I remarked Dr. Johnson's very garden a botanical garden?" When told respectful politeness. Though always fond that there was a shrubbery to the extent of of changing the scene, he said, "We must several miles; "That is making a very have Mr. Dilly's leave. We cannot go from foolish use of the ground; a little of it is your house, sir, without your permission." very well." When it was proposed that We all went, and were well satisfied with we should walk on the pleasure-ground; our visit. I, however, remember nothing" Don't let us fatigue ourselves. Why particular, except a nice distinction which Dr. Johnson made with respect to the power of memory, maintaining that forgetfulness was a man's own fault. "To remember and to recollect," said he, "are different things. A man has not the power to recol-stately place, indeed; in the house magnifilect what is not in his mind, but when a cence is not sacrificed to convenience, nor thing is in his mind he may remember it." convenience to magnificence. The library The remark was occasioned by my lean- is very splendid; the dignity of the rooms ing back on a chair, which a little before I is very great; and the quantity of pictures had perceived to be broken, and pleading is beyond expectation, beyond hope." forgetfulness as an excuse. Sir," " said ke, its being broken was certainly in your mind." 66 When I observed that a housebreaker was in general very timorous: JOHNSON. "No wonder, sir; he is afraid of being shot getting into a house, or hanged when he has got out of it." He told us, that he had in one day written six sheets of a translation from the French; adding, "I should be glad to see it now. I wish that I had copies of all the pamphlets written against me, as it is said Pope had. Had I known that I should make so much noise in the world, I should have been at pains to collect them. I believe there is hardly a day in which there is not something about me in the newspapers." On Monday, June 4, we all went to Luton-Hoe, to see Lord Bute's magnificent seat, for which I had obtained a ticket. As we entered the park, I talked in a high style of my old friendship with Lord Mountstuart, and said, "I shall probably be much at this place." The sage, aware of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: "Don't [Mr. Boswell's note must have been imperfect. Dr. Johnson certainly never talked such nonsense as is here attributed to him--a man can no more remember" what is not on his mind " than he can recollect it, and "when a thing is in his mind " he can just as well recollect as remember it. In his Dictionary, Johnson defines "remember, to bear in mind, to recollect, to call to mind." This would seem to imply that be considered the words as nearly synonymous ; but in his definition of " recollect, to recover memory, to gather what is scattered," he makes the true distinction. When the words are to be contradistinguished, it may be said that rememIrance is spontaneous, and recollection an effort.-ED.] should we walk there? Here's a fine tree, It happened without any previous concert that we visited the seat of Lord Bute upon the king's birthday; we dined and drank his majesty's health at an inn in the village of Luton. In the evening I put him in mind of his promise to favour me with a copy of his celebrated Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, and he was at last pleased to comply with this earnest request, by dictating it to me from his memory; for he believed that he himself had no copy. There was an animated glow in his countenance while he thus recalled his high-minded indignation. He laughed heartily at a ludicrous action in the court of session, in which I was counsel. The society of procurators, or attornies, entitled to practise in the inferior courts at Edinburgh, had obtained a royal charter, in which they had taken care to have their ancient designation of Procurators changed into that of Solicitors, from a notion, as they supposed, that it was more genteel; and this new title they displayed by a public advertisement for a general meeting at their hall. It has been said that the Scottish nation is not distinguished for humour; and, indeed, what happened on this occasion may, in some degree, justify the remark; for although this society had contrived to make ridicule of such as might stoop to it, the themselves a very prominent object for the only joke to which it gave rise was the following paragraph, sent to the newspaper called "The Caledonian Mercury." "A correspondent informs us, the Worshipful Society of Chaldeans, Cadies, or Running-Stationers of this city are re 2 [See ante, p. 31. "Dulcis inexpertis potentis cultura amici, Expertus metuit."-Hor. Ep. xviii. lib. i. v. 86.-ED] |