Samuel Johnson on the Eternal State

While Johnson and I stood in calm conference by ourselves in Dr. Taylor’s garden, at a pretty late hour in a serene autumn night, looking up to the heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a future state.  My friend was in a placid and most benignant frame.  “Sir, (said he,) I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually.”

I ventured to ask him whether, although the words of some texts of Scripture seemed in strong support of the dreadful doctrine of an eternity of punishment, we might not hope that the denunciation was figurative and would not be literally executed.  JOHNSON.  “Sir, you are to consider the intention of punishment in a future state.  We have no reason to be sure that we shall, then, be no longer liable to offend against God.  We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of security; nay, we know that some of them have fallen.  It may, therefore, perhaps be necessary, in order to preserve both men and angels in a state of rectitude, that they should have, continually before them, the punishment of those who have deviated from it; but, we may hope that, by some other means, a fall from rectitude may be prevented.  Some of the texts of Scripture upon this subject are, as you observe, indeed strong; but they may admit of a mitigated interpretation.”

He talked to me upon this aweful and delicate question in a gentle tone, and as if afraid to be decisive.

From: Boswell’s Life of Johnson; reprint; 2-volumes-in-1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), 2:153.  Conversation of September 23, 1777.  Originally published in 1791.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the great English lexicographer, biographer, poet, playwright, novelist, raconteur, and public intellectual.

James Boswell (1740-1795) was a Scottish attorney, travel writer and, most famously, the friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson.

 

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, and Religion

Their talk drifted from literary matters to religion, the first of many discussions of its kind.  Boswell admitted “a certain degree of infidelity,” as well he might, seeing his intimacy with Jack Wilkes and some of the Medmenham gang, which he took care not to mention.  He was perfectly sincere in his impulse towards religious truth.  It was impossible to be in Johnson’s company and not to feel Christianity towering over you like Gibraltar.

From: James Boswell: A Short Life by D. B. Wyndham Lewis; 2nd edition (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952 [1946]), p. 81.

 

The Ultimate Race

Who can run the race with Death? – Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English man of letters, in a letter written to Dr. Burney on August 2, 1784, just four months before Johnson’s death

 

No Humor Allowed!

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive. – Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English man of letters

 

Samuel Johnson Defines the Church

1.  The collective body of Christians, usually termed the catholick church.

The church being a supernatural society, doth differ from natural societies in this; that the persons unto whom we associate ourselves in the one, are men, simply considered as men; but they to whom we be joined in the other, are God, angels, and holy men. – Richard Hooker

2.  The body of Christians adhering to one particular opinion, or form of worship.

The church is a religious assembly, or the large fair building where they meet; and sometimes the same word means a synod of bishops, or of presbyters; and in some places it is the pope and a general council. – Isaac Watts

3.  The place which Christians consecrate to the worship of God.

That churches were consecrated unto none but the Lord only, the very general name chiefly doth sufficiently shew: church doth signify no other than the Lord’s house. – Richard Hooker

Tho’ you unty the winds, and let them fight against the churches. – William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”

4.  It is used frequently in conjunction with other words; as church-member, the member of a church; church-power, spiritual or ecclesiastical authority.

From: Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work That Defined the English Language, edited by Jack Lynch (New York: Levenger Press/Walker & Company, 2002), p. 108.  Very lightly edited.

 

Samuel Johnson on the Bible as Literature

Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence and an imagination over-awed and controlled.  We have been accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentic narrative and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as suppresses curiosity.  We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with him when he stops.  All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the purpose of religion seems, not only useless but, in some degree, profane.

Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of divine power are above the power of human genius to dignify.  The miracle of creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffusion of language:  He spake the word, and they were made…

It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous that fancy and fiction lose their effect.  The whole system of life, while the theocracy was yet visible, has an appearance so different from all other scenes of human action that the reader of the sacred volume habitually considers it as the peculiar mode of existence of a distinct species of mankind that lived and acted with manners uncommunicable, so that it is difficult even for imagination to place us in the state of them whose story is related and, by consequence, their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, nor can the attention be often interested in anything that befalls them.

From: “Cowley,” in Lives of the English Poets by Samuel Johnson; reprint; 2 volumes; The World’s Classics series 83 (London: Oxford University Press, 1906), 1:40, 41.  Lives of the English Poets was originally published in two volumes in 1779 and 1781.

“Cowley” is Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), poet and essayist.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is the greatest English man of letters of the 18th century: novelist, playwright, travel writer, lexicographer, poet, essayist, biographer, literary critic, diarist, writer of sermons and prayers, and his century’s (and his country’s) most celebrated conversationalist.

 

On Repentance

Repentance, however difficult to be practised, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood.  Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.  Sorrow and fear and anxiety are properly not parts but adjuncts of repentance; yet they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated, for they not only mark its sincerity but promote its efficacy…The completion and sum of repentance is a change of life.

From: “Repentance,” by Samuel Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 110, published on Saturday, April 6, 1751.  Republished in The Rambler by Samuel Johnson; Everyman’s Library edition (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1953), pp. 177-178.  This volume contains selections from the entire series.

 

Conduct of Life

But there is a universal reason for some stated intervals of solitude which the institutions of the Church call upon me, now especially, to mention; a reason which extends as wide as moral duty or the hopes of divine favor in a future state, and which ought to influence all ranks of life and all degrees of intellect, since none can imagine themselves not comprehended in its obligation but such as determine to set their Maker at defiance by obstinate wickedness or whose enthusiastic security of His approbation places them above external ordinances and all human means of improvement.

The great task of him who conducts his life by the precepts of religion is to make the future predominate over the present, to impress upon his mind so strong a sense of the importance of obedience to the divine will, of the value of the reward promised to virtue, and the terrors of the punishment denounced against crimes, as may overbear all the temptations which temporal hope or fear can bring in his way and enable him to bid equal defiance to joy and sorrow, to turn away, at one time, from the allurements of ambition and push forward, at another, against the threats of calamity.

It is not without reason that the apostle represents our passage through this stage of our existence by images drawn from the alarms and solicitude of a military life, for we are placed in such a state that almost everything about us conspires against our chief interest.  We are in danger from whatever can get possession of our thoughts; all that can excite in us either pain or pleasure has a tendency to obstruct the way that leads to happiness, and either to turn us aside or retard our progress.

From: “The Uses of Retirement” by Samuel Johnson, in The Rambler 7 (Tuesday, April 10, 1750).

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the great 18th-century poet, novelist, lexicographer, and biographer.

 

The Public Reception of “Paradise Lost”

That in the reigns of Charles and James the Paradise Lost received no public acclamations is readily confessed.  Wit and literature were on the side of the Court: and who that solicited favour or fashion would venture to praise the defender of the regicides?  All that he himself could think his due, from evil tongues in evil days, was that reverential silence which was generously preserved.  But, it cannot be inferred that his poem was not read, or not, however unwillingly, admired.

The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public.  Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions.  The call for books was not, in Milton’s age, what it is at present.  To read was not, then, a general amusement; neither traders nor, often, gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance.  The women had not, then, aspired to literature, nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge.  Those, indeed, who professed learning were not less learned than at any other time; but, of that middle race of students who read for pleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of modern typography, the number was, then, comparatively small.  To prove the paucity of readers, it may be sufficient to remark, that the nation had been satisfied, from 1623 to 1664, that is, forty-one years, with only two editions of Shakespeare, which probably did not, together, make one thousand copies.

The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in opposition to so much recent enmity, and to a style of versification new to all and disgusting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius.  The demand did not immediately increase; for many more readers than were supplied at first the nation did not afford.  Only three thousand were sold in eleven years; for it forced its way without assistance; its admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice by advertisements were, then, very few; the means of proclaiming the publications of new books have been produced by that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.

But, the reputation and price of the copy still advanced, till the Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and Paradise Lost broke into open view with sufficient security of kind reception.

Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and silence.  I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting, without impatience, the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.

From: “John Milton (1608-1674)” in Lives of the English Poets by Samuel Johnson; 2 volumes; reprinted in the Everyman’s Library series (#770) (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1925), 1:86-87.

Today is John Milton’s 400th birthday (December 9, 1608).  He is, of course, the great English poet who wrote Paradise Lost.  Milton is usually considered the second greatest writer in the English language, behind only William Shakespeare.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was probably the single greatest literary figure of the 18th century – poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, dictionary-maker, travel writer, biographer, and all-around public intellectual.  The 300th anniversary of his birth is next year.