Samuel Johnson

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/20.html
Next only to William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson is perhaps the most quoted of English writers. The latter part of the eighteenth century is often (in English-speaking countries, of course) called, simply, the Age of Johnson.

The essays in the Rambler, although many of them are explicitly moralistic, are almost never explicitly Christian, or even religious. Yet there is no doubt that Johnson intended them to serve a Christian purpose. Before writing them, he offered the following prayer:

Almighty God... without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, I beseech Thee, that in this my undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the Salvation both of myself and others.

Why, then, did he not write openly about Christ in the Rambler, or for that matter in the Vanity? For the Vanity, a short answer is that he wrote his poem as an "imitation" of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, and that he is constrained thereby to follow the form of that Satire. More generally, we may say that he considers his work to be, not the preaching of the Gospel, but the preparing of men for hearing the Gospel preached by another. A man who has been persuaded that without Divine Help he cannot be virtuous, and that without virtue he cannot be truly happy, is ready to hear the offer of Divine Help when it is preached. The Law, says the Apostle Paul, is a pedagogue to bring us to Christ. Johnson thought of himself in these writings as such a pedagogue.
Why did he choose the role of pedagogue rather than evangelist? One reason is an overwhelming dread of having others examine his character and actions to see whether he practiced what he preached. He knew that a minister of the Gospel who preaches, "Blessed are the poor," and lives like a millionaire, or one who preaches chastity and is discovered in adultery, brings the Faith into contempt, and he was dreadfully afraid of bringing the Faith into contempt. He was innocent of adultery and of living luxuriously, but he could not write moral advice without being reminded of his own shortcomings. What some critics have called "one of the finest short discussions in English of idleness and procrastination" (Rambler, Number 134) was written by Johnson in great haste while the printer's boy waited to snatch up the copy and speed it to the press. He would therefore write Christian sermons, but only if he could do so anonymously.
Johnson wrote a series of sermons for his friend John Taylor. One of them deals with trust in God. Trust in God is en essential part of the Christian life. But suppose that a man does not feel trust. Ought he to try to deceive himself into thinking that he does feel it? Ought he to try to manufacture feelings of trust by sheer will-power? Johnson's answer is that he ought to behave as if he did trust God, and that means obeying God. He who obeys will find sooner or later that he does trust.

"This constant and devout practice is both the effect, and Cause, of confidence in God. Trust in God is to be obtained only by repentance, obedience, and supplication, not by nourishing in our hearts a confused idea of the goodness of God, or a firm persuasion that we are in a state of grace."

A problem for Johnson was that, although he had no trouble seeing that his attitude toward God ought to be one of trust and dependency, his constant struggle since infancy with his physical disabilities had instilled in him a strong habit of self-reliance and rejection of help from others. Habit and theory were thus at constant war.
He also found it difficult to participate in public worship, especially when it involved sermons, since he often knew more about the sermon subject than the preacher, and had to resist the impulse to contradict him. Public prayer was less of a difficulty, and private prayer still less. The followin is taken from his diary. (It should perhaps be explained that "scruples" is sometimes used to refer to a state of mind in which one feels incapacitating guilt over matters that it is not in one's power to alter. Being free of scruples in this sense does not mean being a scoundrel.)

O Lord, who wouldst that all men should be saved, and who Knowest that without thy grace we can do nothing acceptable to thee, have mercy upon me. Enable me to break the chain of my sins, to reject sensuality in word and thought, and to overcome and suppress vain scruples; and to use such diligence in lawful employment as may enable me to support myself and do good to others. O Lord, forgive me the time lost in idleness; pardon the sins which I have committed, and grant that I may redeem the time misspent, and be reconciled to thee by true repentance, that I may live and die in peace, and be received to everlasting happiness. Take not from me, O Lord, thy Holy Spirit, but let me have support and comfort for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

Meanwhile, he wrote Essays for the Rambler about human motives, about self-deception, the "treachery of the human heart," the ways in which we evade the knowledge of what we ought to do, and about some specific duties that we need to be reminded of.

Some short extracts from the essays are:

• We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
• The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
• Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
• The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.
• Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.
• Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
• The vanity of being known to be entrusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
• Among other pleasing errors of young minds is the opinion of their own importance. He that has not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries can spare from themselves, conceives all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines everyone that approaches him to be an enemy or a follower, an admirer or a spy.
• The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative.
• Whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find reasons for rejecting than embracing.
• Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure...if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain.
• Almost every man has some real or imaginary connection with a celebrated character.
• Discord generally operates in little things; it is inflamed...by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
• So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.
• We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinion, because we very often differ from ourselves.
• All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood.
• Such is our desire of abstraction from ourselves, that very few are satisfied with the quantity of stupefaction which the needs of the body force upon the mind. Alexander himself added intemperance to sleep, and solaced with the fumes of wine the sovereignty of the world. And almost every man has some art, by which he steals his thought away from his present state.
• I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received.