of their own personal sinfulness flash upon his conscience. The and spiritual inability. If they do awfulness of his condition will not not discredit altogether the doctrine be in itself more alarming a million of future rewards and punishments, of years hence than it is at the mothey are at least ignorant or unbe- ment of dissolution; and the only lieving respecting their own indivi- reason why it will affect the mind dual demerits; and consequently ex- in a more powerful and impressive pect, what the Almighty has no manner is, that he will then be perwhere promised to grant, that their mitted no longer to fortify his heart, contaminated and imperfect righte- either by misconception or sceptical ousness shall be found worthy of indifference. Satiety and disapprocuring their admission into hea- pointment, equability of nerve and ven. But if they really felt, with philosophical pride, with all those the true members of the Church, other causes which have been menthat "there is no health in them," tioned in a preceding extract, would nothing short of a scriptural know- have no power to make a sinner ledge of the great Physician of souls really calm in death, were they not could possibly calm their apprehen- combined with some secret ignorance sions. If they seriously believed or doubt respecting the certainty of that eternal punishment is their that eternal punishment which his desert by nature, they could venture sins have incurred. to cherish no hope of heaven but by the free grace of Christ. The expectation of the end, without any reference to the only means, is evidently a serious error; or if, in order to supply this defect, the means are supposed to consist in human merit and human works, that very ignorance is incidentally betrayed, the existence of which it was the object of the present argument to prove. To know revelation justly, includes in its very elements the knowledge of our being by nature in a situation so guilty and alarming that," without the shedding of blood, there is no remission." It is true, that hardness of heart, and the other causes which have been already enumerated, may conduce to a false peace; but the means by which they operate are undoubtedly connected with the encouragement of latent ignorance, or infidelity; for, were the whole subject fully understood and credited, who would be able to harden his heart, or proudly to cherish an unfounded confidence? To discern accurately, and believe fully, would create in the dying sinner much the same mental feelings as those which he must necessarily experience at the Last Day, when knowledge and conviction shall both irresistibly The case of our great English Moralist is a most decisive illustra tion of the impossibility of discovering any mode of solacing a scripturally enlightened conscience, except that which the Gospel has revealed. Had Dr. Johnson been ignorant of his sinfulness in the sight of God, he might have expired, as thousands every day expire, in a blind and fatal repose; or had he been inclined to infidelity, he might have jested, like Hume and others of a similar school, on the subject of his approaching dissolu tion. Neither, however, of these effects would have constituted that true peace which his spiritually directed mind so eagerly sought, and which, before his death, he most certainly obtained. A few practical remarks upon the subject of the last hours of this illustrious man will not only be a forcible comment upon the foregoing propositions, but will tend to shew, that what Dr. Johnson's biographers have been almost ashamed to confess, and have industriously exerted themselves to palliate, constituted, in truth, the most auspicious circumstance of his life, and was the best proof of his increase in religious knowledge and holiness of mind. Whoever considers with a Chris- Together with this conscientious feeling he had adopted certain in correct, not to say superstitious, ideas, respecting the method of placating the Deity. He seems, for example, to have believed that penance, in its confined and popish sense, as distinguished from simple penitence, is of great avail in procuring the Divine favour and forgiveness. Thus, when his conscience distressed him on account of an act of disobedience to his parent, we find him many years afterwards remaining a considerable time bare-headed in the rain, exposed in the public streets to the ridicule and the conjectures of every spectator. As far as filial affection and true amiableness of mind are concerned, the actor in such a scene deserves and ensures universal veneration and esteem. Even while we smile at the somewhat ludicrous nature of the action, we instinctively feel a sympathy and respect which perhaps a wiser but less remarkable mode of exhibiting his feelings might not have procured. But Johnson seems to have per formed this humiliation from higher considerations than mere sorrow for the past; for he emphatically adds, "In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." If these words really mean any thing-and when did Dr. Johnson utter words without meaning ?-he must have intended by them to express his hope that the previous fault was really atoned for, in a religious sense, by the subsequent act of self-denial; or, in other words, that God accepts human penance as an expiation for human sins-a doctrine to which revealed religion gives no sanction whatever. Johnson's system appears at this time to have been, as it were, a sort of barter between himself and Heaven; and, consequently, his chief fear was lest the equivalent which he presented should not be sufficient to entitle him, in the Divine mercy, to the pardon of his transgressions. His trust on the Redeemer, though perfectly sincere, does not appear to have been either exclusive or implicit; for though all his prayers for mercy, and acknowledgments of blessings, were offered up solely through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, he seems, in point of fact, for many years to have viewed the Atonement rather as a medium through which God is pleased to accept our imperfect services, and to make them adequate, by the conditions of a remedial law, to the purchase of heaven, than as a sacrifice by which alone heaven is fully secured and freely given to the believing penitent. Dr. Johnson's line of reading in Divinity was perhaps unfavourable to a full perception of Christian truth. The writings of Mr. Law, in particular, which he had studied with some attention, were by no means well adapted to his peculiar case. For a thoughtless, a frivolous, or an impenitent sinner, the "Serious Call" might have been eminently useful, in exciting a deep consciousness of guilt, a salutary remorse for the past, and holy resolutions for the future: and as far as these elements of religion extend, the perusal of this celebrated book might doubt Jess have had some good effect upon the mind of Dr. Johnson. But in the consolatory parts of the Gospel -in the free and undisguised, exhibition of a Redeemer, whose sacrifice is perfect and all-sufficient; in the inculcation of the gracious promises of a reconciled Father to the returning prodigal-Law, and other writers of a similar school, are undoubtedly defective; and the same defect seems to have characterized for many years the views of our illustrious Moralist. He lived in a perpetual dilemma, by trusting to works which his well-informed conscience told him were not good, and yet on the goodness of which, in conjunction at least with the merits of Christ, he placed his dependance for eternity. To give, therefore, comfort to the mind of such a man as Dr. Johnson, there were but two modes, either by blinding his conscience, or by increasing his faith; either by extenuating his sins, or by pointing out in all its glories the sufficiency of the Christian Ransom. The friends who surrounded this eminent man, during the greater part of his life, were little qualified to perform the latter, and therefore very naturally resorted to the former. They found their patient, so to speak, in agony; but, instead of examining the wound and applying the remedy, they contented themselves with administer ing anodynes and opiates, and persuading their afflicted friend that there existed no cause of danger or alarm. But Johnson was not thus deceived. The, nostrum which has lulled millions to a fatal repose, on him, by the mercy of God, had no effect. His convictions of sin were as lasting as they were deep. It was not, therefore, until he had discarded his natural and longcherished views of commutation and human desert, and had learned to trust humbly and exclusively to his Saviour, that his mind became at peace. Let us view some of the recorded circumstances of the transaction; and in so doing we shall, as Christians, have much more occasion to applaud the scriptural correctness of Johnson's feelings respecting the value of his soul, the guilt of his nature, and the inadequacy of man's best merits and repentance, than to congratulate him upon the accession of such "miserable comforters" as those who appear to have surrounded his dying pillow. Finding him in great mental distress, "I told him," remarks one of his biographers (Sir John Hawkins), "of the many enjoyments of which I thought him in possession-namely, a permanent income, tolerable health, a high degree of reputation for his moral qualities and literary exertions," &c.-Had Johnson's depression of mind been nothing more than common melancholy or discontent, these topics of consolation would have been highly appropriate; they might also have been fitly urged as arguments for gratitude and thanks. giving to the Almighty on account of such exalted mercies. In either of these points of view, the piety of Dr. Johnson would doubtless have prompted him to acknowledge the value of the blessing, and the duty of contentment and praise. But, as arguments for quieting an alarmed conscience, they were quite inadequate; for what would it have The feelings of Dr. Johnson on goodness, and was become habitually pious." This was the rock on which numberless professed Christians have been fatally wrecked; and to the mercy of the Almighty must it be ascribed, that the great and good Dr. Johnson did not add one more to the melancholy catalogue. For what was the doctrine which the narrator attempted to inculcate but this? that his friend, like the Pharisee in the Gospel, ought to place his confidence upon his possessing more merit than other men, und instead of attributing the praise to Him who had made him to differ," was to "sacrifice to his own net, and burn incense to his own drag.” Can we wonder that with such flattering doctrines constantly sounding in his ears, Dr. Johnson was suffered to undergo much severe mental discipline, in order to reduce him in his own esteem to that lowly place, which, as a human, and consequently a fallen, being, it was his duty, however high his attain. ments or his talents, to occupy. The share of spiritual pride, which Sir John Hawkins thus un consciously spread for his dying friend, was the more seductive from the circumstance of Dr. Johnson's life having been upon the whole correct and laudable, and from his writings having been eminently useful for the promotion of morality and virtue. The con victions of a profligate man might have been supposed too keen and alarming to be quieted by such common-place soporifics; but where there was really so much apparent cause for self-complacency and grau tulation, as in the case of Dr. Johnson, it must appear almost wonderful that the self-righteous delusion did not succeed. It would undoubtedly have given this biographer much satisfaction to have heard from his friend the usual language of an unsubdued heart: "I thank God, that upon the whole I have acted my part 4 G well upon the stage of life. We to him, and said he wanted to enter are all frail and fallible, but I have no great sins to account for. I have been honest and charitable: my conduct, I trust, has been, with some few exceptions, one uniform course of virtue: 'I therefore die in peace, looking forward to that happiness which, I trust, my actions have ensured, from a God of infinite mercy and compassion." But to the humble and well-informed Christian, the penitential sorrows of Johnson, (springing, as they did, from a heart ill at ease with itself, not so much on account of any one flagrant sin as from a general sense of the exalted nature of the Divine law and the imperfections of the best human obedience,) will appear a happier and surer pledge of his Scriptural renovation of mind than the most rapturous expressions which pharisaic confidence could have produced. The self-righteous arguments of Hawkins could not, however, touch the case of Johnson. "These suggestions," he continues, "made little impression on him he lamented the indolence in which he had spent his life; talked of secret transgressions; and seemed desirous of telling me more to that purpose than I was willing to hear." Happy was it for Dr. Johnson that his confessor's arguments produced so little effect, and that he was at length instructed by a better guide than his well-meaning, but inexperienced, friend. Throughout the whole of Hawkins's remarks, the only topics of genuine Christian consolation appear to have had no place. That "blood which cleanseth from all sin" is scarcely, or only incidentally, mentioned; and we find the narrator continuing in the following strain his inefficient consolations: "In a visit which I made him in a few days, in consequence of a very pressing request to see me, I found him labouring under very great dejection of mind. He bade me drawnear into a serious conversation with me; and upon my expressing my willingness to join in it, he, with a look that cut me to the heart, told me, that he had the prospect of death before him, and that he dreaded to meet his Saviour. I could not but be astonished at such a declaration, and advised him, as I had done before, to reflect on the course of his life, and the services which he had rendered to the cause of religion and virtue, as well by his example as his writings; to which he answered, that he had written as a philosopher, but had not lived like one. In the estimation of his offences he reasoned thus: Every man knows his own sins, and what grace he has resisted. But to those of others, and the circumstances under which they were committed, he is a stranger. He is therefore to look on himself as the greatest sinner that he knows of.' At the conclusion of this argument, which he strongly enforced, he uttered this passionate [impassioned] exclamation: Shall I who have been a teacher of others, be myself a cast-away?'" In this interesting passage-interesting as detailing the religious progress of such a mind as Dr. Johnson's-how many important facts and reflections crowd upon the imagination! We see the highest human intellect unable at the ap proach of death to find a single argument for hope or comfort, though stimulated by the mention of all the good deeds and auspicious forebodings which an anxious and attentive friend could suggest. Who that beholds this eminent man thus desirous to open his mind, and to "enter into a serious conversation" upon the most momentous of all subjects which can interest an immortal being, but must regret that he had not found a spiritual adviser who was capable of fully entering into his feelings, and administering scriptural consolation to his afflicted mind? |