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SERMON 3

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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Sermons

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SERMON 31

Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardneth his heart, shall fall into mischief.

PROVERBS XXViii. 14

The great purpose of revealed religion is to afford man a clear representation of his dependance on the Supreme Being, by teaching him to consider God as his Creator, and Governour, his Father and his Judge. Those to whom Providence has granted the knowledge of the holy Scriptures, have no need to perplex themselves with difficult speculations, to deduce their duty from remote principles, or to enforce it by doubtful motives. The Bible tells us, in plain and authoritative terms, that there is a way to life, and a way to death; that there are acts which God will reward, and acts that he will punish. That with soberness, righteousness, and godliness,2 God will

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be pleased; and that with intemperance, iniquity, and impiety, God will be offended; and that of those who are careful to please him, the reward will be such, as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard;3 and of those who, having offended him, die without repentance, the punishment will be inconceivably severe, and dreadful.

In consequence of this general doctrine, the whole system of moral and religious duty is expressed, in the language of Scripture, by the “fear of God.” A good man is characterised, as a man that feareth God; and the fear of the Lord is said to be the beginning of wisdom;4 and the text affirms, that happy is the man that feareth always.

On the distinction of this fear, into servile and filial,5 or fear of punishment, or fear of offence, on which much has been superstructed by the casuistical theology of the Romish church,6 it is not necessary to dwell. It is sufficient to observe, that the religion which makes fear the great principle of action, implicitly condemns all self-confidence, all presumptuous security; and enjoins a constant state of vigilance and caution, a perpetual distrust of our own hearts, a full conviction of our natural weakness, and an earnest solicitude for divine assistance.

The philosophers of the heathen world seemed to hope, that

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man might be flattered into virtue, and therefore told him much of his rank, and of the meanness of degeneracy; they asserted, indeed with truth, that all greatness was in the practice of virtue; but of virtue, their notions were narrow; and pride, which their doctrine made its chief support, was not of power sufficient to struggle with sense or passion.

Of that religion, which has been taught from God, the basis is humility; a holy fear which attends good men, through the whole course of their lives; and keeps them always attentive to the motives and consequences of every action; if always unsatisfied with their progress in holiness, always wishing to advance, and always afraid of falling away.

This fear is of such efficacy to the great purpose of our being, that the wise man has pronounced him happy that fears always; and declares, that he who hardens his heart, shall fall into mischief. Let us therefore carefully consider,

First, what he is to fear, whose fear will make him happy.

Secondly, what is that hardness of heart which ends in mischief.

Thirdly, how the heart is hardened. And

Fourthly, what is the consequence of hardness of heart.

First, we must enquire, what he is to fear, whose fear will make him happy.

The great and primary object of a good man’s fear, is sin; and in proportion to the atrociousness of the crime, he will shrink from it with more horrour. When he meditates on the infinite perfection of his Maker and his Judge; when he considers that the heavens are not pure in the sight of God,7 and yet remembers, that he must in a short time appear before him; he dreads the contaminations of evil, and endeavours to pass through his appointed time, with such cautions, as may keep him unspotted from the world.8

The dread of sin necessarily produces the dread of temptation: he that wishes to escape the effect, flies likewise from the cause. The humility of a man truly religious seldom suffers him to think himself able to resist those incitements to evil,

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which by the approach of immediate gratifications may be presented to sense or fancy; his care is not for victory, but safety; and when he can escape assaults, he does not willingly encounter them.

The continual occurrence of temptation, and that imbecility of nature,9 which every man sees in others, and has experienced in himself, seems to have made many doubtful of the possibility of salvation. In the common modes of life, they find that business ensnares, and that pleasure seduces; that success produces pride, and miscarriage envy; that conversation consists too often of censure or of flattery; and that even care for the interests of friends, or attention to the establishment of a family, generates contest and competition, enmity and malevolence, and at last fills the mind with secular solicitude.

Under the terrours which this prospect of the world has impressed upon them, many have endeavoured to secure their innocence, by excluding the possibility of crimes; and have fled for refuge, from vanity and sin, to the solitude of deserts; where they have passed their time in woods and caverns; and after a life of labour and maceration,1 prayer and penitence, died at last in secrecy and silence.

Many more, of both sexes, have withdrawn, and still with-draw themselves, from crowds and glitter, and pleasure, to monasteries and convents; where they engage themselves, by irrevocable vows, in certain modes of life, more or less austere, according to the several institutions; but all of them comprizing many positive hardships, and all prohibiting almost all sensual gratifications. The fundamental and general principle

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of all monastic communities, is celibacy, poverty, and obedience to the superiour. In some, there is a perpetual abstinence from all food that may join delight with nourishment; to which, in others, is added an obligation to silence and solitude;-to suffer, to watch, and to pray, is their whole employment.2

Of these, it must be confessed, that they fear always, and that they escape many temptations, to which all are exposed, and by which many fall, who venture themselves into the whirl of human affairs; they are exempt from avarice, and all its concomitants, and by allowing themselves to possess nothing, they are free from those contests for honour and power, which fill the open world with stratagems and violence. But surely it cannot be said that they have reached the perfection of a religious life, it cannot be allowed, that flight is victory; or that he fills his place in the creation laudably, who does no ill, only because he does nothing. Those who live upon that which is produced by the labour of others, could not live, if there were none to labour; and if celibacy could be universal, the race of man must soon have an end.

Of these recluses, it may, without uncharitable censure, be affirmed; that they have secured their innocence, by the loss of their virtue; that to avoid the commission of some faults, they have made many duties impracticable; and that lest they should do what they ought not to do, they leave much undone, which they ought to do. They must however be allowed, to express a just sense of the dangers, with which we are surrounded; and a strong conviction of the vigilance necessary to obtain salvation; and it is our business to avoid their errours, and imitate their piety.

He is happy that carries about with him in the world the temper of the cloister; and preserves the fear of doing evil, while he suffers himself to be impelled by the zeal of doing good; who uses the comforts and the conveniences of his condition, as though he used them not, with that constant desire of a better state, which sinks the value of earthly things; who can be rich or poor, without pride in riches, or discontent in poverty; who can manage the business of life, with such

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indifference, as may shut out from his heart all incitements to fraud or injustice; who can partake the pleasures of sense with temperance, and enjoy the distinctions of honour with moderation; who can pass undefiled through a polluted world; and, among all the vicissitudes of good and evil, have his heart fixed only where true joys are to be found.

This can only be done, by fearing always, by preserving in the mind a constant apprehension of the divine presence, and a constant dread of the divine displeasure; impressions which the converse of mankind, and the solicitations of sense and fancy, are continually labouring to efface, and which we must therefore renew by all such practices as religion prescribes; and which may be learned from the lives of them, who have been distinguished, as examples of piety, by the general approbation of the Christian world.

The great efficient3 of union between the soul and its Creator, is prayer; of which the necessity is such, that St. Paul directs us, to pray without ceasing;4 that is, to preserve in the mind such a constant dependence upon God, and such a constant desire of his assistance, as may be equivalent to constant prayer.

No man can pray, with ardour of devotion, but he must excite in himself a reverential idea of that Power, to whom he addresses his petitions; nor can he suddenly reconcile himself to an action, by which he shall displease him, to whom he has been returning thanks for his creation and preservation, and by whom he hopes to be still preserved. He therefore, who prays often, fortifies himself by a natural effect, and may hope to be preserved in safety, by the stronger aid of divine protection.

Besides the returns of daily and regular prayer, it will be necessary for most men to assist themselves, from time to time, by some particular and unaccustomed acts of devotion. For this purpose, intervals of retirement may be properly recommended; in which the dust of life may be shaken off, and in which, the course of life may be properly reviewed, and its future possibilities estimated. At such times secular temptations

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are removed, and earthly cares are dismissed; a vain transitory world may be contemplated in its true state; past offences may obtain pardon by repentance; new resolutions may be formed, upon new convictions; the past may supply instruction to the present and to the future; and such preparation may be made for those events, which threaten spiritual danger, that temptation cannot easily come unexpected; and interest and pleasure, whenever they renew their attacks, will find the soul upon its guard, with either caution to avoid, or vigour to repel them.

In these seasons of retreat and recollection, what external helps shall be added must by every one be discreetly and soberly considered. Fasts and other austerities, however they have been brought into disrepute, by wild enthusiasm, have been always recommended, and always practised by the sincere believers of revealed religion; and as they have a natural tendency to disengage the mind from sensuality, they may be of great use, as awakeners of holy fear; and they may assist our progress in a good life, while they are considered only as expressions of our love of God, and are not substituted for the love of our neighbours.

As all those duties are to be practised, lest the heart should be hardened, we are to consider, Secondly, what is meant by “hardness of heart.”5

It is apparent from the text, that the hardness of heart, which betrays to mischief, is contrary to the fear which secures happiness. The fear of God, is a certain tenderness of spirit, which shrinks from evil, and the causes of evil; such a sense of God’s presence, and such persuasion of his justice, as gives sin the appearance of evil, and therefore excites every effort to combat and escape it.

Hardness of heart, therefore, is a thoughtless neglect of the divine law; such an acquiescence in the pleasures of sense, and such delight in the pride of life, as leaves no place in the mind for meditation on higher things; such an indifference about the last event of human actions, as never looks forward to a

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future state, but suffers the passions to operate with their full force, without any other end, than the gratifications of the present world.

To men of hearts thus hardened, Providence is seldom wholly inattentive; they are often called to the remembrance of their Creator, both by blessings and afflictions; by recoveries from sickness, by deliverances from danger, by loss of friends, and by miscarriage of transactions. As these calls are neglected, the hardness is increased, and there is danger, lest he, whom they have refused to hear, should call them no more.

This state of dereliction, is the highest degree of misery; and since it is so much to be dreaded, all approaches to it are diligently to be avoided. It is therefore necessary to enquire Thirdly, how, or by what causes, the heart is hardened.

The most dangerous hardness of heart is that which proceeds from some enormous wickedness, of which the criminal dreads the recollection, because he cannot prevail upon himself to repair the injury; or because he dreads the irruption of those images, by which guilt must always be accompanied; and, finding a temporal ease in negligence and forgetfulness, by degrees confirms himself in stubborn impenitence.

This is the most dreadful and deplorable state of the heart; but this I hope is not very common. That which frequently occurs, though very dangerous, is not desperate; since it consists, not in the perversion of the will, but in the alienation of the thoughts; by such hearts God is not defied, he is only forgotten. Of this forgetfulness, the general causes are worldly cares and sensual pleasures. If there is a man, of whose soul avarice or ambition have complete possession, and who places his hope in riches or advancement, he will be employed in bargains, or in schemes, and make no excursion into remote futurity, nor consider the time, in which the rich and the poor shall lie down together; when all temporal advantages shall forsake him, and he shall appear before the supreme tribunal of eternal justice. The slave of pleasure soon sinks into a kind of voluptuous dotage; intoxicated with present delights, and careless of every thing else; his days and his nights glide away in luxury or in vice, and he has no cure, but to keep thought away; for thought is always troublesome to him, who lives without his own approbation.

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That such men are not roused to the knowledge and the consideration of their real state, will appear less strange; when it is observed, that they are almost always either stupidly, or profanely, negligent of those external duties of religion, which are instituted to excite and preserve the fear of God. By perpetual absence from publick worship,6 they miss all opportunities, which the pious wisdom of Christianity has afforded them, of comparing their lives with the rules, which the Scripture contains; and awakening their attention to the presence of God, by hearing him invoked, and joining their own voices in the common supplication. That carelessness of the world to come, which first suffered them to omit the duties of devotion, is, by that omission, hourly encreased; and having first neglected the means of holiness, they in time do not remember them.

A great part of them whose hearts are thus hardened, may justly impute that insensibility to the violation of the Sabbath. He that keeps one day in the week holy, has not time to become profligate, before the returning day of recollection reinstates his principles, and renews his caution. This is the benefit of periodical worship. But he, to whom all days are alike, will find no day for prayer and repentance.

Many enjoyments, innocent in themselves, may become dangerous by too much frequency; publick spectacles, convivial entertainments, domestick games, sports of the field, or gay or ludicrous conversation, all of them harmless, and some of them useful, while they are regulated by religious prudence, may yet become pernicious, when they pass their bounds, and usurp too much of that time which is given us, that we may work out our salvation.

And surely whatever may diminish the fear of God, or abate the tenderness of conscience, must be diligently avoided by those, who remember what is to be explained Fourthly, the consequence of hardness of heart.

He that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief. Whether mischief be considered, as immediately signifying wickedness, or misery, the sense is eventually the same. Misery is the effect

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of wickedness, and wickedness is the cause of misery; and he that hardeneth his heart shall be both wicked and miserable. Wicked he will doubtless be, for he that has lost the fear of God, has nothing by which he can oppose temptation. He has a breast open and exposed, of which interest or voluptuousness take easy possession. He is the slave of his own desires, and the sport of his own passions. He acts without a rule of action, and he determines, without any true principle of judgement. If he who fears always, who preserves in his mind a constant sense of the danger of sin, is yet often assaulted, and sometimes overpowered by temptation; what can be hoped for him, that has the same temptation, without the same defence? He who hardens his heart will certainly be wicked, and it necessarily follows, that he will certainly be miserable. The doom of the obstinate and impenitent sinner is plainly declared; it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.7

Let us all therefore watch our thoughts and actions, and that we may not, by hardness of heart, fall into mischief, let us endeavour and pray, that we may be among them that feared always, and by that fear may be prepared for everlasting happiness.

Editorial Notes

1 SJ made this note in his diary for 9 Aug 1777: “Faith in some proportion to Fear” (Yale I.269); and this sermon on the efficacy of what he calls “holy fear” (p. 31) demonstrates that in his view that proportion was-and ought to be-very high. This sermon also demonstrates that SJ’s much-discussed fear of death, however much it may also be related to dread of annihilation, was essentially religious. SJ’s austere religious teachers had taught him the paradox that there was a fortunate fear that produced ultimate happiness. Richard Baxter pointed to the famous fear of St. Paul-“lest ... when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (I Corinthians ix.27)-as did also SJ himself on 3 June 1781 (Life, IV.123). Baxter found that since even the apostle “might have use for fear,” fear is necessary for sinful man’s salvation (Richard Baxler’s Account of his Present Thoughts concerning the Controversies about the Perseverance of the Saints, 1657, p. 31). William Law recommended death as the “most proper” subject for prayer just before going to bed: “Let your prayers therefore then be wholly upon it, reckoning up all the dangers, uncertainties, and terrors of death .... Represent to your imagination, that your bed is your grave” (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 1729, p. 479). On SJ’s doubts and perplexities, see Diaries, passim. On conditional salvation, see Sermon 14, pp. 155-56.

2 The division of goodness into soberness, righteousness, and godliness concludes the General Confession in the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Ultimately deriving from Titus ii.12, it formed the outline of Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living, of The Whole Duty of Man, of Idler 89, and of SJ’s meditation in church on 26 Apr 1772 (Yale I.150). On SJ and Jeremy Taylor, see Introduction, pp. xlvii-xlviii.

3 I Corinthians ii.9.

4 Proverbs ix.10.

5 See Aquinas, Summa Theologica II.ii (Qu. 19, Art. 2). In a sermon on “The Nature and Influence of the Fear of God,” John Rogers distinguished between “a servile or superstitious, and a filial or religious Fear” (Nineteen Sermons, 1735, p. 3). For SJ’s admiration and reading of Rogers (who had been Sub-Dean and Canon of Wells and Vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and as a young man a “Lecturer of St. Clement’s-Dane”; Sermons, pp. xxi f.), see Yale I.35 f. and 136 f.

6 See Sermon 13, p. 142 and Sermon 27, p. 298. Like most Anglican sermons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, SJ’s make frequent reference to the Roman Catholic Church, with whose doctrines and practices those being recommended are usually contrasted. With these censures the more favourable opinions of SJ reported by Boswell are not entirely consistent, at least in emphasis. See, for example, Life, II.105-106; IV.289-90. In Life, III.407, however, SJ is reported as saying that “in every thing in which they [the Roman Catholics] differ from us [the Anglicans] they are wrong.”

7 See Job xv.15 and xxv.5.

8 “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James i.27.

9 SJ defines imbecility in the Dictionary as: “Weakness; feebleness of mind or body.” He says elsewhere that man “sooner confesses the depravity of his will than the imbecillity of his nature” (Idler 88, Yale II.274-275). The word seems to have been associated with nature, natural. Hawkins called SJ’s easily aroused sympathy for distress “a natural imbecillity” (Hawkins, p. 413). With SJ’s statement here, compare the tenth Article of Religion, “of Free-will”: “The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to Faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the Grace of God, by Christ, preventing us....”

1 “Mortification; corporal hardship” (second definition in SJ’s Dictionary).

2 With this discussion of religious austerities, compare Rambler 7 (Yale III.35-40).

3 SJ’s Dictionary gives as the first meaning of the noun efficient: “The cause which makes effects to be what they are.”

4 I Thessalonians v.17.

5 SJ, who prayed frequently for help against hardness of heart, hoped on 29 Apr 1753 that his prayer and “vain longings of affection” for his recently deceased wife would “intenerate” his heart (Yale I.53).

6 For SJ’s own attempts, often not successful, to enforce the duty of attending worship on himself, see Yale I.57, 71, 73, 74, 79, 106, 267-68, 309. See also Sermons 13, 24, pp. 144, 147, 257.

7 Hebrews x.31.

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleSERMON 3

AuthorJohnson, Samuel

Creation DateN/A

Publ. Date1788

Alt. TitleN/A

Contrib. AuthorN/A

ClassificationSubject: Proverbs; Subject: Fear; Subject: Prayer; Subject: Misery; Subject: Wickedness; Genre: Sermon

PrinterN/A

PublisherT. Cadell

Publ. PlaceLondon

VolumeSamuel Johnson: Sermons

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