The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house[887].
Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in Savage's Wanderer, saying, 'These are fine verses.' 'If (said he) I had written with hostility of Warburton in my Shakspeare, I should have quoted this couplet:--
"Here Learning, blinded first and then beguil'd, Looks dark as Ignorance, as Fancy wild[888]."
You see they'd have fitted him to a T,' (smiling.) DR. ADAMS. 'But you did not write against Warburton.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, I treated him with great respect both in my Preface and in my Notes[889].'
Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. Chamberlayne, who had given up great prospects in the Church of England on his conversion to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, exclaimed fervently, 'GOD bless him.'
Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion[890], that the present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother assured her, there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON. 'All infidel writers drop into oblivion, when personal connections and the floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. There will sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider that what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I remember to have seen in some old collection:--
"Henceforth be quiet and agree, Each kiss his empty brother; Religion scorns a foe like thee, But dreads a friend like t'other."
The point is well, though the expression is not correct; one, and not thee, should be opposed to t'other[891].'
On the Roman Catholick religion he said, 'If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with GOD, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there, are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women are not all Papists.' BOSWELL. 'They are not more afraid of death than men are.' JOHNSON. 'Because they are less wicked.' DR. ADAMS. 'They are more pious.' JOHNSON. 'No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.'
He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, 'They may think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of convenience, and I think they are as well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism.' As to the invocation of saints[892], he said, 'Though I do not think it authorised, it appears to me, that "the communion of saints" in the Creed means the communion with the saints in Heaven, as connected with "The holy Catholick Church[893]."' He admitted the influence of evil spirits[894] upon our minds, and said, 'Nobody who believes the New Testament can deny it.'
I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's Sermons, and read to the company some passages from one of them, upon this text, 'Resist the Devil, and he will fly[895] from you.' James, iv. 7. I was happy to produce so judicious and elegant a supporter[896] of a doctrine, which, I know not why, should, in this world of imperfect knowledge, and, therefore, of wonder and mystery in a thousand instances, be contested by some with an unthinking assurance and flippancy.
After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great enmity between Whig and Tory;--JOHNSON. 'Why not so much, I think, unless when they come into competition with each other. There is none when they are only common acquaintance, none when they are of different sexes. A Tory will marry into a Whig family, and a Whig into a Tory family, without any reluctance.