Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/419

 them; they may be suppressed and lie dormant for a time, and resume their force, at an unexpected moment, by some sudden temptation; they can be subdued only by continued caution and repeated conflicts.

The longer sin has been indulged, the more irksome will be the retrospect of life. So much uneasiness will be suffered, at the review of years spent in vicious enjoyment, that there is reason to fear, lest that delay, which began in the love of pleasure, will be continued for fear of pain.

Neither is it certain, that the grace, without which no man can correct his own corruption, when it has been offered and refused, will be offered again; or that he who stopped his ears against the first call, will be vouchsafed a second. He cannot expect to be received among the servants of God, who will obey him only at his own time; for such presumption is, in some degree, a mockery of God; and we are to consider, secondly, how certain it is, that "God is not mocked."

God is not mocked in any sense. He will not be mocked with counterfeit piety, he will not be mocked with idle resolutions; but the sense in which the text declares, that "God is not mocked," seems to be, that God will not suffer his decrees to be invalidated; he will not leave his promises unfulfilled, nor his threats unexecuted. And this will easily appear, if we consider, that promises and threats can only become ineffectual by change of mind, or want of power. God cannot change his will; "he is not a man that he should repent;" what he has spoken will surely come to pass. Neither can he want power to execute his purposes; he who spoke, and the world was made, can speak again, and it will perish. God's "arm is not shortened, that he cannot save;" neither is it shortened, that he cannot punish; and that he will do to every man according to his works, will be shown, when we have considered,

"whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap."
 * In what sense it is to be understood, that

To sow and to reap are figurative terms. To sow, sig