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/511

 state; whether he has given any laws for the regulation of our conduct here; whether he has given them by revelation; and whether the religion publickly taught carries any mark of Divine appointment. These are questions which every reasonable being ought undoubtedly to consider with an attention suitable to their importance; and he, whom the consideration of eternal happiness or misery cannot awaken from his pleasing dreams, cannot prevail upon to suspend his mirth, surely ought not to despise others for dulness and stupidity.

Let it be remembered, that the nature of things is not alterable by our conduct. We cannot make truth; it is our business only to find it. No proposition can become more or less certain or important, by being considered or neglected. It is to no purpose to wish, or to suppose, that to be false which is in itself true; and, therefore, to acquiesce in our own wishes and suppositions, when the matter is of eternal consequence, to believe obstinately without grounds of belief, and to determine without examination, is the last degree of folly and absurdity. It is not impossible that he who acts in this manner may obtain the approbation of madmen like himself, but he will incur the contempt of every wise man; and, what is more to be feared, amidst his security and supineness, his sallies and his flights, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh him to scorn; the Lord shall have him in derision."

Thus have I endeavoured to give a faint idea of the folly of those who scoff at religion, because they disbelieve, and, by scoffing, harden themselves in their disbelief. But I shall be yet more unable to describe, in a proper manner, what I am to mention in the second place.

The wickedness of those that believe religion, and yet deride it from motives of interest or vanity.

This is a degree of guilt against which it might seem, at the first view, superfluous to preach, because it might be thought impossible it should ever be committed; as, in ancient states, no punishment was decreed for the murderer of his father, because it was imagined to be a crime