A sermon by Samuel Johnson

In addition to the Parochial and Plain Sermons of Newman in the 19th, there is perhaps no better sermon writer than Samuel Johnson in the previous century. This year being the 300th anniversary of his birth, it is appropriate to take a closer look at his writings. In particular, I will examine excerpts from his Sermon 1 pertaining to marriage and comments on the ideas expressed therein:


As a general relation to the rest of the species is not sufficient to procure gratifications for the private desires of particular persons; as closer ties of union are necessary to promote the separate interests of individuals, the great society of the world is divided into different communities, which are again subdivided into smaller bodies, and more contracted associations, which pursue, or ought to pursue, a particular interest, in subordination to the public good, and consistently with the general happiness of mankind.

Each of these subdivisions produces new dependences and relations, and every particular relation gives rise to a particular scheme of duties; duties which are of the utmost importance and of the most sacred obligation, as the neglect of them would defeat all the blessings of society, and cut off even the hope of happiness; as it would poison the fountain whence it must be drawn; and make those institutions, which have been formed as necessary to peace and satisfaction, the means of disquiet and misery.

(Man is a social creature and therefore he must be necessarily in relation to his fellow. Thus society is subdivided into different groups which in turn have their own subdivisions. This entire edifice is cemented by different the different social duties we owe one toward another; otherwise the system breaks down and can become oppressive.)


The lowest subdivision of society, is that by which it is broken into private families; nor do any duties demand more to be explained and enforced, than those which this relation produces; because none is more universally obligatory, and, perhaps, very few are more frequently neglected.

(At the most basic level, the family is the building block of human society. And thus it is for the common good of society that this institution should be protected from abuse.)

Almost all the miseries of life, almost all the wickedness that infects, and all the distresses that afflict mankind, are the consequences of some defects in these duties. It is, therefore, no objection to the propriety of discoursing upon them, that they are well known and generally acknowledged; for a very small part of the disorders of the world proceed from ignorance of the laws by which life ought to be regulated; nor do many, even of those whose hands are polluted by the foulest crimes, deny the reasonableness of virtue, or attempt to justify their own actions. Men are not blindly betrayed into corruption, but abandon themselves to their passions with their eyes open; and lose the direction of Truth, because they do not attend to her voice, not because they do not hear or do not understand it. It is, therefore, no less useful to rouse the thoughtless, than instruct the ignorant; to awaken the attention, than enlighten the understanding.

(Social ills are not primarily the fruits of ignorance as is often believed. Solutions will not come from endless educational programs and increased awareness. The problem lies at the heart of man and his rebellion against the good. His willful blindness towards the Truth, as it were.)


But cruelty and pride, oppression and partiality, may tyrannize in private families without controul: meekness may be trampled on, and piety insulted, without any appeal, but to conscience and to Heaven, A thousand methods of torture may be invented, a thousand acts of unkindness or disregard may be committed, a thousand innocent gratifications may be denied, and a thousand hardships imposed, without any violation of national laws. Life may be embittered with hourly vexation; and weeks, months, and years be lingered out in misery, without any legal cause of separation, or possibility of judicial redress. Perhaps, no sharper anguish is felt than that which cannot be complained of, nor any greater cruelties inflicted than some which no human authority can relieve.

(Although autonomous in their own realm subsidiary institutions like the family run the risk of becoming to unregulated when abuses of power are allowed to occur unabated. These insults often do not go directly against the law but are still unjust. More importantly, what is right and wrong is not limited to what the laws state as a strict positivism would have it.)



It may, indeed, be asserted, to the honour of marriage, that it has few adversaries among men, either distinguished for their abilities or eminent for their virtue. Those who have assumed the province of attacking it, of overturning the constitution of the world, of encountering the authority of the wisest legislators, from whom it has received the highest sanction of human wisdom; and subverting the maxims of the most flourishing states, in which it has been dignified with honours and promoted with immunities; those who have undertaken the task of contending with reason and experience, with earth and with heaven, are men who seem generally not selected by nature for great attempts or difficult undertakings: they are, for the most part, such as owe not their determinations to their arguments, but their arguments to their determinations; disputants, animated, not by a consciousness of truth, but by the number of their adherents; and heated, not with zeal for the right, but with the rage of licentiousness and impatience of restraint. And, perhaps, to the sober, the understanding, and the pious, it may be sufficient to remark, that religion and marriage have the same enemies.

(Until recently no one really questioned the importance of marriage for the maintenance of society. Only a select minority who felt resentment for some reason or another toward it sought its overthrow. But through numerous societal changes over the years this is no longer true and the married state is no longer seen as necessary. It is at best a private contract of some sort which is solely dependent on consent. To wit, the enemies of the traditional idea of marriage are also, as Johnson points out, the enemies of religion; that is, religion in its traditional cast as well as our connection to human wisdom accumulated over the centuries.)