'
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. But indeed, in a matter of much more concern than
political tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern
themselves much about difference of opinion; and ladies set no value on
the moral character of men who pay their addresses to them; the greatest
profligate will be as well received as the man of the greatest virtue,
and this by a very good woman, by a woman who says her prayers three
times a day.
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