He calmly anticipates the acceleration with which he advances towards death. But, now as formerly, he will not dogmatise on his salvation; he “hopes” and “trusts.” “A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him quiet,” he had observed on one occasion; but on another, “No man can be sure that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation.” He might have prayed, as did Sir Francis South in his will dated November 14, 1631, “beseeching Him for the all-sufficient merits and infinite mercies of His only Son and my alone Saviour Christ Jesus to accept of this my poor sacrifice, and freely to pardon and forgive me my many multiplied sins and transgressions, and in the love of His most blessed Spirit to give me some comfortable assurance thereof during my time in this vale of flesh, that I may joyfully and willingly part with this miserable world to live with Him for ever in His eternal rest.” It was this “comfortable assurance” that Johnson needed. To the last he seems logically to have maintained the distinction between hope and belief, but emotionally to have discarded it. Certainly at the end he was resigned. But Johnson could not comfort himself with the idea, prevalent in his century, of the infinite goodness of God. He dismissed it as inapplicable to his case, a few months before his death, in a conversation with Dr. Adams. “‘As I cannot be _sure_ that I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned’ (looking dismally).” But it is made a frequent ground of hope (for want of a better) in wills of the time. John Murton, in a will proved the year of Johnson’s death, thus begins: “In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Murton, of Milton next Sittingbourne in the County of Kent, grocer, being advanced in years and in an indifferent state of health, but of sound and perfect mind memory and understanding, (praised be Almighty God for the same,) and considering the uncertain continuance of this mortal life, and the many hazards and dangers that we frail beings are daily liable and incident unto, do make publish and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following, (that is to say:) First and principally of all I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God who gave it, in all humble hopes and with a firm assurance of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.” Forty years previously Pope employed the same sentiment and almost the same phrase: “I Alexander Pope, of Twickenham in the County of Middlesex, make this my last will and testament. I resign my soul to its Creator in all humble hope of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.”