Note 700 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 4)
Reading edition
'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance their presumption.' Shenstone's Works, ed. 1773, ii. 255.