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/522

 Which that we may all do, may that God who created and preserves us, grant, through the merits and mediation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

SERMON XXII.

"He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself." 1 xi. 29.

The celebration of the sacrament is generally acknowledged, by the Christian church, to be the highest act of devotion, and the most solemn part of positive religion, and has, therefore, most engaged the attention of those, who either profess to teach the way to happiness, or endeavour to learn it, and, like all other subjects, frequently discussed by men of various interests, dispositions, and capacities, has given rise to various opinions, widely different from each other.

Such is the weakness of mankind, that one errour, whether admitted, or detected, is very often the cause of another. Those who reject any opinion, however justly, are commonly incited by their zeal to condemn every position, in which they discover any affinity with the tenets which they oppose, of which they have been long accustomed to show the falsehood and the danger, and, therefore, imagine themselves nearer to truth and safety, in proportion as they recede from them. For this reason it sometimes happens that in passionate contests, and disputations long continued, each controvertist succeeds in the confutation of his adversary's positions, and each fails in the establishment of his own.

In this manner have writers, of different persuasions, treated on the worthiness required of those who partake