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/524

 *dent desires of perfection, and unwearied endeavours after the utmost height of sanctity, not only the sensual and the profligate were hardened in their wickedness, by conceiving a life of piety too hard to be borne, but the diffident and scrupulous were terrified into despair, considered vigilance and caution as unavailing fatigues, remitted their ardour, relaxed their diligence, and ceased to pursue what they could no longer hope to attain.

To remove these doubts, and disperse these apprehensions, doctrines of very different tendency have been industriously promoted; lower degrees of piety have been declared sufficient, and the dangers of reception have been extenuated; nor have any arts of interpretation been untried, or any conjecture, which sagacity or learning could produce, been forgotten, to assign to the words of the text a sense less to be dreaded by the unworthy communicant. But by these opinions, imprudently inculcated, many have been misled to consider the sacrament as little more than a cursory act of devotion; the exhortations of the apostle have lost their efficacy, and the terrours of the Lord, with which he enforces them, have no longer repressed the licentiousness of the profligate, or disturbed the indolence of the supine. Religion has sunk into ceremony; God has, without fear, been approached with the lips, when the heart has been far from him; and the supper of the Lord has been frequented by those, of whom it could not be perceived, that they were very solicitous to avoid the guilt of unworthy communication.

Thus have different interpretations of the same text produced errours equally dangerous, and which might have been equally obviated, by a careful attention to the nature and institution of the sacrament, an unprejudiced examination of the position of the apostle, and the comparison of this passage with other comminations; methods of inquiry, which, in the explication of doubtful texts of Scripture, ought always to be observed, and by which it may be proved, to the comfort of the depressed, and the confirmation of the doubtful, that the sin of unworthy re