date

1818 Jan y 28 Not Paul III
1818 Jan y 28

Not Paul

III Doctrine

Ch Mysticism

4

§ Lord’s Supper

Thus far the antecedent―setting aside the false intimation tacked to it, trivial the simple and innoxious statement of a simple and to all but the Apostles themselves who alone were concerned in it an / a comparatively at least / immaterial incident.

But now comes the consequent: consequent the product not of logic, but of Paul’s ever extravagant yet ever interested rhetoric. Every man who eating bread and drinking wine eats and drinks it in commemoration of the bread and wine eaten and drunk by and with Jesus at his last supper will if he eats it unworthily incur thereby a danger more or less considerable of death in this world and boundless misery in the / a / world to come. ‘For Bentham footnote at this point: ‘I. Cor. XI 29. 30’. he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.’ Bentham footnote at this point: ‘ By another interpretation Paul’s credit may be saved. Eating unworthily is doing so to excess: damnation, nothing more than condemnation.’

Note here how naturally, and how customarily, a supernatural cause is spun out of a natural effect. Among those who were present at these commemorative suppers were some and in no small number, in this very part the Epistle itself informs us, were in the habit of / apt to / drinking to excess / intoxication /. All men are doomed to death all men are liable to sickness: not more effectually would the name of Jesus than the name of Charles Fox or that / the name / of William Pitt divest the / any / intoxicating liquor of any part of its pernicious influence. Here then were indisputable occurrences and for / on / these occasions in the character of effects, the piety of Paul, followed by so much other piety of the same stamp found a convivial cause. It was not by the physical excess the temporal the physical the physiological the pathological excess―no it was by the unworthiness―the spiritual unworthiness that the effect had been produced.
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  • Title: [1818 Jan y 28 Not Paul III]
    Description: 1818 Jan y 28

    Not Paul

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    § Lord’s Supper

    A bad thing wine unquestionably wine when drunk to excess, which however it can scarcely be without bringing after it if not with it its own punishment: a bad thing on any occasion: but why so excessively bad on this occasion so excessively bad as to doom a man to the very extreme of punishment? The answer―an / the / answer in Paul’s style has been already given. The man who on this occasion drinks the wine to excess drinks it unworthily: and he who in this way or in any other way on this same occasion drinks it ‘unworthily shall be guilty it should have been will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.’ Guilty says the English translation: more craftily because more ambiguously and less palpably absurdity / absurd / partaker easily improved / heightened / into accomplice says Paul’s original says the Greek original of Saint Paul he shall sometime or other be deemed construed and taken as an English lawyer would phrase / have / it to have been an accessory after the fact in the murder of the Lord Jesus. Instead of the office of Gamaliel had Paul been bred up in the King’s Bench Crown Office, he could not have got up a constructive murder in a more accomplished Common Law of England style.
  • Title: [1818 Jan y 28 Not Paul III]
    Description: 1818 Jan y 28

    Not Paul

    III Doctrine

    Ch Mysticism

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    § Lord’s Supper

    Not only in this way / thus / upon Paul’s rhetoric, but upon his logic is / has / an improvement been made by the genius of Church of Englandism. Where Paul goes not beyond indication of analogy or connection at large―and that analogy so remote that the greatest magnifier would be too little for the discovery of it, that of the word of which the translators have given / give / indication is connection: connection of the logical kind no less intimate than that between premises and conclusion between antecedent and consequent. ‘For’ (says verse 26) Marginal note at this point: ‘I. Cor. XI 26’. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew (or shew ye says the marginal note) the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore

    Marginal note at this point: ‘ N.B. till he come’. (says verse the 27 th and next) Marginal note at this point: ‘I Cor. XI. 27. 28.’ whosoever shall eat this bread and drink {this} cup of the Lord unworthily, Marginal note at this point: ‘αναξιως’. [Greek for ‘unworthily’.] shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.’ Marginal note at this point: ‘ενοχος’. [Greek for ‘liable, subject to’.] ‘ Wherefore’ says the original / translation /: ωστε; viz. also, is at the utmost accordingly: for in truth, employed as it may here seem to be employed, rather for the mellowing of the sound does it seem to be employed than for the making any addition to the sense.

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