date

8 Aug 1815 Jug True Proleg
8 Aug 1815

Jug True

Proleg

II. Principal

Strait Gate Parable

(2)

For the giving admission to the preferred and favoured few, strait of course is the aperture of the gate that will suffice for giving entrance within any given span of time in comparison of that which in the same span of time will be necessary to give entrance to the numerous and undistinguished multitude. This in the temporal kingdom which at the best was but a narrow theatre and that to be filled in any part of it (by performers) by Manager’s orders. But the spiritual kingdom—how could that with its necessary exactness[?] and restrictions apply to this spiritual kingdom in which there is at all times was room for all, room for as many as will, now and at all times?

Weeping and gnashing of teeth—yes—out of regret and spite at the thoughts of the disappointment produced to each man by his own neglect in not putting in for a situation under the new kingly government time enough. The unfit condition considered of the wilfully blind deaf, and hard hearted sinners who will have been left on the outside of the gate with the burthen of their sins on their heads is not here cause sufficient for weeping and gnashing of teeth? the place of everlasting torments is it the only place in which a scene of weeping and gnashing of teeth is visible? was it not from the observation of temporal weeping and gnashing of teeth that the spiritual pictures of the operation thus denominated were delineated?
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    Description: 8 Aug. 1815

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    Strait Gate Parable

    (1)

    Parable—allusive parable—of the strait gate. Luke XIII.24 Matt. VII.13 (p.90) (Enter ye in at the strait gate, Matthew: Strive to enter in at the strait gate, Luke[.)]

    This is one of those passages which when applied to the spiritual instead of the temporal kingdom is as misapplied as it is important and appalling.

    In Matthew’s account to a mind occupied by the idea of the spiritual kingdom there is nothing to put an exclusion upon that interpretation: there is even a word, viz. life, by which some countenance is [....?] to it. But in and by Luke’s account of the same discourse, the application of the parable is confined palpably to the temporal kingdom, MS alt. illegible. the spiritual kingdom is made to evaporate , and the great majority of the human species saved from matchless and everlasting torments. Applied to the kingdom he was striving to set up this exhortation is manifestly a spur: to set up a race for places in the government the best place to him who should come in first was the obvious object. If any man is tardy let him not think that any the most familiar intercourse which it may happen to him to have had with me will profit him even though he should have eaten and drunk with me or make atonement for his backwardness. Seated in my throne I shall know no such person: his portion will be among the unrighteous by whom any invitation shall have been followed MS alt. illegible. by non-compliance.

    To any person living at this time of day—to any person other than those to whom he was personally known or might expect to be personally known (and beyond this [...?] on what occasion did he ever extend his thoughts?)—how can this talk about eating and drinking with him have any application?
  • Title: [21 Sept. 1815 Jug. True Ch]
    Description: 21 Sept. 1815

    Jug. True

    Ch. 99 Wedding invitation

    Time and Place, apparently the same as last – per Matt. sole narrator.

    A miserable tale /discourse[?]/ not well applicable to either purpose, the temporal or the spiritual

    {both bad and good} i.e. the mob of all sorts of people who would come in and join him

    {not having a wedding garment} What was the meaning, temporal or spiritual of this wedding garment? and where was the consistency when all were pressed in without distinction, in punishing any one for the not having this garment? where was he to have got it

    There must have been some misconception, or mistranslation.

    The invited guests who mistreated[?] and slew the servants by whom they had been invited must have been Herod he[?] slew John Baptist and such others as had maltreated any of the disciples: ex gr. the 12, or the 70, when they went on their missions

    What is this outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth

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    This ungarmented guest was it Judas? and this designed as a […?] and a threat to him?

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  • Title: [8 Aug 1815 A Jug True I. Prolegom]
    Description: 8 Aug 1815 A

    Jug True

    I. Prolegom

    Summary

     Make a catalogue of the passages which at present are inexplicable but by this interpretation will be explained

    Ex. gr. 1. Lord’s Prayer power and glory 2. Strait Gate— many who seek to enter shall not be able [Luke 13: 24.]

    Temporal was the kingdom announced in all the prophecies. At the outset and for a long time afterwards temporal and none other was the kingdom announced by Jesus. At length, as progress lingered, hope slackened, fear predominated and the prospect of the issue MS orig. ‘fate’. which there as every time at that time as at all times, law and government has provided for such enterprizes grew more and more vivid, an interpretation of refuge was provided the idea of spirituality was raised up to save as far as it could be saved the reputation of a sinking cause—a cloud of ambiguity was thus exposed, the kingdom had two sides a temporal or spiritual one, held up to view, the one or the other, or to different persons the same time according to the occasion till at length when the temporal kingdom had expired, with the expiring king, and evaporated upon the cross, what remained was the spiritual kingdom alone—the spiritual kingdom alone in all its spirituality and all its purity.

    Suffer yourself to admitt this conception— forbear if possible to shut against it an inexorable door—Old or New, which ever be the Testament—every thing you read will be plain, clear and natural—free from every kind of difficulty. Compel yourself instead of this temporal kingdom to understand a spiritual one—clouds gather over the whole, every word swarms with difficulties—and every difficulty is insurmountable.

    How forced so ever were in many instances the interpretations it gave birth to—the device was in the state of things which gave birth to it a natural one, and it was the only one that the nature of the case admitted of. Unexperienced, uncultivated, and ignorant, full of imagination, the minds of the people were prone to superstition: Scanty and unmanageable figures upon figures were to their language a necessary resource. Imagination being strong, judgment and discernment weak, continually was the plan more confounded with the figuration. In every part of the field of morals and politics, discourse was throughout a Comedy of Errors: at every turn like two Amphitryons or two Sosias, Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors contains two pairs of twins, Antipholus and Dromio. Bentham refers to the characters of Amphitryon (a Theban prince) and Sosia (his slave), whose shapes are assumed by Jupiter and Mercury in John Dryden’s play, Amphitryon, so that Jupiter may seduce Amphitryon’s wife, Alcmena. the plan and the figuration were mistaken for each other.

    Kingdom: first temporal /[...?] [...?]/ purely temporal then between temporal and spiritual—after

    death of Jesus purely spiritual.