date

2 Sept 1811 Jug Util B.II.
2 Sept 1811

Jug Util

B.II. Under Revelation

Ch.5. Mischief. Weakning Natural

10

Is it believed to be unavailing? The commodity not being to be purchased the pain is not found.

Under the system the case of a death-bed repentance is rather a perplexing one. It is unavailing? The sins of the whole life remain unatoned for, and /everlasting/ eternal misery is the consequence. Is it unavailing? To be put off til the last moment is the natural lot of a task so irksome. Meantime the efficacy of the remedy stands unimpeached. With the Catholic it is beyond doubt /out of question/. With the Anglico Protestant /Protestant will/ it is /at least/ no less so. ‘He pardoneth and absolveth all those /them/ who truly repent and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel.’ +

Bentham footnote: ‘ + Liturgy’. Here their repentance being a price by the payment of which a mass of merit is purchased sufficient for the rubbing off the sins of a whole life, be this life ever so long and the sins crowded into the compass of it ever so flagrant and now so numerous /good/ economy prescribes the husbandry of so pretious a matter and forbids the expenditure of any portion of it in waste.

19

Deliverance on deathbed repentance. Unavailing? All sins unatoned for, end less torment the cause genuine. Availing? Confiding in this abstinence a man adds sin to sin his whole life long.

Economy forbids expenditure of so pretious a matter in waste. Anglican absolution promises pardon to all believers.
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  • Title: [2 Sept 1811 Jug Util B.II.]
    Description: 2 Sept 1811

    Jug Util

    B.II. Under Revelation

    Ch.5. Mischief. Weakning Natural

    7

    Merit consisting in repentance in the pain of repentance, (1) /the/ an occasion for repentance was to be made. That this merit might not be effaced by ordinary sins or the indifferent transitions of ordinary life, (2) the [...?] of the meritorious person was to be closed by it it was to fill up /the last act and/ the last scene of life. What then was the means to /be/ chosen for bringing life to /its close/ a termination at the exactly proper period. (3) A man was not to die /by/ with his own hand: that would have been suicide, suicide a crime and a sin that admitts of no repentance /atonement/, suicide the sin against the Holy Ghost excepted, the most unatoneable and most /unpardonable/ irremissionible of all sins. It was therefore to be the hand of another. (4) But what other hand so attainable, and at the same time so apt as that of the executioner of public justice? This was not suicide: no more than Jesus's death. Attainable? but by what means? (5) There was but one, and that was the comitting a crime, the /co-operating in the/ punishing of which would thus become a part of his public duty. (6) /What remained was/ There remained nothing but the /making/ choice of the crime: and in this choice the same religious and christian spirit by which the idea had been suggested still manifested itself /bore away/. A crime was thought of by which crime as it was more good than evil /would/ was to be done, since /the salvation of a soul/ the securing of a [...?] soul against all perils of damnation would be the fruit of it.

    16

    1. Make an occasion for repentance.

    2. Choose the close of life repentance will then not be obliterated by first offences.

    3. Close not life by your own hand: that excludes repentance. (hence suicide worst of sins, sin against Holy Ghost excepted)

    4. Executioners the [...?] other hand at command.

    5. means committing a capital crime.

    6. Which that Christianity more good than evil may be done by it. should be infanticide age earlier than that of sin.
  • Title: [2 Sept 1811 Jug Util B.II Under]
    Description: 2 Sept 1811

    Jug Util

    B.II Under Revelation

    Ch.5. Mischief Weakning Natural

    8

     Quaere whether to observe in the inconsistencies of this reasoning?

    (7) A child was to be pitched upon, a child within that age of innocence /before/ till the expiration of which the /inbred/ capacity of sinning has not /never/ yet ripened into act. This innocent was to be murdered. The soul of the nascent victim /[...?] of [...?]/ rise to heaven: the /slaughterer/ murderer, /found his way/ fell in due course of law into the hands of the executioner. Two birds were thus according to the familiar proverb, killed with one stone. The murderer, taking the primitive martyrs for his patterns, mounted the scaffold and made a glorious end. (8) Physical suffering and /psychological/ mental together, a quantity of pain and then of merit was accumulated to the virtue of which there was no bounds. Sufficient to atone not only for the chosen and voluntary /instrumentary/ sin by which the /injuring sinner/ murderer had been brought /conducted/ to the scaffold, but for all other /the/ sins of his former life /the former part of his life/ /anterior/. (9) In this rich compost of meritorious suffering, the grand /ingredient/ article was the repentance, the pain of the repentance: his business therefore and consequently his case was to inject /condense/ into the interval between conviction and execution or into whatever quantity of time, suppose the interval between conviction and execution, as large a portion of this pretious good as the whole force /strength/ of his mind could contrive to force into it.

    17

    7. Display on the scaffold repentance, contrition in all its glory.

    8. Thus your accumulated merit sufficient to atone not merely for the instrumental sin, but for all prior ones.

    9. Of the suffering the repentance being the only meritorious part, inject of that as much as possible.
  • Title: [4 Sept 1811 Jug Util B.II.]
    Description: 4 Sept 1811

    Jug Util

    B.II. Under Revelation

    Ch.5

    14

    Sinners we are all of us, you miserable sinners: Miserable sinners we are the worst of us, miserable sinners, we are the best of us: /so true is this that/ best, and worst together, every time we go to Church we /make thus confess ourselves so to be, declaring it in so many words for the information of omniscience. Sins we all swarm with yet amidst and notwithstanding all these sins a remnant of us is to be saved. Known /[...?]/ therefore to God to whom every thing that is or hath been or will be is present and certain, certain to God though not to man is a portion of sin which every man without prejudice to /hindrance to the business of/ salvation/ may committ and yet be saved. Here then is a licence for sin a licence /blank/ which it [...?] a man to fill up with a set /list/ of sins at his choice.

    Under those circumstances a man whose piety is under the direction of human prudence, will for the filling up his licence make up an assortment of favourite sins suited to his task and circumstances. For the /exercise/ subjects of his religious abstinence he will take those for which he has no relish or least relish. For the subjects of his choice he will take such as he finds most pleasant and such as he thinks most profitable. If among those which are /to his task/ most pleasant he finds any which by /to/ the world the wicked world are objects of peculiar /distinguished/ contempt or abhorrence or contempt, taking up his bible, /and his prayer book/, he will dwell with peculiar complacency on those texts and those papers in which that world itself is represented /presented/ /in no small number and with no slight marks /feint colours// as a fit object of contempt and abhorrence. + If among those which are most pleasant to him, or most profitable he finds any the effect of which may in the character of crimes be to shorten mans days he will find consolation in the precariousness of this transitory life, and its worthlessness in any other character than that of an entrance /approach/ to a life of endless felicity to be earnt by a course of unremitted labours in the vineyard of faith, and the indefatigable repetition of acts of repentance +

    Bentham’s marginal note: ‘ + Gostrel. 142.’

    26

    Though all are miserable sinners, yet by repentance, some are saved.

    Hence many sins being commissible with impunity, each man will choose his favourite ones. By the world those transgressions are commonly most reprobated which are most mischievous. Thence by this contempt of the world he will be encouraged to choose among those which are most to his taste the most mischievous. Against those worldly punishments consolation in the shortness of present life and its worthlessness, except as an approach to future d o.