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13. St. Paul: He just quoted John. In his sermons, Sterne sometimes makes it seem that he agrees with a position that he is about to contradict (e.g., the first phrase of Sermon 2 following the text “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting”: “That I deny—” [4:12]).

14. scripture: Hebrews 3:13.

15. clouds and thick darkness: Deuteronomy 4:11.

16. Elijah … awoke:1 Kings 18:27.

17. seven sacraments: The Catholic church has seven sacraments; the Anglican, two.

18. seven cardinal … plagues: Thomas Aquinas formulated the seven cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, prudence, justice, faith, hope, and love. The seven mortal (or deadly) sins, while varying somewhat, generally from the time of Gregory the Great have included lust, greed, envy, anger, pride, gluttony, and sloth. The candlesticks and plagues are from Revelation 1:12, 20; 2:1. Until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 there were seven known planets, each of which had a heaven in the Ptolemaic system. The seven wonders of the (ancient) world were generally taken to be the Pyramids of Giza, the Lighthouse (Pharos) of Alexandria, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the Colossus of Rhodes.

19. strait-hearted: OED gives Sterne as the sole use.

20. thank God … before me: a paraphrase of the words of the Pharisee (Luke 18:10–12). It is interesting that Sterne adds the words “fornication” and “libertine” to the Pharisee’s sanctimonious attack on the publican. For Sterne’s sermon “Pharisee and Publican in the Temple,” see Sermons, 4:57–64.

21. Letter of the Law: opposed by St. Paul to the spirit: 2 Corinthians 3:6.

22. Cases and Reports: These words are printed in “black letter,” the type font used in law books of the time.

23. pettifogging: unscrupulous (always of lawyers).

24. mental reservation: See ch. x, n. 3 above.

25. confession … digests … absolution … Popery: The Catholic rite of confession is compared to the process of maturing a wound, leading to forgiveness of sin as automatically as the physical process leads to healing of the flesh. A number of Sterne’s sermons contain such anti-Catholic sentiments.

26. heart of man … above all things: paraphrase of Jeremiah 17:9.

27. peace … there is no peace: Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11.

28. David … done: See 1 Samuel 24:4–6; 2 Samuel 11:2–12:13. When Saul sought David, David did him no harm, but recognized that he should not have cut the robe of God’s anointed king. As king himself, he had no remorse for sending Uriah to his death so he could pursue Bathsheba. Nathan’s parable brings his guilt home to him. Sterne draws closely upon Bishop Joseph Butler’s Sermon X from Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726), “Upon Self-deceit,” which also deals with Nathan’s reproof of David, for the passage beginning “A whole year” and ending “sorrow or compunction.” A version of this passage and others appear also in Sterne’s sermon “Self knowledge” (4:31–39). Presumably the mourning of Bathsheba and the birth of her child with David accounts for Sterne’s “year” that “had almost past.”

29. What is written in the law of God: alludes to Luke 10:25–27. The question “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:25) is answered “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (10:27).

30. thy heart … towards God: again, 1 John 3:21. See n. 12 above.

31. Blessed … on high: conflation and close paraphrase of Ecclesiasticus 14:1–2, 26:4, and 37:14.

32. Temple … Assize: This sermon on justice, self-judgment, and heavenly judgment, which contains an allegory of a court of law, was delivered by Sterne in the summer assizes (sessions of county circuit courts) to an audience of judges. Cash notes appositely that Sterne was himself a justice of the peace (Early and Middle Years, 234). Walter,