For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Read Chapter 11
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Therefore in punishment of the sin of receiving unworthily, many are infirm, visited with infirmities, even that bring death, which is meant by those words, many sleep. But it is a mercy of God, when he only punishes by sickness, or a corporal death, and does not permit us to perish for ever, or be condemned with this wicked world. To avoid this, let a man prove himself, examine the state of his conscience, especially before he receives the holy sacrament, confess his sins, and be absolved by those to whom Christ left the power of forgiving sins in his name, and by his authority. If we judge ourselves in this manner, we shall not be judged, that is, condemned. (Witham) _ of the Christian religion, as appears by the epistles of St. Ignatius, by St. Iren us, Tertullian The late pretended reformers found it called by this name in the Catholic Church. Why then should they, who pretend to nothing but Scripture, affect to give it no name but the Lord's supper, when these words in the Scriptu...
Here Paul does not take his example from ancient Israel, as he did earlier, but from the Corinthians themselves, so that the lesson would strike home more deeply. People were looking for an explanation for the untimely deaths in their midst, and here Paul gives it.
Here he no longer brings his examples from others as he did in the case of the idol-sacrifices, relating the ancient histories and the chastisements in the wilderness, but from the Corinthians themselves; which also made the discourse apt to strike them more keenly. For whereas he was saying, he eats judgment to himself, and, he is guilty; that he might not seem to speak mere words, he points to deeds also and calls themselves to witness; a kind of thing which comes home to men more than threatening, by showing that the threat has issued in some real fact. He was not however content with these things alone, but from these he also introduced and confirmed the argument concerning hell-fire, terrifying them in both ways; and solving an inquiry which is handled everywhere. I mean, since many question one with another, whence arise the untimely deaths, whence the long diseases of men; he tells them that these unexpected events are many of them conditional upon certain sins. What then? They ...
