You may suppose, if you please, that all were sober, and none intoxicated, and that the Want of Wine proceeded from the abundance of Company, rather than excess in drinking; but why then did _John_ the _Evangelist_ use the word [Greek: methysthasi], which implies, they were more than half Seas over? And if _Jesus_ and his Mother had not both a mind to _top_ them up; the one would not have requested, nor the other have granted a Miracle to that purpose. Whether _Jesus_ and his Mother themselves were at all _cut_, as were others of the Company, is not so certain. She might be an abstemious Dame for ought we know; tho' if old Stories are true of her familiarity with a _Soldier_, of whom came her _chara Deûm Soboles_, in all probability she would take a _Dram_ and a _Bottle_ too. But it looks as if _Jesus_ himself was a little _in_ for't, or he had never spoke so waspishly and snappishly to his Mother, saying, _Woman, what have I to do with thee_? _mine Hour is not yet come_: which was very unbecoming of a dutiful Son, who, excepting when he ran away from his Parents, and put them to[236] _Sorrow_ and _Trouble_ to look him up, was, and is still in Heaven, say the _Roman Catholicks_ a most obedient Child. You modern Christians may put what Construction you can upon the words above of _Jesus_ to his Mother, to salve his Credit; but the Fathers of your Church[237] confess them to be a sharp and surly Reply to her, which, if it did not proceed from the natural badness of his Temper, derived, _ex traduce_, from his supposed Father yet, was certainly the effect of Drinking, and that's the more likely, because it is a _broken_ and _witless_ Sentence, such as _Fuddlecaps_ utter by halves, when the _Wine's in_, and the _Wit's out_. Your modern _Commentators_ are sadly puzzled to make good Sense of this broken and abrupt Sentence of _Jesus_, and a pertinent Reply of it, to what his Mother said to him, _they have no Wine_: If you will bear with me, I'll help you out at this dead lift, and give you the true meaning of it _thus_. _Jesus_'s Mother being apprised of a deficiency of Wine, and willing, as well as the _Bridegroom_, that the Company should be thorowly merry before they parted, intimates to her Son, (whom she knew to be initiated in the Mysterys of _Bacchus_) _that they had no Wine_: But before she could finish her Request to him, He, mistaking her meaning, imagines, she was cautioning against drinking more Wine, and exhorting him to go home; whereupon he takes her up short and quick, saying, _Woman, what have you to do with me?_ (for that too is the _English_ of the _Greek_) I'll not be interrupted in my Cups, nor break Company; _for mine Hour is not yet come_ to depart: But after he rightly apprehended her, he goes to work, and rather