off, and Lazarus in his bosom. The stings of his conscience were multiplied, and he was racked with envy, when lifting up his eyes he beheld the seats of the blessed at a distance; for the first object that he saw was Lazarus, the beggar, who had been so often laid naked and hungry at his gate, sitting next to Abraham in the chief place of felicity. This passage Erasmus paraphrases as follows: "Sublatis tandem oculis conspexit Abrahamum eminus, agnovit et Lazarum illum ante spretum, in sinu illius summo quiete solatioque fruentem, in mollissimo complexu sanctissimi Patris." Luke xvi. 24. And he cried, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. Being in an agony of pain by reason of the flames, he cried to Abraham to take pity on his son, and send Lazarus to give him if it was but the very least degree of relief, by dipping the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue, for his torment was intolerable. Abraham might have replied, Thou art not my son, I disown thee; what is become of thy purple and fine linen, thy perfumes, thy feastings, thy dancings? where are thy delicious wines, now that thou art so earnestly begging a drop of water to cool thy tongue? Instead of thy stately palace, thou art shut up in hell; instead of pleasure, thou art filled with pain; instead of music and mirth, nothing is heard but wailing and gnashing of teeth. No: such speeches, however just, would not have been suitable to the humanity of blessed Abraham; for which way into Jndea, some imagine that our Lord had their fictions about the abodes of departed souls in his eye, when he formed this parable. But the argument is not conclusive. At the same time it must be acknowledged, that his descriptions of those things are not drawn from the writ ings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable affinity to the descrip tions which the Grecian poets have given of them. They, as well as our Lord, represent the abodes of the blessed as lying contigious to the region of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable river or deep gulph, in such a sort that the ghosts could talk with one another from its opposite banks. In the parable, souls whose bodies were buried, know each other, and converse together, as if they had been embodied. In like inanner, the Pagans introduce departed souls talking together, and repre sent them as having pains and pleasures analogous to what we feel in this life; it seems they thought the shades of the dead had an exact resemblance to their bodies. The parable says, the souls of wicked men are tormented in flames; the Grecian mythologists tell us they lie in Pyriphlegethon, which is a river of fire, where they suffer the same torments they would have suffered while alive, had their bodies been burnt. If from these resemblances it is thought that the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, it will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the common people thought or spake concerning those matters, agreeably to the notions and language of the Greeks. In parabolical discourses, provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the ears of the vulgar, and the images made use of, such as they are best acquainted which reason, that good patriarch did not so much as put this wicked man in mind of his ill-spent life; only being to justify God for having made so sudden and so remarkable a change in his state, he called him his son, and spake of his past debauched way of living, in the softest manner possible, shewing us the sweet disposition of the blessed in heaven. 25. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. He bade him consider, that in his life-time he despised heaven, valuing and seeking nothing but the pleasures of sense; which having enjoyed in the greatest perfection, he could not think it hard, if by the sentence of God, in the open violation of whose laws he had lived, he was deprived of that which he had always despised. On the other hand, Lazarus had borne the miseries of life with patience, trusted in God, and looked forward to a better state; wherefore, said he, his afflictions are all brought to an end, and he is refreshed with eternal joys, which know neither hunger, nor cold, nor pain. And as for sending Lazarus to him to mitigate his misery, he told him that was impossible, how much soever both Lazarus and he might pity him, because his state was unalterably fixed. Luke xvi. 26. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulph fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you, cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. And now finding that nothing could be done for himself, he began to be in pain about his relations. He had five brethren alive, who it seems were rioting in luxury, and entertaining the opinion concerning a future state which had proved so fatal to him. Therefore, that he might prevent the ruin of his brethren, and if possible ease himself of the painful reflections which he felt for having been instrumental in corrupting them, he intreated Abraham to send Lazarus unto them in hopes it would reclaim them. By making this request, the man acknowledged both his own wickedness, and the principle from which it proceeded; he had disbelieved the immortality of the soul, had wallowed in the pleasures of sense, and by his example at least, had seduced his brethren into the same destructive courses. 27. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: 28. For I have five brethren, that he may testify. unto them the certain truth of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, lest they also con e into this place of torment. Abraham replied, They have the books of Moses and the prophets, from which they may learn the certainty of these things, if they will be at the pains to read them. 29. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. He answered, that the writings of Moses and the prophets had proved ineffectual to himself, at d he * he feared would be so to his brethren; but that they would cer tainly change their opinions, and reform their lives, if one appeared to them actually from the dead. 30. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. Abraham told him he was much mistaken, assuring him that the evil dispositions which hindered men from believing the evidences of a future state, contained in the writings of Moses and the prophets, would likewise hinder them from believing the testimony of a messenger from the dead. 31. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. By this parable we are taught several important lessons: as, 1. That one may be great and renowned, and highly esteemed among men, who is entirely obscure and vulgar in the eyes of God, nay, and an abomination unto him, ver. 15. For what can be greater or better in the eyes of men, than to live adorned with all the splendour of wealth, luxury, and honours? and what more disgraceful in the sight of God than to be polluted with sin, and fit only for the flames of hell? On the other hand, the parable teaches that some who appear mean and despicable in the eyes of their fellows, are men of great worth, and highly beloved of God. Wealth, therefore, and power, and grandeur, are not to be coveted, neither is poverty to be dreaded, since that honour which is the chief charm of the one, and that reproach which is the bitterest sting of the other, are altogether without foundation. 2. This parable teaches us, that the souls of men are immortal, that they subsist in a separate state after the dissolution of the body, and that they are rewarded or punished according to their actions in this life; doctrines very necessary to be asserted in those days, when it was fashionable to believe the mortality of the soul, and to argue in defence of that pernicious error. Farther, it teaches us, that the miseries of the poor who have lived religiously, and the happiness of the rich who have lived wickedly, do end with this life; and that the several stations in which they have lived, together with the past occurrences and actions of their lives, are distinctly remembered and reflected upon by them; see ver. 25. And that the remembrance of past pains and pleasures will *Ver. 30. If one went unto them from the dead, &c.] It is uncertain whe-. ther the rich man, by one from the dead," meant an apparition or resurrection. His words are capable of either sense, yet the quality of the person to whom this messenger was to be sent, makes it more probable that he meant an apparition. For without doubt the character Josephus gives us of the Jews in high life, viz. that they were generally Sadducees, was applicable to those brethren; so that disbelieving the existence of souls in a separate state, nothing more was necessary, in the opinion of their broder, to convince tacia, but that they should see a real appari will not lessen, but rather increase the joys of the one, and the sorrows of the other; and consequently that we make a very false judgment of one another's condition, when we think any man happy because he is rich, or any man miserable because he is poor. 3. From this parable we learn, that men shall be punished hereafter, for entertaining principles inconsistent with morality and religion, for their worldly-mindedness, and heedlessness with respect to matters of religion, for being immersed in pleasure, and for not using their riches aright, as well as for crimes of a grosser nature; wherefore it affords a fit caution to all the great and rich, to beware of the recks on which they are most apt to split. This great man who fell into the flames of hell, is not charged with murder, adultery, injustice, oppression, or lying; he is not even charged with being remarkably uncharitable. Lazarus lay commonly at his gate; and though he received evil things, being treated by every one in the family as a beggar, he got his maintenance there, such as it was, otherwise he would not have been laid there daily, nor would the rich man have desired Abraham to send him rather than any other of the blessed, with a drop of water to cool his tongue, had he not imagined that gratitude would prompt him to undertake the office with cheerfulness. The rich man's sin, therefore, was his living in luxury and pleasure, which made him on the one hand neglect religion, for cultivating which he had the best opportunities; and on the other, cherish atheistical principles, particularly such as flow from believing the mortality of the soul. If so, all who resemble this person in his character, should take warning by his punishment, and not delude themselves with thinking that because they live free from the more scandalous vices, they shall escape damnation. In particular, all who make it their chief business to procure the pleasures of sense, neglecting to form their minds into a relish of spiritual and divine pleasures, may in this parable see their sad but certain end. They shall be excluded for ever from the presence of God, as incapable of his joys, although they may have pursued their pleasures with no visible injury to any person. But if men, not accused of injustice in getting riches, are thus punished for the bad use they have made of them, what must the misery of those be, who both acquire them unjustly, and use them sinfully? As this parable admonishes the rich, so it is profitable for the instruction and comfort of the poor; for it teaches them the proper method of bringing their afflictions to a happy issue, and shews them, that God will distribute the rewards and punishments of the life to come impartially, without respect of persons. 4. This parable teaches us the greatness of the punishment of the damned. 23. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in tor ments, ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. We cannot from this representation infer, that burning with ma terial fire shall be any part of the true and proper punishment of the damned. The never-dying worm, which is sometimes joined with the fire of hell, is confessed by ali to be metaphorical, and therefore the fire may be so likewise. Yet no man can be absolutely certain that the wicked shall not be burnt with flames, seeing the resurrection of their bodies, and the union of them with their souls, make the thing possible. In the mean time, be this as it will, the expressions found here, and in other passages of Scripture, taken in their lowest sense, intimate that the pains of hell will be very great. For if wicked men retain the passions, appetites, and desires, which were predominant in them on earth, as it is highly probable they will, (see Gal. vi. 7.) these desires being for ever deprived of their objects, must occasion a misery which they only can conceive, who have felt what it is to lose, without hope of recovery, that which they are most passionately fond of, and to be racked with the violence of desires, which they are sensible can never be gratified. Or although the passions themselves should perish with their objects, a direful eternal melancholy must necessarily ensue from the want of all desire and enjoyment, the misery of which is not to be conceived. In such a state, the bitter reflections which the damned will make on the happiness they have lost, must raise in them a dreadful storm of self-condemnation, envy, and despair. Besides, their consciences provoked by the evil actions of their lives, and now, as it were, let loose upon them, will prove more inexorable than ravening wolves, and the torment which they shall occasion will, in respect of its perpetuity, be as if a never-dying worm was al rays consuming them. This is the fire of hell, and those the everlasting burnings threatened with such terror in the word of God, where they are represented perhaps by material flames, to strike the dull and gross apprehensions of mankind; but they are far more terrible than the other, for the misery arising from these agonizing reflections must be of the most intense kind. And as there is not any thing in that state to divert the thoughts of the damned from them, they must be uninterrupted also, not admit ting the least alleviation or refreshment. 5. From this parable we learn, that mens states are unalterably fixed after death, so that it is vain to hope for any end of their misery who are miserable, and unreasonable to fear any change of their prosperity who are happy. With respect to the latter, there can be little doubt; for, as one has observed, in a state where men are perfectly good, and can have no temptation to be otherwise, it is not imaginable, that they should fall from that state. And as for the damned, it is certain that they must be reclaimed to virtue before they can be made happy. But in the |