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the poor man must here have had a like faith-a like love with holy Abraham, since at his death his freed spirit found its joy in his kindred bosom.

Let the destitute ponder this. Let no man deceive himself, and imagine from the history of Lazarus, that suffering and poverty in this world gives a title to the kingdom of heaven.* Let those ponder it who make a trade of their sores and their rags-who in their unprincipled wanderings from house to house, from town to town, harden men's hearts by their lies, and in so doing defraud the patient poor to whom the rich man's charities are due. Let them ponder over the death of the beggar Lazarus, and let them say whether when they die the angels will carry them to the bosom of Abraham. Are their hopes, their submission to the will of God, their firm and patient faith in His promises, like Abraham's now? It is only those who live and die in faith like his,† who shall share in his reward. But there are many sufferers who are likeminded with him. To all such we would say, however great your trials" Cast not away your confidence which hath great recompence of reward, for ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promises."‡ And to suffer patiently, is to do the will of God. It is the sort of martyrdom which He lays upon you; and if you let men see that for His sake you are willing to endure, and can trust Him all the while, you glorify Him even as the martyr at the stake glorifies the name of God for which he dies.

Read again 19th to 22nd verse.

Where is the rich man all this time, for he too "died and was buried." The name inscribed upon his tomb has no place

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St. Augustine. See quotation in a note in Trench on the Parables, page 446.
Hebrews xi.
Ibid. x. 35, 36.

in Scripture; but no doubt his funeral was sumptuous as his daily fare had been. O cruelest mockery of all! the splendid funeral of one who never had a hope or a care for any thing but the good things of life.

How often have we seen that, even while he lies unburied, the rich man's heirs are disputing for his wealth. If he could return but a very short time after the grave has closed over him, to ask for the smallest thing among the treasures he left behind, it would roughly be denied him. His lands, his houses, his pictures and his jewels," his purple and his fine linen," they are another's now--they would not be spared to him. But where is he himself? We read in the parable, "And in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments." Why was he there?

Abraham, while on earth, had been very rich.* We read of him that he "made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned "that he sent presents of "jewels of silver, and jewels of gold and raiment to Rebecca, and also to her brother, and to her mother precious things." We also read, that when he died, his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the tomb he had purchased for himself and his family: † But Abraham was so holy that to have been carried to his bosom, is the picture by which this parable expresses the happiness of heaven. Yes, and for this reason, all that he possessed he held as the gifts of God to be used in His service; but the rich man had served none but himself. He had used his riches to pamper his lusts. Self had been to him as a God: and now he carried to that world in which he had laid up no treasure, all that he still possessed--his miserable self.

"In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 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." There is some*Gen. xiii. 2., xx. 8., xxv. 9, 10.

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+ Gen. xiv. 22, 23.

thing in the expression," in hell he lifted up his eyes," which seems to tell of the sudden plunge which had brought him at once from his luxurious living down to that terrible place, confounding for a moment his faculties, his whole powers of thinking, by the shock. As if starting from a fearful dream he lifted up his eyes, and beheld a sight that shewed him how all things were changed. Afar off he saw the beggar who had lain at his gate—who had died just before him, lying now in the very bosom of Abraham of whom all the Jews boasted as their pride and their hope. At once he knew them both.

Jesus, the Son of God, knows the secrets of the world of spirits more intimately than we know the common things of our daily life. He it was who related this parable: and though he may have used types and figures to make us understand the blessedness of heaven, and the misery of hell, yet he never would deceive us, and surely the fact he tells, that the spirit of the rich man knew at once the spirit of Abraham, of whom he had heard but had never seen, and of Lazarus, who each time he had passed in and out of his gates he had seen without heeding, may answer the question so often put, "shall we know each other in the world to come?"

He who had on earth been the rich man shewed that death had not destroyed the idea of his former life, for he called Abraham father. He had not forgotten his privileges as a son of Abraham. He prayed him to "send Lazarus," whom he still seems to consider as an inferior who might well be sent to serve him even in hell. Small was the boon he asked—“ a drop of water!" Small indeed, yet it was denied; but Abraham denied not the relationship. He answered him not as a stranger, but as a son. In this lay the very stress of his guilt. A son of Abraham-that friend of God-that Father of believers-that man of princely heart, and liberal hand, he had no excuse for having wasted his goods upon himself. The same Trench on the Parables, p. 472.

tie that bound him to Abraham as a son, bound him as a brother to all Abraham's children, even to the beggar lying at his gate. Abraham's answer may well engage our deepest attention. "Son," he said, " 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." The time of choice was past. While life lasted, two sorts of good were open to him. He had fixed his affections on earthly things. He had possessed to the full, the worldly goods for which alone he cared. Does he murmur now that they have left him nothing but the punishment of his ungodliness? *

Nothing can find a place in heaven that has not been offered to God on earth, and in some way made to serve him: therefore the rich man had no treasure there: his good things had all been left behind. Let this reconcile man to sorrow. There is no heavier ill than that a man should pass through life without affliction. It is not that any sufferings here can save the soul-that is the work of Christ alone; but pain and grief, whether of mind or body, shew to us our need of something better than this world can give. They are sent by God to waken us from our dream of earthly happiness.

When sorrow enters the rich man's gate, let him fall down on his knees and thank God for the grief that disenchants the things around him-that weakens their power to hold down his heart. He was in fearful danger. He might have been content to receive his good things here. He might have forgotten the world which is surely coming. To rich and poor, great griefs are God's messengers; as such with courtesy receive them." Give them place. Do not strive to forget them. Let them speak their errand to your heart, and do the work for which God sent them.

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"Besides all this," said Abraham, "there is between us and you a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from † Aubrey de Vere.

* Augustine.

hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." In this world there is, and must be till the end, a mixture of good and evil. As the tares spring up with the wheat, so the worldly-minded and the spiritual-minded must dwell together; and as life is the time of trial and of education, it is well that it should be so, for that which is good checks that which is evil, and sometimes even has power to win it over, while the very temptation to evil, when resisted, strengthens that which is good. But when the souls of men have passed into the eternal world, it is no longer so. "Like is gathered to like." Even in this world we see kindred minds drawn together, and in that world to come the natural relationship of good with good, of evil with evil, binds all together; the separation between the good and the bad is complete. It is a great gulf fixed which cannot be passed.

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The spirit of the man who had been rich, speaks again. "I pray thee therefore Father, (since it is so) that thou wouldst send Lazarus to my father's house: for I have five brethren, lest they also come into this place of torment." Since there is no hope for myself, let my brothers at least be warned in time. There is reproof in Abraham's answer. "They have Moses and the prophets let them hear them." And he said, "Nay father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." While he dwelt on earth, the rich man might have been warned, for he had the word of God-all that we call the Old Testament-written by Moses and the prophets -inspired by the Spirit of God. It might have been enough for him-it was all that was needed; but the same scornful neglect which had made Scripture useless to him on earth, shewed itself in him now; and his words to Abraham were of the very same spirit as that shown by the Pharisees when they gave no heed to the many miracles of Jesus Christ and required of him "a sign from heaven that they might see and believe."

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