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.

TH

HE method of instruction by parables, was much in use among the eastern nations. Both physical and moral causes contributed to introduce and to support this custom. The people of the east have always been more under the government of the imagination and fancy, than the nations of the north. They use the liveliest and the boldest figures of speech in their ordinary conversation; and their writings are all in the manner, as well as in the spirit of poetry. What the influence of the climate made natural, the form of their government rendered necessary. As the form of their government has always been despotic and tyrannical, they were afraid to speak out their sentiments with openness and with freedom. Truth durst not approach the throne, nor appear in public.

Such was the origin of parables. This method of instruction possesses many advantages. It is obvious to all capacities, and has a charm for every hearer. It is well adapted to strike the fancy; it interests the passions, and thus makes a deeper and more lasting impression than mere moral instruction could convey. It likewise possesses one advantage peculiar to itself. It makes a man his own instructor. When the parable is told, we ourselves draw the moral, and make the application. Observations and reflections that we make ourselves, are of more avail to us in the conduct of life, than any instruction we can learn from others.

The parable now before us contains many useful and important lessons. We have here represented two characters not uncommon in the world; a rich man, who enjoyed the pleasures and the luxuries of life; and a poor beggar, who lived and who died in poverty, and in distress. This man was a signal object of pity. He was a beggar, and he was full of sores. Notwithstanding this double call to sympathy

and compassion, the heart of the rich man was hardened against him. All the advantage he reaped from lying at the great man's gate was, that his dogs, who had more feeling than their master, came and licked his sores. Nevertheless this rich man was not a miser. He was not a niggard of the gifts of Providence. He enjoyed life. He was arrayed in purple, which, in those days, was the vestment of kings. Hospitality presided in his hall, and luxury reigned at his table. He made sumptuous entertainments for his friends, and he made them every day. He seems to have been one of that class of men, and a very numerous class they are, and very frequently to be found in life, who are very hospitable to those who do not want, but very unfriendly to those that do; who prepare rich and splendid entertainments for those tribes of flatterers and sycophants who always croud the mansions of the great, and at the same time have nothing to spare to a real object of distress. However, he acted very agreeably to the principles of his sect; for as we learn from the sequel, he was a Sadducee, or, what in our days we call an infidel, that is, one who has no religion at all. He did not believe in the immortality of the soul. He did not believe that there was either a heaven or a hell. Accordingly, he endeavoured to make the most of this life, and acted up to the maxims of his sect," Let us eat and drink, for 86 to-morrow we shall die."

Learn hence the folly and the danger of endeavouring to establish virtue upon any foundation but that of true religion. People may tell us that social affection is the law of our being; they may talk of virtue being its own reward, they may sing the praises of disinterested benevolence; but if you take away the rewards and punishments of the world to come, you set the greatest part of mankind free from every moral obligation, and open a door to universal depravity and corruption of manners. If the beauty of virtue is laid in one scale, and interest in the other, it will not be difficult to determine to which side the

balance will incline. The accusations of conscience will be little regarded, unless they are considered as an earnest of the worm that never dies. Take away the doctrine of a world to come, and you make this world a scene of universal depravity and open wickedness.

At first view we would be apt to wonder at the ways of Heaven, and perhaps tempted in our minds to arraign the conduct of Providence, in crowning this worthless and wicked man with wealth and prosperity, whilst all that diversified the good man's lot was scene after scene of poverty and pain. But let us suspend our judgment, We see but one link in We live but in the

the great chain of Providence. infancy of being. The great drama of life is but be gun. When the catastrophe is brought about, when the curtain between both worlds is undrawn, the morn will arise that will light the Almighty's foot steps in the deep, and pour full day upon all the paths of his providence.

He

VERSE 22. And it came to pass that the beggar died. He died, and all his miseries died with him. whom this rich man would have disdained to have considered as his fellow-creature, had a company of angels sent down to transport him to the regions of the blessed, to the bosom of Abraham, where all his sorrows had an end, and the tears were for ever wiped from his eyes. Let the needy and the oppressed take consolation from this salutary doctrine. God there is no respect of persons. great business of your lives to be rich in faith and in good works, and to lay up treasures in heaven, and then you may rejoice in hope, that though you have nothing here, yet yours is the kingdom of God.

With

Let it be the

VERSES 23 to 26 inclusive. Before our Saviour's incarnation, the Greek language had made its way into Judea. Along with the language of the Greeks, their opinions in philosophy, and the fictions of their poetry, had been introduced, and made part of the popular belief. This part of the parable which we have now read, is evidently founded upon the fictions

of the Grecian poets concerning the state of departed souls. They, as well as our Lord in this parable, represent the abodes of the blessed as lying contiguous to the regions of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable river, or deep gulf, in such a manner, 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 manner, the heathens introduce departed souls as talking together, and represent them as having pains and pleasures, analogous to what we feel in this life; and they thought that the shades of the dead had an exact resemblance to their bodies. The parable says,

that the souls of wicked men are tormented in flames; the Grecian poets tell us, that they lie in a river of fire, where they suffer the same torments they would have suffered while alive, had their bodies been burnt. From this account, therefore, we are to draw no inferences concerning the real nature of heaven or of hell. A parable is no more than an instructive fable or tale, and the only thing to be regarded in it is the moral that it conveys. We cannot therefore conclude from this parable, that there is material fire in hell, or that the abodes of the blessed and the regions of the damned are contiguous to one another. The word of God gives us no materials wherein we can make a description either of hell or heaven. was never the intention of scripture to satisfy our curiosity, but to influence our practice, and for that purpose to awake our hopes and our fears, by representing the one as being the region of the greatest torment, and the other as the scene of unmingled and everlasting joy.

It

The rich man died, and was buried. We read not of the burial of the poor man. He would be thrown into a common grave, and mingled with vulgar and obscure dust. But the rich man was buried with pomp and with splendour. Crowds of mercenary

mourners would attend his funeral, and venal tears be

shed upon his tomb. Every amiable and every respectable quality would be ascribed to him by those ready flatterers, who have always a character at hand for the deceased of quality. But, insensible to this incense, in hell he lift up his eyes. How astonishing and how awful must it be, my brethren, for a person who believes not in a future state, to. receive his first conviction from the flames of the lake which burneth for ever, and from the gnawings of the worm that never dies. The request of the rich man is very remarkable. He does not acknowledge the justness of his punishment, nor confess the greatness of his sins. He does not shew any remorse of mind for the offençes he had committed against God, for the injuries he had done to society, or for the ruin he had brought upon his own soul. He had no sorrow for sin, he had only a feeling of pain. He did not want to be delivered from his guilt, but only from punishment. But such had been his character in this world. The fact is, my brethren, we retain the same dispositions hereafter, that we cultivate here. It is utterly impossible, that the mere separation of the soul from matter, can make any alteration upon the essential qualities of the soul. We carry to the other world the same qualities, the same temper of mind, and the same character, that we have on earth. What manner of persons doth it become us then to be? As we now sow, hereafter we reap. Our heaven, or our The worm that ne

hell is already begun within us. ver dies hath already begun to gnaw the heart of the wicked; and the good man hath already begun those hymns and hossannas of praise which shall employ him through eternity.

Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things. This answer of the Patriarch is remarkable for mildness. When a person, by his imprudence and folly, hath involved himself in a scene of distress, there is nothing more common than for those who visit him at such a time, to upbraid him with his by-past conduct in the severest manner, and to administer rebukes with acrimony and bitterness. In