is immortal and indestructible: and the body after the resurrection, may; because, to make it a proper companion for the soul, it must be redeemed from all that corruption which tends to dissolution, and be built up on indestructible principles. In a state of probation sin cannot be punished; therefore we are properly informed, that the rich man died, before any part of his punishment took place.

Of the last days of this man no more is said than this; The rich man died, and was buried. There is no mention of this latter circumstance in the case of Lazarus : buried he undoubtedly was; necessity required this; but he had the burial of a pauper; while the pomp and pride of the other, no doubt, followed him to the tomb Though the poor man died first, God in mercy having abridged his days; yet the rich man died in his turn. His great possessions could not secure to him that life which he so highly prized. He was obliged to leave all behind his house, his estates, his family, and social connexions; his animal appetites, with all their means of gratification; and detested and detestable funeral honours, the mock and insult of human glory, alone accompany him to the verge of the grave; and these, even these bid adieu to a carcass that is fallen into disgrace. What an awful change has time and Providence brought about! Alas! why could not time tarry for him, who had lived for it alone? If useless in the world, yet he was harmless, only endeavouring to make himself happy in the enjoyment of what Providence had made his own. Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,

Labuntur anni!

sive reges

Sive inopes erimus coloni.

Linquenda tellus et domus et placens

Uxor: neque harum, quas colis, arborum
Te, præter invisas cupressos,

Ulla brevem dominum sequeter.

HORAT.

α

But what a difference even in the burial of these two persons. Several ancient MSS. and Versions, as well as the first English Translation, read the place thus; the rich man died and was buried in hell.* While his body descended into the grave, his soul went down into the place of torment. So that, in this case at least, it was true, Here rested the body of a damned soul! Reader! inay the God of heaven save thee from this place of torment! But what are we to understand by hell? the place in which the text says he was tormented. The word in the original is, Adns hades, which properly signifies a dark or obscure place, from a negative, and dev to see: Very properly translated by our English word HELL, from the Saxon HELAN, to cover or conceal. Hence HYLING, the covering or slating of a house. It answers to the Hebrew word sheol, which among the ancient Jews, signified the place where the souls of the just and unjust were kept, while in a state of separation from the body. The Greeks supposed their hades to be a dark, gloomy place, deep under the earth, where the souls of the righteous and the wicked were detained, previous to their being sent, the former to Elysium, and the latter to Tartarus. This place, with all its appendages, according to the heathen mythology, is described at large by Virgil, En. VI, I. 268, &c. From what our Lord says of it, and of Abraham's bosom, we may understand, that simply the place of separate spirits is intended; where those who died without God, have a foretaste of the punishment they are to endure after the day of judgment; and where those who die in the Divine favour enjoy a foretaste of their future blessedness. Neither the summit of glory, nor the depth of perdition, are suited to the nature

* In some ancient MSS. as well as in the Saxon and Vulgate, the point after ɛraon, he was buried, is lacking, and the following κat, and, removed and set before ɛrapas, lifting up; so that the passage reads thus: "The rich man died, and was buried in hell and lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he saw," &c.

of disembodied spirits: when rejoined to their bodies, the one is capable of enduring the miseries, the other of enjoying the happiness of the eternal world.

Let us now view the circumstances of this man's punishment. Scarcely had he entered the abodes of misery, when he lifted up his eyes on high; and what must be his. surprise, who never dreamed of going to hell, to see himself separated from God, and to feel his soul tormented in that flame! Neither himself nor friends ever expected, that the way in which he walked could have led to such a perdition.

In a general and collective sense, his punishment is indicated by his being in torments. His torments were as various as his faculties and powers; and therefore they are spoken of in the plural number, Baravors. The understanding, judgment, will, memory, imagination, and all his passions and appetites, must be wrecked with regret, anxiety, self-reproach, fear, terror, anguish, confusion, horror, and despair! This was his general state; but what were the particulars comprised in it?

1st. He sees Lazarus clothed with glory and immortality-this is the first circumstance in his punishment. What a contrast! What an ardent desire does he feel to resemble him, and what rage and despair, because he is not like him! We may think it strange, that the gulf of perdition should appear to have been in the vicinity of paradise; and that beatified spirits, and reprobate souls, should have a distinct view of each other; and to relieve ourselves from an embarrassment, which is the result of prejudice, we may cry out, "These things are not to be literally understood;" but we must take care not to apply the attributes and relations of time to the eternal world; for as the measurement of time is lost in endless duration, so all ideas of relative distance are absorbed and lost in infinite space. Disembodied spirits may have a power of perception and discovery, which, in this state of existence, even our conjectures cannot

reach; and for aught we know, their sphere of vision may be extended almost infinitely. If we, without even the assistance of a telescope, can see a planet at nine hundred millions of miles distance, or one of the fixed stars, at a distance the computation of which is almost beyond the powers of arithmetic; and if, when assisted with telescopes, we can penetrate some hundreds of millions of miles farther, can it appear to us an incredible thing, that disembodied spirits should discover each other in the eternal world, where even impediments to natural vision cannot exist ?

It appears then, that reprobate souls can see the blessed in their state of glory; and we may safely conclude that this discovery, accompanied with a conviction, that they themselves might have eternally enjoyed that felici, ty, from which they are now, through their own fault, for ever excluded, will form no mean part of the punishment of the damned. This appears to have been a first source of torment to the rich man.

2. He appears to have had the most ardent desire, either to possess good, or have his miseries alleviated. He cried out, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me! There was a time in which he might have prayed to the God of Abraham, and have found mercy: now, he dares not approach that God, whom, in his life-time, he had neglected; and he addresses a creature, who has neither power nor authority to dispense blessedness. This is the only instance mentioned in Scripture of praying to saints; and to the confusion of the false doctrine, that states it to be necessary and available, let it be remembered, that it was practised only by a damned soul, and that without any success.

The cry for mercy is proper in the mouth of every sin ner, who must be saved by the mere compassion of God, or perish for ever. A self-righteous man may so far impose upon himself, while in life, as to imagine he has deserved something from God; but this refuge of lies will

1

sooner or later be swept away, and the doctrine of human merit be exploded, even in the gulf of perdition.

The rich man is tormented by a sight of the happiness of the just, as well as by a sense of his own misery The presence of a good, to which he never had any right, and of which he is now deprived, affects the wretched less than the presence of that to which he had a right, and from which he is now eternally separated. Even in hell a damned spirit must abhor the evil by which it suffers, as well as the evil of suffering, and desire that good which would free it from its torment. If a reprobate soul could be reconciled to the anguish of its feelings, and the horror of its state, its punishment would of course be at an end.-Milton puts a sentiment of this kind in the mouth of Satan.

"Farewell Remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good."*

If a damned spirit can suspend the influence of remorse, receive evil in the place of good, and esteem it as such, then its misery terminates; and if Satan has been able to realize what the poet has said for him above, then, though devil damned, he ceases even in the abyss of perdition, in the burning pool, which spouts cataracts of fire, he ceases, I say, to feel torment! But all this is only a flight of lawless fancy; for eternal Truth has said their worm (remorse) dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. An eternal wish to escape from evil, and an infinite desire to be united to the Supreme Good, the gratification of which is for ever impossible, must make a second circumstance in the misery of the lost.

3. The remembrance of the good things possessed in life, and now to be enjoyed no more, together with the recollection of grace offered or abused, will form a third circumstance in the torments of the ungodly. "Son, remember that, in thy life-time, thou didst receive thy good things." It certainly was a very common opinion, in

Paradise Lost, Book IV, 1. 109.