29 SERMON II. ON THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF PRE- A STRONG PRESUMPTION IN FAVOUR Luke xvi. 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. THE argument for the immortality of man, drawn from the constitution and the capaci ties of his own mind, must have great weight with all those, who can enter into reasonings. of this kind. That a being, endowed with intellectual and moral powers, in the improvement of which he may rise to the resemblance of God himself, should have no other destination than to creep through a short and chequered life, and then to lie down for ever among the the clods of the valley, is a supposition utterly at variance with all our ideas of divine wisdom and beneficence. Hence a very strong presumption, that there must be a state, in which these powers may have an opportunity of unfolding themselves, and of reaching that perfection in knowledge, virtue, and happiness, to which they evidently point. This, however, is neither the only, nor the most satisfactory argument which reason suggests. The unequal distribution of good and evil, connected with the belief of a righteous Governor, furnishes an evidence of the same truth, still more level to general comprehension, and still better calculated to produce conviction in a reflecting mind. The force of this argument is fully admitted, and admirably illustrated by our Lord, in the parable from which the text is selected. Nothing can be more correct than the management of the story. From the message which the rich man requests Abraham to send to his brethren, it is obvious, that neither he nor they had believed in a state of retribution. They were Sadducees, who, like the Epicureans among the Gentiles, admitted the existence of a God, but denied the doctrine of a future life. Their system was, to enjoy the passing hour by indulging freely in every luxury, bodily and mental, which their circumstances could afford, without any regard to a future account. Had their infidelity been well grounded, the wisdom of this system would have been incontrovertible. The only restraint which a man, acting upon their principle, should impose upon himself, is that of a prudent attention to health and reputation; for to pay the least respect to moral duties, independently of immediate advantage, would be the height of inconsistency. Where pleasure is the sole end of living, (as to those who are convinced that their pleasure and their existence must end together, it ought undoubtedly to be,) morality is matter of mere convenience, and duty, a word without a meaning. They may admit virtue as an auxiliary; they cannot consider it as a principal. It may be employed to promote or to secure enjoyment; but should never be suffered to interfere with it, where there is a compe competition. In ordinary cases, indeed, it may be advantageous, and consequently expedient, even upon this plan, to abstain from the great transgression." Our Lord, accordingly, does not describe the rich man as a monster of iniquity, but as a voluptuary of the true Epicurean school, who, without interrupting the pleasures or commiserating the sufferings of others, lives upon a regular system of sensual ease and splendid luxury, careless alike of religious views and of moral obligation. At the gate of this rich and jovial Sadducee is laid a beggar, the victim at once of abject poverty and of loathsome disease. As our Lord imputes to the rich man no flagrant wickedness, neither does he hold up the beggar as an example of eminent virtue. It is not said, that his estate had been exhausted in acts of charity, or that his disease was contracted in visiting the cells of imprisoned misery. This silence cannot be unintentional. It was our Lord's aim, without adverting to the minuter shades of moral character, to draw a striking contrast; of which the pro minent features should be, on the one side, unbelief, in the possession of worldly happiness; on the other, faith, in the lowest depth of worldly distress. The rich man, with all his means of knowledge, despises religion; with all his opportunities of beneficence, is heedless of what he owes to the claims of humanity. Taking his good things in this life, he laughs at futurity as the invention of priestcraft or the dream of fanaticism; and though the beggar is not driven from his door, he is left to the kindness of his dogs, or to pampered menials, perhaps less kind than they. No tender hand binds up no soothing attentions assuage the anguish of his departing spirit. He dies unpitied, without interrupting for a moment the pleasures of that festive board, at which the rich man is faring sumptuously, and repeating, in his gaiety, the motto of his sect, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." his sores; Nothing is said of the virtues of Lazarus. Enlightened piety, refined and elevated virtues, lie not within the reach of the great majority of mankind; and it would have been an impro D |