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Birrell 2-9-25 11296

SERMON VIII.

The Parable of the RICH MAN and LAZARUS confidered.

LUKE XVI. 31.

And be faid unto him, If they bear not Mofes and the prophets, neither will they be perfuaded, though one should rife from the dead.

HESE words are the conclufion

THE

of the parable of the tich man and Lazarus; the defign of which was to fhew us the neceffity of conducting ourselves, by fuch lights as Gon had been pleased to give us: the fense and meaning of the patriarch's final determination in the text being VOL. IV.

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this, That they who will not be perfuaded to answer the great purposes of their being, upon fuch arguments as are offered to them in fcripture, will never be perfuaded to it by any other means, how extraordinary foever;-If they hear not Mofes and the prophets, neither will they be perfuaded, though one fhould rife from the dead

Rife from the dead! To what purpose? What could fuch a meffenger propofe or urge, which had not been propofed and urged already? the novelty or surprise of fuch a vifit might awaken the attention of a curious unthinking people, who fpent their time in nothing else, but to hear and tell fome new thing; but ere the wonder was well over, fome new won

der would ftart up in its room, and then the man might return to the dead from whence he came, and not a foul make one inquiry about him.

-This, I fear, would be the conclufion of the affair. But to bring this matter ftill clofer to us, let us imagine, if there is nothing unworthy in it, that Gon, in compliance with a curious world, or from a better motive,——in compaffion to a finful one, fhould vouchfafe to fend one from the dead, to call home our confcience and make us better Christians, better citizens, better men, and better fervants to God than what we are.

Now bear with me, I befeech you, in framing fuch an addrefs, as I imagine,

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attention, and conciliate the heart to what he had to fay: the great channel to it, is Intereft, and there he would fet out.

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He might tell us, (after the most indifputable credentials of whom he ferved) That he was come a meffenger from the great GoD of Heaven, with reiterated propofals, whereby much was to be granted us on his fide,

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and fomething to be parted with on ours: but that, not to alarm us,

twas neither houses, nor land, nor poffeffions; twas neither wives, **or children, or brethren, or fifters, which we had to forfake-no one rational pleafure to be given up ;~#~~ no natural endearment otonsbe torn from ader two cÌ

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