Family and whole Nation were enrich'd above the rest of Men. Had he and his Brethren been strangers to this Abraham and never heard of Moses and the Prophets yet they had not remain'd uninform'd of the great Duties of Life and those for the transgression of which he now suffers The Being to be acknowledg'd and worshipp'd had not left himself without a Witness if these had never testified the invisible things of him his Power and Godhead being to be understood not from the Words of a Message but from the things that were made The Obligations too of Temperance Justice and Charity had been sufficiently discover'd from the Light of Reason and Dictates of Humane Nature The Dictates I say of Nature or the innate Notions of the Mind taking leave to use these words in the common way of Speech and as they serve to express that moral sence that distinctive faculty of Good and Ill to which actions of Justice and Beneficence and Gratitude are Natural and Delightful and the contrary Distastful and Disagreeable by the frame and make of our spiritual Part. As Tasts or Colours or Sounds are to the Palate the Eye or the Ear by the Providence of God in the Fabrick of the Body So is it that the work of the Law is written in mens hearts as the Apostle phrases it Hence the Consciences of the Heathen are instructed to accuse or excuse And so would these men have been without excuse had they been without those Notices from their Law-giver The Commandment of whose violation they stand guilty needs no new Declaration now it was not necessary it should have been proclaim'd from Mount Sinai Before that day it was not hidden from man nor afar off It was not in Heaven that he should say who shall go up for him to Heaven and bring it unto him that he may hear it and do it neither was it beyond the Sea to use Moses's words even concerning the unwritten Law It was not to be sent from beyond this Gulph nor was it one of the secrets of Hell or Heaven The Word was very nigh unto him in his Mouth and in his Heart that he should do it It was what his own Heart conceiv'd to be right and just and what his Mouth was ready to pronounce at least in the case of others But beyond this these were the Sons of Abraham He is call'd upon as their Father in this Distress and was heretofore their boast His Faith and his Hospitality were their Glory and should have been their example From him they made themselves a Title to the Blessings and Friendship of Heaven and if they follow'd not his steps what could they expect but its Enmity and Indignation that Injustice Uncharitableness and Luxury should be attended by the Fate of Sodom and punish'd by such Fire should no more be reliev'd now than they were spar'd of old at Abraham's importunate Intercession And yet further to pass over the several Revelations made to the Patriarchs and which were to descend to their Off-spring as their best Inheritance at last from the Mount a general and wonderful Declaration was made to which the Miracles of Aegypt had prepar'd as those of the Wilderness did attest Then the Natural Law of Mens Breasts was transcrib'd and exemplified by the hand of God to be read in the Tables of Stone and Books of Moses no longer whisper'd from within in silent gentle Commands but loudly and terribly proclaim'd in a Voice of Thunder too audible not to be heard and at which they could not but tremble had the Earth stood unmov'd the delivery of their Duty accompanied with horrour and speaking the dismal consequences of its neglect So did God himself continue to testify to that Generation by his Servant Moses nor did he cease to admonish their Posterity by his Prophets all whose Writings were transmitted down receiv'd by the Jews and read every day in their Synagogues still denouncing Divine Wrath against Excess Rapine Oppression and Unmercifulness as the Rich Man may now too late remember This Moses and those Prophets he had heard in the Synagogue his quality no doubt had preferr'd him to read them there Well skill'd in the Law it may be he was and the Oracle of his Country a Zealot possibly for his Religion against the Samaritan or the Heathen But still he was to learn to bear he had not heard them to the purpose they spoke and with that attention which the importance and weight of the Message requir'd he had lent them the Ear in manner or for show but he had hearkned to the temptation of Pleasure or Propositions of Honour and Gain It may be he had heard them wantonly or maliciously to make mirth and deride or to cavil and object Happy for ever in his Jest and secure if he could but doubt The Report of so many Miracles might have only taught him to demand one that he should be as much consider'd as his Forefathers and have a wonder bestow'd upon him resolv'd not to believe without Evidence of the first hand as great as he should fansie or God could give And it was true that greater Evidence might have been given If God had so pleas'd Faith no doubt might have lost its name and become Science The Godhead might have shin'd out like the Sun and his Pleasure as clear as the Noon-day And so the Body of Man might have been wing'd been cloath'd and arm'd by Nature endow'd with other Sences as much surpassing our sight as that does the dullest of the five and made obnoxious neither to Pain nor Death and as our Mind might have been created incapable of Error or of Sin But God is he that made us and not we our selves He is to prescribe to us not we to him He not being accountable for what he withholds but we for what we have receiv'd We are thankfully to be content with the day he has dispens'd with so much light as he holds out and at the distance he has plac'd it enjoying the direction and not quarrelling at the Spots of his Sun The provisions for this Life and for the other are left to our Care and recommended to our industry and Reason is given us to work out of that stock which is afforded us whether Material or Intellectual not only our Preservation in this World but our Salvation in the Next That Reason we are to make use of as we do of our sight though it be limitted and obscure and subject to deception not therefore becoming Brutes because we are not made Intelligent as Angels And the Knowledge that God imparts of Himself and his Will though not the Brightest nor most Perfect we are to lay hold on and to cultivate as proportion'd to our Capacity and sufficient for the End not standing upon Terms and refusing to perceive because he is not pleas'd Mathematically to demonstrate God is not oblig'd to act for us to the Extent of his Omnipotence but it is we who
Fathers by Moses and the Prophets has laid open to us the World to come and given the free prospect of Heaven and Hell declar'd more of the Future State in this single Parable than was to be read in all those Writings to which Abraham refers What too is said here to be denied he did effect and rais'd one Lazarus from the Grave And when by that rescue of another from Death he had only hastned his own His very Disciples not so well perswaded by that and so many other Miracles as not to forsake nay to deny him he was pleas'd himself to rise from the Dead finally to instruct and to warn Men. This Gospel he Commission'd chosen Men to publish and impower'd them to confirm it with Signs and Wonders Multitudes of his Servants continually declaring by the zeal of the Lives and the constancy of their Death the truth of their Master's Resurrection and their assurance of their own By such evident Testimonies the World found it self oblig'd to admit and to confess his Doctrine but neither is it so perswaded It hears and pretends to believe but goes on still in its old course and lives after the Unchristian manner sometimes it wants a sign or an infallible Proponent or a scientifick demonstration glad to know how to except and object and resolv'd not to obey not to be fully perswaded it seems should all the Dead arise or the whole Host of Heaven come down So true has this Affirmation of Abraham's since prov'd and so little Faith has our Saviour found At his Death he left not much and he makes it a question after whether at his return he shall find any any proportionable to the clearness of the Message and to the Greatness and Dignity of the Reporter The Event he has not only intimated in the Parable but foretold expresly neither is the Revelation he has made disparag'd but verified by it We are not surpriz'd to find that there are such who neglect or contradict These are those of whom we have been warn'd those that will not be perswaded neither should any give themselves the vain pleasure to think that they can disgrace the Gospel or disappoint its Author His word will certainly serve to the purpose to which it was ordain'd and his honour is as secure as his Happiness It is the Unbeliever only who will suffer The Notice we have is so plain and evident that reasonably and in duty we cannot demand more however more will not be granted If the sign of Jonas has not had any effect no other shall be given nor any more rise from the Dead till we our selves do to Judgment The Book is seal'd as the Gulph below is fix'd and those that will not be prevail'd with by this method they will not they shall not by any other If they will not hear Moses and the Prophets the Son of God and his Apostles there will be no further endeavour to perswade them If the Gospel be hid it is hid to those that are lost Make we use therefore of the last and only Help a greater than which we cannot we must not hope for Take we heed how we despise the Admonition of him that is Risen from the Dead and now speaks from Heaven who will once more shake not the Earth only our Maker our Redeemer and our Judge This Life is the time to hear the Directions of God and to comply with his design for our Salvation hereafter we shall be only call'd to hear his Sentence and to confess its Justice And then a knowing Age will be the most improper to plead Ignorance nor will a Christian of this Country dare to say that he wanted Notice The Assertion of the Parable concerning the Unbelief of Men we see how true and exact it is as really fullfill'd will the Narrative part be concerning its Consequence and Issue The perswaded and the unperswaded will then have their different Portions and be set at a wide distance And we shall all hereafter be in the condition of this Unhappy Person or of that Lazarus either Comforted or Tormented God grant that according to that other Parable our Improvement may be in proportion to the number of our multiplied Talents and that we may so hear all our other warnings and this present Admonition that we may be found with Faithful Abraham in the Joy of our Master To whom with the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory now and for Ever FINIS
same rash and criminal attempts going on gaily and unconcernedly to lose their Health their Estate or Life till they become at last Examples and Warnings themselves as little to be regarded by others and as certainly neglected in their turns The ghastly sight of a dying Friend may chill our blood and strike us with serious Reflections make some change upon our Countenance and on our Minds but when we go back among the living World we are soon engag'd in the Fashion of it quickly forget the Deceas'd and our own Mortality again contrive and design as if we were left behind to continue here for ever All Monuments and Memento's are ineffectual to the purpose they speak and so many going to the dead can not well perswade us that we shall follow Nay some there are that have been themselves among the Dead that in some dangerous Sickness have been so near this place as to have had a lively view of it and in the bitterness of their Soul almost to have felt its torments and what firm Resolutions do they then make What solemn Promises to God and to themselves which yet give place when health and vigour returns the forgetful Creature relapsing in a little time into his old sins and not having been perswaded no not by his own Convictions Insomuch that if we should suppose Abraham to procure a greater favour for this Person than he knew how to desire to take him out of that Flame and set him again on the Earth not for some temporary care while he is upon a short Errand but for another Trial of his Obedience and a new opportunity of delivering himself out of that intolerable State Upon this supposition impracticable indeed as he is told by Abraham it would not however be impracticable to imagine that this very person might by degrees fall into his former Errors and slide into the Way that will bring him back into the same Place like some pardon'd Criminals that are still under Bonds to their old Vice and soon deserve a second Sentence So little therefore can this Man be confident of the success of a Report upon his Brethren that perchance his own Experience might not prove Warning enough unto Himself Were not the Instances of these difficult and unperswasible tempers so frequent in humane Life innumerable might be brought from sacred story Pharaoh not perswaded by ten Miracles and to be drown'd by another The Children of Israel whose hardness of heart as much exceeded his as the power of Moses did that of his Magicians those the peculiar People of God inform'd from his Mouth led and fed by daily Miracles and yet giving no Credence to his Word a froward Generation Children in whom there was no Faith as their Law-giver describes them To conclude the Holy Books are full of Admonition from God and of the Disobedience of Men Warning us from our Sins and from any great hopes of growing better by new warnings for this too is a Lesson that may be learnt from Moses and the Prophets And thus we have seen the assertion of the Text to be so possible that there is great reason to proceed higher and to understand it more positively as that which would generally happen in the World and may very Probably be verified on those Brethren the last and the full sence of the Words III. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded c. This Intractableness in many and Infidelity to Moses and the Prophets is not oppos'd particularly to their Persons nor only able to over-balance their Testimony it is generally ready to encounter the same grievous Commands whoever brings them and strong enough to repulse another Messenger It has learnt from over-ruling greater and more illustrious Evidence easily to defeat this and Lazarus must yield where Moses and the Prophets could not prevail The Miracles indeed of those days are long past and Moses and the Prophets were Men of old and let us suppose them to be Antiquated and to need this Reinforcement but the Unbelief of that time was Humane and Natural and has been propagated to the present Age The Israelite the crooked and perverse Generation still continues the wantonness and frowardness of such as will not have God for their King The Rich Man if he inquires wisely will not say that the former days were worse than these There are the same Dispositions now of whom the like may be presum'd and where Miracles would be bestow'd in vain Men whose understandings are darkned and Consciences sear'd who have already done that violence to their inward better part that they are grown Insensible of any thing that comes against their present Interest and from another World The advice to the Sceptick would be false and visionary dull and nauseous to the Man of Pleasure and to the Man of Business trifling and impertinent the Ghostly Friend an Enemy to them and to their Designs as unwelcome as Satan and to be Exorcis'd For still it is that those who have devoted themselves to the Idols of this World Pleasures Riches or Honour look upon all discourse offer'd against their Deities as Blasphemy accordingly they throw dust in the air to blind their Eyes they stop their Ears and cry away with it running on with one accord These are properly said to be dead in sin not to be restor'd by any Remedy however powerful and extraordinary that works by moral force whom God indeed may make sensible and raise by his Omnipotence as he may now return Lazarus but upon whom this Lazarus so remanded by Miracle will not operate except he brings with him the power of Miracles and can confer Grace such as shall not be resisted And thus there might be Sons of Abraham of whom this Sentence might be true in its severest meaning and of those this Rich Man might be one and he by it given to understand that he himself would not have been perswaded by the wonder he desires and neither will his Brethren be those of the same Family and Mind And so might the miserable Jew be well silenc'd by this reasonable and righteous Answer and he and his Brethren left without excuse such as they should alledge in earnest and at the Day of Account not indeed without such excuses as better deserve that name frivolous and false pretences rais'd by the lazy or the obstinate childish pleas of affected Ignorance and counterfeit Disability such as God in his Government of the World will not consider nor does any humane Magistracy admit Justified will our Creator be in his saying and Sentence and clear when he is judg'd and when he judges This Answer of Abraham grounded upon Observation of common Life and the practice of the Jews has been since eminently confirm'd by the experiment of Christianity Our Saviour the Brightness of God's Glory and the express Image of his Person has himself brought down Information to us infinitely surpassing what was spoke to the