The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 72

II. Nuw, having seen its root in moral conditions which Christ intended to lay bare, BEGABD TlIE SALIENT FEATURES OF TilE SKETCH BEJ'ORE us. 1. There is a r~ch man. No p~rticulars. as to his estate are give~; no judgment is passed on his character. It 1s not said that be had amassed bis wealth by unfair means, or that he was unjust, or that be was harsh; he ie simply presented as rich, fond of show and glitter and good living. Now and again a. monarch might assume his robe of costly purple, but purple and fine linen are the ordinary dress of this Dives, and the appoi~tme~te of his table are al ways splendid. A jovial, magnificent personage, to whom memale m gorgeous array do homage, and whom all the flunkeydom of his city silently reverences. 'l'here is only one drawback. At the entrance to his palace, e. beggar-a miserable creature, full of sores-is laid; one so reduced that he is glad of the crumbs which fall from the table. Such crumbs a.re dainties to him. Clearly, no effort is made to relieve this beggar; none is employed to heal his diseases; his only guardians and mediciuers a.re the curs which prowl about Ea.stem cities. The" inhu- manity of man" is condemned by the action of these curs. 2. The rich man ha.a no name, th.. J,,4v,ar has-Lazarus, or Eleaza.r, "God's help." Beautifully Augustine asks, "Seems not : ,b~ist to you to have been reading from that book where he found the name of the poor man written, but found not the name of the rich ; for that book is the book of life?" Thus day by day, the millionaire, reclining on bis couch, his table groaning with delicacies, elegantly sipping at this, and ta.king that, and withal complaining of indigestion, occasionally sallying forth and dazzling all by his splendour, is yet offended by the loathsome thing at the gate, from which the eye is withdrawn. Day by day the gaunt form of haggard poverty obtrudes on the rights of wealth; squalor, in a.11 its hideousness, stares into the face of wealth. Is it not the contrast which, instead of lessening, becomes more intense as the curious comple:s:ity which we call civilization develops ?--,ivilization, with its heights separated only by hand-breadths from its depths. Day by da.y it is so, until-- 3. "Died." Ah! a word which it is impossible to expunge, which gathers up the fea.rs and tears, which crowns or crushes the hopes of men. First the beggar. To him death is a message ofrelief, bidding away from sores which dogs have licked to joys in which angels share, from the flagged pavement, hard and cold, of the palace of the rich man harder a.nd colder still, to the embrace and warmth and fulness of Abraham's bosom. " It is well," says Dives, when he misses the bundle of rags and disease; "it is the best thing which could happen to that Lazarus I " But the clock moves on ; the " purple and fine linen" begin to hang about the limbs; the viands come and·gount.asted; there is the sickness, the sick-bed, the muflled knocker, the bated breath of physicians and attendants. Oh, horror of horrors! it is death! All must be left. The bands which used to be so full a.re now still, starched, and empty I The poor to die,-that is good ; but the rich man also to die ! What is the difference between the two? Of the one the burial is noted; no doubt a grand affair, for which, possibly, he bad himself arranged. I have heard of a Dives, who, afraid that he might not have a sufficiently splendid coffin, procured a. sarcophagus from Egypt, and lay down in it to be sure that it would fit. The burial; yes, but some- thing more I Beggar and millionaire are in Hades-the sheol of the Old Testament- the unknown place, the unseen region which contains the departed until the coming of the Lord. What of the beggar? While he was on earth man in pity carried him to the palace gate, and laid him there to starve and rot unless the crumb was thrown to him. When he dies angels carry him to the place of bliss, though not yet heaven, which was signified sometimes by the word " paradise," sometimes by the phrase " under the throne," sometimes by " Abraham's bosom." For the millionaire there is only Hades ; no purple robe and fine linen, no sumptuous feast ; the robe and the linen are now only a garment of fire, the sumptuous feast only a reminiscence con- tinued in torments. To him Hades, is only the reservation to the judgment of the great day. 4. And there is the awakenment. The Lord describes it in sentences which it is better only to summarize. The eyes of Dives are lifted up, and lo! near, yet far off is Abraham, and-can it be ?-with him Lazarus; no rags now, no sores now; his no~ the "purple and fine linen" and the sumpt1tous living, for he is in the bosom of Abraham. And through these distances there rings a cry-no cry to the Father in heaven, no cry for repentance; only to "]!'ath~r A~raham," and _only a respite from the pa.in, even a moment's respite; a cry which 18 still charged w1tll the old hautBUr, 74 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [err. XVI. 1-31.