[Footnote 4:  BATES:  Discourse of the Fear of God.]

[Footnote 5:  “Praise be to Thee, glory to Thee, O Fountain of mercies:  I was becoming more miserable and Thou becoming nearer, Thy right hand was continually ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to wash me thoroughly, and I knew it not; nor did anything call me back from a yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy judgment to come; which, amid all my changes, never departed from my breast.”  AUGUSTINE:  Confessions, vi. 16., (Shedd’s Ed., p. 142.)]

[Footnote 6:  “Si te luxuria tentat, objice tibi memoriam mortis tuae, propone tibi futuruin judicium, reduc ad memoriam futura tormenta, propone tibi acterna supplicia; et etiaim propone aute oculos tuos perpetuosignes infernorum; propone tibi horribiles poenas gehennae.  Memoria ardoris gehennae extinguat in te ardorem luxuriane.”

BERNARD:  De Modo Bene Vivendi.  Sermo lxvii.]

[Footnote 7:  BAXTER (Narrative, Part I.) remarks “that fear, being an easier and irresistible passion, doth oft obscure that measure of love which is indeed within us; and that the soul of a believer groweth up by degrees from the more troublesome and safe operation of fear, to the more high and excellent operations of complacential love.”]

[Footnote 8:  “Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.  Thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.  And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thy own blood, I said unto thee when, thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.”  Ezekiel xvi. 1, 5, 6.]

THE PRESENT LIFE AS RELATED TO THE FUTURE.

LUKE xvi. 25.—­“And Abraham said, Son remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.”

The parable of Dives and Lazarus is one of the most solemn passages in the whole Revelation of God.  In it, our Lord gives very definite statements concerning the condition of those who have departed this life.  It makes no practical difference, whether we assume that this was a real occurrence, or only an imaginary one,—­whether there actually was such a particular rich man as Dives, and such a particular beggar as Lazarus, or whether the narrative was invented by Christ for the purpose of conveying the instruction which he desired to give.  The instruction is given in either case; and it is the instruction with which we are concerned.  Be it a parable, or be it a historical fact, our Lord here teaches, in a manner not to be disputed, that a man who seeks enjoyment in this life as his chief end shall suffer torments in the next life, and that he who endures suffering in this life for righteousness’ sake shall dwell in paradise in the next,—­that he who finds his life here shall lose his life hereafter, and that he who loses his life here shall find it here after.