0 sq.]

[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