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SERMON XV.

LUKE XVI. 20.

There was a certain beggar, named Lazarus.

WHEN Our Lord undertakes to exhibit any particular character, though only in a parable, there is reason to believe that he draws from the life: whence it follows of course, that, when he set before his hearers the striking character of Lazarus, he had exactly such a person in his eye.

It is a rare thing for one found in a state of extreme indigence to become the subject of much observation. In the history of great and powerful nations, potentates and princes, statesmen and warriors, are generally set forth and dwelt upon with a studied prolixity. The conquests they made, the regulations they introduced, or the disasters they occasioned, excite universal curiosity. We read these details with a more than ordinary degree of interest, we treasure them up in our memory, and enlarge upon

them in our conversation; while the poor, in all their generations, rise and fall, live and die, as creatures almost unworthy of a thought. We make no inquiry about the actions performed, or the sufferings endured, by persons of this description. That they passed over the stage of life in incalculable groups, is too notorious to be denied: but whence they sprung, or how long they continued, or where they sunk, the pompous historiographer neither knows nor regards.

Towards this neglected class of mankind our blessed Lord was otherwise affected. Born himself among the poor, and daily conversing with individuals of that description, he feelingly marked their ways and their wants, their pains and their cares. Not that any man was ever recommended to the holy Jesus merely by the circumstance of his poverty: but as the grand bulk of mankind is everywhere composed of this particular class, so he ever considered them as entitled to an extraordinary share of his benevolent regard. Meanness of condition was no bar to his grace and favour. He listened, on all occasions, to the complaints of the afflicted and the helpless,

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without ever discovering the smallest appearance of distaste or impatience. He never avoided their importunities, nor was he ever ashamed of being seen in their company.

Among many other proofs of his condescending attention to this inferior portion of mankind, we find him here holding up to universal admiration, perhaps, one of the very meanest among the sons and daughters of indigence and misery. Our Lord has not given us a long and laboured account of Lazarus the beggar: but, with a few inimitable strokes, he has marked the whole outline of this extraordinary character, taking in both the pains of his pilgrimage and the glory of its conclusion, the deep distress he endured upon earth, and the enviable station allotted him in the kingdom of heaven.

There was a certain beggar, named Lazarus. Whether this man had ever seen better days, we are nowhere informed: but it is well known, that such a statement of their case is adopted by the generality of mendicants, who employ it as an invincible plea to obtain relief. Lazarus might, perhaps,

have gradually descended into that poor and low estate, in which he is here presented to our view. All things in this world are in a state of mutability and fluctuation and the divine wisdom might see it good, that this man should inevitably sink into circumstances of remarkable poverty and insignificance. He who gives us our being, appoints also the bounds of our habitation during our sojourn in the present world. He lifteth up, and he casteth down; he maketh rich, and he maketh poor; the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the name of the Lord.

To the privations of poverty there was superadded, in this case, the sad accompaniment of grievous and incurable disease: he was full of sores, afflicting to himself, and rendering him an unsightly object to every beholder. He was, moreover, utterly helpless; as we learn from the circumstance of his being daily laid at the gate of an affluent neighbour. This was probably his station throughout the year, the station of his peculiar choice, and where he was accustomed to obtain more favour than he could any where else expect to find. At the gate of

Dives it is likely that he experienced much compassion. The abode of Dives was the abode not only of plenty, but of profusion; and from the superabundance of so extravagant a family, the afflicted Lazarus was in the habit of receiving, it should seem, such a supply as was deemed necessary for his support. But, while he was fed with the remnants of the rich man's table, it appears not that any care was taken of his ulcerated and languishing body-no mollifying ointment was provided, no sustaining bandage was applied, nor any covering prepared for the decent concealment of his numerous wounds all were left open, and so manifestly exposed, that even the passing dogs came and licked his sores.

In this forlorn and suffering state, an unseen arm sustained the afflicted Lazarus, and carried him silently on from hour to hour, through all the conflicts of his trying course. The good hand of God was upon him; not indeed for the healing of his diseased body, nor yet for the comfortable improvement of his condition in the world: but for the infinitely better purpose of working in him the peaceable fruits of