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Lord had Herod the Tetrarch in his iriind ; this being the case , he takes an occasion to shew , under a feigned character , suggested by this prince , that luxury and sensuality shall be punished in a future state . Hence we see the propriety of the description
given of him . He was a rich man , clothed in purple and fine linen , and he fared sumptuously every day . Purple was the peculiar dress of kings and emperors , and consisted , agreeably to the manner in which it is here described , of fine linen dyed of a purple colour .
To the gate of this rich man was brought a beggar , decrepit , naked and diseased . The purple inhabitant notices not the destitute stranger . He neither invites him within his doors , nor sends food for his relief , nor oil to anoint , nor clothes to shelter , his
ulcerated limbs . He permits him only to gather the crumbs that fell from his table , and the dogs to come and lick his sores . Lazarus languishes and dies . Dives dies also , and has the pomp and solemnity of a funeral , but here his honours and his felicity ended . The circumstances of the two
are now completely changed . Lazarus is conveyed by angels to the bosom of Abraham ; but the rich man opens his eyes in torments . But it is necessary to distinguish between the moral lesson , conveyed by the parable , and the dress or
scenery of it , which consists of notions , popular among the Jews , but which Jesus adopted without intending to sanction them , in order to give force , grace and colour to his representation . The great lesson lie inculcates is , that there will be a state of retribution , in
which the good , however poor and destitute , shall be recompensed ; and the wicked , however rich and powerful , punished - in which the present inequalities of the Divine government
shall be rectified , the triumphs of vice humbled , and the afflictions of virtue exchanged for a crown of glory . Whatever It contains beyond this , our Lord did not , I apprehend , inculcate as an article of Christian
faith . The Jews believed that the spirits of just men were carried by angels to the seals of bliss . Here beatified men are represented as at an cnterUiiniricut . The most honourable
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seat is allotted to ' Abraham ; and Lazarus , reclining after the manner of the Romans at table , has his head leaning on his bosom . See John xiii ; Their ideas of torment by fire , are borrowed from the valley of the sons of Hinnom , rendered infamous for
idolatry , and particularly for the burning of infants to Moloch , fires being always kept there for that purpose » See Lightfoot ' s Works , Vol . II . po 141 . Their paradise resembled the Elvsium of the Greeks , and . it seems .. Elysium of the Greeksandit seemsj
, , , was separated from Hades by an impassable stream . Such notions as these may serve very well for the scenery of a parable , but cannot be supposed to be an exact account of the hell and heaven revealed in the
gospel . In parables , many circumstances , for the sake of dress , colour and ornament , are introduced , though not strictly true , and , therefore , should be either disregarded altogether , of interpreted with great latitude .
It is to be observed that the parable leads us . to conclude , that retributive justice takes place immediately after death . Lazarus is , without any interval , in the bosom of Abraham , and Dives lifts up his eyes in torments ., as soon as they are closed on this
world . But in other parts of the New Testament , judgment is represented as taking place after the general resurrection . Our Lord , however , might here hold it forth as
instantaneous , merely to give a greatei * effect to the parable : and it cannot escape observation , that each of the characters is exhibited not as a pure , but an embodied spirit . Not the soul of Lazarus , but Lazarus himself , is
translated into paradise , and Dives has bodily organs in torments . Though the rich man is punished , the vices by which he forfeited the favour of heaven are not enumerated . He is only said to have been rich , to have been clothed in purple , and to have fared sumptuously every day ; and it is insinuated , that he suffered a fellow-creature to perish at his gate through hunger , disease and nakedness . But though this was a grievous
instance of inhumanity , it was not his only ciime . Herod was both a murderer and an adulterer ; and history represents him withal , as actuated by extreme avarice and ambition . Htf
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332 Dr o John Jones on the Parable of Dives and Lazaryso
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 332, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/12/
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