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that a Drop of Water from Lazarus's Finger S ER M. could cool his Tongue; though these Particulars, I fay, fhew it to be a Parable, and that confequently it is not in every Circumftance to be literally applied; yet the Part of it I have read to you is certainly fufficient to afford us fome Degree of Light into the following Particulars, which I propose to make the Heads of my Discourse, viz.

I. FIRST, That there are in general different Receptacles prepared for the Souls of good and bad Men after their Deaths.

II. SECONDY, By what particular Names these Receptacles are diftinguished, and where they may be.

III. THIRDLY, How departed Souls are carried to them: And

IV. FOURTHLY, What Degree of Happiness or Mifery we must conceive them to be in, whilst there detained.

I. FIRST, We may very fafely infer from the Text, that there are different Receptacles or Places of Abode prepared for the Souls of good and bad Men after their Deaths. Lazarus dies and is carried by Angels into Abraham's Bofom; the Rich Man dies, is buried, Gg 3

and

SERM. and lifts up his Eyes in Hades, which our

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English Translation renders Hell. Now this Intimation of two feparate Places given by our Bleffed Lord himself, most certainly fhews that different Places are provided in order to receive us at our Deaths; and fuch as are fuitable to our different Tempers and Behaviour in our Lives. We are not therefore to believe (what some have absurdly imagined) that there is but one only Receptacle of good and bad, fince this we fee is contrary to the plain Revelation of Scripture, as well as to the Dictates of natural Reason. Nor is this the only Text in Scripture we have whereon to found this Point: St. Peter most certainly means the fame, when he tells us that Judas fell by Tranfgreffion, in order to go to his own Place, Acts i. 25. i.e. to a due and proper Place affigned him at his Death, a Place of wicked and reprobate Souls, a Company with which he was fitter to be numbered, than with the Apostles of Chrift. Judas therefore having a Place allotted him as his own, is another Proof that every Man has his own Place, in the other World, as foon as ever he is removed from this. Accordingly this Expreffion of going to one's own Place, or of going to one's due and appointed Place, was

a com

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a common Phrafe amongst the ancient Fa- SERM. thers of the Church*, to fignify a Man's going presently after his Death, into a Place fuitable to the Life he had led. Not that every one has a Place or Condition separate to himself, but that every one enters upon a State or Condition fit for himself. Many may be together, and in common partake of the fame Condition: But yet all that are together have deferved the Place they are fent to: For we cannot imagine that Good or Bad are promifcuously together, that the fame Place should be appointed to Saints and Devils, to Men of the most different and oppofite Tempers. Quite on the contrary, the different State and Condition Men are in, as to their Souls, when they leave this World, is a sure Argument that there are different States and Places for them to go to, when they remove into the For who can fuppofe that Men of devout and feraphick Minds, that by constant Devotion and Acts of Adoration have raised themselves almost to the Pitch of Angels, fhould be mixed, when they die with defpairing Souls, there to be troubled with the hideous Yellings, Execrations and Blafphemies

next.

Vide Bull's Sermons. Vol. i. p. 44. &c.

Gg 4

of

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SERM. of Apoftates and Devils. No furely: We may depend upon it, Paradife, with which our Bleffed Lord comforts the penitent Thief upon the Cross, and the State that St. Paul fo earnestly longed to be in with Chrift, was not a State that had fuch Companions; but a State as charming in Reality as in Sound, a State that should admit of no Difturbance or Grief. And to express this to us in the Parable of my Text, our Lord represents the Bofom of Abraham, where Lazarus is reposed, as being far off from the Place where the Rich Man is tormented, and represents alfo a Gulf fixed betwixt one Place and the other, to prevent any unhappy, despairing Soul from breaking through to interrupt the Peace and Quiet of thofe who are placed in the Manfions of Joy and Hope. Between us and you, faith Abraham to the Rich Man, there is a great Gulf fixed: So that they who would pass from hence to you, cannot, neither can they pass to us who would come from hence, And this may fuffice to fhew in general that good and bad Souls go different Ways, when they depart this Life: I am in the next Place to enquire,

II. SECONDLY, Whither they go, and where,

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during their separate State, they are preserved S E R M. or detained. [I do not mean in what particular Region of the World; for that is a Question I have already told you the Scriptures. do not allow us to decide. What therefore I intend upon this fecond Head, is only to enquire, what the Scriptures call the Place, not where it is fituate or lies.] And here again the fame Intimation that our Bleffed Lord gives us, in the Text, of two different Places for separate Souls in general, will be of use to give us fome little Light, what those different Places are. For Lazarus he tells us is carried by Angels into Abraham's Bofom; the Rich Man lifts up his Eyes in Hades, which our English calls Hell. But now that neither the first of thefe Places is the fame with that where the Bleffed Saints are to live in perfect Felicity hereafter; nor the other the fame with the Place where the Damned are to be configned to Punishment at the Day of Judgment, is very fure. For as to the first of them, the very Name hints that Abraham was the principal Inhabitant or Perfon in it: And confequently that it is not the Place where the Saints are to be with Christ, and to reign with him, fince then it would have had a more glorious Title as the