LUKE XVI. 27-31.-Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, father,
that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have
five brethren: that he may testify unto them, lest they also
come into this place of torment. Abraham said unto him,
they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And
he said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them
from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per-
suaded though one rose from the dead,
JER. XXXI. 18, 19, 20.—I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning
himself thus: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised as
a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I
shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after
that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed,
I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confound-
ed, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim
my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against
him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels
are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him,
saith the Lord, 227
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord,
the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abun-
dant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, for-
giving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty,
INDIFFERENCE TO LIFE URGED FROM ITS SHORTNESS AND VANITY.
1 COR. VII. 29, 30, 31.—But this I say, brethren, that the time is
short: it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as
though they had none; and they that weep, as though they
wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not;
and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they
that use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this
world passeth away,
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