a certain duke prosecuted his butler for malversation in his charge.
It appeared in evidence that the defalcation on the account for wine
alone amounted to L. 1500. This fact incidentally reveals two
things:--How great is the wealth of these British princes; and how
little that wealth is under their own control.
This overseer cheated his master, and concealed the fraud for a time
under the folds of complicated accounts; but, as in all similar cases,
this career of wickedness came suddenly to an end. Some person
discovered the facts and informed the proprietor. When suspicion was
raised inquiry could not be resisted; and, when an inquiry was
instituted, the crime could not be hid. The steward seems to have given
up his case as soon as he was accused; he uttered not a word in his own
defence. There was no proof on one side, and no denial on the other. The
case was clear, and the process summary; sentence of dismissal was
pronounced on the spot. But the proprietor was still in a great measure
at the mercy of this unfaithful servant; the accounts were all in his
hand, and the owner could not instantly resume the power which he had
delegated. The agent accordingly was ordered to prepare and submit a
balance-sheet, on which his successor might proceed to administer the
estate.
There was not much time for deliberation: the decree of dismissal had
already passed, and as soon as the state of accounts could be made up,
this once comfortable and important personage must be cast penniless
upon the world. Now or never, he must do something for himself. With
habits, both mental and physical, cast in another mould, he cannot win
his bread as a labourer; and his pride revolted against the prospect of
becoming a beggar on the spot where he had long been owned as master by
the multitude. His resolution is quickly formed, and as quickly carried
into effect. He will employ his present opportunity, so as to provide a
refuge for himself in his future need: he will so deal with the money
while it is still in his hand, as that he shall not be left destitute
when he is driven from his place.
In prosecution of his purpose, the steward summoned his master's debtors
one by one into his presence. He held their acknowledgments for goods
received, or their signatures for the amount of rent which they had
agreed to pay for their lands. Having in his hands the documents which
bound the debtors, he might have read off from these the amount due by
each; but it suited his purpose better to ask the obligants what sums
they owed, and to proceed wholly upon their voluntary acknowledgments.
The first owed a hundred measures of oil, the second a hundred measures
of wheat. What these quantities may have been in relation to our
standards is a question which possesses only a critical and antiquarian
interest: it has no bearing on the interpretation of the parable, and
therefore we pass it without further notice. The absolute amount of the
debt has no influence on the meaning of the parable; the point which is
really important is the proportion between the amount owned by the
debtors and the amount exacted by the steward. Olive oil and wheat were
two of the staple products of the country, and the obligations in regard
to them may have been incurred either in transactions of a mercantile
character, or in those which intervene between landlord and tenant.[87]
[87] Probably the rents were paid in kind, and these were the
arrears which the tenants acknowledged.
The method of the overseer is short and simple: apart from
considerations of morality, conscience, and divine retribution, it
seemed a short road to the accomplishment of his purpose. He surrendered
to the debtors their obligations, and received in return obligations for
smaller amounts, in one case for fifty, and in another for eighty,
instead of a hundred. These two cases are submitted as specimens: others
were treated in a similar way. Of course the steward could not obtain
from these debtors any obligation in his own favour for the portion
remitted, which could be enforced in a court of justice; for the proof
of the claim on the one side would have revealed his guilt on the
other: but it was assumed between the parties that the benefit conferred
should in due time be substantially acknowledged and repaid. The steward
counted that in the day of his distress those men on whom he had
conferred favours would receive him into their houses.[88]
[88] Of the same nature were the long leases of ecclesiastical
property in England at low rents, granted by the living incumbents,
in consideration of a sum of money in name of fine paid to
themselves.
It was expected, moreover, that the proprietor, or the steward whom he
might afterwards employ, could not exact more than the smaller sums, for
which they possessed the acknowledgments of the parties. We could indeed
conceive a case in which the injured owner could lead a proof of fraud
in the transaction, and enforce from the obligants the original amounts;
but it is not probable that, in an age when records were defective, and
the two parties immediately connected with the fraudulent transaction
deeply interested in concealing it, such a suit could be successfully
carried through.[89]
[89] A case emerged lately in the courts of this country, in which a
proprietor, who had lost very large sums by the unfaithfulness of
his agent, prosecuted the parties for restitution, on the ground of
the agent's bad faith in the transactions. The case was protracted,
and I lost sight of it before the solution was reached; but it is
enough for my present purpose that a plea was actually raised to
obtain from one debtor the price of a hundred measures of oil
instead of fifty, which he acknowledged, on the alleged ground that
the absconded steward had corruptly and for his own interest
sacrificed the rights of his employer.
The lord, that is the injured proprietor, commended the unjust steward,
because, or in that, he had done wisely. The difficulty here lies on the
surface,--lies, as it were, in the sound; upon a close examination it
vanishes. First of all, the lord who praised the steward is, as the
translators have indicated by printing the word without a capital, not
the Lord Jesus, the speaker of the parable, but the master, whom the
cunning agent had robbed. Further, this praise obviously did not
indicate moral approval. The master praised the servant when all was
over, not for the faithfulness with which he had been served, but for
the cleverness with which he had been cheated. The commendation which
the master bestowed upon the servant was that of sharply looking after
himself. It is the commendation which one whose house has been robbed
during the night might bestow in the morning upon the robber, after
noticing how adroitly he had opened the locks, and carried off the
booty.
This nefarious transaction was, from the perpetrator's view-point,
cleverly planned and promptly executed. It was no sooner said than done;
delay might have ruined the steward's prospects. He must have everything
done before he is summoned actually to transfer his books to his
successor's hands. He provided in his own way for his own future need;
the plan was well-contrived, and successfully carried into effect. This
praise, but expressly and only this, the injured master bestowed upon
the man.
"And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness; that when ye fail, they may receive you into
everlasting habitations." Such is the lesson which the Lord draws from
the picture. Difficulties, indeed, adhere to the phraseology in its
details; but the interpretation, in its main line, is determined and
made evident by landmarks which can neither be overlooked nor removed.
The mammon of unrighteousness means the world with all its business and
its possessions; mammon is denominated unrighteous, generally on account
of the manner in which it is employed by worldly men, and specially on
account of the case in hand, where a gross injustice was perpetrated
without scruple, and as an ordinary matter of business. Alas, how
prevalent is this form of unrighteousness still! Although justice in a
large measure pervades and so sustains the vast commerce of the country,
many mean tricks insinuate themselves between its mighty strata,
corroding its fabric, and undermining its strength.
In counselling the disciples to acquire for themselves friends from the
mammon of unrighteousness ([Greek: poiêsate heantois philous ek tou
mamôna tês adikias]), the Lord obviously adopts the terms of his
spiritual lesson from the structure of the parable which conveys it. By
remitting part of their debts the steward made the debtors his friends;
he won them to his side, and made sure of their sympathy when his day of
need should come. His prudence and skill were commendable, but the fraud
which was mingled with them is neither approved by the Lord, nor
prescribed as a pattern for the disciples.[90] Nor is it difficult to
lift the pure lesson from the impure ground on which it lies. The
steward could not reach his unrighteous object except by a crooked path;
but the ends which a Christian strives to attain neither require nor
admit the employment of falsehood. Use the world in such a way that it
shall help and not hinder the interests of your soul and of the world to
come.
[90] The Emperor Julian adduced this parable in order to prove that
the doctrines of Christ were adverse to good morals. This is
precisely the place where the apostate, seeking reasons to justify
his apostasy, will most readily find what he seeks.
The position of the phrase, [Greek: eis tên genean tên heautôn], in or
for their own generation, near the end of the sentence, determines that
it is applied equally to both parties. It is implied that both
classes, the children of the world and the children of light, look
after their own affairs; and it is intimated that the one class attends
to its business more earnestly and more skilfully than the other. This
man cleaves to the world as his portion, and that man has chosen the
Saviour as his: but, in point of fact, he who has chosen the inferior
object prosecutes it with the greater zeal. The superior energy of the
worldling in the acquisition of gains is employed to rebuke the
Christian for his slackness in winning the true riches. This is the
main lesson of the parable.
The specific form which the lesson assumes is,--Provide now for future
need, and make the opportunities of time subservient to the interests of
eternity.
The characteristic features of the steward's skill were, that when his
dismissal was near, he occupied the short time that remained, and the
resources still at his disposal, in skilfully providing for the future.
We are stewards in possession still, but under warning; do we employ the
time and the opportunities that remain in making our calling and
election sure?
Many precious possessions have been placed in our hands by the owner of
all; health of body and soundness of mind; home and friends; good name
or great riches, or both conjoined;--these and many others have been by
their owner placed under our charge, that we should lay them out for
him. Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. "When ye fail,"--that
is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh
and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no
longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of
death,--have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing
spirit?
More particularly the practical question is, Have we disposed of earthly
possessions and opportunities, so that they helped and did not hinder
the acquisition of an incorruptible inheritance?
There is a place and a use for temporal things in making sure of the
life eternal. How constant has been the tendency of fallen humanity to
run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system
gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul,
we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We
lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money
paid for masses, to smooth the spirit's path to peace beyond the grave;
but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our
admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its
bearing on our eternal weal. The property, and money, and occupations of
time may instrumentally affect for good or evil our efforts to lay up
the true riches. According as they are employed, they may become a
stumbling-stone over which their possessor shall fall, or a shield to
cover his head from some fiery darts of the wicked one.[91]
[91] For example, their competence and the comforts which it brings
shield women of the higher and middle classes in this country, in a
great measure, from certain snares of the devil in which multitudes
of their poorer sisters miserably fall. If those who enjoy this
protection throw away their advantage by turning that which is a
protection on one side into a temptation on the other, and so bring
themselves to an equality over all with the less favoured classes,
the fault is their own. It is proved by obvious facts that worldly
possessions may be placed between you and temptation, as cotton
bales and sand bags may be employed to ward off cannon shot from
stone walls. They are capable of being turned to some account in
advancing our eternal interests; for our inheritance in heaven, the
world is useful, if it is rightly used.
Could it be truly said of any who are lost that the mammon of
unrighteousness brought them to the place of woe? or, conversely could
it be truly said of any who now stand round the throne in white, that
the mammon of unrighteousness became the friend who introduced them to
that everlasting habitation? I reply, this mammon is not and cannot be a
cause either of being saved or being lost; but it, as well as all other
things in time, may become instruments in the saving or destroying of a
soul, according as it is wisely used or foolishly abused. For example,
in the next parable, it was sin and not wealth that ruined the rich man;
many richer men than he have walked with God on earth, and entered rest
when they departed. Wealth was not his destroyer, yet he so used his
wealth as to permit the wicked one to bind his soul with it as with
chains over to the second death. On the other hand, it was neither the
poverty nor the sores of Lazarus, nor both together, that saved him;
many as destitute of money and as full of sores as he are never saved.
Christ was this man's Saviour,--Christ alone; yet, his poverty became in
God's hands, and through his servant's faith, the instrument of
shielding him from temptation and purging his dross away. In the same
subordinate and instrumental sense in which the rich man's wealth was
his ruin, the poverty of the poor man saved him. But these results are
not uniform--are not necessary; they may be--they often are reversed.
The wealth of a rich man may help him heavenward, and the poverty of a
poor man may press him down toward the pit. The cardinal point of the
parable is, employ the mammon of unrighteousness--this world's affairs
all, with forethought, skill, decision, and energy, to further your own
salvation; turn all to account for the gain of godliness.
A ship leaves our shores bound westward to an Atlantic port: the wind,
being from the north, beats on her right side all the way. She makes a
quick voyage and reaches her destination in safety. Another ship at
another time leaves these shores for the same destination: the wind,
blowing from the south, beats on her left side. She wanders from her
course and is shipwrecked. Whence these opposite results? Was the first
ship saved because she met a north wind, and the second lost because she
fell in with a wind from the south? Nay, verily: but because the one so
received the wind, from whatever point of the compass it might blow, as
to be impelled by it onward in her course: and the other, instead of
wisely employing every wind to help her forward, allowed herself to
drift before the wind that happened to blow.
Mammon, the world--ah, is it not adverse to the interests of our souls?
What then? Believer, adversary though it be, you may make it your
friend. A skilful seaman, when once fairly out to sea, can make a wind
from the west carry him westward! he can make the wind that blows right
in his face bear him onward to the very point from which it blows. When
he arrives at home, he is able to say the wind from the west impelled me
westward, and led me into my desired haven.
Thus if we were skilful, and watchful, and earnest, we might make the
unrighteous mammon our friend; we might so turn our side to each of its
tortuous impulses, that willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious,
it should from day to day drive us nearer home.
The parable is in this peculiar, that in the moral lesson which the
Master enforces at the close, he retains and employs the phraseology of
the story. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness," &c. The meaning is by the context made plain, and the
reader may translate the metaphor as he proceeds. The steward, while he
remained in his place, so handled the property in his power as to secure
for himself a home when he should be removed from his place: in like
manner let men so use material possessions while they live on earth,
that these very possessions shall be found to have helped them toward
their eternal rest. When a man's ways please God, he maketh even his
enemies to be at peace with him. These things that are enemies, and that
overcome many, you may make your friends; you may turn to them such a
side, that every time they strike they shall press you nearer rest, and
at their last stroke impel you through the narrow entrance into the joy
of your Lord.
XXVI.
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS.
"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine
linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain
beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's
table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to
pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into
Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died and was buried; and in hell
he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off,
and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham,
have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his
finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this
flame. But 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. And beside all this,
between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which
would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us,
that would come from thence. 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 saith 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 persuaded, though one rose from the
dead."--LUKE xvi. 19-31.
The intervening portion of history, contained in verses 14-18, should
not be permitted to conceal from us the intimate relation that subsists
between this and the preceding parable. The application of the first for
the reproof of covetousness, touched a besetting sin of the Pharisees,
and stung them to the quick. Unable to bear in silence a rebuke which
their own consciences recognised as just, they interrupted the preacher
with rude derision. They attempted to shield their own open sores from
painful probing by raising a laugh at the expense of the reprover. I
suspect they reckoned without their host in this matter. This man spake
with authority, and not as the scribes; the common people heard him
gladly. His speech was too divinely grave, and too palpably true, to be
turned aside by the clumsy wit of the men whom it condemned.
Intermitting for a moment the thread of his parabolic preaching, he
turned aside and addressed a few withering words directly to these
uneasy interrupters.[92]
[92] From the introduction of a new subject abruptly in the 18th
verse--the much agitated question regarding a man's right to put
away his wife--I think it probable that the interruption had been
repeated and continued; that it took the form of a dialogue, the
Pharisees throwing in what they considered a damaging question, and
Jesus giving an answer by turns--a scene which is frequently
repeated in modern missions among the heathen.
When this episode was over, the Lord resumed his theme where it had been
broken off. I think it probable, both from the terms of the narrative,
and the nature of the case, that if these Pharisees had not been
present, or if they had held their peace when the preaching galled them,
the matter of verse 19th would have touched that of verse 13th--the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus would have been connected in place
as well as in purport with that of the prudent steward.
When he had followed up the first parable with a pungent application
regarding the abuse of riches, "the Pharisees, also, who were covetous,
heard all these things, and they derided him." To them, in reply to
their jesting, he spoke the words verses 14-18, and then resumed, in
verse 19th, "There was a certain rich man," &c.[93]
[93] Dr. Trench's disquisition regarding the latent union between
covetousness and prodigality, involving a proof that the discourse
about the rich man was applicable to the Pharisees who were not of
prodigal habits, although very good in itself, is scarcely relevant;
inasmuch as it is not the parable of the rich man, but the reproofs
intervening between it and the unjust steward that are expressly
addressed to the Pharisees.
At the beginning of the chapter, addressing his own disciples
particularly, although some of the Pharisees were present, he had taught
them from the case of the prudent steward to use the possessions of this
world with a view to their bearing on the next; and now, to complete the
lesson, he will teach them, by a terrible example, the consequences of
neglecting that rule.
But before we proceed to examine the parable in detail, it is important
to determine generally regarding its nature whether it is an allegory in
which spiritual things are represented by sensible objects, or simply an
instructive example, historic or poetic, charged like other examples
with moral warning and reproof. The parable of the sower is an allegory:
the sower represents not a sower, but a preacher; the seed represents
not seed, but the Gospel: whereas in the inner substance, as well as the
outward form of the lesson, the good Samaritan is simply a good
Samaritan, and the wounded traveller is simply a wounded traveller. The
parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not allegory; it belongs to the
class of the Samaritan, and not to that of the sower. It is not like a
type, which a man cannot read until it is turned; but like a manuscript,
which delivers its sense directly and at first hand.[94]