Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/242

 seen afar off, in a state of happiness, denoted by Abraham's bosom. Dives is represented as requesting that Lazarus might be allowed to dip the tip of his finger in water, and come and cool his tongue, for that he was tormented in a flame. But, alas! for the evil man this request could not be granted, because, "Between them was a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." What, then, is this great gulf which makes an eternal separation between heaven and hell? It involves nothing of distance or space; for it was no impediment to the conversation carried on between Abraham and the rich man. There is no distance in the spiritual world, but that which originates in the inward state or condition of the minds of its inhabitants. Dissimilarity of affection causes distance there, or the appearance of it: hence Lazarus was, by the rich man, seen afar off. The love of God, of truth, and of purity, draws the soul into angelic company, and thence into conjunction with the Everlasting Father; while the love of evil, of falsehood, and of iniquity, separates from heaven. Fools make a mock of sin, and these cannot mix with those who hate it. As light cannot dwell with darkness, so ignorance finds nothing congenial in the company of the wise: hence the great gulf which separates heaven from hell, is put to denote the vast contrariety of mind, of interior affection and thought, which will ever distinguish angelic from infernal life, as well as eternally separate them: there can be no intercourse, no passing from the one to the other. The great gulf is neither heaven nor hell, but something between the two: it is a kind of inter-