DISCOURSE 1X. id3 toward his Maker. When we are under the .smarting rebukes of providence, we are ready-to compare ourselves with others who are in peace, and then the envious and the murmuring humour breaks out into rebellious language, " Why am I thus afflicted ,more than others? Whey hast thou set ane as a mark for thy arrows ? Why dost thou not let loose thy hand and cut me of from the-earth ? But in heaven there is a glorious reverse of all such unhappy scenes : There is no pain nor any temptation to murmur at the dealings of the Almighty : There is nothing that can incline us to think hardly of God : The days of chastisement are for ever ended, and painful discipline shall be used no more. We shall live for ever in the embraces of the love of God, and he shall be the object of our everlasting praise. Perfect felicity without the interruption of one uneasy thought, forever forbids.the inhabitants of that world to repine at their situation under the eternal smiles of that blessed Being that made them. 7. To add no more, " Pain and anguish of the flesh have sometimes prevailed so far as to distract the mind as well as de- stroy the b ody." It has overpowered all the reasoning faculties of man ; it has destroyed natural life, and brought it down to the grave : The senses have been confounded, and the un- derstanding overwhelmed with severe and racking pain, espe- cially where there Lath been an impatient temper to contest with them. Extreme smart of the flesh distresses feeble nature, and turns the whole frame of it upside down in wild confusion: It has actually worn out this animal frame, and stopped all the springs of vital motion. 'rhe gout and the stone have brought death upon the patient in this manner : and a dreadful manner of dying it is, to have breath, and life, and nature quite oppressed and destroyed with intense and painful sensations. But when we survey the mansions of the heavenly world, we shall find none of these evils there : No danger of any such events as these ; for there is no pain, no sorrow, no crying, no death nor destruction these. The mind shall be for ever clear and serene in the ease and hap- piness of the separate state : And when the body shall be raised again, that glorified body, as was intimated a little before, shall' have none of the seeds of distemper in it, no ferments that can rack the nerves or create anguish ; no fever, or gout, or stone, was ever known in that country, no head-ache or heart-ache have ascended thither. That body also shall be capable of no outward wounds nor bruises, for it is raised only for happiness, and leaves all the causes of pain behind it. It is a body made for immortality and pleasure; there the sickly christian is delivered from all the maladies of the flesh, and the twinges of acute pain which made him groan here on earth night and day. There the mat-
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