'I8$ THE' WORLD TO COME. it shall never awake again with any of the principles of sin 'or pain in it.: Though it be sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; though it be sown in dishonour, 'it is raised in glory ; I Cor. xv, 43. and we shall be made like the Son of God, without sor. row and without sin for ever. I1I. " There are no moral causes or reasons why there should be any thing of pain provided for the heavenly state." And if there .be no moral reasons for it, surely God will not -Provide pains for his creatures without reason ! But this thought leads me the next general head of my discourse. Sect. lLI.-1he third general enquiry which I proposed to make was this, " What may be the chief moral reasons, mo- tives, or designs'of the blessed God in sending pain on his crea- tures herc,below; and at the same time I shall spew that these designs and purposes of God are finished, and they have no place in heaven." I. Then,, " Pain is semetimes sent into our natures to :awaken slothful and drowsy Christians out of their spiritual slumbers, or to rouse stupid sinners from a state of spiritual death." Intense and sharp pain of the flesh has oftentimes been the appointed and effectual means of providence to attain these desirable ende. Pain is like a rod in the hand of God, wherewith he smites sinners that are dead in their trespasses, and his Spirit joins with it to awaken them into spiritual life. This rod is sometimes so smarting and severe, that it will make a senseless and ungodly wretch look upwards to the hand that smites, and take notice of the rebuke of heaven, though all the thundering and light- ning of the word, ánd all the terrors of hell denounced there, could not awaken them. Acute pain is also a common instru- ment in our heavenly Father's hand, to recover backsliding saints from their secure and drowsy frames of spirit. David often found it so, and speaks it plainly in Ps. xxxviii. and xxxix. and in Ps. exix..67. he confesses, before I was afflicted I went astray; but,when he had felt the scourge, he learned to obey, and to keep the word of his God." But there is no need of this discipline in heaven ; no need of this smarting scourge to make dead sinners feel their Maker's hand, in order to rouse them into life, for there are no such in- habitants in that world : Nor is there any need of such divine and paternal discipline of God in those holy mansions, where there is no drowsy Christian to be awakened, no wandering spirit that wants to be reduced to duty : And where the desì"ns of such smarting strokes have, no place, pain itself must be for .ever banished ; for God sloes not willingly afflict, nor take delight in grieving the children of men, without substantial reasons for it; Lam. iii. 33.
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