443 NO PAIN AMONG THE BLESSED. DISC. IX. away so much of the ease and pleasure of life, while any of us lie under the acute sensations of them. Painwill make us confess that we are flesh and blood, and force us sometimes to cry out and groan. Even a stoic in spite of all the pride of his philosophy, will sometimes be forced, by a sigh or a groan, to confess himself a man. What are the greatest part of the groans and outcries, that are heard all round this our globe of earth, but the effects of pain, either felt or feared ? But in heaven, where there is no pain,' there shall be no sighing or groaning, nor any more crying, as my text expresses. There shall be nothing to make the flesh or the spirit uneasy, and to break the eternal thread of peace and pleasure that runs through the whole duration of the saints : Not one painful moment to interrupt the ever- lasting felicity of that state. When we have done with earth and mortality, we have done also with sickness and anguish of nature, and with all sorrow and vexation for ever. There are no groans in the heavenly world to break in upon the harmony of the harps and the songs of the blessed ; no sighs, no outcries, no anguish there to disturb the music and the joy of the inhabitants. And though the soul shall be united to the body new-raised from the dead to dwell for ever in union, yet that new- raised body shall have neither any springs of pain in it, nor be capable of giving anguish or uneasiness to the indwelling spirit for ever. Another evil which attends on pain is this, that "it so indisposes our nature as often to unfit us for the busi- nesses and duties of the present state." With howmuch coldness and indifferency do we go about our daily work, and perform it too with many interruptions, when nature is burdened with continual pain, and the vital springs of action are overborne with perpetual uneasi- ness ? What a listlessness do we find to many of the du- ties of religion at such a season, unless it be to run more frequently to the throneof God, and pour out our groan - ings and our complaints there? Groanings and cries are the language of nature, and the children of God address themselves in this language to their heavenly Father : Blessed be the name of our gracious God, who hears every secret sigh, who is acquainted with the sense of every groan, while we mourn before him, and make our 4
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