500 NA PAIN AMONG THE BLESSED. [.DISC. IX. confounded, and the understanding overwhelmed with severe and racking pain, especiallywhere there hath been an impatient temper to contest with them. Extreme smart of the flesh distresses feeble nature, and turns the whale frame of it upside down in.wild confusion : It has actually worn out this animal frame, and stopped all the springs of vital motion. The '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 there. The mind shall be for ever clear and serene in the ease and happiness 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 becapable 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 martyrs of the religion of Jesus, and all the holy confessors are free from their cruel tormentors, those surly executioners of heathen fury, or antichristian wrath : They are for ever released from racks, and wheels, and fires, and every engine of torture and smart. Immortal ease and unfa.ding health and chearfulness run through their eternal state, and all the powers of the man are composed for the most regular exercises of devotion and divine joy. Thus I have endeavoured briefly to set the different states of heaven and earth beföre you under this distin- guishing character, that " all the tempting, the distress - ing, and mischievous attendants and consequences of pain," to which we are exposed in our mortal life, are for ever banished from the heavenly world.
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