DISC.IX.I NO PAIN AMONG TßE BLESSED. 505 10. viz. to discover to the world the abominable evil that was in sin ? While Jesus' stood in the stead of sinners, then his soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death, and he sweat drops of blood ;" Luke xxii., 44. under the pressure of his agonies, to let the world see what the sin of man had deserved : And sometimes God smites his own children in this world with smarting strokes of correction, when they have indulged any ini- quity, to shew the world that God hates sin in his own people wheresoever he finds it, and to bring his children back again to the paths of righteousness. But " in the heavenly state there are no faults to pu- nish, no follies to chastise." Jesus, our surety in the days of his flesh, has suffered those sorrows which made atonement for sin, and that anguish of his holy soul, and the blood of his cross, have satisfied the demands of God ; so that with honour he can pardon ten thousand penitent criminals, and provide an inheritance of ease and blessedness for them for ever. When once we are dismissed from this body, the spirit is thoroughly sancti- fied, and there is no fire of purgatory needful to burn out the remains of sin : Those foolish invented flames are but false fire, kindled by the priests of Rome to fright the souls of the dying, and to squeeze money out of them to purchase so many vain and idle masses to relieve the souls of the dead. Upon our actual release from this flesh and blood, neither the guilt, nor the power of sin shall attend the saints in their flight to heaven ; All the spirits that arrive there are made perfect in holiness without new scourges, and commence a state of felicity that shallnever be interrupted. ' 3. God bas appointed pain in this world, " to exer- cise and try the virtues and the graces of his people.' As gold is thrown into the fire to prove and try howpure it is from any coarse alloy, so the children 'of God are sometimes left for a season in the furnace of sufferings, partly to refine them from their dross, and partly to dis- cover their purity and their substantial weight and worth: Sometimes " God lays smarting pain with his own hand" on the flesh of his people, on purpose to try their graces : When we endure the pain without murmuring at providence, then it is we come off conquerors: Christian submission and silence under the- hand of God
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