50$ NO PAIN AMONG THE BLESSED, [Disc. ix. This sharp sensation awakens our best powers to attend to those truths and duties which we took less notice of before : In the time of perfect ease we are ready to let them lie neglected or forgotten, till God our great master takes his rod in hand for our instruction. SECTION IV. And this leads me to the fourth general head of my discourse, and that is, to enquire what are those spiritual lessons which may be learned on earth, from the pains we have suffered, or may suffer in the flesh. I shall divide them into two sorts, viz. Lessons of instruction in useful truths, and lessons ofduty, or practical christian- i,ty; and there are many bf each kind with which the disciples of Christ in this world may be better ac- quainted, by the actual sensations of pain, than any other way. In this world, I say, and in this only ; for in heaven most of these lessons of doctrine and practice are utterly needless to be taught, either because they have been so perfectly well known to all its'inha- bitants before, and their present situation makes it im- possible to forget them ; or they shall be let into the fuller knowledge of them in heaven in a far superior way of instruction, and without any such uneasy discipline. And this I shall evidently make appear, when I have first enumerated all these general lessons both of truth and duty, and shewn how wisely the great Godhas appointed them to be taught here on earth, under the scourge and the wholesome discipline of pain in the flesh. I. " The lessons of instruction here on earth, or the useful truths," are such as these : 1. Pain teaches us feelingly " what feeble creatures we are, and how entirely dependent on God our Maker for every hour and moment of ease." We are naturally wild and wanton creatures, and especially in the season of youth, our gayer powers are gadding abroad at the call of eúery temptation ; but whenGod sends his arrows into our flesh,' he arrests us on a sudden, and teaches us that we are but men, poor feeble dying creatures, soon rushed, and sinking under his hand. We are ready to exult in the vigour ofyouth, when animal nature, in its prime of strength and glory, raises our pride, and sup- ports us in a sort of self sufficiency ; we are so vain and fuotish, as to imagine 'nothing can hurt us; But when
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