510 NO PAIN AMONG THE BLESSED. DISC. IX. ply his natural wants; and man might have immediately relieved them himself, for the supplies of ease were at hand, and this. sort ofuneasinesses were abundantly com- pensated by the pleasure of rest and food, and perhaps they were in some measure necessary to make food and .rest pleasant. But surely if sin had never been known in our world, all the pain that arises from inward diseases of nature, or from outward violence, had been a stranger to the hu- man race, an unknown evil among the sons of rnen, as it is among the holy angels, the sons of God. There had been nó distempers or acute pains to meet young babesat their entrance into this world ; no maladies toattend the sons and daughters of Adam through the journey of life ; and they should have been translated to some higher and happier region, without death, and without pain. It was the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that acquainted Adam and his offspring with the evil of pain. Or if pain could haveattacked innocence in any form or degree, it would have been but in a way of trial, to exercise and illustrate his virtues ; and if he had endured the test, and continued innocent, I am satisfied he should never have felt any pain which was not over- balanced with superior pleasure, or abundantly recom- pensed by succeeding rewards and satisfactions. Some persons indeed have supposed it within the reach ofthe sovereignty of God to afflict and torment a sinless creature : Yet I think it is hardly consistent with his goodness, or his equity, to constrain an innocent being,, which has no sin, to suffer pain without his owa consent, and without giving that creature equal or superior plea- sure as a recompence. Both those were the case in the sufferings of our blessed Lord in his human nature, who was perfectly innocent : It was with his own consent that he gave himself up to be a sacrifice, when " it pleased the Father to bruise him and put him to grief:,' Is. liii. 10. and God rewarded him with transcendent ho- nours and joys after his passion, he exalted him to his own right-hand and his throne, and gave him authority over all things. In general therefore, we have sufficient reason to say, that as sin brought in death into human nature, so it was sin that brought in pain also ; and wheresoever .there is, any pain suffered among thè sons and daughters of men,
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