btsc. ix.] NO PAIN AMONG THE BLESSED. 515 by it, yet one step further : Was it not by these sorrows, and this painful passion, that he provided for us this very heaven of happiness, where we shall be for ever freed from all pain ? Were they not all endured by him. to procure a paradise of pleasure, a mansion of everlast- ing peace and joy for guilty creatures; who had merited everlasting pain ? Was it not by these his agonies in the mortal body, which he assumed, that he purchased for each of us a glorified body, strong and immortal as his own when he rose from the dead, a body which has no seeds of disease or pain in it, no springs of mortality or death ? May glory, honour and praise, with supreme pleasure, ever attend the sacred person of our Redeemer, whose sorrowsand anguish of flesh and spirit were equal. to our misery, and to his own compassion. 5. Another lesson, which we are taught by the long and tiresome pains of nature, " is the value and worth of the word of God, and the sweetness of a promise, which can give the 'kindest relief to a painful hour, and soothe the anguish of nature." They teach us the excel- lency of the covenant of grace, which has sometimes strengthened the feeblest pieces of human nature to bear intense sufferings in the body, and which sanctifies them' all to our advantage. Painful and tiresome maladies teach us to improve the promises to valuable purposes, and the promises take away half the smart ofour pains by the sensations of divine love let into the soul. We read of philosophers and heroes in some ancient' histories, who could endure pain by dint ofreasoning, bya pride of their science, by an obstinacy of heart, or byna-' tùral courage; but a christian takes the word ofa promise, and lies down upon it in the midst of intense pains of na-` ture: and the pleasure of devotion supplies him with sùch ease, that all the reasonings of philosophy, all the courage of nature, all the anodynes of medicine, and soothing plaisters have attempted without success. When,` a child of God can read his Fathér's love in a promise, and by searching into the qualifications of his own soul, can lay faster hold of it by ä living faith, the rage of his pain.is much allayed, and made half easy. A promise is a sweet couch'to rest a languishingbody in the midst of pains, and a soft repose for the head or heart-ache. The stoics pretended to give ease to pain, by per- 2..2
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