i24 NO PAM AMONG THE BLESSED. roue. X. an everlasting victory. Blessed be God for the grave as a refuge from smarting pains ! Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus, who enables us to triumph over the last pain of nature, and to' say, O "death ! where is thy sting ? And, O grave ! where is thy victory ?" 1 Cor. xv. 55. In the fifth and last place, by the pains that we suffer in this body, " we are taught to breathe after the bless- edness.of the heavenly state, wherein there shall be no pain," When the soul is dismissed from the bonds of flesh, and presented before God in the world of spirits without spot or blemish by Jesus, our great forerunner, it is then appointed to dwell among the " spirits of the just made perfect," who were all released in their several seasons from the body of flesh and sin. Maladies and infirmities of every kind are buried in the grave, and cease for ever ;, and if we survey the properties of the new-raised body in the great resurrection-day, as de- scribed ; 1 Cor. xv. 42-44. we shall find nó room for pain there, no avenue or residence for smart or anguish. It will not be such a body of flesh and blood which can be a source of maladies, or subject to outward injuries; but by its own principles of innate vigour and immor- tality, as well as by the power and mercy of God, it shall be for ever secured from those uneasy sensations which made our flesh on earth painful and burdensome, and which tended toward dissolution and death. It is such a body as our Lord Jesus wore at his ascent to heaven in a. bright cloud, for ever incorruptible; " for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption," verses 49, 50. " As we have borne the image of, the earthly Adam in the frailties and sufferings that belong to it, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself:" Phil. iii. 21. "We shall hunger no more, we shall thirst no more, nor shall the sun light on us with its parching beams, nor shall we be annoyed with fire or frost, withheator cold, in those temperate and happy re- gions." " The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed his people for ever there with the fruits of the
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