525 / 674
DISC.IX.I
NO
PAIN
AMONG
TßE
B
LESSED.
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 shall
never
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
how
pure
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