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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
of
duty, 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 God
has
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 when
God
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
of
youth,
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