533 / 674
DÍSe.
NO
PAIN
AMONG
THE BLESSED.
513
through
the
long
ages
of
eternity
?
God
can form even
such bodies for immortality,
and
can sustain them to
endure
everlasting agonies.
Let
us
think again,
that
when
the hand
of
our Creator
sends pain into
our
flesh, we
cannot
avoid
it, we
cannot
fly
from
it,
we carry
it
with
us
Wheresoever
we
go
:
His
arrows stick fast
in
us,
and
we
cannot
shake them
off;
oftentimes
it appears that
we
can
find
no
relief
from
creatures
:
And
if
by
the destruction
of
ourselves,
that
is,
of.these
bodies,
we
plunge ourselves into the world
of
spirits
at
once,
the
shall
find
the
same
God
of
holiness
and vengeance there, who can
pierce
our
souls with
un-
known sorrows, equal,
if
not
superior,
to all
that
we
felt
in
the
flesh.
"
If
I
make
my
bed in
the
grave,
Lord
thou
art
there
;"
Ps.
cxxxix.
8.
thy
hand
of
justice and
punishment
would
find me
out.
What
a
formidable thing it
is
to
such
creatures
as we
are, to have
God,
our
maker for
our
enemy
!
That
God,
who
has all the tribes
of
pain and
disease,
and
the
innumerable host
of
maladies
at
his
command
!
He
fills
the
air
in which we
breathe
with fevers
and pesti-
lences
as
often
as he
will
:
The gout
and the
stone
arrest
and
seize us by
his
order,
and stretch
us
upon a
bed
of
pain
:
Rheumatisms
and
cholics come
and
go
whereso-
ever
he
sends
them, and
execute
his
anger against crimi-
nals.
He
keeps
in his
hand
all the various springs
of
pain,
and
every
invisible
raçk
that
can
torment
the head
or members,
the
bowels
or
the
joints of
man; He
set
them
at
their dreadful
work when
and
where he pleases.
Let
the sinner tremble
at
the
name
of
his power
and
ter-
ror, who can
fill
both
flesh
and
spirit
with
thrilling ago-
nies;
and
yet
he
never
punishes beyond what
our
iniqui-
ties
deserve. How necessary
is
it
for such sinful and
guilty
beings
as we
are, whose
natures
are capable
of
such
constant and acute
sensations
of
pain,
to
have
the
God
of
nature our
friend and
our
reconciled
God
?
4.
When
we feel
the acute
pains
of
nature,
we
may
learn
something
of
the exceeding greatness
of
the love
of
Christ, even
the
Son
of
God,
that
glorious
Spirit,
whe,
took
upon
him
flesh
and
blood for
our
sakes,
that
he
might be
capable
of
pain
and death, though
he
had
never
sinned.
He endured intense anguish,
to make
atone-
I.nent
for
our
crimes.
"
Because the
children
whom he
VOL.
II.
2
I,