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
sorrows
and 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
of
our
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 of
reasoning,
bya
pride
of their
science, by an obstinacy
of
heart, or
by
na
-'
tùral
courage; but
a christian takes the word
of
a 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 languishing
body
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