1g2 711E WORLD TO 'COME. fulness and ease shall render every blessed soul for ever zeaioua and active in obedience, as the angels are in heaven. 3. as Pain unfits us for the enjoyments of life, as well as for the labours and duties of it" It takes away all the pleasing satisfactions which might attend our circumstances, and renders the objects of them insipid and unrelishing. What pleasure can a rich man take in all the affluence of earthly blessings around him, while some painful distemper holds him upon the rack, and distresses him with the torture ? how little delight can he find in meats or in drinks which are prepared for luxury, when sharp pain calls all his attention to the diseased part? What joy can he find in magnificent buildings, in gay and shining furniture in elegant gardens, or in all the glittering treasures of the Indies, when the gout torments his hands and his feet, or the rheumatism afflicts his limbs with intense anguish ? If pain attacks any part of the body,' and rises to a high degree, the luxuries of life grow tasteless, and life itself is imbittered to us : Or when pains less acute are prolonged through weeks and months, and perhaps stick in our flesh all the night as well as in the day ; how vain and feeble are all the efforts of the bright and gay things around us to raise the soul into cheerfulness ; Therefore Solomon calls old age the years wherein there is no pleasure. Ecc. xii. L because so many aches and ails in that season pursue us in a con- tinual succession ;. so many infirmities and painful hours attend us usually in that stage of life, even in the best situation that mortality-can boast of, as puts off and destroys all our pleasures. But O what a wondrous, what a joyful change shall that be, when the soul is commanded to forsake this flesh and blood, when it rises as on the wings of angels to the heavenly world, and leaves every pain behind it, together with the body in the arms of death? And what a more illustrious and delightful change shall we meet in the great rising day, when our bodies shall start up out of the dust with vigorous immortality, and without any spring or seat of pain ? All the unknown enjoyments with which hea- ven is furnished, shall be taken in by the enlarged powers of the soul with intense pleasure, and not a moment's pain shall ever interrupt them. 4. Another inconvenience and evil which belongs to pain is, that " it makes time and life itself appear tedious and tiresome, and adds a new burden to all other grievances." Many evidences of this truth are scattered throughout all nature, and on all sides of this globe. There is not one age of mankind but can furnish us with millions of instances. In what- melancholy language does Job discover his sensations of the tiresome nature of- pain ? I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed tó me When f lie down I say, when shall I rise and the night be gone ? And I ein full of tossing to and fie unto
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