Igll THE WORLD TO COMET some 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 excellency 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 reason- ing, by a pride of their science, by an obstinacy of heart, or by natural courage ; but a christian takes the word of a promise, and lies down upon it in the midst of intense pains of nature : and the pleasure of devotion supplies him with such 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 Father's love in a promise, and by searching into the qualifications of his own soul, can lay faster hold of it by a 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 inidst,of pains, and a soft repose for the head or heart -ache. The stoics pretended to give ease to pain; by persuading themselves there was no evil in it ; as though the mere misnaming of things would destroy their nature: But the christian, by a sweet submission to the evil which his heavenly Father inflicts upon his flesh, reposes himself at the foot of God on the cove- nant of grace, and bears the wounds and the smart with much more serenity and honour. " It is my heavenly Fattier that scourges me, and I know he designs me no hurt, though he fills my flesh with present pain : His own presence, and, the sense of his love, soften the anguish of all that I feel : He bids me not yield to fear, for when I pass through the fires he will be with me ; and he that loved me, and died for me, has suffer- ed greater sorrows and more anguish on my account, than what he calls me to bear under the strokes of his wise and holy discipline He has left his word with me as an universal me- dicine to relieve me under all my anguish, till he shall bring me to those mansions on high, where sorrows and pains are found no more." 6. Anguish and pain of nature here on earth teach us " the excellency and use of the mercy-seat in heaven, and the admira- ble privilege of prayer." Even the sons of mere nature are ready to think .of God at such a season;: and they who never prayed before, pour out a prayer before him when his chasten- ing is uport-thern ; Is. xxvi. 16. A hour of twinging and
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