are found among the children of God. There is not, nor can be any temptation in heaven, to fretfulness or disquietude of mind: All the peevish passions are dropped into the grave, together with the body of flesh; and those evil humours which were the sources of smart and anguish here on earth have no place in the new-raised body: Those irregular juices of animal nature which tormented the nerves, and excited pain in the flesh, and which at the same time provoked choler and irritated the spirit, are never found in the heavenly mansions. There is nothing but peace and pleasure, joy and love, goodness and benevolence, ease and satisfaction diffused through all the regions on high: There are no inward springs of uneasiness to ruffle the mind, none of those fretful ferments which were wont to kindle in the mortal body, and explode themselves, with fire and thunder upon every supposed offence, or even sometimes without provocation. O happy state and blessed mansions of the saints, when this body of sin shall be destroyed, and all the restless atoms that disquieted the flesh and provoked the spirit to impatience, shall be buried in the dust of death, and never, never rise again!

6. Pain carries a temptation with it, sometimes to repine and murmur at the providence of God.' Not fellow-creatures alone, but even our sovereign Creator comes within the reach of the peevish humours, which are alarmed and roused by sharp or continual pain. Jonah the prophet, when he felt the sultry heat of the sun smite fiercely upon him, and the gourd which gave him a friendly shadow was

withered away, he told God himself in a passion, that "he did well to be angry, even unto death,' Jonah iv. 9. And even the man of Uz, the pattern of patience, was sometimes transported with the smart and maladies that were upon him, so that he complained against God as well as complained to him, and used some very unbecoming expressions towards his Maker. When we are under the smarting rebukes of Providence, we are ready to compare ourselves with others who are in peace, and then the envious and the murmuring humour breaks out into rebellious language, "Why am I thus afflicted more than others? Why hast thou set me as a mark for thine arrows? Why dost thou not let loose thy hand and cut me off from the earth ?"

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But in heaven there is a glorious reverse of all such unhappy scenes: There is no pain nor any temptation to murmur at the dealings of the Almighty: There is nothing that can incline us to think hardly of God: The days of chastisement are for ever ended, and painful discipline shall be used no more. shall live for ever in the embraces of the love of God, and he shall be the object of our everlasting praise. Perfect felicity without the interruption of one uneasy thought, for ever forbids the inhabitants of that world to repine at their situation under the eternal smiles of that blessed Being that made them.

7. To add no more, 'pain and anguish of the flesh have sometimes prevailed so far as to distract the mind as well as destroy the body. It has overpow-' ered all the reasoning faculties of man, it has destroy

ed natural life, and brought it down to the grave: The senses have been confounded, and the understanding overwhelmed with severe and racking pain, especially where there hath been an impatient temper to contest with them. Extreme smart of the flesh distresses feeble nature, and turns the whole frame of it upside down in wild confusion: It has actually worn out this animal frame, and stopped all the springs of vital motion. The gout and the stone have brought death upon the patient in this manner; and a dreadful manner of dying it is, to have breath, and life and nature quite oppressed and destroyed with intense and painful sensations.

But when we survey the mansions of the heavenly world, we shall find none of these evils there: No danger of any such events as these; for there is no pain, no sorrow, no crying, no death nor destruction there. The mind shall be for ever clear and serene in the ease and happiness of the separate state: And when the body shall be raised again, that glorified body, as was intimated a little before, shall have none of the seeds of distemper in it, no ferments that can rack the nerves, or create anguish; no fever, or gout, or stone, was ever known in that country, no headach or heart-ach have ascended thither.

That body also shall be capable of no outward wounds nor bruises, for it is raised only for happiness, and leaves all the causes of pain behind it. It is a body made for immortality and pleasure; there the sickly Christian is delivered from all the maladies of the flesh, and the twinges of acute pain which made

There the

him groan here on earth night and day. martyrs of the religion of Jesus, and all the holy confessors are free from their cruel tormentors, those surly executioners of heathen fury, or anti-christian wrath: They are for ever released from racks, and wheels, and fires, and every engine of torture and smart. Immortal ease and unfading health and cheerfulness run through their eternal state, and all the powers of the man are composed for the most regular exercises of devotion and divine joy.

Thus I have endeavoured briefly to set the different states of heaven and earth before you under this distinguishing character, that all the tempting, the distressing and mischievous attendants and consequences of pain' to which we are exposed in our mor. tal life, are for ever banished from the heavenly world.

SECTION II.

The second general enquiry' was this, 'What just and convincing arguments or proofs can be given, that there are no pains or uneasy sensations to be felt by the saints in a future state, nor to be feared after this life?'

My answers to this question shall be very few ; because I think the thing must be sufficiently evident to those who believe the New Testament, and have liberty to read it.

First argument. God has assured us so in his word, that there is no pain for holy souls to endure

in the world to come:' My text may be esteemed a sufficient proof of it; for whatsoever particular event or period of the church on earth this prophecy may refer to, yet the description is borrowed from the blessedness of heaven; and if there shall be any such state on earth, much more will it be so in the heavenly world, whereas that period on earth is but a shadow and emblem. We are expressly told, Rev. xiv. 8. in order to encourage the persecuted saints and martyrs, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, for they rest from their labours, (or pains) and their works follow them;" i. e. in a way of gracious recompence.

It is granted indeed by the Papists themselves, that in heaven there is no pain; yet they suppose there are many and grievous pains for the soul to undergo in a place called purgatory, after the death of the body, before it arrives at heaven.

But give me leave to ask, does not St. Paul express himself with confidence concerning himself and his fellow Christians" that they shall be present with the Lord when they are absent from the body,' 2 Cor. v. 8. Surely the state wherein Christ our Lord dwells after all his sufferings and agonies, is a state of everlasting ease without suffering; and shall not his followers dwell with him? Do we not read in the parable of our Saviour, Luke xvi. 22. that Lazarus was no sooner dead, but "his soul was carried by angels into the bosom of Abraham," or paradise? Every holy soul wherein the work of grace is begun, and sin hath received its mortal wound, is