perfectly sanctified when it is released from this body; and it puts off the body of sin and the body of flesh together, for "nothing that defileth must enter into" paradise or the heavenly state.

The word of God has appointed but two states, viz. heaven and hell, for the reception of all mankind when they depart from this world: And how vain a thing must it be for men to invent a third state, and make a purgatory of it? This is a building erected by the church of Rome between heaven and hell, and prepared by their wild imagination for souls of imperfect virtue, to be tormented there with pains equal to those of hell, but of shorter duration. This state of fiery purgation, and extreme anguish, is devised by that mother of lies, partly under a pretence of completing the penances and satisfactions for the sins of men committed in this life, and partly also to purify and refine their souls from all the remaining dregs of sin, and to fill up their virtues to perfection, that they may be fit for the immediate presence of God. But does not the Scripture sufficiently inform us, that the atonement or satisfaction of Christ for sin is full and complete in itself, and needs none of our additions in this world or another? Does not the Apostle John tell us, 1st epist. chap. i. ver. 7. "The blood of Je sus Christ cleanseth us from all sin ?" Nor shall the saints after this life sin any more, to require any new atonement; nor do they carry the seeds of sin to heaven with them, but drop them together with the flesh, and all the sources of pain together: Now since neither Christ nor his apostles give us any intimation of

such a place as purgatory for the refinement or purification of souls after this life, we have no ground to hearken to such a fable.

The second argument is this: 'God has not provided any medium to convey pain to holy souls after they have dropped this body of flesh.' They are pardoned, they are sanctified, they are accepted of God for ever; and since they are in no danger of sinning afresh by the influences of corrupt flesh and blood, therefore they are in no fear of suffering any thing thereby. And if, as some divines have supposed, there should be any pure æthereal bodies or vehicles provided for holy separate spirits, when departed from this grosser tabernacle of flesh and blood, yet it cannot be supposed that the God of all grace would mix up any seeds of pain with that æthereal matter, which is to be the occasional habitation of sanctified spirits in that state, nor that he would make any avenues or doors of entrance for pain into these refined vehicles, when the state of their sinning and their trial is for ever finished.

Nor will the body at the final resurrection of the saints be made for a medium of any painful sensations. All the pains of nature are ended, when the first union between flesh and spirit is dissolved. When this body lies down to sleep in the dust, it shall never awake again with any of the principles of sin or pain in it: Though "it be sown in weakness, it is raised in power; though it be sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory ;" and we shall be made like

the Son of God without sorrow and without sin for

ever.

3d. Argument.

There are no moral causes or reasons why there should be any thing of pain provided for the heavenly state.' And if there be no moral reasons for it, surely God will not provide pains for his creatures without reason! But this thought leads me to the next general head of my dis

course.

SECTION III.

The third general enquiry which I proposed to make was this, 'What may be the chief moral reasons, motives, or designs of the blessed God in sending pain on his creatures here below; and at the same time I shall shew that these designs and purposes of God are finished, and they have no place in heaven.'.

1st. Then, pain is sometimes sent into our natures to awaken slothful and drowsy Christians out of their spiritual slumbers, or to rouse stupid sinners from a state of spiritual death.' Intense and sharp pain of the flesh has oftentimes been the appointed and effectual means of providence to attain these desirable ends.

Pain is like a rod in the hand of God, wherewith he smites sinners that are dead in their trespasses, and his Spirit joins with it to awaken them into spiritual life. This rod is sometimes so smarting and severe, that it will make a senseless and ungodly wretch look upwards to the hand that smites it, and take notice

of the rebuke of heaven, though all the thundering and lightning of the word, and all the terrors of hell denounced there, could not awaken him.

Acute pain is also a common instrument in our heavenly Father's hand, to recover backsliding saints from their secure and drowsy frames of spirit. David often found it so, and speaks it plainly in the 38th and 39th Psalms; and in Psalm cxix. 67. he confesses, "before I was afflicted I went astray;" but when he had felt the scourge, he learnt to obey, and to keep the word of his God.'

But there is no need of this discipline in heaven:' No need of this smarting scourge to make dead sinners feel their Maker's hand, in order to rouse them into life, for there are no such inhabitants in that world: Nor is there any need of such divine and paternal discipline of God in those holy mansions, where there is no drowsy Christian to be awakened, no wandering spirit that wants to be reduced to duty: And where the designs of such smarting strokes have no place, pain itself must be for ever banished; for • God does not willingly afflict, nor take delight in grieving the children of men,' without substantial reasons for it.

2. Another use of bodily pain and anguish in this world is, to punish men for their faults and follies, to make them know what an evil and bitter thing it is to sin against God, and thereby to guard them against new temptations,' Jer. ii. 19. Thy own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backsliding shall reprove thee;" i. e. by means of the smarting

chastisements they bring upon men. When God makes the sinner taste of the fruit of his own ways, he makes others also observe how hateful a thing every sin is in the sight of God, which he thinks fit so terribly to punish.

This is one general reason why special diseases, maladies, and plagues are spread over a whole nation, viz. to punish the sins of the inhabitants, when they have provoked God by public and spreading iniquities. War and famine with all their terrible train of anguish and agony, and the dying pains which they diffuse over a kingdom, are rods of punishment in the hand of God, the Governor of the world, to declare from heaven and earth his indignation against an ungodly and an unrighteous age.

This indeed is one design of the pains and torments of hell, where God inflicts pain without intermission; And this is sometimes the purpose of God in his painful providences here on earth: Shall I rise yet higher and say, that this was one great design in the eye of God, "when it pleased the Father to bruise” his best beloved Son, and put him under the impressions of extreme pain, viz. to discover to the world the abominable evil that was in sin? while Jesus stood in the stead of sinners, then "his soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death, and he sweat drops of blood" under the pressure of his agonies, to let the world see what the sin of man had deserved: And sometimes God smites his own children in this world with smarting strokes of correction, when they have indulged any iniquity, to shew the world that