God hates sin in his own people wheresoever he finds it, and to bring his children back again to the paths of righteousness.

But in the heavenly state, there are no faults to punish, no follies to chastise.' Jesus, our Surety in the days of his flesh, has suffered those sorrows which made atonement for sin, and that anguish of his holy soul, and the blood of his cross, have satisfied the demands of God; so that with honour he can pardon tén thousand penitent criminals, and provide an inheritance of ease and blessedness for them for ever. When once we are dismissed from this body, the spirit is thoroughly sanctified, and there is no fire of purgatory needful to burn out the remains of sin: Those foolish invented flames are but false fire, kindled by the priests of Rome to fright the souls of the dying, and to squeeze money out of them to purchase so many vain and idle masses to relieve the souls of the dead. Upon our actual release from this flesh and blood, neither the guilt nor the power of sin shall attend the saints in their flight to heaven: All the spirits that arrive there are made perfect in holiness without new scourges, and commence a state of feli city that shall never be interrupted.

3. God has appointed pain in this world, to exer. cise and try the virtues and the graces of his people.' As gold is thrown into the fire to prove and try how pure it is from any coarse alloy, so the children of God are sometimes left for a season in the furnace of sufferings, partly to refine them from their dross, and

Y 2

pártly to discover their purity and their substantial weight and worth.

Sometimes 'God lays smarting pain with his own hand' on the flesh of his people, on purpose to try

their graces: When we endure the pain without murmuring at Providence, then it is we come off conquerors. Christian submission and silence under the hand of God, is one way to victory. "I was dumb," says David, "and opened not my mouth, because thou didst it," Psal. xxxix. Our love to God, our resignation to his wili, our holy fortitude and our patience find a proper trial in such smarting seasons. Perhaps when some severe pain first seizes and surprises us, we, find ourselves like a wild bull in a net,' and all the powers of nature are thrown into tumult and disquietude, so that we have no possession of our own spirits; but when the hand of God has continued us awhile under this divine discipline,. we learn to bow down to his sovereignty, we lie at his footstool calm and composed: He brings our haughty and reluctant spirits down to his foot, and makes us lie humble in the dust, and we wait with patience the hour of his release. Rom. v. 3, 4. Tribulation worketh patience, and patience' under tribulation gives us experience' of the dealings of God with his people, and makes our way to a confirmed hope in his love. The evidence of our various graces grows brighter and stronger under a smarting rod, till we are settled in a joyful confidence, and the soul rests in God himself.

Sometimes he has permitted evil angels to put the flesh to pain,' for the trial of his children; so "Job was smitten with sore boils from head to foot" by the malice of Satan, at the permission of God; but "he knows the way that I take," says this holy man," and when he has tried me I shall come forth. as gold; for my foot hath held his steps" through all these trials, "neither have I gone back from the commandments of his lips," Job. xxii. 10, 12.

At other times he suffers wicked men to spend their own malice, and to inflict dreadful pains on his own children:' Look back to the years of ancient persecution in the land of Israel, under Jewish or heathen tyrants; review the annals of Great Britain; look over the seas into popish kingdoms; take a view of the cursed courts of inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and Italy; behold the weapons, the scourges, the racks, the machines of torture and engines of cruelty, devised by the barbarous and inhuman wit of men, to constrain the saints to renounce their faith, and dishonour their Saviour. See the slow fires where the martyrs have been roasted to death with lingering torment: These are seasons of terrible trial indeed, whereby the malice of Satan and Antichrist would force the servants of God, and the followers of the Lamb, into sinful compliances with their idolatry, or a desertion of their post of duty: But the spirit of God has supported his children to bear a glorious testimony to pure and undefiled religion; and they have seemed to mock the rage of their tormentors, to defy all the stings of pain, and triumphed over

their vain attempts, to compel them to sin against their God.

One would sometimes be ready to wonder, that a God of infinite mercy and compassion should suffer his own dear children to be tried in so terrible a manner as this; but unsearchable wisdom is with him, and he does not give an account to men of all the reasons and the rules of his conduct. This has been his method of providence with his saints at especial seasons, under the Jewish and the Christian dispensations, and perhaps under all the dispensations of God to men, from the days of Cain and Abel to the present hour. Our blessed Lord has given us many warnings of it in his word by his own mouth, and by all his three Apostles, Paul, Peter and John: "They that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution: Think it not strange there. fore concerning the fiery trial: The devil, by his wicked agents, shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days, but fear none of the things which thou shalt suffer: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

But blessed be God that this world is the only stage of such trials. As soon as the state of probation is finished, the state of recompence begins. Such hard and painful exercises to try the virtues of the saints, have no place in that world, which was not made for a stage of trial and conflict, but a palace of glorious reward. Heaven is a place where crowns and prizes are distributed' to all those blessed ones ' who have endured temptation,' and who have been

found faithful to the death. These sharp and dreadful combats with pain, have no place among conquerors, who have finished their warfare, and have begun their triumph.

4. Pain is sent us by the hand of Providence to teach us many a lesson both of truth and duty, which perhaps we should never have learnt so well without it.' This sharp sensation awakens our best powers to attend to those truths and duties which we took less notice of before: In the time of perfect ease we are ready to let them lie neglected or forgotten, till God our great Master takes his rod in hand for our instruction.

SECTION IV.

fourth general head' of enquire what are those

And this leads me to the my discourse, and that is to spiritual lessons which may be learnt on earth from the pains we have suffered, or may suffer in the flesh.' I shall divide them into two sorts, viz. 'Lessons of instruction' in useful truth, and lessons of duty,' or

practical Christianity; and there

are many of each

kind with which the disciples of Christ in this world' may be better acquainted, by the actual sensations of pain, than any other way: In this world' I say, and ' in this only;' for in heaven most of these 'lessons of doctrine and practice' are utterly needless to be taught, either because they have been so perfectly well known to all its inhabitants before, and their present situation makes it impossible to forget them; or