assumed, that he purchased for each of us a glorified body, strong and immortal as his own when he rose from the dead, a body which has no seeds of disease or pain in it, no springs of mortality or death? May glory, honour and praise, with supreme pleasure, ever attend the sacred person of our Redeemer, whose sorrows and anguish of flesh and spirit were equal to our misery, and to his own compassion.

5. Another lesson, which we are taught by the long and tiresome 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 sooth 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 reasoning, 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 prómise is a sweet couch to rest a languishing body in the midst of pains, and a soft repose for the head or heart-ach.

The Stoicks 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 covenant of grace, and bears the wounds and the smart with much more serenity and honour. It is my heavenly Father 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 suffered 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 medicine to relieve me under all my anguish, till he shall bring me to those mansions on high, were 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 hea

ven, and the admirable 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 chastening is upon them,' Isai. xxvi. 16. An hour of twinging and tormenting pain, when creatures and medicines can give no relief, drives them to the throne of God to try whether he will relieve them or not. But much more delightful is it for a child of God that has been used to address the throne of grace, to run thither with pleasure and hope, and to spread all his anguish before the face of his heavenly Father. The blessed God has built this mercy-seat for his people to bring all their sorrows thither, and spread them before his eyes in all their smarting circumstances, and he has been often pleased to speak a word of relief.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he dwelt in flesh and blood, practised this part of religion with holy satisfaction and success. "" Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly," and an angel was sent to strengthen and comfort him, Luke xxii. 43, 44.

This was the relief of holy David in ancient times, Psalm xxv. 18. "Look upon my affliction and my pain, and pardon all my sins." Psal. cxvi. 3, 4. "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell, or the grave, took hold of me; then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul." And when he found a gracious answer to his request, he acknowledges the grace of God therein, and charges his soul to

dwell near to God; "return to thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee; I was brought low, and he helped me, he delivered my soul from death, and mine eyes from tears."

But we have stronger encouragement than David was acquainted with, since it is revealed to us, that we "have an high Priest' at this throne ready to bespeak all necessary relief for us there, Heb. ii. 18. "An high Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," who has sustained the same sorrows and pains in the flesh, who can pity and relieve his people under their maladies and acutest anguish, Heb. iv. 15. When we groan and sigh under continued pains, they are ready to make nature weary and faint: We groan unto the Lord, who knows the language of our frailty: Our High Priest carries every groan to the mercy-seat: His compassion works towards his brethren, and he will suffer them to continue no longer under this discipline than is necessary for their own best improvement and happiness.

O how much of this sort of consolation has many a Christian learnt and tasted, by a holy intercourse with heaven, in such painful seasons? How much has he learnt of the tender mercies of God the Father, and of the pity and sympathy of our great High Priest above? Who would be content to live in such a painful world as this is, without the pleasure and relief of prayer? Who would live without an interest at this mercy-seat, and without the supporting friendship of this Advocate at the throne?

Thus I have run over the chief lessons of instruction or doctrine, which may be derived from our sensations of pain here in this world: But there is no need of this sort of discipline in the blessed regions of heaven to teach the inhabitants such truths.

They will remember what feeble helpless creatures they were' when they dwelt in flesh and blood; but they have put off those fleshly garments of mortality, with all its weaknesses together. The spirits of the blessed know nothing of those frailties, nor shall the bodies of the saints, new raised from the dust, bring back any of their old infirmities with them. These blessed creatures know well how entirely dependent they are for all things upon God' their Creator, without the need of pains and maladies to teach them, for they live every moment with God, and in a full dependence upon him: They are sup ported in their life, and all its everlasting blessings, by his immediate presence, power and mercy.

They have no need of pain in those fields or gardens of pleasure to teach them the evil of sin; they well remember all the sorrows they have passed through in their mortal state, while they were traversing the wilderness of this world, and they know that sin was the cause of them all. They see the evil of sin in the glass of the divine holiness, and the hateful contrariety that is in it to the nature of God is discovered in the immediate light of all his perfections, his wisdom, his truth and his goodness. They behold the evil of sin in the marks of the sufferings of their blessed Saviour; he appears in glo.