struction, did also doubtless prepare the materials of all the lesser storms and hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, and convulsions of nature; and treasured up for these purposes his magazines of wind, and flood, and fire in the earth. And is this an habitation prepared for the residence of pure and holy beings? Is this such a peaceful place, as a kind Creator would have formed for innocent creatures? It is absurd to imagine this of a God so wise, so righteous, and so merciful. (p. 20.)

"2. Let us take a survey of the vegetables which grow out of the earth, with the brute animals which are found on the surface of it, and we shall find more reasons to conclude that man, the chief inhabitant, is not such as he came first out of his Maker's hand.

"It must be granted here again, that the wisdom and goodness of the Creator are amazingly displayed, in the animal and the vegetable world, beyond the utmost reach of our thoughts or praises. But still we may have leave to inquire, whether if man had continued innocent, among the numerous herbs and flowers fitted for his support and delight, any plants or fruits of a malignant, mortal nature, would have grown out of the earth, without some plain mark or caution set upon them? (p. 21.)

"Can we suppose that among the roots, herbs, and trees, good for food, the great God would have suffered mischief, malady, and deadly poison, to spring up here and there, without any sufficient. distinction, that man might know how to avoid them? This is the case in our present world: disease, anguish, and death, have entered into the bowels and veins of multitudes, by an innocent and fatal mistake of these pernicious things, for proper food.

"There was indeed the Tree of Knowledge in Paradise. But man was expressly cautioned against it. And certainly had he continued holy, no poisonous plant would have been suffered to grow on the earth, without either some natural mark set upon it, or some divine. caution to avoid it. (p. 22.)

"Proceed to the animal world. There are many creatures indeed, which serve the use or pleasure of man. But are there not many other sorts, which he is neither able to govern, nor to resist? And by which all his race are exposed, whenever they meet them, to wounds, and anguish, and death? (p. 23.)

"If man had not sinned, would there have been in the world any such creatures as bears and tigers, wolves and lions, animated with such fierceness and rage, and armed with such destructive teeth and talons ? Would the innocent children of men have ever been formed to be the living prey of these devourers? Were the life and limbs of holy creatures made to become heaps of agonizing carnage? Or would their flesh and bones have been given up to be crushed and churned between the jaws of panthers and leopards, sharks and crocodiles? Let brutes be content to prey on their fellow brutes, but let man be their lord and ruler.

"If man were not fallen, would there have been so many tribes of the serpent-kind, armed with deadly venom? Would such subtle

and active mischiefs have been made and sent to dwell in a world of innocents? And would the race of all these murderers and destructive animals, have been propagated for six thousand years, in any province of God's dominion, had not its rational inhabitants been in rebellion against God? (p. 24.)

"What are the immense flights of locusts which darken the sky, and lay the fields desolate ? What are the armies of hornets or musquetoes, that frequently make a pleasant land almost intolerable? If they are found in the heats of Africa, and of the East and West Indies, one would think they should not infest the Polar regions, if the Creator had not designed them for a scourge to the nations on all sides of the globe.

"What are the innumerable host of caterpillars but so many messengers of the anger of God against a sinful race? And since we can neither resist nor subdue them, we may certainly infer, that we are not now such favourites of heaven, as God at first made us. (p. 25.)

"The troublesome and pernicious tribes of animals, both of larger and smaller size, which are fellow-commoners with us on this great globe, together with our impotence to prevent or escape their mischiefs, is a sufficient proof that we are not in the full favour and love of the God that made us, and that he has quartered his armies, his legions among us, as princes do in a rebellious province.

"It is true all these are trials for man during his state of probation. But a state of probation for innocent man would not have included death; much less a violent and bloody, or a lingering and painful death. Accordingly, our return to dust is mentioned by Moses as a curse of God for the sin of man. And when once life is forfeited by all mankind, then a painful death may properly become a part of the further trial of such creatures as are to rise again and any pious sufferers may be rewarded by a happy resur rection. But a painful death could never be made a part of the trial of innocent creatures, who had never forfeited life, nor were ever legally subjected to death. (p. 26, 27.)

"Upon the whole, therefore, such noxious and destructive plants and animals could not be made to vex and disturb, to poison and destroy, a race of innocent, intellectual beings.

"3. The manner of our entrance into life is another proof of universal sin. (p. 29.) Would the great and good God have appointed intellectual animals, had they been sinless, to be propagated in such a way as should necessarily give such exquisite pain and anguish to the mothers who bring them forth? And if the contagion had not been universal, why should such acute pangs attend almost every female parent? Are not the multiplied sorrows with which the daughters of Eve bring forth, an evident token that they are not in their original state of favour, with that God who created them and pronounced a blessing upon them in their propagation ?*

*The author has been censured here for not dropping a tear over the fair sex up

"Moses informs us, that God blessed the first pair, and bid them be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it :" and soon after tells us, that these multiplied sorrows in child-birth are a curse from an offended God. Surely the curse is not as old as the blessing; but sin and sorrow came in together, and spread a wide curse over the birth of man, which before stood only under a divine benediction. Not that the blessing is now quite taken away, though the pains of child-bearing are added to it. And daily experience proves, this curse is not taken away by the blessing repeated to Noah.

"4. Let us consider in the next place, how the generality of mankind are preserved in life. Some few have their food without care or toil: but millions of human creatures, in all the nations of the earth, are constrained to support a wretched life by hard labour. What dreadful risks of life or limbs, do multitudes run, to purchase their necessary food? What waste of the hours of sweet repose, what long, and slavish, and painful toils by day, do multitudes sustain in order to procure their daily nourishment? It is by the sweat of their brows they obtain their bread: it is by a continual exhausting their spirits, that many of them are forced to relieve their own hunger, and to feed their helpless offspring.

"If we survey the lower ranks of mankind, even in England, in a land of freedom and plenty, a climate temperate and fertile, which abounds with corn, and fruits, and rich variety of food: yet what a hard shift do ten thousand families make to support life? Their whole time is devoured by bodily labour, and their souls almost eaten up with gnawing cares, to answer that question, What shall I eat, and what shall I drink? Even in the poorest and coarsest manner? But if we send our thoughts to the sultry regions of Africa, the frost and snows of Norway, the rocks and deserts of Lapland and northern Tartary, what a frightful thing is human life? How is the rational nature lost in slavery, and brutality, and incessant toils, and hardships? They are treated like brutes by their lords, and they live like dogs and asses, among labours and wants, hunger and weariness, blows and burthens without end. Did God appoint this for innocents? (p. 30, 31.)

"Is the momentary pleasure of eating and drinking a recompense for incessant labour? Does it bear any proportion to the length of toil, pain, and hazard, wherewith the provisions of life are procured? Moses thought not. When he speaks of man's eating bread in the sweat of his brow,' he acknowledges this to be another of the curses of God for the sin of man. (p. 32.)

"It is strange that any man should say, " In this sentence of God, no curse is pronounced upon either Adam's body, soul, or posterity: that the sorrow of child-bearing is not inflicted as a curse that the labours of life were increased, but not as a curse: that death was

der their sorrows and acute pains. But he imagines, he has been dropping tears in every page, and that over every part of mankind." Undoubtedly he has and if so, how unjust, how cruel is that censure?

not a curse." I would fain ask, what is a curse, if some natural evil pronounced and executed upon a person or thing, be not so? Especially when it is pronounced on account of sin, and by God himself, as supreme Governor and Judge? And even the curse on the ground falls properly on the person who tills it.

"It is granted, God can turn curses into blessings. Yet these evils were originally pronounced and inflicted as a curse or punishment of sin, as it is written, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things.' And that death was designed as a curse on man for sin is evident; for Christ suffered that curse for us.

5. "Consider the character of mankind in general with regard to religion and virtue, and it will be hard to believe they bear the image of their common father in knowledge and holiness. Some I grant, are renewed in his image: but the bulk of the world are of another stamp; and sufficiently show, there is some fatal contagion spread through this province of God's dominion. So St. John tells us, that except the few who are born of God, the whole world lieth in wick. edness.' p. 33.

"And can we think of that gross and stupid ignorance of God, vhich reigns through vast tracts of Asia, Africa, and America, and the thick darkness which buries all the Heathen countries, and re. duces them almost to brutes: can we think of the abominable idolatries, the lewd and cruel rites of worship which have been spread through whole nations; the impious and ridiculous superstitions which are now practised among the greatest part of the world: and yet believe the blessed God would put such wretched polluted workmanship out of his pure hands? (p. 34.)

"Can we survey the desperate impiety and profaneness, the swearing, and cursing, and wild blasphemy, that is practised, day and night among vast multitudes of those who profess to know the true God: can we behold that almost universal neglect of God, of his fear, his worship, and the obedience due to him, which is found even among them who are called Christians; and yet imagine, that these bear that image of God, in which they were created?

"Nor have men forgot God only, but they seem also to have abandoned their duties to their fellow-creatures also. Hence the perpetual practices of fraud and villany in the commerce of mankind, the innumerable instances of oppression and cruelty which run through the world; the pride and violence of the great, the wrath, ambition, and tyranny of princes, and the endless iniquities and mischiefs that arise, from malice, envy, and revenge, in lower people. If we add to these the impure scenes of lust and intemperance, which defy the day and pollute the darkness: with the monstrous barbarities which are continually committed by the Heathen savages in Af rica and America, (some of whom kill and roast their fellow-creatures, and eat up men as they eat bread,) and by the Christian savages in the Inquisition established in Asia, as well as in many parts of Europe can we still imagine, that mankind abide in that state, wherein they came from the hands of their Maker? (p. 35.)

"That far the greatest number of men are evil, was the known sentiment of the wiser Heathens. (p. 37.) They saw and bewailed the undeniable fact, though they knew not how to account for it. O TheLoves xaxoi. Most men are wicked, was a common observation among them Even the poets could not but see this obvious truth. So Virgil brings in Anchises, telling his son, Few are happy in the other world:

Pauci læta arva tenemus.

And in this life, Horace remarks of men in general,

Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata ;

We are always desiring and pursuing forbidden things. Nay he

says,

Vitiis nemo sine nascitur; No man is born without vices: and gives this character of young men in general.

Cereus in vitium flecti; monitoribus asper. Seneca says just the

same,

Pejora juvenes facile præcepta audiunt :

Young men readily hearken to evil counsels; they are soft as wax to be moulded into vice, but rough and rugged to their best monitors. "Juvenal abounds with the same accounts of human nature; Quæ tum festa dies, ut cesset prodere furem ?

Ad mores natura recurrit

Damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia.

Quisnam hominum est, quem tu contentum videris uno

Flagitio?

Dociles imitandis

Turpibus et pravis omnes sumus.

"6. And not only they of riper age, but even those of tender years, discover the principles of iniquity and seeds of sin. What young ferments of spite and envy, what native wrath and rage, are found in the little hearts of infants, and sufficiently discovered by their hands, and eyes, and countenances, before they can speak or know good from evil! What additional crimes of lying and deceit, obstinacy and perverseness proceed to blemish their younger years! (p. 41.)

"How little knowledge or thought of God, their Creator and Governor, is found in children when they can distinguish good and evil? What an utter disregard of him that made them, and of the duties they owe to him? And when they begin to act according to their childish age, how little sense have they of what is morally right and good? How do evil passions or irregular appetites continually prevail in them? Even from their first capacity of acting as moral creatures, how are they led away to practise falsehood and injury to their play-fellows, perhaps with cruelty or revenge? How often are they engaged in bold disobedience to their parents or teachers? And whence does this arise? What is the root that brings forth such early bitter fruit? (p. 42, 43.)

"It cannot be imputed to custom, education, or example; for many of these things appear in children before they can take any notice of ill examples, or are capable of imitating them. And even