per, and in others such poisonous Qualities, or fuch hideous Deformity, as is quite fhocking and terrible to human Nature? But the most beautiful and harmlefs, even those whom we confider as the Emblems of unspotted Innocence, as Lambs and Doves, are exposed to the fame Calamities of Misery, Pain, Corruption, and Death, as thofe of the moft favage and cruel Natures. Now it is as plain, from Reafon and the Nature of Things, that these malignant Qualities are not effential to them, were not originally implanted in them at their first Creation, as that from an abfolutely good and perfect Cause no Evil could proceed And the Scriptures declare that God pronounced them all to be good, yea very good endued with every Perfection that their Nature and Rank in the Scale of Beings required. Whence then this deplorable Change this unhappy Subversion of their primitive State, their prefent lamentable Condition!

I have already told you that their Happiness confifted in the Communications of Divine Bleffings, which were conveyed to them through the pure Canal of the unfallen human Nature. Our first Parent, in his State of Innocence and Glory, ftood in the Place of God to the World below him, cloathed with all the Beauties and Bleffings of Paradife; the created Image of the Ever-bleffed Trinity; through him were derived all the Bleffings of that happy State to all the different Species, Tribes, and Families of the animal Creation. This was the happy State of the primitive Earth, and all its Inhabitants, till Man, by his Tranf greffion, loft the Favour of his Maker, and forfeited, both for us and them, the bleffed Privileges of our primitive State and Condition; the Communication

of divine Light and Life betwixt God and Man being fufpended, he had no more Power to direct and govern the Creatures below him. He ftood naked and deftitute, poor and helpless, in the midst of his numberlefs unhappy Subjects and Domestics, utterly unable to affift or deliver himself or them from the Bondage of Corruption he had brought upon them; he being, by his own Act and Deed, devoted to Darkness and Death, neceffarily involved the whole Syftem in the fame Calamity. The Center of Bleffing was fhut up from him, or rather he had fhut himfelf out of it; his Eyes were closed to the Light of Heaven, and all the Sources and Channels of divine Communications were intirely interrupted; he had no Blefling to receive, and therefore none to bestow. He was fallen under the Influences of the aftral World, confined as a Malefactor to a Prison of his own makking, to be fcourged and punished by the jarring difcordant Properties of the divided Elements, to which he had voluntarily fubjected himself; no Wonder, therefore, that the whole Syftem of Creatures below. him, who were his Subjects, Domeftics, and Dependents, are deeply affected by his Fall, and fhare in his Punishments. So the Apoftle to the Romans tells, Chap. viii. That the Creature (the whole Creation) was made fubject to Vanity, not willingly (not by any Fault of their own) but by Reason (on the Account, by the Sin) of him, who has fubjected the fame in hope; that is, of Adam, who was their immediate Lord and Governor. For we know that the whole Creation groans and travels in Pain. The whole Syftem of the visible Creation fympathizes and fuffers with their rebellious Lord. Thus, when a great Subject is attainted of

High-Treafon against his Sovereign, the Sentence. affects not only himfelf, but his Children and Domestics; and an intire Forfeiture of all the Privileges. of his Blood and Birth, are the certain and neceffary Confequences of his Condemnation: So that as Man was, by his Tranfgreffion, devoted to Darkness and Death, fo were all the Brute-Creation, who were his Domestics and Dependents. Though it was not indeed fo properly a judicial Sentence pronounced upon them, as a neceffary Confequence of their State in Nature, and the Relation and Dependence which they stood in to our first Parent their natural Lord and Sovereign. They were, by his Tranfgreffion, made fubject to Vanity, Mifery, and Death; but no violent Execution was fuffered to be made upon them, but in the Way of Sacrifice; none of them were to be put to death, but by God's own Appointment, to be Types and Monitors of the great propitiatory Sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who was flain from the Foundation of the World, for the Salvation and Redemption of loft Mankind. No Power was given to Man to murder or abuse them, to kill or eat them, as we have now; that was a particular Indulgence granted to Man after the Flood, which had fo broken and corrupted the Face of Nature, weakened and deftroyed the vegetable Powers, and feminal Principles of the Earth, that the Herbs and Fruits had, in a great meafure, loft their natural Temperature, and were lefs capable of nourishing the Bodies of Men, upon which God gave them Liberty to eat the Flesh of Beafts, Birds, and Fifhes, as well as the Fruits of the Earth, as we read, Gen. ix. 2, 3. The Fear of you, and the Dread of you, fhall be upon every Beaft of

the Earth, and upon every Fowl of the Air, upon all that moveth upon the Earth, and upon all the Fishes of the Sea; into your Hand are they delivered, every moving Thing that liveth fhall be Meat for you, even as the green Herb have I given you all Things.

The State of the Brute-Creation, therefore, has, ever fince the Fall of Man, been very different from what it was at the firft. Some of them are fierce and untractable, preying about in defart Places, the Enemies and Destroyers of Mankind, who yet ftill confefs their original Subjection to them, by flying from them, and not affaulting them, unless compelled by Hunger, or in their own Defence: The reft are in a State of Servitude and Subjection, ministering, in their proper Place and Order, to the Pleafure and Neceffities of Mankind. Upon this View they are reprefented to us, both by Reason and Revelation, as the unhappy Objects of our Care and Compaffion, as guiltless Sufferers for our Tranfgreffions; They declare it to be a Breach of natural Justice, an Indication of a cruel and unnatural Temper, to abuse or opprefs them, to increase the Miferies, and aggravate the Sufferings of these innocent unhappy Creatures, and to add, by our Barbarity, to the Weight of that Bondage to which they are made fubject by our Difobedience, to put them to unneceffary Labours, to load them with immoderate Burdens, to punish them with immoderate Severities, or with-hold from them thofe neceffary Refreshments which their State and Condition requires, The wife Man, in the Book of Proverbs, Ch. xii. 10, makes it an Act of Righteoufnefs, the Dictate of natural Equity: The righteeus Man regardeth the Life of his Beast, but the tender Mercies of

the

the Wicked are cruel. Where he plainly declares it to be the Mark and Duty of a righteous Man to be merciful to his Cattle; and the Property of an unjust and wicked Man to be cruel and barbarous. God himself, in the old Law, guarded against this unnatural Cruelty, by feveral express Commands and Prohibitions in Favour of these unhappy Creatures, particularly in the Fourth Commandment, the Reft of the Sabbath-day is declared to be for the Eafe and Benefit of the Cattle, as well as for their Owners; as it is more exprefly declared, Exod. xxiii. 12. Six Days fhalt thou do thy Work, and on the feventh Day thou shalt reft, that thine Ox and thine Afs may reft in the fame. And at the fourth and fifth Verfes of the fame Chapter, there is a particular Injunction to shew Mercy even to the Cattle of our Enemy, if we fee them in Diftrefs: If thou meet thine Enemy's Ox or Afs going aftray, thou fhalt furely bring it back to him again. If thou fee the Afs of him that hateth thee lying under his Burden, and wouldeft forbear to help him, thou shalt furely help with bim. And our Bleffed Lord himself mentions it as a Special Act of Humanity and natural Juftice, To lead our Oxen and Affes to Watering; or if they happen to fall into a Pit, to pull them out, though it were on the Sabbath-day, Luke xiv. 5. Matt. xii. 11. In the xxvth of Deut. ver. 4. God prescribes a fpecial Law in Favour of the Oxen that trod out the Corn, as we now thresh it, that their Mouths fhould not be muzzled whilst they were at their Labour; but that they might eat as well as work, and enjoy fome immediate Fruits of their Labour. We read, in the Book of Jonah, that when the Prophet had denounced the Deftruction of Nineveh, the King proclaimed a Faft