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of three Days for the Cattle as well as for the People, Let neither Man nor Beaft, Herd nor Flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink Water, but let Man and Beaft be covered with Sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God. And, at the last Verse of this Prophecy, God declares, that his Compaffion for the Cattle, as well as for the People, of Nineveh, had diverted the Execution of the Sentence denounced against them. Should I not (faid he) spare Nineveh, that great City, in which are more than Sixfcore thousand Perfons that cannot difcern betwixt their Right-hand and their Left, and alfo much Cattle? We read, Numbers xxii. 28. That the Mouth of Balaam's Afs was miraculously opened, to upbraid the Cruelty of his Rider, and his barbarous Ufage of a faithful old Servant, that had never ftumbled or fell with him before: Wherefore, fays fhe, haft thou fmitten me these three times? Am not I thine Afs, upon which thou haft ridden ever fince I was thine unto this Day, was I ever wont to do fo to thee? And he said, Nay. And, when the angry Prophet justified his Severity to the poor Beast, the Angel of the Lord pleaded for the Afs, and condemned the Rider: Wherefore (faid he) haft thou fmitten thine Afs thefe three Times? Unless he had turned from me, furely I should have flain thee, and faved her alive. And though the rest have not naturally the Power of complaining in Words, yet have they all a Power of expreffing their Pains, their Wants, and their Sufferings, which every body understands, and which every good-natured Perfon would gladly relieve or prevent.

As for the Malignity obfervable in many of them, as particularly the Cruelty and Revenge of fome, the Envy and Treachery of others, which the learned Fa

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ther knows not how to account for, there feems to be, I think, no great Difficulty in comprehending it. The Violence offered to the whole Syftem of Nature, by an absolute Violation of the Laws of Harmony, Juftice, Truth, and Order, an intire Apoftacy from the fupreme Fountain of Life and Bleffednefs, could not fail to produce dreadful Effects in every Part of Nature; all those Qualities and Properties in every Species of Being, which, in their primitive State of Innocence and Glory, were as fo many Veffels and Inftruments of Bleffing, were, by this unhappy Change, made fo many different Sources and Inftruments of Diforder and Confufion; and the more exalted and powerful they were in the original Frame and Intention of Nature, fo much the more noxious, malignant, and destructive they were in their State of Depravity and Corruption; according to that well-known Maxim of Philofophy, That the beft Things, when they are corrupted, became the worst. This will be found to be univerfally true from the highest to the lowest Order of Beings, both in Heaven and Earth. The moft exalted Seraphims in the Hoft of Heaven, when they left their first Habitation, and fell from their Thrones of Glory, found their Fall proportionably deeper, and their Malignity and Mifery proportionably greater than those who moved in inferior and lower Degrées of Power and Glory: The higher they were exalted in the Regions of Light and Immortality, the lower they funk in the Abyss of Darkness and Death: The exceeding Brightnefs of their Flame, the Strength of their Love, and the mighty Powers of their angelic Nature, whilft united to the pure Light and Love of God, became, when feparated from it, thofe ever

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lafting Chains of Darkness, by which they are bound, and in which they are detained, to the Judgment of the great Day. The fame may be too juftly faid of ourselves, of our own Species. Men of mean Condition, low Parts, narrow Minds, and weak Abilities, if they grow corrupt and wicked, they act with low Views, in a narrow Sphere, and confequently are. capable of doing lefs Mischief in the World; but Men of ftrong Parts, exalted Understandings, extenfive Views, and great Abilities, especially when affifted and fupported by Intereft and Power, when they degenerate, when they turn Tyrants, Oppreffors, and Reprobates, they spread Rapine and Terror, Deftruction and Misery all round them. A little Villain may rob an Orchard or a Fifhpond, may fteal a Sheep or an Horfe, for which the whole World agrees they richly deserve to be hanged, and generally meet with their Fate; but your illuftrious R-ues, your Villains of Diftinction, who plunder Provinces and Kingdoms, who depopulate Countries, who devour or fell whole Nations into Slavery, and fill the Face of the Earth with Blood and Defolation; they move in a different Sphere, and defy that Justice, which if not blind to their Crimes, yet is unable to punish them,

And as for your Sex, whom God and Nature has decked with a Profufion of Charms and Graces, to fweeten the Cares, alleviate the Diftreffes, and heighten the Joys of focial Life, if they fhould ever be fo unhappy as to deviate from the glorious Path of Virtue and Honour, to degenerate from that amiable Simplicity of Life and Purity of Manners, which is their distinguishing Excellency, their trueft Beauty, it is not to be doubted but their Guilt and Corruption

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would be proportionable to that tender Senfibility of Heart, which is the Beauty and Glory of their uncor→ rupted Innocence. And however fstrange and incredible it may appear to those who judge of Ages paft by the Virtue and Innocence of the present, which, no doubt, will be a Pattern to fucceeding Generations; yet Hiftorians, Philofophers, Poets, and Painters have agreed, in fome Representations of Female Degeneracy, which an innocent well-bred Man, who fhould make an Estimate of the reft of your Sex from your own unexceptionable fhining Character, would never expect to find but in Romance and Fable. And that the fame Obfervation, founded in the very Nature of Things, runs through every Species of the animal Creation, is fo reasonable a Suppofition, as hardly to admit of a Debate. Upon which Account it can hardly be doubted, but that those Animals, which, in their prefent State of Degeneracy and Corruption, are most shocking, deteftable, and destructive to human Nature, were, in their original State of Perfection, most eminently useful, beautiful, andgood: And, by the fame Way of Reasoning, one would be tempted to imagine, that thofe Species of Animals, who feem to be the most uncorrupt Part of the Brute-Creation, who seem to have the leaft Symptoms of the univerfal Malignity, which has more or lefs poifoned the whole System, whom Religion and Philosophy represent to us as the most perfect created Emblems of human Virtue and Innocence; I mean the focial and domeftic Animals, thofe which contribute to the Comforts and Neceffities of Life, as Sheep and Oxen, Doves and Bees, &c. were, in their original State, little more

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exalted in the Perfection of their Natures, than we fee them at present.

I have often been tempted to indulge an Imagination, that, in the original Frame of Things, every Species of Animals were in a more particular and immediate Manner related or united to fome one particular Part, or Power, or Faculty of human Nature, which might be as it were their particular Element, and in which they might moft eminently difplay and exercife their fpecific Virtues and Powers, as Inftru-. ments, Emblems, or Unifons in the univerfal Harmony of Nature. This, Madam, is a mere Conjecture; we pretend not to Demonftration; but, when we quit the Land of Syftems, to wander in the fpacious Fields of Imagination and Probability, many a beautiful Thought, many an entertaining Conjecture, will prefent itfelf to a lively Fancy, not unworthy the Attention of a wife Man, or the Confideration of a Philofopher. One Thing, however, is certain, that, in their prefent State of Degeneracy and Corruption, the very worst of them are but feeble Shadows, faint Emblems, of the fame Kind of Degeneracy and Corruption in ourfelves, in corrupt human Nature. Shew me any one Species of Animals more ridiculous, more contemptible, more pernicious, more detestable, than are to be found among the filly, the vicious, the wicked Part of Mankind. Can Apes and Monkeys. be a more ridiculous or mifchievous Kind of Creatures than fome very fine Folks, who are to be found in the moft polite Aflemblies? Is a poor Dog, with four Legs, who acts agreeably to his Nature, half fo despicable a ature as a fad Dog, with two, who, with high fions to Reafon, Virtue, and Honour, is every

Day

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