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hall be for ever, nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it, and God doeth it that Men fhould fear before him. And the Royal Pfalmift, Pfal. civ. where he is describing the Beauty, the Magnificence, the Wisdom of the Creation, breaks out into Raptures of Gratitude and Joy: O Lord (fays he, ver. 24.) how manifold are thy Works! in Wisdom haft thou made them all, the Earth is full of thy Riches. If then all the Works of God are the Effect of infinite Wisdom; if every, even the meaneft, the smallest, and most contemptible Creature, were formed, directed, and established in their proper Rank and Order, by the unerring Counsel and Wisdom of the Almighty, is it not a bold Presumption to impute to that Wisdom unworthy and contradictory Counfels? Does it not feem to imply Inconftency and Mutability in God, that the fame infinite Wisdom that made every Creature beautiful, useful, and good, for certain Ends and Purposes, should destroy or annihilate any thing that he has made, and thereby defeat the Wisdom of his own Counfels, and the Ends of his Providence? This furely must appear as fhocking to Reafon, as it is contradictory to Revelation. And therefore the Pfalmift, Pfal. civ. after he has defcribed, in most pompous and poetical Language, the Beauties and Glories of the Creation, particularly the vegetable and animal Kingdoms, feems to lament their Mortality, as a Violence and Breach upon the Harmony of Nature, ver. 29. Thou hideft thy Face, they are troubled; thou takeft away their Breath, they die, and return to their Duft. But he comforts himself in the next Verfe, that they are not loft; their Death is but a Change of their State and Manner of Exiftence: VOL. I.

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The original Purposes of God in their Creation fhall stand for ever and ever; and whatever Changes and Revolutions they may undergo, they fhall, in due time, appear again in their proper Place and Order, to fill the Station, and answer the several Ends intended by infinite Wisdom in their first Creation, ver. 30. Thou shalt fend forth (for so it should be rendered) thý Spirit, and they fhall be created, (i. e. appear again in a new Form or Manner of Existence) and thou shalt renew the Face of the Earth; the Glory of the Lord (manifested in the Renovation of the visible World, and all its Inhabitants) shall endure for ever, and the Lord fball rejoice in his Works. As he did in their firft Creation, when he pronounced them all to be very good, when all the Powers of Heaven and Earth proclaimed aloud the Wisdom, the Goodness, and Power of their Maker, when the Morning-Stars fang together, and all the Sons of God fhouted for Joy, Job xxxviii. 7. The Evidence that appears thus ftrong from the Consideration of the Nature of God, the infinite Perfection of his Wisdom, and the Immutability of his Counfels, will appear yet ftronger from confidering the Nature and Condition, the Capacities and Powers, of the Creatures themselves: As they are all endued with Life and Motion, Sense and Perception, and many of them perhaps with equal, if not quicker and more delicate, Senfations in their Sphere of Action, than many of us in ours, and these freely bestowed upon them by the overflowing Goodness of their Maker; if they were intended not only to fill the feveral Ranks and Orders they stand in, in the univerfal Scale of Beings, and complete the Harmony of the Universe, but also to have their Share in the general Bleffing, and fuch a

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Degree and Portion of Happiness as they were capable of enjoying: Will any one say, it would be no Punishment to them to be totally deprived of that Happiness, and even of a Poffibility of recovering it, by an arbitrary and intire Extinction of their Being? You and I should certainly think fo, if we were to do or fuffer the fame; and we may, by more than a Parity of Reason, be afraid to ascribe to Almighty Goodness and Wisdom what appears a Weakness and Cruelty in ourselves. Tell me not that God may do this by an arbitrary Act of his Will, and be no more partial or unjust in striking them out of the List of Beings, than in bringing them into it; that he may refume a Grant that he had freely given them; and who fhall presume to stop his Hand, or limit his Power, and say, What deft thou? This is arguing from the Principles of human Weakness and Ignorance; the Counsels of God are not arbitrary in the human Senfe of that Word, but founded on the immutable Principles of infinite Wisdom, Goodnefs, and Truth, and therefore, without Variableness or Shadow of changing, Jam. i. 17. His Counfels, like his Nature, are the fame Today, Yesterday, and for ever. Heb. xiii. 8.

It would be the higheft Prefumption to pretend to limit the Power of the Almighty; yet all agree in this, that Omnipotence itself can do nothing that im→ plies a Contradiction; but is it not a manifest Contradiction to infinite Wisdom, to make and unmake, to create and to deftroy? The fame infinite Wisdom and Power that brought them into Being, muft of neceffity (pardon the Expreffion) preserve them in it, unless we could fuppofe that he, who, from Eternity, faw through all the Poffibilities of Being, in whom every

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Part of the Creation lives, and moves, and has its Being, should see a Reason for creating at one Time, and deftroying at another, the Works of his own Hands.I might push this Argument yet farther, and perhaps be able to produce fomething more than Conjecture and Probability, that the very Notion of Annihilation is abfurd and unphilofophical, contradictory and impoffible; but, as this would be leading you into a too tedious and abftrufe Speculation, I fhall content myfelf, and hope I have, in fome measure, satisfied you with what has been already faid upon this Subject.

The great Mr. Locke, in his Controversy with the Bishop of Worcester, pag. 148. makes a Kind of Objection to what has been here advanced, that has more the Air of a Sneer than an Argument. But here I take Liberty to obferve, that, if your Lordship allows Brutes to have Senfation, it will follow either that God can and does give to fome Portions of Matter a Power of Perception and Thinking; and that all Animals have immaterial, and confequently, according to your Lordship, immortal, Souls, as well as Men. And to say that Fleas and Mites, &c. have immortal Souls as well as Men, will poffibly be looked on as going a great Way to ferve an Hypothefis. Many Writers fince his Time have improved this Thought, in order to expose and ridicule the Immateriality of the Soul, by mentioning the Eels in Vinegar, the numberlefs Nations, which, to the naked Eye, appear as the Blue of a Plumb, but are discovered, by the Microscope, to be the proper Inhabitants of that particular Orb or Sphere; but let them try the utmost Strength of thefe Objections, and fee what it will prove, but the Ignorance and Prefumption of those that make it. Is it not a more surprising Inftance

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Inftance of the Almighty Power of God, to form fo wonderful, fo beautiful a Piece of Mechanism in one of these minute Animals, than in that of an Ox of a Horse, a Whale or an Elephant? What lefs than infinite Wisdom and Power could form a little Portion of Matter, too small to be viewed by the naked Eye, into that almost infinite Variety of Parts, that arẻ neceffary to form an organical Body? Do but confider how inexpreffibly fine, flender, and delicate, must the several Parts be, that are necessary to form the Organs, to proportion the Structure, to direct the Machinery, and preferve and supply the vital and animal Action in one of these imperceptible Animals } yet every Part that is neceffary to animal Life, is as truly found in one of them, as in Behemoth and Le viathan. I very much doubt whether any Wisdom, but that which framed them, can fully comprehend the Structure, the Symmetry, the Beauties of this almost imperceptible Generation, and think it must needs exceed any finite Understanding to conceive, much less to explain, how fuch an infinite Variety of Parts, and Exercife of Powers, could bercontained or exerted within fo narrow a Space: First, the Heart, the Fountain of Life; then the Mufcles néceffary to produce Motion; the Glands for the Secretion of Juices; the Ventricle and Inteftines for digesting their Nourishment, and numberlefs other Parts which are necessary to form an organical Body. This Knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for any human Understanding, and it may reasonably be doubted, whether the Angels themselves are able to explain and comprehend it. But when we further confider, that each of thofe Members are themselves alfo organical Bodies, that

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