pious sufferers among them, and who behave well in dying, may be rewarded by a happy resurrection. This may be appointed with much more propriety, than than a painful death should be made a part of the trial of innocent creatures, who had never forfeited life, nor were ever legally subjected to death. In the case of dying infants, this appears with greater evidence, as I shall shew afterward.

Upon the whole therefore, such sort of noxious and destructive plants and animals do not seem to be made for a world of innocent, sensible and intellectual beings, to vex, and disturb, to poison and destroy them*. Objection. But did not God renew to Noah the dominion over the brute creatures? Answer. Not in such an ample manner as he first possessed it; but only the fear of man was to fall upon the brutes: Now this does not sufficiently preserve men from their outrage and mischief; whereas in the innocent state, no man would have been poisoned or torn by serpents or lions as now. See question VIII. section 6.

III. The manner of the introduction of the race of man into life and being in this world, is another proof that we are not the innocent favourites of heaven. Can we ever imagine the great and good God would have appointed intellectual animals to be propagated in such a way as should necessarily give such exquisite pain and anguish to the mothers who produce them, if we had been all accounted in his eyes a race of holy and sinless beings? And if the contagion or crime had not been universal, why should such acute pangs attend almost every female parent in bringing their offspring into the light of life? Are not the multiplied sorrows with which the daughters of Eve continually bring forth their young, a pretty 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 Jewish law-giver in the beginning of his history tells us, that God blessed the first man and woman that he made, and bid them be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; Gen. i. 28. and the same ancient writer within a page or two tells us, that these "multiplied sorrows" in the bearing and birth of children are pronounced as a curse from an offended God, chapter iii. 16. Surely the curse is not

* As there happened an entire revolution in the complexion and qualities of the minds of the first pair of mankind, so to me, there appears to be evident indications of a designed change and alteration of the material world, and the nature of the animals and vegetables which subsist on this globe, from what they were when God pronounced every thing good that he had made. Doctor Cheyne in his essay of Health and Long Life."

+ The author has been censured here for not dropping a tear over the fair sex under their sorrows and acute pains: But he imagines he has been dropping tears in every page, and that over every part of mankind, and on them in particular in several paragraphs of this book.

as old as the blessing: Bnt sin and sorrow came in together, and spread a wide curse over the birth of man, which before stood only under a divine benediction: Nor is the blessing on human propagation quite taken away, though pains of child-bearing are added to it. Daily observation and experience prove that the blessing of propagation repeated to Noah; Gen. ix. 6. did not take away that curse. See question VIII. at the end.

IV. Let us consider in the next place how the generality of mankind are preserved in life. Some few there are indeed whom divine providence has raised to riches and plenty, and their food is daily provided for them without care or toil; but the millions of human creatures in all the nations of the earth are forced to support a wretched life by hard labour of the body, and intense and grievous fatigue of their joints and limbs, and all their natural powers. What dreadful risks both of life and limbs do multitudes run through in order to purchase their own necessary food, and to support their young helpless families at home? What waste of the hours of sweet repose at midnight, as well as long and slavish and painful toils of the day, do multitudes sustain, in order to procure daily nourishment? It is by the sweat of their brows they obtain their bread; it is by a continual exhausting their vital spirits, that many of them are forced to relieve their own hunger, and to keep off death, as well as to feed their young offspring that otherwise would be born merely to perish. If we survey the lower tribes of mankind, even in Great Britain, in a land of freedom and plenty, a climate temperate and fruitful, a country which abounds with corn and fruits, and is stored with beasts and fowl, and fish, in rich variety for food, what a hard shift do ten thousand families make to keep out famine and support life? Their whole time is devoured with the labours of the flesh, and their souls ever beset and almost eaten up with gnawing cares and anxieties, to answer this. important question, what shall I eat and what shall I drink even in the poorest and the coarsest manner? But if we send our thoughts to the sultry regions of Africa, or the frosts and snows of Norway, to the rocks and desarts of Lapland and northern Tartary, what a hideous and frightful thing is human life in those climates? How is the rational nature of man almost lost between their slavery, their brutality, and their 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 burdens without end. Did God appoint this for innocents? Perhaps, you will say, there is a pleasure in eating and drinking, which answers to the pain of procuring our food: But alas! Can this short pleasure of a few minutes, in trolling a few tnorsels down our throats, or washing the gullet with plenty of liquids, be supposed to give

Does it

a full recompence for the incessant labours of life? bear any proportion to the length of toil, pain and hazard, and the tiresome fatigues of our spirits and our limbs, wherewith the provisions of life are procured? Moses acquaints us indeed, that man even in his innocent and blessed state was placed in a noble and lovely garden, and was appointed to dress it: This was no curse, but a wise appointment of the God of nature by intermingled labour and exercise to preserve our health and vigour. But when the same writer comes to introduce the toil and fatigues we are forced to sustain, in order to secure us from starving, when he speaks of eating our bread in the sweat of our brows; Gen. iii. 17-19. he acknowledges this to be another of the curses of God for the sin of man, and it is scattered all round the globe*.

V. Consider the character, temper and quality of mankind in general, even the multitudes of millions of mankind in all nations, with regard to religion and virtue, and then it will be hard to persuade ourselves that these are creatures, who enjoy the favour of their Maker as his children, or bear the image of their common Father in knowledge and goodness, as his original and native offspring ought to do. I grant there are here and there some few persons who are restored to some degrees of conformity to him that made them: they are become his children by repentance and return to God, by a divine change passed upon their natures, and they enjoy a share of his special love: But the bulk of the world are of another stamp and character, and sufficiently shew there is some sinful and fatal contagion spread

It is strange that any man should say, in this sentence of God, Gen. iii. 15-19. "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 encreased, but not as a curse; and that this death was not a curse, &c." 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 upon the account of sin, and comes from God himself as supreme governor and judge? And even the curse on the ground falls properly on the man who tills it.

It is granted, that all these may be sanctified by the covenant of grace to good people. and turned to their advantage. The wisdom of God can turn curses into blessings; Gen. i. 20. Deut. xxiii. 5. Yet the original pronunciation and infliction of these evils was designed as a curse, or punishment for sin, as it is written, Gal. iii. 10. Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things, &c. And I think it will appear evidently to every one who with common sense and without prejudice reads the history of the fall of man in Gen i. 16-19. And that death was designed as a curse on man for sin, is evident; for Christ suffered this curse for us; Gal. iii. 15.

It is granted also, that God might in Noah's time take off, perhaps, some part of the curse from the ground, Gen. v. 29. and bless it with greater fruitfulDess; he might renew his blessing on propagation, Gen. ix. 1. and many other blessings may be added: But still the curses of hard toil and sweating, of painful child-bearing, and of death, may be, and are actually continued through all generations, though some blessings may be mingled with them: And this is sufficient to answer all these objections. See more, question VIII. at the end.

through the inhabitants of this province of God's dominion, John the apostle in one of his letters, tells us, that there are few who are born of God, as new creatures, but the whole world lies in wickedness; I John v. 19.

Would the blessed God make a world of intelligent creatures so ignorant and thoughtless of himself, and so insolent and rebellious against him as man now is? Can we think of that gross and stupid ignorance of the true God which reigns through vast tracts of land in Asia, Africa, and America, and the thick darkness as well as toil and slavery which buries all the heathen countries, and reduces them yet further almost to brutes and savages; can we think of the abominable idolatries, the lewd and the cruel rites of worship, which have been spread through some whole nations; the impious, the wicked and ridiculous superstitions which are practised among the greatest part of the world, and yet believe the blessed God would put such wretched and polluted workmanship out of pure hands? Can we survey the bold and desperate impiety and profaneness, the swearing and cursing, and wild blasphemy that is practised and pronounc ed daily and nightly, among vast multitudes in those countries which know and profess the true God; can we behold that almost universal neglect of God, his fear, and his worship, and of the obedience due to him, which is found even among those inhabitants of this our world, who say they believe in God, and yet imagine that those wretches love their Maker, that they wear his image, and are conformable to his will, as his original creature must and ought to be?

Nor are mankind only negligent of their duty to God, but they seem to have abandoned their duties to their fellow-creatures also. Can we think of the perpetual practices of fraud and vilJany in the commerce of mankind, the innumerable instances of oppression and cruelty which ran through the world; the pride and humour of the great, the wrath and ambition of most princes, their wild and mad extravagances of crime and folly, as well as their boundless insolence and tyranny over their subjects, and the endless iniquities and mischiefs that arise from envy, malice and revenge practised among lower people; and yet suppose that man was ever made with these vices in him, and these disorders around him, by that wisdom and goodness that created him? If we take a survey of the impure scenes of lust and intemperance and drunken madness which defy the day-light, and pollute the darkness; if we think of the monstrous barbarities which are continually committed by men in the christian inquisitions of Spain, Portugal and Italy, and among all the brutal and wicked tribes of heathenism, the African savages, and the American cannibals, who kill and roast their fellow creatures, and eat up men as they eat bread; can we

still imagine that mankind is a race of beings, who abide in their own native and original state, such as they came from the hands of their Maker?

Shall it be said in opposition to this view of things, that it is not the greatest part of mankind that are so shamefully ignorant and so abominably vile? I answer, That in matters of religion the greatest part of the world are gross idolaters; they adore the souls of the dead for gods, or they worship the sun and moon, or beasts, birds, images, names, fabled gods, stocks and stones, or any thing but the true God: They neither know their Maker, nor love, nor worship him. There are many whole nations that practise abominable vices by general custom and consent, by the approbation of their wise men, and by long tradition, if not by the authority of their laws. This has been abundantly demonstrated by learned writers of the present age, both from the modern travels of the inquisitive, and from ancient histories, when they would shew in what need mankind stood of a divine revelation.

In matters of morality, though the bulk of mankind are not guilty of the very vilest crimes with regard to their fellowcreatures, yet if we consider the numerous corrupt inclinations and sinful passions that sway all the world, the lesser vices and irregularities that work and run through the hearts and lives even of the best and most civilized parts of the universe; if we observe the strange blindness of the understandings of men in divine things, the unfaithfulness of conscience, the unwillinguess to know any mortifying and self-denying truths and duties, the general prevalence of appetite and sinful desires over the powers and the rules of reason, and that not only among the unthinking multitude, but even where reason is consulted and makes its feeble remonstrances; if we consider the universal disorder among the faculties of mankind; and the violation of that harmony and order wherein consists innocence, virtue and peace: If we add to all this heap of confusion, their general thoughtlessness and disregard of God, and their gross defects in benevolence to their neighbours, it will appear plain enough, that there is not one upon earth that is truly righteous and without sin; and it is more abundantly evident, that mankind are far from a state of innocence and perfect virtue: They are fallen from God, and have lost that likeness to their Maker, and that love of him, and those principles of universal virtue which doubtless were implanted in them by so wise, so righteous, so kind, and benevolent a Creator. That far the greatest number of men are evil, or greatly criminal, was a known sentiment of the ancients. The wiser and more considerate heathens saw and bewailed it, though they knew not how to account for it. O Thuoves naxo, most men are wicked, was the sentence of a Greek