494 BTRENCsTH AND wÈAtCNLSS bt! HUIISAN REA3o1F", THE FOURTH CONFERENCE. While Logisto was attending his two friends through the pleasures of his garden, he conveyed them to a very agreeeble piece of elevated ground, whence they could survey the neigh- bouring fields and meadows covered with cattle of divers kinds. Some were grazing upon the natural bounties of providence ; some rested at their ease ; and others were sporting variously, with life and vigour, and joy, in the provisions that were made for the happiness suited to their natures. The birds sung their chearful airs upon the bushes, being replenished with their pro- per food, or they exulted upon the wingwith wanton pleasure, transporting themselves from bough to bough ; and their little, souls took in all the satisfaction 'of their natures, and their harm- less life. Even the very creeping insects, as well as those that were made for flight, appeared joyful in their narrow dimensions : The worm, the emmet, Gad the butterfly were pleased with their atoms or inches of being, and in their low rank of existence seemed to bear their witness to the beneficent hand that gave them every thing 'necessary to their support and delight, Logisto took notice of it, while they were taking their rounds, and at their return to the summer-house, he thus renewed the conference. Loc. And can you think, Pithander, that every worthless creature in the universe, not only the beast and the birds, but even the butterflies and the worms, have powers given them by their wise and bountiful Creator sufficient for their happiness, during theirLttle extent of existence ; and shall not man the lord of the lower world, man, the favourite of his Maker, shall not man have sufficient powers conferred upon him, to lead and con- duct him to his final happiness ? Is it not inconsistent with the justice and equity of a God, andmuch more inconsistent with the goodness of so magnificent and so bountiful a being, to make creatures of an immortal duration, capable of intense happiness, and intense misery, through all that immortal existence, and not provide them with sufficient capacities in themselves to make that long state of existence happy ? And yet what multitudes ofthem, according to your account, are brought into being, almost under a necessity of being miserable ? Did these intellectual and wretched creatures ever once desire to exist ? Was not their existence the mere effect of their Maker's sovereign pleasure ? And would the sovereign pleasure of a wise, a righteous, and merciful God, ever bring creatures into such an immortal exist- ence, without sufficient powers to Guide and conduct them to that felicity which is suited to their natures ? Nor is the mere remote, natural, and speculative sufficiency, 19 hich Sophronius has taught you, any sufficient answer to this
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