242 /MIN AND EECOfmn, &c. first out of his Maker's hand. It must be granted here again, that the wisdom and goodness of the Creator have displayed themselves in a divine and astonishing manner in the animal and the vegetable world, beyond the utmost reach of our thoughts or our praises : But still we may have leave to enquire, whether among the numerous herbs and flowers, which are fitted for the support and delight of man, there would have been any noxious plants or fruits of mortal and malignant juice, appointed to grow out of the earth, without some plain signal mark or cau- tion set upon them, if man had continued in his innocent state ? Can we suppose that amongst the roots, the herbs, and the trees, which are goodforfood, the great God' would have suffered mis- chief, malady and deadly poison to spring up here and there, without any sufficient distinction that man might know how to avoid them ? This is the case in our present world ; and disease, . anguish and death have entered into the bowels and veins of multitudes by an innocent and fatal mistake of these pernicious. things for proper food. It is granted indeed, that when Moses had dressed and furnished his garden in Paradise, with all manner of vegeta- ble fruits and pleasures for the new and holy creature man, he tells us of a tree in that garden which was called the tree of knowledge, and it was certain death to taste it; Gen. ii. 10, 16, 17. But then man had express warning given him to avoid the danger : Death was, as it were, inscribed upon that tree in plain characters, and it was wilful iniquity for him to make so dan- gerous an experiment. Nor would there have been any poisonous or hurtful plant suffered to grow upon this earth, if the inhabi- tants of it had continued in their primitive holiness, without some natural mark set upon it, or somedivine caution to avoid it. God loves the pure and innocent works of his hands better than to expose them to such unavoidable perils and miseries, and such mortal dangers and deaths, if they continue in their origi- nal innocence. Again, let me enquire whether this earth in almost every soil would have produced such a quantity of briars, thorns, and thistles, and various weeds, which are so destructive to corn, the food of man, and create so much vexation to the painful tillers of the field, if man had been innocent, and the earth his habitation had never been accursed for any crimeof the inhabitant I. Moses, the famous Jewish writer, mentions this very thing as adivine curse for the sin ofman. Let us arise to the animal or brutal world. There are many creatures indeed made for the service and pleasure of mankind, and they areeasily governed to answer his purposes in human life. But are there not many sorts of animals also that weak man can neither govern nor resist, and by which all his race are exposed to miserable wounds and anguish, and death, wheaso-
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