QUESTION I. 2ß9 proceed to other miseries that attend us in life-time, many of which end in death and dissolution, and all hasten us down to the grave. Think next of the multitudes that are racked day and night on their couches, with extreme torture, by the gout and stone, the cholic and rheumatism, and all manner of acute and painful diseases ; and then say, are these the torments which a merciful God could ever contrive for a sinless creature ? Think of the dismal and destructive scenes of warfare and bloodshed, that have one time or another overspread all nations. Does not nature furnish this world with woes enough, or does not man- kind die fast enough, but they must wound and slaughter each other ? Cast your thoughts over a fieldof battle, where thousands of such noble creatures as man are destroyed like brutes, are slain by mutual hatred, and perish by sharp and bloody strokes, and the fatal engines of death ; and many thousands more lie on the cold ground, with their flesh and limbs battered and torn wounded and panting in extreme anguish, and die by degrees : Are these such scenes of innocence and peace as mankind were made for ? Are these the signals of their Maker's love, or of theirown original virtue ? Yet again, let us send our thoughts through the long ranks and files of war. What unknown multitudes are bred up to this bloody trade, and sell their lives- daily for the price of a few pence, or for a morsel of meat and sustenance. Lultitudes are driven by their princes against their wills into the wars, or drag- ged on by their leaders to destruction and death. What millions are constrained to stand the volley of small shot in the field of battle, or to ventureup to the mouths of cannon in the siege of a town or city ? They are forced to hazard their limbs and their lives, and even their eternal interests, by fighting against they know not who, and destroying men they know not why. They are put under a necessity of killing their fellow-creatures, or being killed by them, because wild and vicious princes quarrel about thebounds of their dominion, or about some trifles of state and impertinences of honour. Some of them who have any remains of conscience, are forced to fight against their own best interests of liberty and property, as well as against the interest of God and goodness. Whole nations are thus appointed to slaughter bythe tyrannical laws of those that rule over them in various parts of the world ; and sometimes there are but very few in a whole country that are excused from bearing arms and entering into these dismal and deathful circumstances, when their emperors shall tell them that their humour or pleasure requires it. Would this have been the fate of mankind if they had stood in perfect innocence, or if all nations were now born in their original purity ? s2
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