388 RUIN ANT) RECOVERY, &C. thousand souls of the children of Ricked parents into being, to destroy them so soon ? Answer I. Who can tell me of what use it can be for God to create so many millions of animated beings in the sea, or in the woods and deserts for so short a continuance ? Who can tell why he should exert his almighty power to produce so many myriads of fishes which man never sees, and insects, engines of curious and divine artifice, of which millions are brought forth in one day; which are never seen of men, and which in a few weeks or months perishagain, and are lost for ever ? It is as easy with omnipotence to create souls as bodies, or to make men as worms: And it is the illustrious and inconceivable magnificence of his government, that he can produce worlds of such wonderful crea- tures and destroy them without any loss, though he should never acquaint us with any of his reasons or purposes for this conduct. Why must such sorry creatures as men are, be acquainted with the designs and reasons of everything that a God thinks fit to do ? II. Though the purposes and ends of the great God are far above our reach; yet we may suppose God to have this wise design id the creation and destruction of so many children, viz. to let those wicked parents, as- well as their neighbours, see the constant evil of sin inthe effects or punishment thereof, even of the sinof Adam in the weaknesses and pains'aud death of their children ; and to keep a livelyimage of these things always be- fore the eyes of men, in the continual.succession of so many visible agonies and dying groans and deaths of mankind in their younriest hours of life. This same design and effect is attained also by the mortality and deaths of all children, 'even those of pions parents, whose souls are carried to heaven by the covenant of grace and the faith of their parents. God will have a conti- nual sense of the evil of this original sin maintained in all the families of mankind, and this is a sufficient reason for his conduct. X. Let me now mention a second objection against this set of thoughts concerning; infants ; and that is, if the children of wicked parents do not rise from the dead, but are destroyed soul and body, as lying under the original sentenceOf death, will not this opinion tempt parents to be negligent of the lives of their infants ? And some perhaps might be tempted to put them to death, that they may not grow up to sin, and thereby expose themselves to eternal misery. I answer, That good persons can- not be guilty of this crime; for such wilful and inhuman murder would he a plain proof they had no true religion nor goodness nor interest in the covenant of grace : Nor can they have any such temptation if they walk according to this covenant, because the blessings of the covenant of grace are secured to their seed. As Mr wicked parents, they have so much natural love and con- cern for the -welfare of their children in this life, and se little
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