410 EUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. would chuse, if he stood in the complete original rectitude of his nature, in the image and the love of his Creator, and in the true exercise and vigour ofhis intellectual and reasoning powers. He must have lost these original glories before he can think him- self happy in such toys and follies, amidst all the evils and cala- mities that attend this mortal state. II. The second objection is this: If brutes suffer the same miseries, and yet they have never sinned, how can these mise- ries prove that man is an apostate or degenerate being ? Do not all brute creatures, the beasts and birds, and.the insects of theearth, lie continually subject to the same pains, calamities, accidents, diseases and death, which attend upon mankind ? And did,their progenitors sin and offend God, or have they them- selves offended hiin ? Do not the cow and the hind, and most of the four-footed mothers bring forth their young with extreme pain ? Do not the bear and the lion, and the wolf, howl and roarfor want offood, hunt and toil for their prey,and live some- times in starving circumstances, pinched with keen hunger for whole days together ? Is not the horse exposed to almost as many maladies as the man that rides it ? And are not the crea- tures of this speciesextremely miserable under the wild and mad passions of their drivers ? Survey the beasts of draught or of burden, under the furious scourges of the men that use them. What endless lashes they, are exposed to, and what rude and pernicious strokes do they bear from any instrument within the reach of their enraged rulers, evenwhile the laborious creatures are straining all their sinews, and even burst their nerves and their eye-balls in tugging at their unreasonable loads at the brow of a hill? And after a little food, whereby nature is refresh- ed, and a little sleep, wherein life is forgotten, these wretched animals are calledagain to the teamand harness to undergo their daily round of hardships and miseries ? And have any of these creatures, or their ancestors, sinned Against God ? Are not the raceof dogs ever snarling, quarrelling and fighting ? And surely everlasting brawls and battles are misery enough. Again, are not the feebler creatures, both wild and tame, subject to the cruel and perpetual ravage of birds and beasts of prey ? Do not these animals live by devouring one another, and tearing their flesh from their bones, ere they are quite dead, and this according to the very constitution of their natures? And even the 'milder fowls, who seem so innocent and harmless, the partridge and the red-breast, and the chicken, do they not de- vour millions of insects, as their constant and appointed food? Arenot the mangled bodies and limbs of the hare and the sheep, the dove and the thrush, subject to extreme pain when they are torn and bruised, and half eaten by the tyger and the welt; the eagle and the hawk ? And do not all those milder and gentler creatures occasion millions of painful sensationsto the living in
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