414 ReiN AND RECOVBItt, s&ò. so touch natural evil where there is no moral evil ? It is proba- hie that the sheep when he receives the mortal wound in his throat, feels as much pain as the swine, though the oneis muteand silent, and the other sounds out his death with grievous shrieks and outcries : and perhaps if we had never seen nor heard any creature wounded or dying but a sheep or a fish, or an insect, who are mute, we should never have thought that the brutal sen- sations of pain were so keen, as those which human nature feels : Therefore if we judge merely by groans and clamours, wemust suppose some creatures feel very little or no pain from their wounds and death ; and yet why should the blessed God appoint so much less pain for the sheep than for the swine ? Nor are the most grievous outcries andcontortions of the flesh in other noisy animals a sufficient proof to our reason that they feel such sort of pain, or so intense as man does, and consequently wecannot make the same inference from their sufferings as we do from those of mankind. IV. But supposing brutes have sensations of pain as sharp as ours, yet if they have a proportionable and equal quantity of sensations of pleasure through the course of their low life, then put these pains and pleasures of the brutal life into the balance, and the amount of them in the wholemakes neither happiness nor misery ; or perhaps their pleasingsensations exceed the pain- ful; then they are happy ; for misery is only found where the pain exceeds the pleasure in degree, or duration, or boù ; and that state is happiness, where, upon the whole survey, the plea- sure exceeds the pain. But in mankind it is pretty certain that their natural maladies, as well as the painful and afflictive acci- dents that attend most or all of them in this foolish and sinful world ; far exceed the natural maladies or painful accidents which attend brute-creatures for amongst them there is little or no intemperance to disorder their own natures ; no wars to des- troy millions of their fellows ; no engines of cruelty and death among them to multiply the miseries of their own species and upon the whole it is evident enough that the pains and sorrows and evils in almost every human life greatly exceeds the joys or pleasures of it, and consequently render man in this world hut a miserable creature. V. Let us remember also that 'brutes have no proper reflec- their blood which goes downward to earth when the brute dies. Solomon and Moses seem to agree in this sentiment with some later philosophers; Lev. xvü. t I, 14. Eccles. xii. 7. But the soul of man is of a noble original, a thinking spirit pro- ceeding immediately from God, and at death' ascending upward, or retornjng to ( ?odwho gone it. Now can se suppose that mere blood and flesh have any sensa- tions or perceptions above the capacity of matter? Can they possibly have such intense keen sensations as a spirit, a mind,. a thinking immaterial power, a-kin t' ad ls, but united to flesh and olood? Would the allyiee and righteous Creatoi form creatures capable of such intense torments who are not, nor beer were, capable of offending him is the least instance
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=