the creature that fuffers it, whe ther man or beaft, being fenfible of the mifery of it whilft it lafts, fuffers Evil; and the Sufferance of evil, unmeritedly, unprovokedly, where no offence has been given, and no good end can poffibly be answered by it, but merely to exhibit power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and Injustice in him that occafions it.

I prefume there is no Man of feeling, that has any idea of Juftice, but would confefs upon the principles of reafon and common fenfe, that if he were to be put to unnecessary and unmerited pain by another man, his tormentor would do him an act of injuftice; and from a sense of the injustice

in

in his own cafe, now that He is the fufferer, he must naturally infer, that if he were to put another man of feeling to the fame unneceffary and unmerited pain which He now fuffers, the injuftice in himself to the other would be exactly the fame as the injustice in his tormentor to Him. Therefore the man of feeling and justice will not put another man to unmerited pain, because he will not do that to another, which he is unwilling should be done to himself. Nor will he take any advantage of his own fuperiority of ftrength, or of the accidents of fortune, to abuse them to the oppreffion of his inferior; becaufe he knows that in the article of feeling all men are equal; and that

that the differences of ftrength or Station are as much the gifts and appointments of GOD, as the differences of understanding, colour, or ftature. Superiority of rank or ftation may give ability to communicate happiness, (and feems fo intended;) but it can give no right to inflict unneceffary or unmerited pain. A wife man would impeach his own wisdom, and be unworthy of the bleffing of a good understanding, if he were to infer from thence that he had a right to despise or make game of a fool, or put him to any degree of pain. The folly of the fool ought rather to excite his compassion, and demands the wise man's care and attention to one that cannot take care of himself.

It

It has pleafed GOD, the Father of all men, to cover some men with white skins, and others with black fkins: but as there is neither merit nor demerit in complexion, the white man (notwithstanding the barbarity of custom and prejudice) can have no right, by vir tue of his colour, to enflave and tyrannize over a black man; nor has a fair man any right to defpife, abuse, and infult a brown man. Nor do I believe that a tall man, by virtue of his ftature, has any legal right to trample a dwarf under his foot. For, whether a man is wife or foolifh, white or black, fair or brown, tall or short, and I might add rich or poor (for it is no more a man's choice to be

poor, than it is to be a fool,

or

or a dwarf, or black, or tawney,) fuch he is by GOD's appointment; and, abstractedly confidered, is neither a fubject for pride, nor an object of contempt. Now if amongst men, the differences of their powers of the mind, and of their complexion, ftature, and accidents of fortune, do not give to any one man a right to abuse or infult any other man: on account of thefe differences; for the fame reason, a man can have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast, merely because a beast has not the mental powers of a man. For fuch as the man is, he is but as GOD made him; and the very fame is true of the beaft.. Neither of them can lay claim to any in trinfic