thee, how difagreeable foever the task may be: and though you would forbear to help the man himfelf out of difficulty, because he is thine enemy and hateth thee, yet for the fake of the poor creature, thou shalt furely help with bim to lift him up. The ASS is not to bear his Master's tranfgreffion. The Beast is innocent, though the master is guilty and to refuse to the wretched brute thy attention and affistance, because the mafter hateth thee, is a weak, a cruel, and a misplaced revenge.

:

If any Brute, then, be in distress, and we know it, and are able to relieve him, it is our Duty, and we are COMMANDED to do it, whether S. 4

the

the Owner be known or unknown to us; and whether he be our friend or our foe. And, if we are required to fhew mercy to the Cattle of Strangers and Enemies, it is felf-evident that we ought to abound in mercy to our Own Cattle, whether OXEN, or ASSES, or HORSES, or any other kind. HORSES indeed are not mentioned in any of the foregoing precepts and examples, because they were not in common use amongst the Jews, who plowed with OXEN, and rode and carried burthens upon ASSES; yet the rule of Equity extends the Commandment to ALL the Creatures intrufted to our care, and included under the general denomination of CATTLE, which we are neither to MuzZLE,

nor

1

nor to OVERWORK, nor to OVERLOAD, nor to ILL TREAT, nor in any wife to NEGLECT OF ABUSe.

I cannot entirely quit this fubject concerning the Creatures which are appointed for our service, without taking notice of one remarkable inftance of the compaffion of GOD towards them, recorded in the Sacred Writings. Our Dominion over the CATTLE is apt to fuggeft to us the notion, that as they are fo much inferior to Men, and made, as it were, dependent upon us for their daily bread, they are removed at too great a diftance to be the objects of the Divine Love. Yet there was a day, when these very Brutes were the Mediators between the Vengeance

of

of an offended GOD, and the Provocations of finful MEN; when they stood in the gap, between the Sentence of Judgment denounced, and the Execution of it. For, when the hand of the Almighty was lifted up to destroy the great city of NINEVEH for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein, the Innocence of the CATTLE, as well as the Innocence of the Little Children, averted for a time the wrath of indignant heaven. Shall I not Spare Nineveh, faid the Lord unto JONAH, Shall I not fpare Nineveh, that great City, wherein are more than fix fcore thoufand perfons, that cannot difcern between their right band and their left hand, and also MUCH CATTLE? Jonah iv. 11,

EX

EXTENSIVE no lefs than compaffionate is the fublime and benevolent Precept of our blessed Savior, Be Ye MERCIFUL, as your FATHER alfo is MERCIFUL (Luke vi. 36). With what views or into what narrow compass, the pride or selfishness of men may have contracted this heavenly precept, I afk not but the inference I would draw from it is this, -That if GOD hath displayed his Goodnefs and Mercy towards the Brutes in his CREATION of them, in his PROVIDENCE Over them, and in his gracious INTERPOSITION on their behalf in prefcribing RULES in his written word for our conduct towards them, then it be

comes