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And what if fome of the creatures, fwifter of foot or wing than the tamer kind, should fometimes feize upon a harmless and defenceless animal not under the diftreffed cafe before fuppofed? This fhould be confidered as an accidental evil hardly to be avoided in the present state of things. In brutes it is a natural, and not a moral evil. Ferocity, ftrength, and a carnivorous appetite are effentially neceffary to brutes of prey; and the Divine Being does not interpose to alter their natures, if by chance they meet with a sheep or a man. It is neceffary that they fhould be favage, to anfwer the purposes of their creation; elfe they would not have

been fo created. It is as necef

fary,

fary, as that Soldiers and Executioners of the Law fhould be firm, refolute, and in fome degree unfeeling. All that men have to do with regard to noxious brutes is to keep out of their way, and arm themselves against their attacks. But in this country we have not much room for dread. We have neither Lions, Tigers, nor Wolves to moleft us. Therefore, for us to infer, that men may be cruel to brutes in general, because fome brutes are naturally fierce and blood thirsty, is tantamount to saying, Cruelty in Britain is no fin, because there are Wild Tigers in India. But is their ferocity and brutality to be the ftandard and pattern of our humanity? And, because they have

no compaffion, are we to have no compaflion? Because they have: little or no reason, are we to have no reason? Or, are we to become as very brutes as they? However, we need not go as far as India ; for even in England Dogs will. worry, and Cocks will fight; (though not fo often, if we did not fet them on, and prepare them for the battle.) Yet what is that to us? Are we Dogs? Are we fighting Cocks? Are they to be cur Tutors and Inftructors, that we appeal to them for arguments to juftify and palliate our inhumanity? No. Let Tigers roar, let Dogs worry, and Cocks fight; but it is aftonishing, that MEN, who boaft so much of the Dignity of their nature, the fuperior

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perior Excellence of their understandings, and the Immortality of their fouls, (which by the by is a circumftance, which cruel men above all others have the leaft reason to glory in,) fhould disgrace their dignity and understandings, by recurring to the practice of the low and confeffedly irrational part

the creation in vindication of their own conduct. There may be fome cases indeed in which we may receive inftruction from them;: and there may be cafes too, in which a wife man may learn inftruction from a fool; but it is not therefore necessary that a wife man fhould too implicitly and at all times follow the Apostle's rule (1 Cor. iii. 18.) to become a fool that he may be wife; nor is it neceffary that a man fhould transform F 4 himfelf

himfelf into a Beaft, to learn the behaviour becoming a Man. Whatever is good deferves our imitation, whether it be in an Afs or a Pifmire. Go to the ANT, thou fluggard, fays Solomon (Prov. vi. 6.) Confider her ways and be wife. But if a man's capacity is not fo exalted as that of a pifmire, or if he is become stupid and obftinate; then fend him for inftruction to an Ox or an Afs; for it is thus that Ifrael was reproved for ignorance and ingratitude (Ifa. i. 3.) The OX knoweth his Owner, and the ASS his master's crib, but Ifrael doth not know, my People doth not confider*. There are fome cafes

there

*There is a fimilar kind of reproof to the fame people in the Prophet Jeremiah. Ch. viii, Ver. 7. The STORK in the heaven knoweth ber

appointed

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