vage kinds should put off the nature of evil beasts, as formerly when they had all lived quietly under the same roof in Noah's ark, a figure of the Church of Christ. The New Testament carries on the same mode of instruction, and Peter is taught in a vision that a communication was to be opened between the Jews and the Gentiles, under the figure of a liberty to eat all kinds of unclean beasts, now to be made clean by their reception to the purity of the Gospel *. Even the ill qualities of the great adversary of mankind are set forth for our dread and abhorrence, from Genesis to the Revelation, under the emblem of the old serpent, cursed above every beast of the field; insidious, insinuating, double-tongued, and having the power of death in his bite. We see him again under the emblem of a roaring lion, going about and seeking whom he may devour. Thus are all the creatures serviceable, both good and bad, in giving us ideas for the improvement of the mind and manners. 2. We may observe next, that industry and activity are recommended to us by the example of the whole animal creation. All work, that they may eat; and therefore, he who does not work, is not fit to live. All creatures seek their meat from God; it is not provided for any of them in an inactive state, but they must employ themselves to find and obtain it. Birds of the air are upon the wing from morning till evening. Wild creatures must hunt before they can be fed. Some partake of that sentence of labour passed upon man after the fall, and labour with him for their daily food. If it is then the appointment of God, that all his creatures should be in action, the idle man is a monster in the creation, who must pay for his offence * See Acts x. Compare verses 14, 15, and 28. either by poverty, sickness, ignorance, or vice; and must, in some respect or other, become a nuisance to society; on which consideration, it is a great evil in government to maintain any, or to suffer any, for want of employment, to live idly. 3. From the state of beasts under the dominion of man, as God hath wisely established it, the parallel is very strong for the benefit and necessity of government amongst mankind. Among brute beasts we find the two classes of wild and tame, totally differing in their manners, and in a state of hostility with each other. Man is over them all, to feed the gentle and domestic, to reward the laborious, and to secure them from the incursions of the common enemy. To the one sort he is a governor and protector; to the other an avenger, who ought not to bear the sword in vain; for if he does, he himself must suffer by it as well as the beasts that are committed to his care; the enemy being equally at war with both. Let us now suppose this law of subordination and subjection to be dissolved: let us suppose the authority of man to be withdrawn, and all animals abandoned to their natural liberty: what would be the consequence? The swine would make his part good by his impudence, and would root up the fruits of the earth in fields or gardens at his pleasure. Foxes, and other vermin, would no longer be thieves, because there would be none to judge them, and so they would take what they wanted by natural right. The wolves would scatter the sheep and tear them to pieces: the dogs, having no master to encourage and direct them, would forget their duty, and join the enemy: and thus the best part of the animal creation would become a prey to the worst. The dogs might perchance quarrel sometimes with a wolf: but the sheep would be no gainers by that. In order to bring things to this state, the wolf might persuade the sheep, that the power of the shepherd is an imposition, a base encroachment of that tyrant and usurper man; that all creatures are born free and equal; and that they would see blessed times, if they were to assert their natural rights and become independent. The wolf, that should thus argue for universal liberty, would be a wise wolf; for he would be a gainer: but the sheep that should admit the argument, and bring up her lambs in the doctrine, would be a silly sheep indeed; for she would soon be a loser, chased out of her pasture, and worried out of her life. Among men there certainly is the same difference as among the beasts. There is a sort of them with hard and unfeeling tempers, impudent foreheads, idle dispositions, voracious appetites, and endless wants : who will push themselves into importance, and make their party good either by importunity or by force. There is another sort, modest, sober, and gentle; fearful of offending, and contented with a little. This difference, so obvious and indisputable, is totally overlooked by those who plead for universal liberty and natural equality: for men are no more equal in their natures than the lamb and the dion's whelp and supposing liberty to be universal, the bold, the impudent, the idle, and the rapacious, instantly make their fortunes out of the peaceable and the patient. Therefore these can never live together in the world, but under the ordinance of God, who has appointed an authority of law and magistracy, which lays a common restraint upon all: whence all good men, who mean well and know their duty, will pray for those who are in authority, that God would direct their counsels and strengthen their hands in the execution of his laws, for the cominon good: that the fences may not be weak, nor the beast of prey find friends and accomplices within the fold. It is of pernicious consequence to the peace of mankind, that there is a certain wild spirit of reforming policy, which, whether it works with the commanding air and garb of philosophy, or with the powers of oratory, or the fancies of poetry, can never rest till it has made men wolves to one another; for, as things are, this must be the effect of natural equality brought to its proper issue. If we would reason like men, let us first inform ourselves from the regulations and laws which God hath established in the world: this will be our best philosophy: When oratory takes us off from this ground, it is nothing but sophistry; and poetry, when it misrepresents the nature of things, is delusion and madness. 4. But now, fourthly, as the animal creation sets before us the natural interests of men in society, it leads us farther on to the attributes and perfections of God; as the stream, if we trace it upwards, must bring us to the fountain. The whole world, as an effect, is so constituted as to instruct us in the nature of its cause. Thus the effect of motion in the world demonstrates a cause which has motion from itself, and in which all other motion must begin. Derivative life in living creatures must descend from a life which is original; that is, from a Being, who, as the Scriptures speaks, only hath immortality. The faculty of sight, so piercing and some creatures, and so necessary to all, an all-seeing Power, from which nothing extensive in directs us to can be hid. He that made the eye must see with perfect sight, and be the witness of our secret thoughts. The appearance of mechanical art in animals, which is wonderful and incomprehensible in some kinds, is a specimen or emanation of that consummate art and skill which are in the Creator himself. Natural affection in animals toward their young is a proof that the Creator, who infused it, hath the same affection to his own creatures; especially to man; for we are his offspring. The workings of natural affection in the creature are appealed to, as a sign or pledge of his own tender mercies to us: can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Our Saviour insists upon a like example in nature to give us an idea of his own tenderness towards his people: how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings! From these and other like examples, we infer with certainty, that whatsoever is good or excellent in the creature, the original of all that goodness is in the Creator himself; the whole world being as it were a transcript or tranfusion of the Divine Mind, 5. Lastly, from the consideration of those wonderful instincts which are found in living creatures, it should be our earnest desire and our highest ambition to have God for our teacher. The stork, the turtle, the crane, and the swallow, know their appointed times, and find an unbeaten invisible track through the air, and over the wide ocean, to a distant climate. The spider spreads and suspends its web by the nicest rules of art. The beaver, the architect of the waters, builds an habitation which no human architect could * Jer. viii. 7. |