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This likewife is true; and in the present ftate of nature, subject to mifery and decay, it feems to be the wife and good appointment of the great Creator. Were there no beasts or birds of prey, we should every day be tormented with the fight of numbers of poor creatures dying by inches, (as we fay) and pining away through age or accidental infirmity. And, when dead upon the ground, (as men would hardly give themselves the trouble to bury them; or it would take up too much of our time to bury them all,) the unburied carcafes would by their ftench create fuch a peftilence in the air, as would not only endanger our lives and health, but would likewife be extremely

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extremely offenfive to us. To guard against these evils, it hath pleased GOD to appoint that (in some countries) Lions, Tygers, and Eagles, (and, in other countries,) Wolves, Foxes, Kites, Ravens, and Hawks should range the woods and fields in fearch of the unburied bodies, and thus become the living graves of the dead. And if, in the course of their range or flight, they efpy a beaft or bird worn out with age, or with a leg or wing by accident broken, or forfaken by his dam, unable to help himself, or any way rendered incapable of getting his own food; GOD, the Father of Mercies, hath ordained Beafts and Birds of Prey to do that diftreffed creature the kindness to relieve

relieve him from his mifery, by putting him to death. A kindnefs which We dare not fhew to our own fpecies. If thy father, thy brother, or thy child fhould fuffer the utmost pains of a long and agonizing fickness, though his groans fhould pierce through thy heart, and with ftrong crying and tears he should beg thy relief, yet thou must be deaf unto him; he must wait his appointed time till his change cometh, till he finks and is crushed with the weight of his mifery. But then, in all buman affliction, whether our own or others, (not the punifhment or effect of vice and debauchery,) we may comfort our→ felves and them with the hope of a bleffed

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a bleffed immortality, when * all tears fhall be wiped from our eyes; when there fhall be no more death, neither forrow nor crying, neither fhall there be any more pain. Human hope is human support and comfort. But what hope is there to fupport and comfort the brutes under their affliction? They are incapable of hope, because they can neither reflect nor foresee. The present moment is as eternity to them. All their happiness is in this life only; they have neither thought nor hope of another. Therefore when they are miserable, their misery is the more infupportable. And when they can no longer enjoy happiness, Death is welcome; and the more wel* Rev. xxi. 4.

come,

come, the fooner it comes; and fudden death more defirable than a lingering painful Life. And whilft the poor animal is thus kindly delivered from his pain by precipitated death, the Creature that devours him has his degree of happiness therein, and will himfelf one day meet with the fame kind treatment from fome other beast or bird, when he is no longer able to enjoy life. This is not cruelty but mercy : as much mercy, as it is to shoot thy horse or thy dog, when all his teeth are gone, and the happiness of his life is at an end*.

* See Dr. Priestley's Inftitutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, Vol. i. Part 1.

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