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animals enow, quadrupeds, birds, and infects, that are ready to feize upon the carcafe; and to them it is, in the mostputrid ftate, grateful and wholesome food.

Man is a carnivorous animal, but it is happy for the animals which he lives upon that he is fo. What a number of cows, and fheep, and fowls, do we feed, attend upon, and make happy; which, otherwife, would either have had no existence at all, or a very miferable one; and what is a fudden and unexpected death, compared with their previous enjoyment; with a life fpent in far greater pleasure and fatisfaction than they could otherwise have known?

Farther, all the evils we complain of are the refult of what we call general laws, in confequence of which the fame events invariably follow from the fame previous circumftances; and without those general laws, all would be uncertainty and confufion. Thus it follows from the general

law

law of gravitation, that bodies heavier than the air will, when unfupported, fall to the ground. Now cannot we conceive that it is better, upon the whole, that this law of nature, which is productive of a thousand benefits every moment, and whereby the whole earth, and probably the whole univerfe is held together, fhould be preserved invariably, than that it fhould be fufpended whenever any temporary inconvenience would arife from it; as whenever a man fhould step from a precipiece, to prevent his breaking his bones, or being dafhed to pieces? If there were no general laws of nature, caufing the fame effects to follow from the fame previous circumftances, there would be no exercise for the wifdom and understanding of intelligent beings; and, confequently, we fhould not be in circumstances in which we could arrive at the proper perfection and happiness of our natures. If there were no general laws, we could not know what events to expect, or depend upon, in confequence of any thing B. 3

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we did. We could have none of that pleasure and fatisfaction that we now have in contemplating the courfe of nature, which might be one thing to day, and another to morrow; and as no man could lay a scheme with a profpect of accomplifhing it, we fhould foon become liftlefs and indifferent to every thing, and confequently unhappy.

It may be said, that we might have been differently conftituted, so as to have been happy in a world not governed by general laws, and not liable to partial evils. But there is no end of those fuppofitions, which, for any thing that we can tell, may be, in their own nature, impoffible. All that we can do, in thefe difficult fpeculations, is to confider the connections and tendencies of things as they now are; and if we see reason to conclude that, ceteris manentibus, nothing could be changed for the better, we may alfo conclude that the fyftem itself could not be changed for a better; fince the fame wifdom that has fo

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perfectly adapted the various parts of the fame fcheme, fo as to make it productive of the most happiness, may well be supposed to have made choice of the fcheme itself, as calculated to contain the most happiness. Even divine power cannot produce impoffibilities; and for any thing that we know, it may be as naturally impoffible to execute any scheme free from the inconveniences, that we complain of in this, as that two and two should make more than four.

Upon the whole, the face of things is fuch as gives us abundant reason to conclude, that God made every thing with at view to the happiness of his creatures and offspring. And we are confirmed in this fuppofition, from confidering the utter impoffibility of conceiving of any end that could be answered to himself in the mifery of his creatures; whereas the divine being may be conceived to rejoice in, and perhaps receive pleasure from the happiness of all around him. This, howB 4

ever,

ever, is the most honourable idea that we can form of any being; and can it be fupposed that our maker would have conftituted us in fuch a manner, as that our natural ideas of perfection and excellence fhould not be applicable to the effential attributes of his own nature? Our natural approbation of love and benevolence is, therefore, a proof of the divine benevolence, as it cannot be fuppofed that he fhould have made us to hate, and not to love himself.

That every part of fo complex a fyftem as this should be fo formed, as to conspire to promote this one great end, namely the happiness of the creation, is a clear proof of the wifdom of God. The proper evidence of defign, or contrivance is fuch a fitness of means to gain any end, that the correfpondence between them cannot be supposed to be the result of what we call accident, or chance. Now there are so many adaptations of one thing to another in the fyftem of nature, that

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