but beneath this item there is no result, but is the effect of some latent power, tending to their several ends.

But as a wise sovereign, he does those things only which are consistent to be done; therefore we conclude, that He will maintain order in his works; and for this very reason, also, I reject the idea of an animal resurrection.

The first instance of inconsistency, upon the supposition that beasts arise from the dead, is, that it will become absolutely necessary for the Creator to endow them with a portion of rational understanding; or else they cannot know that they have had a prior existence, and that their resurrection is to remunerate them for their former sorrows, occasioned by the act of another kind of being, called man.

But if this shall not be the fact, their ignorance of their former condition will entirely spoil the idea of a recompense; in which case, it would evidently be as well for the Creator, (if there must be animals) to make an entire new creation of dumb beasts, in preference to raising these of our earth to life again. And if it be necessary for them to receive a rational understanding, in order that they may receive information that they had previously existed in a dumb state, would it be inconsistent, in connection with this view, to suppose, that at some future time in the lapse of ages, when the great wheel of things has made its mystic revolutions, but they may receive another change for the better? and so at last arrive at the full stature of intelligent being: and thus corroborate the atheistical notion, that nature, in her multifarious revolutions, did at length,

from the womb of everlasting ages, produce, as the climax of her power, the creature man.

A second instance of inconsistency will appear, when we examine with what bodies they are to come forth. If they shall arise with spiritualized bodies, which have passed from a gross nature to a celestial one, then indeed we shall have realized the Indian's fancied heaven, where he imagines that his native woods, with hills and vales, and running floods, will again appear, with all the game of a thousand mountains, to be objects of an everlasting chase.

But if they are raised up natural animals, they will again require the pasture of the mountains, with every kind of food which is natural to their comfort, which will again produce the procreative power-the multiplication of their numbers will of necessity follow; and in order to this, the earth must remain as it is, time without end; which idea at once contradicts the doctrine of the earth's being destroyed by fire.

But if that prophecy is truth, which states, that there is coming a day whereon the heavens shall be on fire, and the elements are to melt with fervent heat-when the earth, with all its works shall be burnt up-when every mountain and island shall flee away, and there shall be no more sea; where then shall the animal kingdom have a resting place, or where shall the fowls winnow the passing winds, or the fish sport among their accustomed waves? or where shall they be kept in safety, till the dreadful storm is passed away?

Much learned labour has been bestowed, to render the subject of an animal resurrection plausible, foundCc

ed on the supposition, that justice itself is bound to remunerate them for supposed sufferings. But it appears to me, that certain proof should first be come at, before we make such deductions. A consciousness of suffering is absolutely wanting in the whole animal world. Their grade in being does not arise high enough to possess a conscious knowledge of suffering, so as to deplore and lament it. Here is manifest the wisdom of God, who, while he made animal natures capable of feeling, denied the power of rational thinking; therefore, are not conscious so as to deplore pain when they feel it. This alone is possessed by man-a consciousness, so as to deplore pain when it is know. ingly felt; but even man is not conscious of pain when asleep. Some kinds of animals show signs of life even after their heads are taken off, viz. the tortoise, several kinds of fish, and serpents; but there is no knowledge of pain, though the flesh agonizés. It follows, then, that if their heads were on, unless endowed with a consciousness of knowledge, and sense enough to deplore such pain, that their suffering is not of that sort which might expect redress from the Creator. This argument I would apply to all animals, from the insect up to the most sagacious beasts of the field. But if animals must arise from the dead, then it will follow, that no exceptions are to be made, and will extend to every minutia of animation, embracing every species, with every particular insect that ever existed, even the vermes of the human body, as well as of animals, which loads the opinion with contempt beyond endu

Finally: that doctrine which pleads a resurrection of animals to a future state, plainly charges the Creator with folly; inasmuch as that work which he pronounced very good, is so constituted, as finally to be reduced to calamity necessarily, (not by choice, as was the case with man) so as to justify a demand even on the justice of the Creator of a remuneration. But I think I have proven in the preceding pages, that animals were created subject to death, without any reference to the sin of man; and therefore, it being an appointment of the Creator, no remuneration should be ex-pected for animals, any more than for vegetation, which also is appointed to die annually. The death which was brought into the world by sin, falls on man's body and soul, but not on beast. These effects, which are similar in appearance, are the result of dissimilar causes. The first came by sin, but the latter by the appointment of the Creator.

TWELFTH DIVISION,

Presents a view of the vast mutiplication of mankind during the Millennium, and of the happiness of their political state; and who they are that will attempt to make war upon the camp of the saints, called Gog and Magog; and why Satan must be loosed out of his prison a little season, after the Millennium; and in what manner they will attempt an attack upon the camp of the saints, and of their final end.

If God at first ordain'd the procreative birth,

That men should multiply on all the new made earth;
If marriage then was holy, then was bless'd of heav'n,
When first the only two were to each other giv'n :
So when Millennial years shall all that's evil hide,
The human race restor'd, shall then be multipli'd.

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That the multiplication of the human race will be immensely great during the Millennium, there cannot be a doubt. This the Revelator seems strongly to intimate, when he speaks of the army of Gog and Magog, which will begin to exalt itself against the camp of the saints in the four quarters of the earth, whose