CHAPTER II: Upon the hard Labour, and cruel Usage of Beasts
CHAPTER II
Upon the hard Labour, and cruel Usage of Beasts When under loads your beasts do groan, think then
How great a mercy 'tis that you are men.
OBSERVATION
THOUGH some men be excessively careful and tender over their beasts, as was noted in the former chapter; yet others are cruel and merciless towards them, not regarding how they ride or burden them. How often have I seen them fainting under their loads, wrought off their legs, and turned out with galled backs into the fields or highways to shift for a little grass; many times have I heard and pitied them groaning under unreasonable burdens, and beaten on by merciless drivers, till at last, by such cruel usage, they have been destroyed, and then cast into a ditch for dog's meat.
APPLICATION
SUCH sights as these should make men thankful for the mercy of their creation, and bless their bountiful Creator, that they were not made such creatures themselves. Some beasts are made ad esum, only for food, being no otherwise useful to men, as swine, &c. These are only fed for slaughter; we kill and eat them, and regard not their cries and strugglings when the knife is thrust to their very hearts! others are only ad usum, for service whilst living, but unprofitable when dead, as horses; these we make to drudge and toil for us from day to day, but kill them not; others are both ad esum, et usum, for food when dead, and service whilst alive, as the ox; these we make to
plow our fields, draw our carriages, and afterwards prepare them for the slaughter.
But man was made for nobler ends, created lord of the lower world; not to serve, but to be served by other creatures, a mercy able to melt the hardest heart into thankfulness. I remember, Luther* pressing men to be thankful, that they are not brought into the lowest condition of creatures, and to bless God that they can see any creature below themselves, give us a famous instance in the following story: Two cardinals (saith he) riding in a great deal of pomp to the council of Constance, by the way they heard a man in the fields, weeping and wailing bitterly; they rode to him, and asked him what he ailed? Perceiving his eye intently fixed upon an ugly toad, he told them that his heart melted with the consideration of this mercy, that God had not made him such a deformed and loathsome creature, though he were formed out of the same clay with it: Hoc est quod amare fleo, said he, this is that which makes me weep bitterly.
Whereupon one of the cardinals cried out, Well, said the father, the unlearned will rise and take heaven, when we with all our learning shall be thrusti nto hell. That which melted the heart of this poor man, should melt every heart when we behold the misery to which these poor creatures are subjected. And this will appear a mercy of no slight consideration, if we but draw a comparison betwixt ourselves and these irrational creatures, in these three particulars.
1. Though they and we were made of the same mould and clay, yet how much better hath God dealt with us, even as to the outward man? The structure of our bodies is much more excellent; God made other good creatures by a word of command, but man by counsel; it was not, Be thou, but, Let us make man. We might have been made stones without sense, or beasts without reason, but we were made men. The noble structure and symmetry of our bodies invite our
souls not only to thankfulness but admiration. David, speaking of the curious frame of the body, saith, "I am wonderfully made," Psal.
139:14, or, as the vulgar reads it, painted as with a needle, like some rich piece of needle-work curiously embroidered with nerves and veins. Was any part of the common lump of clay thus fashioned?
Galen gave Epicurus an hundred years time to imagine a more commodious situation, configuration, or composition of any one part of a human body: and (as one saith) if all the angels in heaven had studied to this day, they could not have cast the body of man into a more curious mould.
2. How little ease or rest have they? They live not many years, and those they do are in bondage and misery, groaning under the effects of sin; but God hath provided better for us, even as to our outward condition in the world; we have the more rest, because they have so little. How many refreshments and comforts hath God provided for us, of which they are incapable? If we be weary with labour, we can take our rest; but fresh or weary, they must stand to it, or sink under it from day to day.
3. What a narrow capacity hath God given to beasts! What a large capacity to man! Alas, they are only capable of a little sensitive pleasure; as you shall see sometimes, how they will frisk in a green pasture; this is all they are capable of, and this death puts an end to: but how comprehensive are our souls in their capacities? We are made in the image of God; we can look beyond present things, and are capable of the highest happiness, and that to all eternity: the soul of a beast is but a material form, which, wholly depending upon, must needs die with the body; but our souls are a divine spark or blast; and when the body dies, it dies not with it, but subsists even in its separated state.
REFLECTIONS
1. How great a sin is ingratitude to God for such a common, but choice mercy of creation and provision for me in this world? There is no creature made worse by kindness, but man. There is a kind of gratitude which I may observe, even in these brute beasts: they do in their way acknowledge their benefactors; "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib." How ready are they to serve such as feed and cherish them? But I have been both unthankful and unserviceable to my Creator and Benefactor, that hath done me good all my days; those poor creatures that sweat and groan under the load that I lay upon them, never sinned against God, nor transgressed the laws of their creation, as I have done; and yet God hath dealt better with me than with them. O that the bounty of God, and his distinguishing mercy between me and the beasts that perish, might move and melt my heart into thankfulness! O that I might consider seriously what the higher and more excellent end of my creation is, and might more endeavour to answer and live up to it! Or else, O my soul, it will be worse with thee than the beasts: it is true, they are under bondage and misery; but it is but for a little time; death will end all their pains, and ease them of all their heavy loads; but I shall groan to all eternity, under a heavier burden than ever they felt; they have no account to give, but so have I. What comfort is it, that I have a larger capacity than a beast hath? That God hath endowed me with reason, which is denied to them? Alas! this will but augment my misery, and enlarge me to take in a greater measure of anguish.
2. By how many steps, O my soul! mayest thou ascend in the praises of thy God, when thou considerest the mercies that God hath bestowed upon thee; not only in that he made thee not a stone or tree without sense, or an horse or dog without reason; but that thou art
not an infidel without light, or an unregenerate person without grace? What! to have sense, and all the delights of it, which stones have not! Reason, with the more high and noble pleasures of it, which beasts have not! the light and knowledge of the great things of the gospel, which the heathens have not! and such an expectation and hope of inconceivable glory and felicity, which the unsanctified have not! O my soul! how rich, how bountiful hath thy God been to thee! These are the overflowings of his love to thee who wast moulded out of the same lump with the beasts that groan on earth, yea, with the damned that howl in hell: well may I say that God hath been a good God to me!
THE POEM WHEN I behold a tired jade put on With whip and spur till all his strength be gone;
See streams of sweat run down his bleeding sides, How little mercy's shewn by him that rides.
If I more thankful to my God would prove Than such a rider merciless, 'twill move
My soul to praise: For who sees this, and can But bless the Lord that he was made a man.
And such a sight the rider ought to move This meditation duly to improve.
What hath this creature done, that he should be
Thus beaten, wounded, and tir'd out by me?
He is my fellow-creature; 'tis mere grace I had not been in his, he in my case.
Ungrateful, stupid man! God might have made Me bear the saddle, as I see this jade.
He never sinn'd, but for my sin doth lie Subjected unto all this misery.
Lord, make my heart relent, that I should be To thee more useless than my horse to me:
He did his utmost, went as long as ever His legs could bear him; but for me I never
Thus spent my strength for God, but oft have been Too prodigal thereof in ways of sin.
Though he's the horse, and I the man, 'twill be Far better with my horse one day than me:
Unless thy grace prevent and superadd A new creation unto that I had.
Could every reader fix a serious thought