Third Part — Chapter 2
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 high-wayes, 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 dogs 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 man, as swine,&c. these are only fed for slaughter we kill and eat them, and regard not their cryes and struglings when the knife is thrust to their very hearts; others are only ad usum, for service, while living, but unprofitable when dead; as Horses, these we make to drudge and toyl for us from day to day, but kill them not; others are both ad esum, & usum, for food when dead, and service while alive, as the Ox. These we make to plow our fields, draw our carriages, and afterwards prepare them for 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, gives us a famous instance in the following story: Two Cardinals (says 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 what he ailed? perceiving his eye intently fixed upon an ugly toad, he told them that his heart was melted with the consideration of this mercy, that God had not made him such a deformed and loathsom creature, though he were formed out of the same clay with it: Hoc est quod amare fleo, said he, This is that, that makes me weep bitterly. Whereupon one of the Cardinals cryes out, Well said the Father, the unlearned will rise and take heaven, when we with all our learning shall be thrust into 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 between our selves, and these irrational creatures, in these three particulars.
Though they and we were made of the same mould and clay, yet how much better has God dealt with us, even as to the outward man? the structure of our bodies is much more excellent. God made other creatures by a word of command, but man by counsel; it was not be You, but let us make man. We might have been nude stones without fence, or beasts without reason, but we were made men. The noble structure and symetry of our bodies invites our souls, not only to thankfulness, but admiration. David speaking of the curious frame of the body, says, 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 embroydered with nerves and veins. Was any part of the common lump of clay thus fashioned? Galen gave Epicu[•]us an hundred years time to imagine a more commodious situation, configuration, or composition of any one part of a humane body; and (as one says) of all the Angels in heaven had studied to this day, they could not have cast the body of man into a more curious mould.
How little ease or rest have they? they live not many years, and those they do is in bondage and misery, groaning under the effects of sin; but God has 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 refre[•]hments and comforts has God provided for us, of which they are uncapable? 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.
What a narrow capacity has 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 be 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 dye with the body; but our souls are a divine spark or blast; and when the body dyes, it dyes not with it, but subsists even in its separated state.
REFLECTIONS.
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 bruit beasts; they do in their way acknowledge their benefactors; The Ox knows his Owner, and the Ass his Masters 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 has done me good all my dayes; those poor creatures that sweat and groan under the loads that I lay upon them, never sinned against God, nor transgressed the Laws of their Creation as I have done; and yet God has dealt better with me than with them. Oh 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 you than with the beasts. 'Tis 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 has? that God has endowed me with reason, which is denied to me? Alas! this will but augment my misery, and enlarge me to take in a greater measure of anguish.
But how many steps (O my soul) mayest you ascend in the praises of your God, when you considerest the mercies that God has bestowed upon you! not only in that he made you, not a stone or tree without sense, or an horse, or dog without reason; but that you art not an infidel without light, or an unreg[•]nerate 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 unconceivable glory and felicity, which the unsanctified have not. O my soul! how rich! how bountiful has your God been to you! these are the overflowings of his love to you, 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 has been a good God to me.
The Poem.
WHen I behold a tyred Iade put on
With whip and spur; till all his strength be gone.
See streams of sweat run down his bleeding sides,
How little marcy's shewn by him that rides.
If I more thankless to my God don't prove,
Than such a Rider's 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 has this creature done, that he should be
Thus beaten, wounded, and tyr'd out by me?
He is my fellow-creature, 'tis meer 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 Iade.
He never sin'd, but for my sin does lye
Subjected to all this misery.
Lord, make my heart relent; that I should be
To you 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 bim
Too prodigal thereof, in wayes of sin;
Though he's the horse and I the man; 'twill be
Far better with my horse, one day than me:
Unless your grace prevent, and super-add
A new Creation; to that I had.
Could ev'ry Rider fix a serious thought
On such a subject, and hereby he taught
To spiritualize it, and improve it thus;
How sweet, would tedious journeys be to us?
But such a task, a graceless heart dogs out
More than the tyred horse, I write about.
