FREE THOUGHTS UPON THE BRUTE-CREATION: OR, AN EXAMINATION OF Father BOUGEANT's Philofophical Amusement, &c. In Two LETTERS to a LADY. Job xii. 7, 8, 9, 10. But ask now the beafts, and they fhall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they fhall tell thee. Or fpeak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; and the fifbes of the fea fhall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all thefe, that the hand of the Lord bath wrought this? In whofe hand is the foul of every living thing, and the breath (Spirit) of all mankind. By JOHN HILDROP, M. A. Rector of Wath, near Rippon in Yorkshire: And Chaplain to the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin. LONDON. Printed for R. MINORS, Bookfeller and Stationer, in St. Clement's Church-yard, M.DCC.XLII. I DARE fay you have made many a merry Reflection upon the good Company and Converfation we lately enjoyed at B-ton: for my own part, I can never think of it without laughing. Methinks I hear my little Doctor pouring forth all his Rhetoric and Logic upon an abstruse Queftion, which I was fure he had not Capacity enough to understand. I fee, and hear, and admire his modest Affurance, uncapable of Contradiction, affirming without Proof, and concluding without Premifes, that all the Animal Functions and Operations B of A of the Brute-Creation (which different Philofophers had afcribed to different Causes, such as Mechanifin, Inftinct, Subftantial Forms, &c.) were entirely owing to the Operation of evil Spirits, who are the moving Principle in every one of them. As this Thought was quite new to me, and perfectly oppofite to all the Sentiments I had ever entertained upon that Queftion, I could not for my life imagine, where he had pick'd up this new Philosophy, which had almoft frighted fome of the Company out of their Senfes.-I fhall never forget the puzzled afflicted Face of the honeft Juftice, who, tho' a very good Proteftant, and in all other refpects of blameless Life and Conversation, had fpent fo many Years in following a Pack of Devils, which he had innocently mistaken for a Pack of harmless Beagles.-But the whimsical Diftreffes of the poor Ladies, gave me no fmall Diverfion. Sweet Mifs Jenny, who has lavish'd away more Kiffes upon her favourite -Cat, than fhe would bestow upon the best Man in the Parish, felt fome compunction within herself, that the had been wantonly, and almost maliciously, throwing away thofe Careffes upon an evil Spirit, which many a good Chriftian would have been glad of. Dear Mifs Harriot had the fame regret for her beloved Monkey, and poor Dolly for her Parrot; and refolved, oneand-all, never to hold commerce or correfpondence with evil Spirits for the future, in whatever amiable Shape or Figure they might appear; which, I apprehended, could end in nothing lefs |