the forms and names of such animals remain, their character and nature will be changed: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."[1] Now here, we see it plainly declared, that when a state shall come, in which "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord," in other words, when man shall universally know, revere, and obey his Maker, then fierce and destructive animals will no more exist, but all things in the animal creation will be in harmony with each other and with man; or if the forms of such animals remain, their natures, at least, will be quite changed, and they will exist only in a state of complete tameness and subjection. Now, may it not with strict justice be argued,—nay, may it not with certainty be concluded, that, if in a future good and innocent state of mankind in a future Eden, such a state of things will exist,—then, in the original innocent state of mankind, in the former Eden, a similar state of things did exist, and that no fierce or noxious animals were in being. Or if the forms of such animals were in existence, their nature was entirely different, their dispositions harmless. As, however, we cannot well conceive the object of giving a creature
- ↑ Isaiah xi. 6—9.
