14. Objection against a changeling being something between a man and beast, answered.
Here everybody will be
ready to ask, If changelings may be supposed something between man and beast, pray what are they? I answer,
changelings; which is as good a word to signify something different from the signification of man or beast, as the
names man and beast are to have significations different one from the other. This, well considered, would resolve
this matter, and show my meaning without any more ado. But I am not so unacquainted with the zeal of some
men, which enables them to spin consequences, and to see religion threatened, whenever any one ventures to quit
their forms of speaking, as not to foresee what names such a proposition as this is like to be charged with: and
without doubt it will be asked, If changelings are something between man and beast, what will become of them in
the other world? To which I answer, I. It concerns me not to know or inquire. To their own master they stand or
fall. It will make their state neither better nor worse, whether we determine anything of it or no. They are in the
hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father, who disposes not of his creatures according to our narrow
thoughts or opinions, nor distinguishes them according to names and species of our contrivance. And we that
know so little of this present world we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being peremptory in
defining the different states which creatures shall come into when they go off this stage. It may suffice us, that He
hath made known to all those who are capable of instruction, discoursing, and reasoning, that they shall come to
an account, and receive according to what they have done in this body.
