MINORITY REPORT – PART TWO: 

JOHN WESLEY AND HUMPHREY PRIMATT

We may pretend to what religion we please, but cruelty is atheism.
We may make our boast of Christianity; but cruelty is infidelity. We may trust to our orthodoxy; but cruelty is the worst of heresies.

                                                                  ~ Rev.  Humphrey Primatt 

This post picks up the discussion I began earlier addressing the fact that, while the church as an institution may have been silent about -- or even hostile to -- the idea of animal welfare as a Christian concern, there have always been people of faith with a different view.  John Wesley and Humphrey Primatt were two eighteenth century Anglican clergy who understood our obligations for mercy toward animals as a matter of faith and spoke publicly about it. 

John Wesley, who founded the Methodist tradition, addressed the issue most directly in his 1771 sermon, The GeneralDeliverance.  Humphrey Primatt is much less well-known today, but he tackled the issue head-on in a tract of some 300-plus pages titled ADissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals, published in 1776.  They do not agree on all the theological particulars, but they do agree that we have an obligation as followers of Christ to be merciful to all God’s creatures. 

John Wesley

In The General Deliverance, John Wesley presaged modern theories of the image of God as a functional matter, requiring us to represent God to the rest of creation.  He argued that in their perfect state, prior to sin, humans were distinguished from animals by the human ability to be in relationship with God, and that in the gift of dominion “man was God's vicegerent upon earth, the prince and governor of this lower world; and all the blessings of God flowed through him to the inferior creatures.  Man was the channel of conveyance between his Creator and the whole brute creation.”[1]  With the Fall, Wesley argued, humans ceased to fulfill that purpose, and the animals were cut off from God; but they will be redeemed by Him in the new creation.  This idea is worth considering, he explained, for three reasons.  First, it is a comfort to humans because if God cares even for the animals, we can be assured he will care that much more for humans.  Second, it demonstrates the justice of God, that he will not let their earthly sufferings go unnoticed or unredeemed.  Third, such considerations

may encourage us to imitate Him whose mercy is over all His works. They may soften our hearts towards the meaner creatures, knowing that the Lord careth for them. It may enlarge our hearts towards those poor creatures, to reflect that, as vile as they appear in our eyes, not one of them is forgotten in the sight of our Father which is in heaven. Through all the vanity to which they are now subjected, let us look to what God hath prepared for them. Yea, let us habituate ourselves to look forward, beyond this present scene of bondage, to the happy time when they will be delivered therefrom into the liberty of the children of God.

Primatt’s powerful tract was even more direct in his call for compassion toward animals.  In A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals, Primatt argued forcefully that there can be no true Christian religion without compassion for all God’s animals and that humans will be called to account by God for their cruelties.[2]  He opened with a grim, if realistic, assessment of the state of affairs, whereby  “consciousness of our own dignity and excellence” leads humans to believe that we alone are deserving of mercy and compassion, and “misled by this prejudice,” we disregard some animals as unworthy of our notice and consider others simply as created for our benefit, and are “indifferent to their happiness or misery, and can hardly bring ourselves to suppose that there is any kind of duty incumbent upon us toward them.”[3]  It is to counter this “mistaken notion” that Primatt wrote his treatise.[4]  In it, Primatt demonstrates that kindness to animals is not only consistent with good reason and justice, but also, and most importantly, it is required by revelation – the teachings of our faith.  Primatt argued that all creatures, “whether beast or bird or fish or fly or worm,” are deserving of mercy.[5]  Moreover, he argued that silence from the church on this topic is a serious matter, allowing the faithful to be misled as to the nature of sin. 

            Primatt began by stipulating that there is, indeed, a natural hierarchy of creatures which places humans at the top, but that this is not a source of pride for humans, because all creatures are as they were designed by God and the subservience or “ugliness” of some creatures is not a defect.[6]  Moreover, all creatures, from humans to “the vilest brute,” are subject to pain.  “Pain is pain, whether it is inflicted on man or beast, and the creature that suffers from it, whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of it while it lasts, suffers Evil.”[7]  The sufferance of this evil, where no offense has been given and no good can come, is cruelty and injustice, according to Primatt.  He tied the disregard of animal suffering and the misuse of our position of power to similar sins among humans: Just as differences in human skin color do not give some humans the right to enslave others, or tall people to trample short ones, or rich people to abuse poor ones, so “a man can have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast, merely because the beast has not the mental powers of a man.”[8]  Contrary to Aquinas, Primatt asserted that our duty to treat others as we would wish to be treated extends not just to humans, but to animals as well.[9]   Primatt grants that “custom” would argue against such a view, but custom, he argues, is no reliable teacher.  “When we reflect upon the shocking barbarities, and see the brutal rage exercised by the most worthless of men, without controul of Law, and without reproof from the Pulpit, we are almost tempted to draw this inference, that Cruelty cannot be a sin.”[10]

A turkey at a factory farm in North Carolina.  Photo from an undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals

            Primatt then addressed at length why cruelty to animals is a serious matter, even more serious in some cases than cruelty to humans, since animals have no voice to complain, no courts for justice, can benefit from no compensation if they are injured, and (contrary to Wesley) have no hope of life everlasting.  He considered and countered the various arguments of his day regarding why humans are within their rights to harm animals, he considered numerous arguments from scripture regarding the nature of both humans and animals, including the ways in which we are similar and dissimilar, our obligations toward various classes of animals, and how our treatment of animals reflects on our character and our relationship with God.  He summed up his argument with these words, “We may pretend to what religion we please, but Cruelty is Atheism.  We may make our boast of Christianity, but Cruelty is Infidelity.  We may trust to our Orthodoxy, but Cruelty is the worst of Heresies.”[11]  Arguing that “a Cruel Christian is a Monster of Ingratitude,” he concluded with an exhortation “to Be Merciful as God is Merciful; to Be Merciful as you hope for Mercy; and to receive with Reverence and Attention the BLESSING of the Lord Jesus Christ – Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall obtain Mercy.”[12]  

            Both of these, but especially Primatt's tract, are well worth reading in the original  They are as relevant to us today as when they were when they were first penned.  As individuals who seek to grow in faith, and as faith communities, we must address animal welfare if we hope to grow into the people we are called to be – we must, in Primatt’s words, be merciful as we hope for mercy.

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[1] Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, John Wesley, Sermon 60, “The General Deliverence,” available at http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/Global-Worship-and-Spiritual-Growth/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-60-The-General-Deliverence). 

[2] Primatt, Humphrey. A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals (Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=b1wPAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[3] Primatt, pp. ii-v.

[4] Primatt, p. iii.

[5] Primatt, p. ii, note. 

[6] Primatt, p. 6.

[7] Primatt, p. 7-8.

[8] Primatt, p. 12.

[9] Primatt, p. 17-21.

[10] Primatt, pp. 24-25, emphasis original.

[11] Primatt, pp. 321-22.

[12] Primatt, pp. 323, 326.