by this time had not been able to sustain the Inhabitants with Food The Egyptians calculated the bounds of mens dayes from the weight of their Hearts and judged a hundred years the utmost period taking their estimate from the weight of their Hearts which they say increaseth two Drachms every year under fifty and then decreaseth two Drachms untill a hundred But this opinion seems questionable The reason given by the Bishops of Rome for Contracting the year of Jubilee from one hundred to fifty and from fifty to five and twenty is grounded upon the Supposition that the age of man is contracted To what causes to consign the long Lives of the Ancients it need not be Difficult if we consider how necessary it was so to be for the propagation of Mankind and peopling the World with Inhabitants and also for the learning Arts and Sciences wherein it was requisite Men should have the experience of former Ages For as many Sensations breed an Experiment so many Experiments breed a Science The several motions of the Heavenly Bodies could not be known without a long time to observe their Motions and Revolutions It was an old complaint that Art was long and Life was short and therefore Almighty God proportioned mens lives accordingly We now account him wondrous Old who lives fourscore Summers to see the Resurrection of the Year fourscore times The length of mens age since Moses dwelt amongst us seems considerably abbreviated he computing Threescore and ten the ordinary period unto which men generally arrived in those times Whereas now a third part of all that are born in populous Cities dye under seven years old and the greatest part of those that are alive are between fifteen and five and thirty Few Princes either Jewish German Greek or Roman arrived at Fourscore Queen Elizabeth outlived all her Predecessors since the Conquest And I think his Majesty our present Sovereign whom God grant long to live is the eldest Crowned Head in Christendom And it 's to me observable that during the standing of the first Temple there were but eighteen High-priests but three hundred while the second stood and but ten years difference between the standing of the former and the latter Which plainly demonstrates that mens Lives have been cut and pared away in several Ages The Fathers in the primitive times had great Advantages for the Prolongation of their Lives as they had conveyed to them the Nature of Life-preserving Remedies from Adam who gave Names to all Creatures according to their particular Qualities And wonderful was their skill in all the Secrets of Nature Also the Air in the first Ages of the World might be more pure and not corrupted with terrene Exhalations as it was after the Flood had drencht it and for ought we know its Fruits might be more Nutritive Moreover Adam was the immediate Work of God and being come as it were newly from the Shop of his Creator he could not be like a House built of rotten Timber but of a far stronger Constitution than this weak Age affords Their Bodies were not wasted with fuccession of Sicknesses nor weaken'd with hereditary Diseases but were armed to resist those few things contrary to their healths The seminalities of Diseases were not so pregnantly conveyed from Parent to Child their Infants were not so tenderly brought up wastfull Ryot was a stranger to them and variety of Meats was to them unknown their Nature was not opprest with burthens and forced to stagger with her load We cannot with any shew of Reason pretend to mistake in the manner of computing the years of the Patriarchs for if you suppose them to be only Lunar years and that twelve of theirs made but one of ours then gross absurdities must follow from thence as that they were Prolifique at seven years of age Enoch being no more when he begat Methusalem At that rate the Date of their Lives must be reckoned shorter than many of ours Moreover the Scripture saith that Abraham dyed in a good Old Age and full of Dayes being one hundred seventy and five years old which Number according to that computation was but seventeen years and a half a very ridiculous old Age. But it is very manifest that Moses's computation of the year was the same with ours for mention is made of the first second and seventh Month and mention is also made of the seventeenth day of the Month. We find but one Womans Age recorded in Scripture and that is Sarah Some give this reason Because a Woman first occasioned the Shortning the Lives of men by listning to the Serpent Old Age is doubtless a very great Blessing being subservient to great and noble ends namely our better Preparation for a blessed Eternity And there are some Priviledges that holy Souls are capable of in this World which they cannot partake of in the Regions of immortal Bliss and they are the Opportunities of Doing good to others and preparing them for the Eternal Mansions and thereby Brightning their own Diadems and making their weight of Glory the Heavier by turning many to Righteousness Which that you may doe is the Wish of Your Cordial Friend J. M. LETTER XI SIR I Received yours dated the Second Instant wherein you seem to question whether the Practice of Religion on have any tendency towards Health and long life because sometimes good Men Dye suddain and Immature Deaths But nothing is more plain and evident than that the Carkasses of good Israelites may fall in the Wilderness of this World whose Souls may be entertained in the Heavenly Canaan A good Prophet for some single Act of Disobedience may be made a Prey to a devouring Lyon If an Eli neglect to Chasten his Rebellious Children he may be permitted to break his Neck When Uzzth shall touch the Ark without a Commission his Death shall immediately succeed his Rashness When a Moses shall neglect to Circumcize his Child an Angel shall threaten his Life with a drawn Sword When a Jonas shall go contrary to a Divine Command he shall be in danger of being swallowed up by Death as well as by a Whale Many times Judgment begins at the House of God and he makes good Men the examples of his Severity in this Life It 's thought that King David's numbering the People was the last Act he did before he took his Bed Evil Angels sometimes contend with good ones about the Bodies of good Men Sampson lost his natural Strength by his Disobedience and violation of his Vow rather than by the meer Cutting off his Hair it being rather a Moral than a Natural Cause of his Weakness The Righteous may sometimes be taken away from the evil to come as the good Patriarchs were before the Flood and as Abijah was laid to sleep before the Calamity of his Fathers House And sometimes the Child may derive those Distempered Humours from the Parent which may prove the occasion of its Death Though God hath Promised long Life to them
see the accomplishment of all your good Wishes is the hearty Wish of him who hath no more time left at present than to tell you that he is and will be Yours in the most unreserved Respects J. M. LETTER III SIR THis comes to Kiss your Hand and to make an Inquiry after the happy Success of the last Remedies and also to encourage your Perseverance in their use although you do not presently find them answer your expectation for I hope you do not expect Medicines to Operate meerly by their natural Energy infused into them at their first Creation but also know that their efficacy doth depend primarily upon the Pleasure of the Divine Will who hath limited the periods of humane Life We Live not at an Adventure but the manner and Moments of our Life and Death come under a Divine appointment and the success of all Remedies depends upon the peculiar Blessing of Heaven The most Infallible way to have our Distempers removed is to endeavour to procure the concourse of that Divine Influence and to engage the Soveraign Power of that Almighty Healer unto whom belong the Issues from Death Though our Lord was not corporally present with Lazarus yet he knew without Creature Intelligence that he was Dead and told his Disciples so God also told Samuel that Moses was Dead It matters not who Plants or Waters if God denies to give the Increase The Divine Favour is the best Skreen to shelter men from the innumerable Accidents of Humane Life in which every Minute we are Surrounded with a Thousand Deaths and dangers When the great Preserver of Men withdraws his protection we are left exposed to the malignant Aspects of Planets to the fatal Contingencies of Wars and Battels and are indanger'd by every Accident the Dust of a Wheel the fall of a Tile the largeness of a Morsel the Lash of a Whip the unevenness of a Stone the Plenty of a Humour may stop our Breath It is a confest truth that every natural motion hath its beginning duration and period dependent on the pleasure of the first Mover now the Life of Man being a nutural motion our Nativity and Death are both ordered by that Omnipotent Agent in whom we live move and have our being The Disciples themselves could not cure Diseases at all times if they could St. Paul would not have left Trophimus Sick at Miletum nor have Sorrowed so much for Epaphroditus's Sickness The Life of Man consisting in a requisite Harmony of Qualities and in a due commixture of the natural Heat and radical moisture which Harmony is more or less according unto the more or less exquisite temperament of Body assigned unto each single Person by the free dispensation of the Divine Will it must follow that the continuance of every man in this natural Life depends upon the pleasure of him who hath determined our Days numbered our Months and set our Bounds which we cannot pass without his leave who gave us the durability of our temperaments and compassed our periods within the Circle of his special Providence To imagine the Life of Man fixt beyond the possibility of being prolonged or shortened by an Almighty pleasure seems highly unreasonable because he hath reserved a power in his own Hands to contract or prorogue as he pleaseth Sometimes Divine Wisdom best knowing his own Reasons doth resolve the Death of some Persons and then the most proper Remedies are used in vain either towards the removal of Sickness or the preservation of Health The universal Conserver of all things takes notice of the principal and subsequent Causes of things Governing Disposing and Ordering according unto his own free Will and yet his Government is void of any fatal Violence and comes to an efficiency from the ordination of various natural causes and humane elections which prove the occasions of supporting or destroying Life Divine goodness doth not abolish but Disposeth of future Contingencies without nulling the freedom of the Agent he moderates and governs Events according to his pleasure and yet suffers the Creature to exercise its own proper motions The rage of Men and Devils cannot accelerate the motions of Divine Providence A Sparrow doth not fall to the ground much less a man into the Grave without a Divine Permission The Manner and Moments of our death are not the effects of Contingency To God the Lord belongs the Issues from death or in the Original the Inlets to Death viz. Diseases Natural Remedies are but like Elijah's Staffe layd upon the dead Child they will not help unless a supernatural vertue concurs The Egyptians in their Temples had a remarkable Hieroglyphick A Young man an Old man and a Hawk in the middle Intimating the Beginning and Period of humane Life depends upon the Influence of divine Providence Josiah's death might seem the effect of Juvenile rashness in War but it conduced towards the accomplishment of Huldah's Prophecy The Advice of the Philistine Diviners is very observable When the People were smitten with Hemorrhoids they prescribed the offering up of golden Hemorroids thinking by that mystical Remedy to appease the Displeasure of Heaven and to intimate that they thought the best of their Substance not valuable to purchase Health but chiefly to represent their Belief that the Cure of Diseases depended upon a divine Influence Many smart the longer under the Rod of God because they eye not the Hand that moves it The Rabbins say when Jeroboam's Hand wither'd the false Prophets told him it came by Chance thereby to divert his reflections from the first Cause Some have observed that the best way to cure the Kings-Evil is by the Stroak of the Kings Hand and sure the best way to remove the smart of Distempers inflicted by the Hand of God is to consider that it is his Hand No man knows when Divine Providence who hath the Pen in his Hand and writes down the Days and Actions of our Lives will be pleased to set a Comma of Afflictions or a Period of Death The Weights and Plummets of Mans restless Impatience cannot make the Clock of Gods appointed time strike one Minute sooner than he hath set it And he only hath appointed how many tedious Dayes and wearisome Nights we shall have before the bright Morning of Eternity dawn upon us The reason why Natural Remedies do many times prove ineffectual is because there is a Determinate season wherein all Persons and things must have their final issue Thus we find Moses died the Year before the People entred into Canaan Daniel some few Years before the Foundation of the Temple And John the Baptist in the first Year of the Baptism of our blessed Saviour when the Gospel he began to preach was to be published in its Glory At their seasons they must go their wayes to rest and lie down until they receive their lot at the end of Dayes If God had not the Disposal of the Lives of Men in his own Hands what miserable confusions would there
was wholly from a Divine Influence The Jews observe that though Leprosie be the Finger of God yet the Hand of man must be used in the Cure and therefore we find that the Leper whom our Saviour healed was commanded to use the Method prescribed in the Law of Moses to be sprinkled and washed The Aromatique Oyl used in extream Unction in the Apostolical times was a natural Remedy though the Cure was attributed to the Prayer of Faith Mary's supposition that the Presence of her Saviour would have kept her Brother from Dying was not improbable though she was under a Mistake with respect to that present Dispensation Many under Distempers expect to be raised as Lazarus was only by the Physitian taking them by the Hand or as Naaman who expected the good Prophet to Cure him by only striking his Hand upon the Wall But my Dear Friend Farewell and Pardon me I have made no more Scruple of exercising your Patience and take the humble Subscription of Your Constant Friend J. M. LETTER XIV SIR I Received yours of the Fifth Instant together with the strange Relation of the Person thought to be afflicted with strange Diseases by the the Power of the Devil and for that reason I observe the Cure is Despaired of but I suppose without Cause for should we grant that many Diseases are caused by a Diabolical Influence it need not therefore follow that the Cure is impossible Indeed it must be acknowledged that there have been multitudes of Cheats and Impostures of this kind but to say they are all Delusions is very Imprudent for sometimes divine Providence for reasons best known to himself may permit evil Angels to afflict the Bodies of men with distempers vulgarly called Lying under an evil Tongue or being Bewicht as having no dependance upon the Chain of natural Causes The Jews were threatned with some Diseases which should not be Cured by natural means even wonderful Plagues and of long continuance There are in Scripture many instances of Diseases Inflicted by supernatural Agents as Angels and Spirits who disturb the Humours and raise Storms and Tempests in Mens Bodies as well as in the Air Evil Angels were sent to Afflict the Jews with divers Calamities and many thousands in one Night were Slain by the destroying Sword of an Angel in a Pestilential Contagion An evil Angel visited Saul with Stupendious Melancholly and Job with painful Boils and Bowed a Daughter of Abraham eighteen Years When an Omnipotent Power gives leave the Devil can as easily possess the minds of Men with Distraction as the Swine with Rage The Excommunicate Corinthian being deliver'd up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh in order unto the Salvation of his Spirit may as well be understood of his being Afflicted with some corporal Distemper by the power of the Prince of Darkness as be taken in any other Sence As we know St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh the Messenger of Satan sent to Buffet him hath by some Learned Men been Interpreted to our purpose The Lascivious Persons seeking for Lot's House to gratifie their vile Intentions were struck Blind by an Angel and those Windows were stopt up that let in wanton Glances And the several Persons possessed whom our Blessed Lord deliver'd from the power of the Prince of the Air were miserably Afflicted with Epilepsies Lunacies Convulsions and other Direful Symptoms and Distractions which threw them sometimes into the Fire and sometimes into the Water In the Primitive times Corporal Inflictions and Subjection to a Satanical Power was the sad consequence of Excommunication proportionable unto the Execrations in the Jewish Cherem which we find exemplified in Saul after his defection from God And it is observable that the Essens amongst the Jews when expelled the Congregation dyed of miserable Deaths And Ecclesiastical Writers tell us Heliodorus in his Sacrilegious attempts was Scourged by two Angels in the shape of young Men and hardly came off with his Life The Catechists in the Primitive times that prepared Persons for Baptism and Admission into the Church was wont to be called the Exorcist that cast out Satan for by the performance of our Baptismal Covenant we renounce the Devil and his Propriety and thereby the better secure our Health as well as our Peace The Jews observed that after the destruction of the Sanctuary and Sanhedrim there still continued amongst them four kinds of capital Punishments instead of the four appointed by the Law of Moses for he that deserved to be Stoned either fell from a House or was torn by Wild Beasts he that deserved to be Burnt either fell into the Fire or was stung by a Serpent therefore called fiery they that deserved to be Killed by the Sword fell into the Hands of Thieves or of the King they that deserved Suffocation or Hanging were Drowned in the Water or fell into Melancholly and were strangled thereby as Judas was But Religion very much secures men from the power of the Evil Angels and from all other misfortunes But Sir to be sure you shall alwayes be happy if it lye in his power to make you so who is Your intire Friend J. M. LETTER XV. SIR I Received your last Letter with wonder to find you entertain so strange an Opinion as to believe that Diseases are now cured in miraculous and extraordinary wayes as they were in the Apostolical times without the use and application of Rational and experimental Remedies To dream that Charms Amulets Spells c. are of any vertue in curing Diseases is vain and that because St. Pauls Handkerchief St. Peter's Shadow and the Hem of our Saviours Garment miraculously cured some in the Primitive times therefore we must use them now The reason why those Miraculous wayes of healing were used in those times was for the Confirmation of the Gospel in its first Plantation But that being now done those wayes of Cure are ceased How can men expect the Divine Blessing with such means as have no natural vertue as Words and Characters For if one Text of Scripture carried in a mans Sleeve will cure a Disease surely the Bible in a mans Pocket must cure all Diseases The Divine Oracles were given to guide our Faith not to tickle our vain Imaginations I once knew a fatal Event attend the use of such an accursed Medicine A Gentlewoman having an Ague a Begger gave her a Charm to hang about her Neck bid her not read it but when she was cured burn it The Minister of the Parish being a sober Learned and pious conformable Divine came casually to visit her she telling him the Medicine and the Cure which had attended it threw it into the fire in his presence but he catching it read it The words were Ague farewell till you and I meet in Hell Upon hearing of which she fell into her Ague again with greater violence than ever and also into deep Melancholly which occasioned her to lay Violent hands on her self So dangerous it is to