Period to every Mans Life the primitive threatning runs thus in the day thou eatest thou shalt dye And the Apostle hath as plainly exprest it as it can be Wherefore as by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned Rom. 4. 12. where it is plain that Death is a punishment inflicted for Sin so that if man had never sinned we have no reason ro think he should have died I confess without Revelation we could never have guessed this to be the cause of Death The Heathen Philosophers were exceedingly confused in their notions concerning the origine of Sin and the cause of Death many of them thought that Death was a natural accident originally appurtenant to Humane Nature And indeed if Revelation had not declared the contrary I had been fully satisfied that Death had been no other thing but such a natural accident but it is strange that any man that has conversed with sacred writ should be of this opinion And yet we find the Pelagians of old were great sticklers for it hence is it that the ancient Fathers and Councils have condemned it with a Curse In the Milevitan Conncil Can. 2. we read thus placuit ut quicunque dicit Adam primum hominem mortalem factum ita ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret moreretur in corpore hoc est de corpore exiret non peccati merito sed necessitate naturae anathema sit In after-ages the Scotists the most subtil of all Scholastick writers inclined much to this opinion against whom the Thomists their irreconcilable Enemies took up the cudgels amongst modern writers the seemingly rational Socinians have owned this groundless conceit But I cannot stay to debate this at length only in brief if Death had been natural to man in the state of Innocency it behoved to have been because of these following reasons 1. Because Adams natural constitution implied mortality the Materials of his constitution were not so amicable as to entertain a lasting amity and friendship 2. It was the primitive precept be fruitful and multiply now it is plain that procreation includes mortality in its notion and farther it seems to be unconceivable how this little Map of Earth should have contained a numerous multiplying and never dying off-spring 3. Humane Nature in the state of Innocency did stand in need of Meat and Drink as is plain from Gen. 1. 19. now the end of eating and drinking is not only to hold up but to repair the decays of our Bodies which would sudenly return to dust if they were not thus renewed and strengthened 4. If Death were only the effect of Sin and the Devil were called a Murderer from the beginning because of his tempting our first parents to eat of the forbidden Fruit it will follow that since Christ came to take away the sins of the World and to destroy the works of the Devil that he also took away the wages of sin which is Death than which nothing is more contrary to daily experience 5. Immortality seems to be entailed only to the state of future Glory where Corruption shall put on Incorruption and Mortality shall be swallowed up in life and then there shall be no more death Rev. 21. 4. These are the most material reasons I can find for the proof of this opinion in answer to which I shall desire the Five following considerations may be weighed Consid 1. It is not to be doudted that the eternal wisdom furnished our first parents with all these accomplishments their specifick nature could suffer the signatures of Wisdom and Goodness were legible in the lowest and least regarded piece of rhe creation but in Man in a more eminent manner conspicnous It is almost impossible for us in this fallen state to conceive what those endowments were with which his innocent condition was blessed We have no reason to think that there was any jar or disagreement amongst his faculties or opposition and sight of one quality with another It was mans disobedience that disturbed the whole universe and disordered every part of it while he was at peace with his Maker he enjoyed a serene condition and needed not fear any hurt either External or Internal then all the parts of his Body entertained a sweet harmony and there could be nothing except Sin that should have made any failure in his constitution or made a separation between his Soul and Body But Sin having entred the World every part of the universe changed its face and Man who was Heavens favorite in his first mould is now condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his face till he return unto the dust This is all that we can learn from Revelation concerning the introduction of Death to suppose any other account of it were to give up our selves to the dictates of our extravagant fancies and farther it is very unreasonable to infer mans mortality from his constitution and because he is earthly unless we think it also rational that perfected Bodies in the state of Glory are not Bodies or that they are even there mortal Both which seem to be plainly opposite to Scripture Consid 2. The Phrase Immortal may fall under a double notion for First sometimes it is taken absolutely implying a being most perfect which had no begining and can have no end and in this sense Immortality is solely the prerogative of our Maker and can never be attributed to any creature Secondly Sometimes it is taken Conditionally and so under various considerations it may be attributed either First To perfected Saints who are stated in Glory where the primitive Image lost by mans fall is renewed and perfected and of those our Saviour in the Gospel of Luke tells us that they can dye no more Luke 20. 36. or Secondly to our first parents in the State of Innocency For so long as they remained obedient to the Laws of Heaven Immortality was entailed upon their nature for the tenor of the primitive threatning is in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye where temporal Death seems to be threatned which had been idle and vain if men had died although they had never eaten the forbidden Fruit. I know some men think that Sin only laid a necessary obligation upon men to obey and provoked God to remove that Supernatural and Superadded quality and gift which preserved them from Death With such sort of men I have no great quarrel although I think that God could as easily have made mans constitution so lasting and the constituent parts of his fabrick so harmonious that he should have never dyed if he had not sinned as to creat a superadded being to preserve him safe For reason would plead that that superadded gift required another and so in infinitum But farther 't is very unreasonable to infer mans corruption from that precept be fruitful and multiply for although in some sense generatio unius est alterius corruptio yet
may suppose that Eight Hundred years was the common Period before the Flood But then after the Flood the mutability of this common Poriod is conspicuous for in the next age after the Flood it was cut short two hundred years and in the next three succeeding generations it was abridged to four hundred years and in the three succeeding ages to the former it was reduced to two hundred years and in Abrahams time it seems not to have been extended to an hundred years In reducing the Life of Mankind into shorter bounds now than it was in the infancy of the World the Divine wisdom and goodness do very plainly appear for 1. Although it is true that Sin was the cause of Misery yet it is manifest that as Men began to multiply so they became more corrupted and as the Earth was replenished with Men so with multiplyed Miseries and those not only particular but common War and bloodshed slavery and toil pains and diseases were in the first ages of the World very rare and singular now these are ordinary and common and is it not then a great mercy that the days of our life are few since so full of evils But 2. If Men lived as long now as in the first-ages of the World a Land would not be able to contain its inhabitants and this is a far greater inconvenience and disadvantage than the shortening the lease of our beings can be supposed to be In the first ages of the World the lives of Men were extended that the earth might be replenished and it is very plain that this common Period was shortened according as Man multiplyed I confess God threatens to destroy the inhabitants of a Land for their transgressions it was because Men had corrupted themselves that God brought a Flood of waters upon the World and yet the Divine Justice was accompanied with astonishing goodness for he did not as justly he might have instantly cut off that perverse generation but he gave them the space of an Hundred and Twenty years to repent Yet saith God His days shall be an Hundred and Twenty years Gen. 6. 3. That is although this be a perverse and corrupt generation yet because Man is but flesh I will give him this time to repent of his wickedness and if notwithstanding he will not after such warning mend his manners I will destroy him I know many learned Men think that God here only threatens to shorten the common Period of Mens lives and that it should be contracted within the bounds of an Hundred and twenty years but this exposition is not agreeable to the experiences of some ages next following the Flood in which Men lived much longer than an Hundred and Twenty years But they say God uses not to anticipate his time in bringing judgments upon a nation or people to which I naswer it is very true but methinks men have no ground to think that in the present case God anticipates the time in bringing judgements upon them for we cannot think that Noah was compleat five Hundred years old when God threatned to distroy the World And indeed any Man who is but a little acquainted with the Jewish custom of reckoning of years knows how usual it is with them to name the greater part of any thing for the whole St. Austin is so clear in this I 'le rather set it down in his words than my own Intelligendum est hoc Deum dixisse cum circa finem quingentorum annorum esset Noah i. e. quadragintos octoginta vitae annos ageret quos more suo Scriptura quingentos vocat nomine totius maximam partem plerumque significans Aug. de Civ Dei lib. 15. c. 24. Thus much I have spoken of the common Period of Humane Life in respect of the ages of the World I shall now add a little concerning its changeableness in respect of places and I confess in this case it is so variable that it is a hard matter to pitch upon particulars only in the general it is certain that this common Period is not the same in all places in a temperate Climate this common term is extended but where there is an excess of heat or an unconstancy of the weather in those places this common Period is shortned But passing this I come now to consider the particular Period of every mans life there be two ways it is commonly taken 1. As it implies the disunion of the parts by reason of the excess of some one quality or other or 2 as it implies the Period of Humane Life whatever way it is occasioned without any relation either to the defect or excess of any quality and thus the learned Episcopius states the case in his first Epistle to Jo. Beverovicius But to make this yet more plain I shall consider that text 1. Sam. 26. 10 As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to dye or he shall desend into battel and perish Though David was anointed King yet he durst not stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed neither would he permit Abishai who inconsideratly offered to do it knowing none could do so and be guiltless Therefore he comforts and solaces himself with this consideration that God should rid him of Saul one of these three ways 1. By smiting him with some disease and now to what a numberless number of diseases are our frail natures incident variety of maladies prey upon frail man and millions of miseries attend him the Pestilence walketh at noon-day and the Air which he breaths may blow out the spark of his life 2. Or his day will come that is or he will dye a natural Death now Saul was well-stricken in years and he knew that by the course of nature he could not live long 3. Or he shall descend into battel perish That is if some disease cut him not off or if his day come not yet he shall be exposed to a violent Death or he shall descend into battel Sometime a violent Death is purely casual thus it was with those eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell Luke 13. 4 Sometimes it is only improperly casual as when one of two equally exposed to danger is only killed and sometimes it is only and properly violent such was Sauls death such was Achitophels and Hamans The way to this discourse in hand being thus far cleared I shall now prosecute the design of it in this method 1. I shall set down those erroneous opinion into which some men have unhappily fallen in their enquiry for satisfaction in the present case 2. I shall lay down the two common opinions that offer fairest for solving this doubt 3. I shall attempt a full and satisfactory answer and lastly I shall conclude with some reflections upon the whole discourse I begin with the first to give an account of those erroneus sentiments some men have unhappily embraced in their enquiry for satisfaction in this matter And that I may shun
advice Jam. 5. 14. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him I know there are other means to be made use of in order to the procuring of health than repentance and prayer and of these we shall speak anon but yet this I think may be truly said that sometimes when all other remedies have been either ineffectual or not to be had repentance and prayer have done the business and compleated the cure And surely these are duties profitable at all times I know the Church of Rome tell us many extravagant Stories of the wonders and miracles that have been performed by the prayers of Holy Men those I shall not now mention only I shall say that although it is not credible that the Prayers of Saints upon the Earth do either mitigate and alleviate the pains of those that are in Hell or free them from that miserable state as some men have confidently enough reported yet it is sufficiently credible that the effectual servent prayer of the righteous availeth much Jam. 5. 16. A Third Argument to prove that our lives may be extended or shortned may be taken from the use of medicaments Common reason will teach Men that it is needless to prescribe any Medicine to those that are dead and truly the case would be much alike if the Period of every Mans Life were determined by an inconditionate Decree For although men might then make use of medicaments yet I think I may truly say that their operation should be very ineffectual But that men may to good purpose employ the Physitian when they are sick and expect by the blessing of God benifit by the use of Medicaments applied by the art of Physick no reasonable man can doubt That the lives of many have been lengthned and prolonged by the excellent remedies applied by the expert and skilful Physitian is a truth so obvious to common experience that I need not enlarge upon it And on the other side how many have died before their time only by their imploying ignorant Physitians It is a famous instance that we have recorded of one Manes the Father of the Manichees who having returned into Persia at that time when the Kings Son lay sick of a dangerous disease he amongst many other Physitians was present all the others plainly declared that the disease was dangerous but Manes who waâ— only a pretended Physitian coâ—fidently desired that they might be all removed and he would take care of the Kings Son and withal promised to restore him to health in a short space but the event was quite contrary for within a shore time the Kings Son died which did so provoke the King of Persia that he instantly caused Manes to be put to a miserable Death What mischief has been done by unskilful Physitians to many sad examples do daily attest but yet if the Period of every Mans Life were determin'd by an absolute and inconditionate decree no man could blame the ignorant Physitian nor needs any person be troubled if they neglect the means for God had determined they should do so which indeed makes Marthas speech to our Lord Christ to be ridiculous if thou hadst been here my Brother had not died That Naaman the Syrian should wash himself in the River of Jordan seven times and then be clean of his Leprosie was indeed miraculous But yet it is plain that if he had not done so his Leprosie had remained Whether that cusom in the primitive Christian Church of anointing the sick with Oyl was miraculous or not I shall not dispute but this is certain that it was then a means used for the recovery of the Sick There is one objection which some men very impertinently urge against what I have been speaking and that is Asa his going to the Physitians which the Scripture seems to disallow To this I answer that King Asa is not therefore reprehended because he asked advice of the Physitians but because he trusted only in them and sought not the Lord as it is very plain from 2 Chron. 16. 12. And sure no reasonable men will have any doubu but this was a very culpable neglect in Asa Fourthly Nothing is more evident than that there are several things which have a Physical efficacy in the shortning of Mens lives as all kinds of excess namely immoderate eating and drinking all inordinate passions of mind c. as also the bad and unwholesome constitution of a Kingdom And on the other side there are many things which effectually conduce to the lengthning of our days namely all kind of moderation and temperance the wholsomness of the region wherein we live and our good managery What kind of persons are those who for ordinary live longest are they not those who carefully moderate their sensual appetites and who govern their passions and who live in the wholesomest places We commonly say that Men who live in a Popolus City are shorter lived than those who live in the Country I have already shewed how some vices in their proper tendency shorten Mens Lives and that in some Nations and Kingdoms men live much longer than in others all which methinks plainly tells us the Period of every Mans Life is not Fatal but Mutable according as men are careful or negligent of themselves I shall only ladd another considerable argument and so draw this discourse to a conclusion And that is don't we evidently perceive that many men had lived longer if they had not wretchedly and unreasonably exposed themselves to danger and is it not evident that many Millions who have died in battle would have had their days prolonged if they had never descended into battle That God hath from the outgoings of Eternity by an absolute and inconditionate degree determined both the time and manner of every mans death this is more than we can learn from Revelation and methinks it is very inconsistent and irreconcilable with those many plain texts that shew it is lawful in time of eminent danger to flee for our safety in time of Famine and when any egregious contagion such as the Pestilence spreadeth in any place How many Hundreds prolonged their lives by their flight from battel If David and his Men had remained in Keilah it is certain they should have been delivered up into the hands of Saul and what the Event should have been we may easily conjecture if God by a special providence had not interposed for their safety But besides the many instances we might produce we have a positive precept to flee from any eminent danger Mat. 10. 23. When they persecute you in this City flee into another Which plainly shews that this is a lawful means of prolonging our lives in such cases It is a notable instance we have Jer. 27. 18. Thus saith the Lord behold I set before you the way of life and the way of death he that abideth in this City shall dye by the Sword and by the Famine
is not for my iniquity nor for my sin that thou hast afflicted me And let this Consideration also prevail with thee that my untender friends sadly mistake thy design in afflicting me they conclude it is for some secret heinous crime that thy judgements are upon me O that thou wouldst turn from thy wrath that I may enjoy some rest before I go whence I shall not return This phrase turn from him is sometimes taken in a very bad sense Thus we find the wicked sadly characterized as a people who desire God to depart from them but as it is uttered by the people of God under the pressure of afflictions it implies no more but a serious desire that God would be pleased to remove that burden Now in such innocent petitions there appeareth no crime for it is certain that afflictions simply considered are grievous even to the best of Mankind there is no affliction saith the Apostle for the present that is joyous but grievous 'T is true impatience under affliction is an excess which no excuse whatsoever can pardon there are some persons of such hasty complexions that they rise in passion against God if they meet with the least affliction just like that wretched man who said this evil is of the Lord why should we wait any longer upon him But those petitions of the Faithful in holy writ although at the first view they seem to be peremptory and absolute yet they are truly qualified and submissive and at the most only express the harmless resentments of innocent nature that cannot but express how contrary afflictions are to it That he may rest ut quiescat scpaululum that his affliction being removed he may yet enjoy a little space to solace himself till he accomplish his day I will purposely decline the answer of that querie Whether it is lawful to wish death when our condition is charged with a surplusage of calamity for the brevity I design will not suffer me to survey the difficulties of that case only in the general I shall add two things 1. If the affliction be violent fierce and seemingly durable rendering us uncapable of exercising any duty I question not but common reason will suggest to every sober man that in that case Death is more eligible than Life Yet 2. since we are ignorant what God designs to us by sending us such afflictions it is our part to submit to the Lords will and say Good is the will of the Lord. Thus although we may comparatively and submissively wish Death upon the account of some acute trials yet it is never lawful to be peremptory and absolute in such desires for frequently the happy event makes men conclude that is was good for them they were afflicted Rest c. Methinks the very sound of this word is full of ravishing sweetness and pleasure and yet to those who are stated in a condition of woe and Misery it is bitter and harsh as the most ravishing and pleasant Musick is in the Ear of him who is sad those who never tasted the honey-comb know not its sweetness the men who have been always drudges and slaves have no discerning what Liberty is and those who from their birth have been accussomed to pain know not their misery so sensibly But to have once enjoyed blessings and on a sudden to be deprived of them not only the unexpected change but also their former happiness adds to their misery and makes their condition more unsufferable If man had been created to toil and labor his eating of bread in the sweat of his face had been no curse but to have been placed in a blessed and happy state and by his folly to be hurled into a state of misery and pain that compleats his calamity and makes him sensible how miserable a thing it is to have been happy This single consideration seems to add very much to Jobs misery his condition was once more than ordinary happy and the amission of the comforts he formerly enjoyed makes him pathetically cry out O that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me but now as he sadly complains they that are younger than I have me in derision If Job in this state of woe had been perswaded of the certain change of his condition and that his latter end should be more blessed than his beginning the expected hopes of this had served to allay and mitigate his sorrow and to render his case more sufferable and easie It is the hopes of rest that puts strength in the wearied traveller it was the expected reward and assurance of a future blessedness and better resurrection which made those Worthies Heb. 11. so cheerfully undergo suffering What the happiness of the Saints rest is I am not able to represent it being so far above any thing we can in this imperfect state conceive or imagine The advantages that attend our present tranquility and rest are many and great which to enumerate would be prolix and tedious but if from that we should frame to our selves an Idea of that Celestial Rest how imperfect would it be any Rest we injoy here is uncertain an unthought-of causality may impair it but the Rest that remains for the people of God is everlasting there is no fear of losing it Heaven is a place free from trouble and there is nothing that can imbitter that pleasant state Philosophers have a saying that the end of of Motion is Rest this is indeed true of all those motions and trials the servants of God meet with the way to the Kingdom is spread over with thistles thorow many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but those Waves of affliction will quickly over and when the day breaks these shadows will flee away This Winter will soon be past and the singing of the Birds will come and Christians who by faith and patience continue in well-doing shall ere be long be placed in those mansions of Rest that are in Emanuels land Alas how insensible do we remain under the enjoyment of our outward comforts when we are blessed with food liberty and health we are but sensibly stupid and ignorant what is the value of those mercies but if hunger and want begin to pinch us if our former liberty be hedged in if sickness and pain seize upon us then we begin to gather some sense and we accuse our selves for our ingratitude to God Till he shall accomplish as an Hireling his day for the better understanding of this similitude I shall in four particulars compare the days of man with the days of an Hireling and in each of them make application to Jobs case 1. The days of an Hireling denotes a time set prefixed and limited for the performance of some particular piece of service and are not the days of man also allotted him for to do his masters business We were not born to be idle and negligent sure God had some greater design in the Creation of
the Deity But others have been more illiberal in their concessions thinking it enough if they grant that God hath a care of Mankind although he never regard lesser matters and that Curat magna Deus fortunae parva relinquit By means of these wild conceits this Error has proceeded from bad to worse yet very few of the old Philosophers or any other rank of men Atheists those Anomalus births excepted had ever that confidence in impiety to say with the Epicureans that the World is perfectly left to its own fortuitous and casual resolutions or that I may express it in their Poets own phrase Sive nihil positum est sed sors incerta vagatur Fertque refertque vices habent mortalia casum That the Period of every mans life is not so casual and fortuitous as these men imagine may be made evident by clear testimonies from Scripture concerning the particular Providence whereby God takes care of every particular thing in the World But because I will have occasion to consider this afterwards I shall now add only an instance or two from Scripture whereby it may appear that the most seemingly casual Periods of men are ordered by an infinite Wisdom and fall under the Divinite Rule and Dominion And first the man-slayer who killeth his Neighbor unawars seems to be as casual a business as can be and yet we may read how far the Divine providence is concerned in this particular Exod. 21. 13. But farther one of Epicurus Disciples would readily conclude that Ahabs death was a piece of chance and governed by no Supreme power It was but an Archer's drawing his Bow at a venture which by chance killed Ahab But the word of truth informs us that by this means the prophecy 1 Kings 21. 19. was fulfilled and that it came not to pass without the Divine providence who rules among the children of Men. And now I have done with the two erroneous extreams which some men have inconsideratly run to for shelter the next thing I premised was to lay down the two common opinions that offer fair for removing the difficulty but I must say for the thing is palpable that I am now only to give the two former rejected opinions of the Stoicks and Epicureans dressed up in better apparel and much refined from the impure dregs of Heathenism as 1. Some run to the absolute and inconditionate Decrees of God and tell us that from the out-goings of Eternity previous to the Divine consideration of circumstances in which men are to be placed God has so absolutely determined the period of every mans life that it can neither be lengthned nor extended by care and diligence nor shortned by intemperance Sword or Plague 2. Others who see the inconveniences and absurdities that follow upon the granting that opinion to be true are induc'd to believe that the Period of every mans life is ordinarily mutable and may be both extended and shortened yet still they grant that God may as it seems good to him either extend or shorten it There are four very considerable particulars that seem to strengthen the first opinion First There are many plain places of Scripture that conclude the days of every man to be bounded by the Divine determination Secondly There are many examples in Scripture which shew that the Period of every mans Life is from the out-goings of Eternity set and bounded in by the Divine will Thirdly It is a common opinion that the futurition of all things depends upon the Divine will antecedently to which things are only possible and therfore Fourthly we can never give a rational and satisfying account how the Divine knowledg concerning the Period of Humane Life is infallible and certain if it be not founded upon the Basis of the sure absolute Decree Upon the other hand those who plead for the mutability of the Period of every Mans Life endeavor to remove the fore-named doubt and to shew the great inconveniences it is lyable to That it quite evacuates the use of the means and encourages men to expose themselves to any danger c. as I shall endeavor to make appear afterwards And now I come to the chief thing I aimed at in this undertaking viz. To attempt a satisfying answer of the present doubt in the prosecution of which intendment I shall observe this Method First I shall endeavor to shew how the Period of every Mans Life may be said ro be determined Secondly I shall shew in what sense it is not determined and Thirdly how it is mutable and may be extended or shortned I begin with the first how the Period of every Mans Life may be said to be determined and I shall endeavor to do this in the two following particulars 1. The Period of every mans Life is so far determined that it is not without a Period To determine signifieth properly to set bounds or limits to any thing Now since it is appointed for all men once to dye every mans life is enclosed bounded within a certain number of years And I must add that if I be not very much mistaken this is the genuin sense of the most if not of all those places of Scripture that express the determination of Mans days and indeed Jobs words seeing his days are determined c. seem to mean no other thing but this and in this sense it is unquestionable that God has appointed our bounds which we cannot pass But 2. the Period of every particular Mans Life is determined in respect of the Divine prescience Now because this is a very considerable particular and as I told in the explaining of the text that which was intended by Job when he says the number of his months is with thee I shall therefore endeavor to make out this truth by the plainest and most convincing evidence that can be In order to this I shall shew that God hath a perfect compreheâ—sion of all things past present or to come and by consequence fore-knows the Period of every Mans Life Secondly I shall prove this by plain evidence from Scriptural Examples Thirdly I shall make it appear that it is solely the prerogative of our Maker to know the Period of every Mans Life And lastly I shall answer the most Material objections and doubts that are brought against it First that God hath a perfect comprehension of all things past present and to come is so reasonable a principle of natural Religion that it hath been generally owned by the wisest and most learned Heathen And those impious wretches who at every turn take the name of God in vain in attesting him in the truth of what sometimes themselves know is false sufficiently imply that they believe Gods Infinite knowledg Besides the truth of this is planly held out in Scripture it was to this City of refuge Peter did flee when his love was seemingly called in question Lord says he Thou knowest all things John 21. 16. And the Author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews makes use of this Topick to induce us to cricumspection all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do Heb. 4. 13. and God himself appeals to the infinity of his knowledg in the demonstration of his Deity and challengeth the Idol-Gods to produce their cause and shew what shall happen that the latter end of things may be known Isa 41. 21. 22. The Psalmist upbraids the Idol-Gods in that they have eyes and see not but he always comforts himself with this considerarion that the God in whom he trusts does behold his condition all which instances make it undoubtable that God hath an infinite cognizance and that nothing can be hid from his eyes who equally beholds things past present and to come Now if it be so plain and evident that God hath such an Infinite knowledg no Man can reasonably doubt that God knows the Period of every Mans Life but if any shall ask how is it that God knows certainly the Period of Humane Life I answer that it is a very bold and fruitless enquiry which concerns not us to know his understanding is infinite and shall silly Man think to comprehend and measure it by his finite knowledg The Psalmist modestly acknowledgeth that such knowledg is too wonderful for him it is high says he I cannot attain unto it Psal 139. 6. And elsewhere he tells us it is only bold Atheists who ask How doth God know and is there knowledg in the most high I confess the Schoolmen as they are called weary themselves with such vain Disputes and they are as peremptory in determining the manner of Gods knowledg of future things as if they had proved their assertions with Mathematical demonstrations Some of them tell us that things future are really present with God in Eternity which methinks is a very noble Paradox Others run to the Divine decree and make it the Basis of the Divine knowledg Others tell us hat God in contemplating his own essence sees all the representations and Ideas of future things therefore knows them certainly We might add many other conjectures but these may let us know how vainly curious such wits are but that which may satisfie any sober enquirer is this that God is Infinite in knowledg and therefore knows certainly the Period of every Mans Life it being truly future The Second thing I premised was to prove that God knows the Period of Humane Life by examples from Scripture Now I think this will need but little proof since the predictions concerning the Period of persons are so many and plain so many Hundred years foretold so punctually fulfilled without a failure in a tittle The death of Eli's Two Sons Hophni and Phineas was foretold 1 Sam. 2. 24. And punctually fulfilled as we may read Chap. 4. 11. both the manner place of Jezebels death was foretold the Dogs shall eat Jezebel in the Portion of Jezreel and there shall be none to bury her 2 King 9. 10. Which prediction was fulfilled without a failure in any circumstances as we read in the close of that Chapter But the most remarkable instances are those manifold predictions concerning the death of Holy Jesus All the prophets as the Apostle observeth Act. 3. have foretold that Christ should suffer they have condescended upon the manner of his suffering upon the time and upon the circumstances relating to it The Psalmist in a figurative Speech a very usual way of expressing things amongst the Prophets speaks of his being pierced so doth the Prophet Zechariah and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced Zech. 12. 10. Daniel did punctually speak of the time And after Threescore and Two Weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself Dan. 9. 26. But farther God doth not only know the actual but also the possible bounds of every Mans Life that is God doth know that a Period should have been put to the days of many Men if they had not by their hearty repentance and Devout Prayers prevented its lash It was King Hezekia's Prayer to God that extended his Life Fifteen years for the message which God did send to Hezekiah was this Set thine House in order for thou shalt dye and not live But he having prayed to God gets this return I have heard thy Prayer I have seen thy tears behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years Isa 38. 5. From which it is plain that God knew that a Period should have been then put to his days if his Prayer had not prevented it It was the people of Ninevehs repentance that prevented the threatned judgment that should have put a Period to their lives Which Method if the old World had observed they had prevented that Fatal Flood in which they were drowned Thirdly That it is onely the prerogative of God Almighty to know the Period of every Mans Life will be easily granted For those who deny Gods universal cognizance will never attribute it to any creature and those who do acknowledg the infinity of the Divine knowledg will never say it belongs to the creature The only things that we are to consider are these pretensions to a foreknowledg of things which the Heathen world bragged of but this Plea is easily removed For 1. in those dark ages of the World it was an easie thing to impose upon the faith of the vulgar who in all ages have been very credulous and apt to be thus deceived Secondly It is well known that there pretended predictions were very enigmatical and dubious Aio te Aeacida Romanos vincere posse was a Problem rather than a Prophecy which might have concluded both ways Thirdly The most part of their pretended predictions were only guesses and conjectures which for the most part were false and groundless yet Fourthly I do not deny but God may for ends known to himself reveal the Period of particular persons when and to whom he thinks fit It is therefore singly the property of God Almighty who grasps all times and who can never be impeached for giving a wrong divination to know the Period of every Mans Life In the last place I come to consider those Material doubts and objections this principle may be urged with As 1. It is hardly credible that God doth certainly know the Period of Humane Life it being only contingently future this objection Cicero could not answer therefore being perswaded that some things were contingently future he thought God could not know such things But the difficulty is not so great as to make us deny God hath perfect knowledg of things contingently future For 1. The light of nature may teach us that we must not reject what is plain because we cannot comprehend what is obscure That there is in man a rational Soul is beyond doubt and yet how irreconcilable are the opinions of learned men about its original whether it be by seminal production or by immediate creation Again the union of Soul