many learned men about, as supposing it would be a great injury to his profession, did men believe, that the time of their death was so absolutely determined by God, that they could neither die sooner, nor live longer than that fatal period, whether they took the advice and prescriptions of the physicians or not. But this was a vain fear, for there are some speculations, which men never live by, how vehemently soever they contend for them. A sceptic, who pretends that there is nothing certain and will dispute with you as long as you please about it, yet will not venture his own arguments so far, as to leap into the fire or water, nor to stand before the mouth of a loaded cannon, when you give fire to it. Thus men who talk most about fatal necessity, and absolute decrees, yet they will eat and drink to preserve themselves in health, and take physic when they are sick, and as heartily repent of their sins, and vow amendment and reformation, when they think themselves a dying, as if they did not believe one word of such absolute decrees, and fatal necessity, as they talk of at other times.

I do not intend to engage in this dispute of necessity and fate, of prescience and absolute decrees, which will be disputes as long as the world lasts, unless men grow wiser than to trouble themselves with such questions as are above their reach, and which they can never have a clear notion and perception of; but all that I intend is, to shew you, according to the

scripture account of it, that the period of our lives is not so preemptorily determined by God, but that we may lengthen or shorten them, live longer, or die sooner, according as we behave ourselves in this world.

Now this is very plain from all those places of scripture, where God promises long life to good men, and threatens to shorter the lives of the wicked: xix. Psal. 16. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. Solomon tells us of wisdom, length of days is in her right hand, and in her ̧ left riches and honors, Prov. iii. 16. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened, Prov. x. 27. Thus God has promised long life to those who honor their parents, in the fifth commandment; and the same promise is made in more general terms to those who observe the statutes and commandments of God, Deut. iv. 40. Upon the same condition God promised long life to King Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 14. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and commandments, as thy father David did walk, then will I lengthen thy days. The same is supposed in David's prayer to God, not to take him away in the midst of his days, Psal. cii. 24. And in Psal. lv. 23. he tells us, that bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. Now one would reasonably conclude from hence, that God has not absolutely and unconditionally promised to prolong men's lives, or threatened

to shorten them; for what place can there be for conditional promises, where an absolute decree is past? How can any man be said not to live out half his days, if he lives as long as God has decreed he shall live? for if the period of every particular man's life be determined by God, none are his days, but what God has decreed for him.

As for matter of fact, it is plain and evident, both that men shorten their own lives, and that God shortens them for them, and that in such a manner as will not admit of an absolute and unconditional decree thus some men destroy a healthful and vigorous constitution of body by intemperance and lust, and do as manifestly kill themselves, as those who hang, or poison, or drown themselves; and both these sorts of men, I suppose, may be said to shorten their own lives; and so do those who rob, or murder, or commit any other villany, which forfeits their lives to public justice; or quarrel and fall in a duel, and the like; and yet you will no more say, that God decreed and determined the death of these men, than he did their sin.

Thus God himself very often shortens the lives of men, by plague, and famine, and sword, and such other judgments, as he executes upon a wicked world; and this must be confest to be the effect of God's counsel and decrees, as a judge decrees and pronounces the death of a malefactor; but this is not an absolute and unconditional decree, but is occa

sioned by their sins and provocations, as all judg ments are; they might have lived longer, and escaped these judgments, had they been virtuous, and obedient to God: for if they should have lived no longer, whether they had sinned or not, their death, by what judgments soever they are cut off, is not so properly the execution of justice, as of a peremptory decree; their lives are not shortened, but their fatal period is come.

Indeed, unless we make the providence of God, not the government of a wise and free agent, who acts pro re nata, and rewards and punishes as men deserve, as the scripture represents it, but an unavoidable execution of a long series of fatal and necessary events from the beginning to the end of the world, as the Stoics thought, we must acknowledge, that in the government of free agents, God has reserved to himself a free liberty of lengthening or shortening men's lives, as will best serve the ends of providence for if we will allow man to be a free agent, and that he is not under a necessity of sinning, and deserving to be cut off at such a time, or in such a manner, the application of rewards and punishments to him must be free also, or else they may be ill ap plied he may be punished when he deserves to be rewarded; the fatal period of life may fall out at such a time when he most of all deserves long life, and when the lengthening his life would be a public blessing to the world. Fatal and necessary events

can never be fitted to the government of free agents, no more than you can make a clock, which shall strike exactly for time and number, when such a man speaks, let him speak when, or name what number he pleases: and yet there is nothing of greater moment in the government of the world, than a free power and liberty of lengthening or shortening men's lives; for nothing more over-awes mankind, and keeps them more in dependence on God; nothing gives a more signal demonstration of a divine power, or vengeance, or protection: nothing is a greater blessing to families or kingdoms, or a greater punishment to them, than the life or death of a parent, of a child, of a prince, and therefore it is as necessary to reserve this power to God, as to assert a providence. There are two or three places of scripture, which are urged in favor of the contrary opinion, Job. xiv. 5. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. Job vii. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling? Which refer not to the particular period of every man's life, but as I observed before, to the general period of human life, which is fixed and determined, which is there called the days or the years of a man, because God has appointed this the ordinary time of man's life; as when God threatens, that the wicked shall not live out half their days, that is, half that time which is allotted for men