amongst them, were destroyed by a deluge of waters, which otherwise they might have escaped; according to what our Saviour speaketh to Capernaum concerning Sodom, "If the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day," Matt. xi. 23. And whereas God threateneth Ephraim, meaning the ten tribes, that "within threescore and five years Ephraim should be broken, that he be not a people," Isa. vii. 8; this judgment according to Musculus's computation, was put in execution within twenty years after this prophecy, and that "propter enormitatem malitiæ," as he saith, i. e. for the enormous heinousness of their wickedness. So then, as God hath by no decree determined that men shall be wicked, especially not outrageously wicked, which we shall further demonstrate afterwards, so neither hath he determined that abbreviation of the lives of particular men, which their voluntary excess in wickedness brings upon them. He hath indeed determined indefinitely and in the general that bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but if we speak of any particular persons, who, being bloody and deceitful, came thereby to an untimely end, neither their sin nor their suffering by an untimely end was determined by God.

Again, That men, by a prudential and providential care in preventing dangers, sicknesses, and such inconveniences which are of a known malignity to the life of man, may advance their days to a greater number than under a contrary neglect, especially as the neglect for degree might have been, they would or could in reason have amounted unto, is evident. God himself informed David that if he staid in Keilah till Saul should come thither to demand him, which he was now ready to do, the lords of this city would deliver him up unto him, 1 Sam. xxiii. 12, in which case he had been but a dead man: therefore David, by departing from Keilah before Saul's coming down to demand him, added many days unto his life above what their number would have been had he neglected the Divine oracle, and, by staying in Keilah, fallen into the hands of Saul. The men that were with Paul in the ship, by hearkening unto his counsel for causing the mariners to abide in the ship, got enlargement of quarter for their lives, which, upon their leaving of the ship, had certainly been denied unto them; for Paul said unto the centurion and the soldiers, "Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved," Acts xxvii. 31; whereas, upon their staying in the ship, "it so came to pass that they came all safe to land," ver. 44. The Lord Christ himself, by the care and faithfulness of Joseph in conveying him, being yet an infant, into Egypt, according to the charge of the angel which appeared unto him, came to see many more days in the flesh than he was like to have done in case he had been found in Bethlehem, or near to it, when Herod's bloody inquisition came forth against him. For this is the reason which the angel gave unto Joseph why he was enjoined by God to remove the child Jesus into a place of safety: "Herod," saith he, "will seek the

young child to destroy him," which supposeth not only a possibility, but a probability at least, if not a certainty, that, if the child had remained in or about Bethlehem, Herod both would have found him out and also destroyed him. So, afterwards we read, Luke iv., and elsewhere, that Christ, by declining the present rage and bloody intentions of the Jews from time to time, drew out the days of his mortal pilgrimage to that just period and hour wherein, according to his ever-blessed good pleasure, he had appointed that happy meeting between his own death and the life and salvation of the world.

True it is the days of human subsistence and continuance on earth are in the general but finite, yea, and few; yet, if we speak of particulars, they are not properly determinate or set down as so many, and no more, by any decree of God. It is, indeed, appointed by God unto men once to die, Heb. ix. 27; yea, as Job calculateth, within a short time: "Man," saith he, "that is born of a woman is of few days," Job xiv. 1; but I do not find it said of all particular persons that it is appointed unto them to die at such or such a time, day or year of their lives, or that they shall neither die sooner nor live longer. I deny not but that there are some few examples in Scripture of persons the precise number of whose days seemeth to have been fixed by God. His gracious message to king Hezekiah, being now sick unto death, was that he would add unto his days fifteen years, 2 Kings xx. 6; yet this expression doth not necessarily imply that they should be adequately and precisely so many, and no more. Nor when Job, in passion, reasoneth thus with God, (as our last translation rendereth his words,) "Seeing his days are determined, and the number of his months are with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds, that he cannot pass: turn from him that he may rest," &c., Job xiv. 6,7, doth he suppose that the bounds and limits of all men's lives are so rigidly or immoveably pitched by any decree of God, that they must of necessity live home to them, and cannot possibly live beyond them; but only this, that if God will at any time interpose by his power to cut off the life of any man, he may determine and put a period to it without being resisted or hindered by any. According to the exigency of this sense, both Tremellius and Beza translate thatclause" And the number of his months are with thee," out of the original, thus, "Numerus mensium ejus penes te est;" i. e., "thenumber of his months is in thy power," meaning, that thou mayest make them fewer or more, if, and as thou pleasest. Doubtless, if either David or Hezekiah had conceived the date and period of their lives to have been irreversibly concluded by any precedaneous decree of God, they would not have interceded with that affectionate importunity which is found in their prayers for a prorogation of them. "I said," saith David, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days," Psal. cii. 24; and again, "O spare me, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more," Psal. xxxix. 23. These expressions clearly imply that David ap

prehended as well a liberty in God as an executive power, either presently to take away or else to continue his life and being in the world for a longer time for who will solicit a man to do that for him which he apprehends him in no capacity or possibility to do? or for that which he conceives him whom he requesteth absolutely engaged and necessitated to do for him whether he requesteth it or no? Now, such a liberty in God as we speak of, and as David supposeth, was wholly inconsistent with such a peremptory and irreversible decree concerning the punctual extent and duration of his life which some imagine. So, when he fasted and wept for the life of his child, being sick, he neither supposed God bound by any unchangeable decree either to continue or presently to take away the life of it, but at liberty to do either. In the prayer of Hezekiah, though there be no express petition found for the enlargement of his life, yet there are grounds laid down which are proper to enforce such a petition upon, and by the tender whereof unto God it is evident that he did solicit for a reprieve, which is yet more apparent from that gracious return which God made unto him of this his prayer by the prophet Isaiah: "Go," saith God unto him," and say unto Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, and seen thy tears; behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years," Isa. xxxviii. 5. Therefore, doubtless, when Job saith, as we heard, that the days of man are determined, or, præcisi, i. e., cut short, as Junius and Tremellius render it, and that God hath appointed his bounds that he cannot pass, he doth not speak of any determinate number of days or years set out by any decree of his unto particular persons for life, which by no interveniency of means or occasions, on either hand, can either be diminished or protracted, but of that general counsel, purpose, or decree of his by which he hath reduced and contracted the mortal pilgrimage of man on earth to a very short and inconsiderable space of time.

Nor doth it follow from any of the premises but that God doth frequently interpose, and that after a very special and remarkable manner, sometimes for the preservation, otherwhile for the abbreviation and cutting off the lives of particular men. When God will undertake, and resolvedly engage to stand by the life of man, as now and then he doth, at least for a time, a thousand shall fall at his side, and ten thousand at his right hand, and the danger not come nigh him; i. e., he shall remain as safe and as free from evil as if all danger of evil were far from him. "He shall not be afraid," i. e., such a man needeth not to be afraid, "for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day," Psal. xci. 5-7. But daily experience showeth that God doth not engage himself upon such terms as these for the protection of the lives of all that are godly, many of these falling by the hand of death even whilst the lives of thousands and tens of thousands round about them are not touched therewith: nor have any per

sons, though never so godly, any sufficient ground from the passages mentioned, or the like, to expect, absolutely and with confi dence, protection of life in the midst of all such dangers which are there specified, but only conditionally, viz., if God will vouchsafe to undertake for their preservation and peace. Such scriptures hold forth the constant power, not the uniform will or pleasure of God. On the other hand, when God "taketh no pleasure," as the Scripture phrase is, in the life of a man, the little finger of death is enough to crush it; my meaning is, a very slender and inconsiderable occasion will serve his providence for the dissolution of it. But neither of these dispensations amounts to any demonstration of any such decree in God, wherein he hath punctually and indispensably assigned to all persons whatsoever a set number of years, months, days, hours, and moments for their allowance of life, which neither himself nor themselves, nor any other creature, hath the least liberty or power either to augment or diminish upon any occasion or by any means whatsoever. It is indeed commonly reported to be a great article in the Turkish creed, that the lives of all men, at least of all Turks, are so absolutely disposed of in the counsel and decree of God, that it is a thing simply impossible for men, either by running upon the mouths of cannons, or by casting themselves into the sea, or by rushing naked into the midst of a host of armed enemies, or by adventuring upon any danger, upon any death whatsoever, to anticipate the date of such a disposal; and so on the contrary, by any care, prudence, or circumspectness whatsoever, to prevent the fatality thereof. But such notions and decrees as these are fitter to make Alcoran divinity than Christian. I freely acknowledge all the decrees of God to be absolute and unchangeable upon any occasion or by any means whatsoever, and none of them in a true and proper sense conditional; but I am far from making the decrees of God commensurable with his prescience or foreknowledge. But of this hereafter.

In order to a full and thorough explication of the subject last in hand, if this had been any material part of our present design, many particularities, besides those insisted upon, should have been added. But the consideration of the dependence of the motions and actings of the creature upon God, in respect of their determination, is more intimous to the heart and spirit of our grand intendment, than of their simple existences or beings. Therefore, (to pass on to the explication of this,) we have laid down for the argument of this chapter, this conclusion, (either in words or substance,) that the motions, actions, or operations of second causes, though they do as absolutely depend upon the first, as their existences or beings, (as was argued in the former chapter,) yet are they not by this dependence, at least ordinarily, so immediately or precisely determined as their beings. Notwithstanding how their beings, in respect of their natures, their productions, their subsistings, or durations in being, are determined or not determined by God, hath been the inquiry and decision of the preceding part of

this chapter. We come now to inquire how far, and after what manner, the motions and actions of second causes are determined or necessitated to be both when, and where, and what they are, by that essential dependence which they have upon God.

All second causes whatsoever are reducible to one of these three heads or kinds: they are, either, 1. Such which act and move without any knowledge or apprehension at all, (as being capable of neither,) either of the end, for the obtaining whereof they act or move, or of their motions or actings in order to this end. Or, 2. Such which are capable of some kind of knowledge or apprehension, both of their ends, and of their actings and movings towards these ends, but very imperfect and weak, viz., such which extend not to the reason or relation of these ends, nor to any deliberation about them, nor yet to the proportion or aptness of those their actings and movings for the obtaining of their ends. Or, 3. and lastly, they are such which know and apprehend, (or at least are capable of both,) not simply of those ends in order whereunto they act and move, but of the nature, reason, and further tendency of these ends also, as likewise of the proportion of likelihood of their engagements in any kind, for the obtaining of their ends. The first kind of these causes are called natural, or merely natural; the second, animal, or spontaneous; the third, rational, voluntary, or free-working. Of the first sort are, 1. all inanimate and lifeless creatures, as fire, water, air, earth, stones, minerals, and such like; 2. all creatures which are endued with a principle of vegetation, but not of sense. Of the second, are all animal or sensitive creatures, not partakers of any principle or endowment, above those of outward sensation, and a certain estimative faculty or phantasy, by which they first apprehend what is naturally good or evil for them, (at least in some particulars,) and, second, are acted and moved accordingly; as either to or from them, but without any deliberation or consideration had, either about the one or the other. Of this kind are beasts of the field, birds of the air, fishes of the sea, and generally whatsoever hath breath and life, excepting men. These are said to act or move spontaneously, because they act out of some knowledge of their end, without any compulsion or necessitation from without. Of the third and last sort are only men and angels, whether good or bad, in either kind; who are therefore called rational, voluntary, or free-working causes, because they are capable not only of an apprehension or knowledge of such ends, for and towards the obtaining of which they act and move, but also of the nature, quality, and import of them, and of deliberation likewise, or consultation about the means and ways of their procurement.

Now though all these several causes have such a dependence upon God, that, as hath been said, none of them can move into action without a suitable concurrence from him, yet are not their actions or motions thereby determined ordinarily, or necessitated unto or upon them. The reason why fire burns, or heats, and doth