Man, to defcribe the Measure of his Life, and to fix the Period of his Exiftence; to him our Days and Years are known, whether by a fixed and immutable Period, or by a movable one, it matters not the time of our Duration is not hid from God; for however uncertain it may be to us, in his fight, who fees contingent as well as neceffary Effects, it is manifest and apparent. When we fay that the extent of our Life is unknown to us, we must fairly understand it either of the natural courfe of it, excluding all vitious and unnatural means which bring Men to a wretched and untimely end, or elfe in refpect of innumerable unforeseen Accidents which may fuddenly and in a moment deprive us of it. It is not always the moft regular Living, nor the greatest Difcretion and Caution that a Man can use to prolong his Life that will do it, (though it must be granted, Temperance and good management will go far to promote it) for daily Experience does convince us of the frailty and uncertainty of Humane Life, that it is not ftrength of Nature and Temperance on the one fide, nor yet yet weakness of Body and Intemperance on the other, that are infallible figns of a long or fhort Life; fince we many times obferve People of crazy and confumptive Natures out-live others that are youthful and ftrong; upon these and fuch like Accounts we fhould reflect on Humane Life as uncertain, and the natural Period of our Existence here to be beyond our Knowledge; and thus by reckoning the uncertainty we fhall learn to compute the number of our Days; an odd fort of Arithmetick I believe to fome, to number what is uncertain to us and cannot be numbered, and yet thus we may do in a Religious and Chriftian fenfe. Whatever the number of our Days fhall be, the number of them all is with God, of whom we hold our Lives, and none of us can fhow a Leafe for a fixed term of Years; and therefore we are but Tenants at the Will of our Lord, who hath the Dominion and Property in his own Hands. It is he that telleth the number of the Stars, which are to us innumerable; and he alfo can tell the number of our Days, which in a natural B 4 ! Dan. 7: 42. tural fense are to us unknown, and we are ignorant of the Period of them, and yet to be fo is to number them for that reafon and upon that account. Again, Thirdly, to number our Days is to esteem our Life at most but short and tranfitory; which will appear no lefs evident than the other: Were the Age of Man at this time of the World equal to theirs that lived before the Flood,alafs it would be fo far from being long,compar'd withGod's Eternity, who is by the Prophet call'd eminently the Antient of Days, that it were juftly to be reputed nothing; and yet if we view their Age and our own, the term of their Lives was of a great extent, feven, eight or nine Hundred Years; but then withal we know that an end has long ago been put to thofe Years, which far furpaffed ours in our longeft Period. And even thofe numerous Years, that they once faw, are paft away, and, as I may fay, vanifhed like a Tale that is told, When Jacob went down into Egypt to fee Joseph his Son, advanced to great Honour in the Court of Pharach, it is Recorded of him, that being asked by that King concerning his Age, he aufwered, The Days Days of the Tears of my Pilgrimage are an Hundred and thirty Tears (which by the way, we should reckon a prodigious Age for a Man to live to now adays; and yet as great as it seems the good Patriarch goes on with this account of them) few and evil have the Days of the Years of my Life been, and have not attained unto the Days of the Years of the Life of my Fathers in the Days of their Pilgrimage. Now if we confider, that an Hundred and thirty Years were by Jacob efteemed few in comparison of the Lives of the Antediluvian Patriarchs, or those that lived before the Flood, and yet that they far out-went the prefent longest Period of Humane Life, well may we then account our Lives fhort and tranfitory, and the number of our Days few and inconfiderable. It is true I confefs, in ordinary Estimation, a Life of Fourscore Years goes among us for a great Age, confidering how fmall a part of Mankind come up to that number, perhaps not one in Ten thoufand, and yet if a Man looks back at Forty Years end, he will be ready to wonder and declare how foon, how fud denly denly they are gone. Though the fame number of Years, which he hopes ftill to live, fhall appear great and numerous, as if Forty Years paft were not really as big as Forty Years to come: But here lies the Fallacy, the Deceit; Men can call to mind a great many Occurrences of their Years paft, and bring them into a little compass in their Thoughts, and by that means, that paft term of Years feems but fhort to them, whereas let them but think upon the fame number to come, the fond hopes and defire that they have to enjoy them, and a great many Projects and unknown Pleasures enlarge the Idea of that term; quite contrary to other things that, the nearer they are, look larger and bigger to us, but at a great distance appear little and contemptible. Now if Forty Years paft are upon reflection so few and tranfitory, what a poor addition will fuch another number make if fuperadded to them,not confiderable enough furely to reprefent them otherwife than fhort; the whole therefore,the shortness of our Life,and the fmall number of our Days is plain and undeniable, and whatever fond Thoughts Men at pre fent |