4a Days ilppointed Laflly, Here is our Duty and Employment befpoke in one for the other ; in li feto make our [elves ready for death : All our days to waitfor it. All the days of my ap- pointed time will 1 watt till ,ny tkánge come. The firll of thefe feverals is the flinted term of mans Life. It is an appointed time. Although the ChaldeeParaphrafl rendreth it by i'jaf and the, Vulgar Latine militia, the days of sty warfare ; yet when the ch.oicefl Mailers of Words confers that ts5yis alto often tiled as Synonimous with finis, extremum: And the Heise* Scholia/1s expound it tali and 3017 Vol tempos precifum. I ffrall adhere to tour own Txanflacion, which eállech the Days of our abode hereon , this World ,'an apfiol;lted time. . -' An appointed time. It is but time at the moil. The Inhabitants of the intel- le6tual World whether they be in Weal or Woe, Peace or Torment, have no va- rying nor fhadow of change with them : Upon this accountin force Parts of Africa they put their dead bodies into the Ground fitting, a pollute of refi and (lay, to fhew that what ever place theywere gone to then, they fhould never move nor flir more from ir. But weare -here on earth upon other terms : this is only for a time, and then we muttdepart from it. The fathers do they live forever ? And the Prophets where are they ? 3ofeph isnor, and Simeon is not ; and we (alas !) mull not we goalto? Our timeis Appointed. He that fafhioned and framed our Bodies bath not obferved jufl the fame hand in all, but bath made themwith provident and wife Diffe rentes : Some are thong as Iron, others as brittleas Glafs; thisbath the coughnefs of the Oak, that the flightinefs of the Reed : In one the Temperament of the Humors is more adjufled, in anothermore unequal, according to the duration he did intend them for. What is the reafon that in the fame Climate, Air, Diet, Exercife ; Terentia liveth to to3 Years of Age, when her Sifter Fulvia dieth at 21? Geftppus with all the care and helps of Are can be preferved no longer than 35. when Thanlcus lafled while above 80 ? Whence (I fay) ordinarily is this diverfity, but from the divers toy of their naturalconfieutions ? God accord- ing to his defign of our longeror (hotter continuancehere, giving to every one of us a body as it pleafethhim ; This is the natural term of life, called by the Schools, theTime of Gods Determination ; fo long men may live. Not that every one liveth just fo long, and dieth no fooner : No, this `courfe of Nature is often violated and prevented : Some diepenally, by the Magiflrates Sentence; Tome die defperately, making away themfelves; Tome die fottifhly, by their ownintemperance ; fome die mercifully,are takenaway from theevil to come. Although none can live longer than this time, yet it is very common to die fooner ; although they are Bounds which we cannot pats, yet they are buch as we may fall fhort of. The reaching of this Term it is not abfolute, but conditional ; it is promifed as a Meiling to piety and publick Virtue, Exod. 23. 25, 26. 're fhai ferve the Lord your God, &c. And I.will take ftcknefs away from the midfl of thee, &c. The number of thy days I will fulfil. Thy days, theft which are thy' first portion, thou (halt fulfil them : On the other hand it is threatned as a curie to difor- derly and wicked men, Pfal. 5î.z3, That they hall not live out half their days: Theirs, thofe which otherwife they might have attained and arrived to, And this is the aáival Termof lifeufually called the time ofGods foreknowledg. Not that in any cafe, whenfoever, wherefoever, howloever we go out of the World, the purpofe of God is made of none effedl, or his appointment difappointed: No, for the bounds which hehath'fet us they are not fatally im- movable: Then all care in this cafe would prove as impertinent as Beverovitias objeOled his Calling: butonly polfiblyattainableas appeareth by the enforcement of the fifth Commandment, and the cafe of Hezekiah. Upon fuppofition of, and with refpeól co, means and conditions it is, that our time it appointed. And that (hall fuffice to have been fpoken to the firlt Part of the Text, the bounds of our life upon Earth : How and upönwhat accoüijt"rfis an appointed time. We now goon to confider what becometh of us, when this.time is Out and expired, as it followeth in my.. _ . Next
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