ANIMADVERSIONS UPON A FATAL PERIOD.  
Or, a Brief DISCOURSE Concerning The Present State of the Body, And The Future State of the Soul.  
By Tho. Collard, M. A.  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not? Matt. 23. 37. 
LONDON, Printed by T. D. for Thomas Basset at the George near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1678.   

To the judicious, knowing, and skilful Physicians, Apothecaries, and Chirurgeons: These Animadversions upon a fatal Period, are most humbly dedicated by the Author.  
Honoured Sirs,  
I Hope I may beg, and easily obtain your pardon, for prefixing your names to these few Sheets; seeing your whole Profession, by the clearest Consequence, is, by some men's endeavours, likely to be defamed and cashiered, as one great Imposture.   

To the READER.  
THe Notion of a Destiny, of the Fatal Event of all things, of peremptory and absolute Decrees, being once imbibed by the Vulgar, or even by their great Abettors; they soon commence such excellent Sophisters as to argue and cajole themselves out of all morality and honesty: Abold and Hectoring confidence, an idle and fruitless faith, Yea and Nays, grave nods, sadtones and accents, wry Mouths, sullen and lugubrious looks, Hypocrisy and mere Formalities with the more precious Sort of them; and oaths, curses, imprecations, and notorious frolicks and debaucheries with the Profaner: have the like influence (they think) on God, concerning their present and future State; as truth, sincerity, temperance, ardent zeal, emient piety, real charity and devotion. For the Almighty, in their judgements, before they had a Being designed their Fate either of bliss or misery, which neither Vice nor Virtue can alter.  
Death 'tis confessed, is very formidous, of a tragical and austere Aspect, and Life, especially eternal, is sweet and eligible, desired and courted by all; but should they endeavour to use all the Means and Methods imaginable to eschew the One, and to enjoy the Other; yet a previous and dormant Decree might frustrate their designs, and press them to the infernal Pit, while, Idiots like, they were aspiring for Heaven. This supersedes their care and industry, makes them respect an extravagant Romance, a Dithyrambic, or a hymn of their own making, as good for the Health of their Souls, as the whole Duty of Man, Te Deum, or one of David's Penitentials; and Chalk Ashes, and Sawdust as efficacious for the Health of their Bodies, as the richest Julips and Cordials; and so Both oftentimes perish either by Presumption or Despair: these being the direful Effects and sad results, which naturally issue, like insipid rivulets from putrid springs, from such brainsick and vertiginous Fancies.  
There are many (I know) elaborate and judicious Discourses, both from the Press and the Pulpit, which since the blessed and miraculous Restauration of our exiled KING and CHURCH, have like so many holy Engines battered down those prodigious Opinions concerning Gods most just and sacred Decrees: Yet the Contagion still remaining in these Parts, as was evident from W. C's Pulpit-Prate in Vindication of a Fatal Period, and the Turks Aphorism, Quod terminus vitae est immutabilis; and even as it now appears from the Press in its new form, after two years licking: (for there are some things added, as that of Bp. H. and more omitted;) yet the zealous Harangue is still a Bear, able to startle all that have any good thoughts of a Deity, or any real estimate for Truth, Reason, Piety, Religion, and the Sincerity of the Sacred Writ▪ though 'tis received by his infatuated Proselytes with as great veneration, as one of St. Paul's Epistles. And this is no Novelty nor wonder neither: for 'tis storied of a Geneva Innocent (I might say a blasphemous Zealot) that said, Si veniret Sanctus Paulus qui eadem horâ concionaretur quâ & Calvinus, ego relicto Paulo audirem Calvinum, If St. Paul should come from Heaven, and Preach at the same time that Calvin did; I would desert Paul, and attend and hear precious Mr. John Calvin. Comparisons (I know) are odious; and I must needs confess, that there is as vast a difference between J. C. the Master, and W. C. the Disciple, as there is between a subtle Politician that can Argue and Rhetoricate, and one of his talkative Bigots.  
Our Plebeians and Artisans, and most that formerly frequented the illegal Meetings, being infected with the sour Leaven of absolute and irrespective Decrees of Election and Reprobation, which are used by them as Catholicons to free them from all the diseases both of body and mind, from all faults and Errors: for after the most detestable acts and heinous offences, they usually solace themselves (as I have often known,) That all was decreed, allotted, and appointed for them: that Gods will must be done: and that if God had given them better Grace, (as they usually word it) they had been better men, and less peccant. So that the poor ignorant Creatures (though highly conceited of their own, as well as of their Teacher's knowledge) dream, that the Almighty is obliged in honour to pardon their most deliberate and blackest crimes; they being (according to their own Principles,) necessitated thereto by his own eternal and immutable Act and Deed. This Contagion, I say, being yet amongst us: This mean Antidote may not, I presume, prove altogether ineffectual, though not totally to Allay and expel, yet in some measure to put a stop to the Increase and spreading of it; which has been one of the grand Causes of that vast Empire Sin has got in England since the public Preaching of it, in (and a little before) our late intestine Commotions. I shall not apologise, but shall leave the ensuing Lines to thy serious and impartial Consideration.   

A brief Discourse.  Ezek. 18. 31, Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? 
THE many Misapprehensions of God, especially concerning the secret purposes of his Will, which he neither commands us to search after, nor will permit us to know; (and surely then were we but half ashamed of notorious Contradictions, we should never pretend to know God's Decrees, which we call hidden and secret;) and the divers Misperswasions of the Divine Attributes, especially concerning his Justice and Mercy; are none of the smallest Causes of those gross Errors and scandalous practices that are found amongst the Propugners of them. The Pulpit, Chair, and Press, (when we found by woeful experience that Maxim verified, No Bishop, no King) insinuated unto us such Opinions and Doctrines, (one of the most blasphemous that ever I heard, was vented, when the Good Old Cause was rampant, by Mr. W. at a Soul-edifying Lecture; viz. That we are not saved by Jesus Christ.) as infer falsehood in God, and set an opposition between his revealed and his secret Will, his holy Commands and just Decrees, making the one a blind for the better execution of the other; as if all the love and mercy he expresses, all the passionate invitations he makes were only to mock and delude us. And as several ills (saith the most judicious, and ever to be admired Author of the Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety) are hereby countenanced and authorised, so is all Virtue in general discouraged and disheartened; these benumb us in our Christian course, subtract that spirit and vigour, which should carry us through the weary stages of duty: indeed they cut the very sinews of Industry, baffle and make ridiculous all purposes of Labour, the Ministers Preaching, and the People's Hearing and Doing: for what should invite a man to strive for that, from which he knows he is either irreversibly precluded, or else so infallibly ascertained of, that his negligence cannot defeat him.  
GOD has given us Rules of Life, which upon the severest Penalties he requires us to study and practise; and we divert from these, and make it our business to trace his Counsels. We are gazing at the Stars to read our Destiny, and look not to our feet; and by that negligence experiment the worst fate they could have portended: for I think we may say our wild Fancies about God's Decrees, have in event reprobated more than those Decrees, upon which they are so willing to charge their ruin, and have bid fair to the damning of many, whom those left salvable. We often forget our Calling by contemplating our Predestination; and let the Opinion of our Fate be at once the Encouragement and Excuse of our sloth, than which nothing can more evacuate the purpose and design of our Christianity, which Divines have truly defined to be not a contemplative but active Science.  
THE Almighty interrogates the house of Israel, Why will ye die? and tells them in the subsequent Verse, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye? Yet some bold Inquisitors into God's Decrees and hidden Counsels dream, That his secret Will is of a very distant nature to his revealed; Et Deus ita terminum seu horam mortis homini praefinierit decreto absoluto; ut hâc ipsâ horâ, & non aliâ, hoc ipso mortis genere, quo homo moritur, & non alio, mori illum simpliciter absoluteque sit necessarium: and that the Soul likewise is liable to the same fatality. That Myriads do what they can, are from God's eternal and immutable purpose ordained for death and endless misery; and a very few Favourites only, in comparison of the rest, do what they will, are predestined to life and immortal Glory. This wounds the Credit both of the Divines and the Physicians, of their Proselytes and Patients; and by the clearest consequence makes the former Cheats, and the later Fools. But whether true or no, we come now to consider.  
THE Question here, Why will ye die? and the Protestation, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth; may clear Gods ways of being either cruel or unequal; and evidently demonstrate the Almighty's Philanthropy, and his high resentment of the ruin and Perdition either of Body or Soul. And first concerning the present State of the Body. 
The present state of the Body.   
THE Protoplast, had he continued in his integrity, (as he might, for God gave him sufficient power to stand, and did not withdraw the least degree of his Grace, or infuse into him any secret impulse or motion, whereby he might deviate from that sacred station in which he was placed;) he had been free from death; but having once eaten the prohibited fruit, 'twas necessary by God's Decree (but not before) that Death should arrest him for it; for the immutable Creator had said, That in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Gen. 2. 17. So that we may not before the Fall (although it be true since) term death, with Socinus, to be naturae sequela per se. For as by Adam Sin entered into the world, so death by sin, Rom. 5. 12. And as it follows; so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: that is, All mere men that were after born, were sinners, born after the image and likeness of Adam that was now a sinner, and had begotten no Child in his innocence. Sinful men than we are all, and die once we must by reason of our Fore-father's Apostasy. 'Tis true, we read that Lazarus and others being raised from the dead, without controversy died twice; but the Author (St. Paul doubtless) of the Heb●. Chap. 9 27. speaks of the natural Law, whereby it is appointed unto all ordinarily once to die; so that 'tis not opposite to this truth, because others have died twice, which by an extraordinary manner happened only to a few. And as for those that shall be found alive at the second and sudden coming of Christ, they shall be changed in a moment, and in the twinkling of an eye; which mutation or change shall be to them instead of death. 'Tis then most apparent, that 'tis ordinarily appointed unto men once to die; and then certainly to come to judgement, to be punished or rewarded according to their actions. Rom. 14. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 10.  
OUR brittle and terrestrial Bodies, we all grant, must be dissolved; for our Bounds are set, and our lives limited within such a number of years, beyond which, by the ordinary course of nature we cannot pass; but our Days are not so strictly and fatally limited and determined, as if neither God nor man could extend or shorten them. The fifteen years added to Hezekiah's days, assure us of God's power to prolong the life of man; and Reason, Experience, and all History both sacred and profane, proclaim his power to shorten it. And thousands of Examples too sadly evince, how expert and indefatigable many are in putting a Period to their own and other men's days, in the midst and prime of their strength and splendour. A man may destroy him●e●●, his Friend, Neighbour, or Enemy, before he hath seen thirty years, that otherwise might have seen threescore. And therefore a fatal Period, in the judgement of all considering men, is no less than a Stoical, Astrological, and Mahometan Dream; or at best but a popular Error, as our immortal Dr. Hammond terms it in his Postscript of new Light.  
AND we likewise confess, That God does know, and may foretell the very time, manner, and place of any man's death; but 'tis a simple Logician, and a giddy and hot-braind Christian, that from God's Predictions and Revelations of the period of some men's lives, as of Aaron, Pashur, Hophni and Phineas, and of the holy Jesus; will hence infer, (as W. C. most irrationally doth) that therefore the very moment, the very kind, (though it be self-murder) and place of every man's death, are fatally, and absolutely decreed and appointed.  
I shall transcribe our famous Preacher's very expressions and words, which indeed would have sounded better from the mouth of a bold Gladiator, with a Sword in his hand ready for Combat, or from a Magisterial Adventurer, than from a Lover of Humility; as our great lover of popular applause is characterised, and in all humility publicly proclaimed by his friend and neighbour, his profound Champion; who doubtless hath an equal inspection both into the Law and the Gospel.  
W. C. pag. 7. Death (as to all the particular circumstances of it) is foreappointed and determined by God's Eternal purpose. 1. As to the time when a man shall die: It must be such a time, such a day, and such a moment. Thus for the time when. 2, The next circumstance (pag. 10, 11.) I shall speak of is, the place Where we must (or if you will, rather where we shall) die; (must or shall, a great choice and kindness truly) this is also appointed by God, whether at home or abroad, whether in the field or in the house, whether in the lower or upper rooms, whether at table (the round or long) or by the fire side, (or in the midst of the fire) whether in the bed (the flock, feather, or doun-bed) or in a Chair, (the blue or the red.) 3. As to the manner of dying, or kind of death, mille modi Lethi, as the Poet saith; whether it shall be a sudden or a lingering death, (an Apoplexy or Consumption,) whether it shall be a natural or a violent death, (by old age or by poison) whether in Peace or in War, Foreign or Domestic, (whether by sickness, and by what sickness (whether great or small, by the biting of a Flea or a Viper, by a stab with a Stelletto or a straw, by the shot of a Blunderbus or a Pop-gun; for supposing the very time, manner, and place of every man's death are fatally determined, there is no more danger in the one, than in the other,) or by the hand of Justice; whether by burning at the stake, hanging on the Gallow, or losing one's head on the Scaffold. Isa. 22. 18. Jer. 11. 12. Jer. 34. 5. Joh. 12. 31. 32. Joh. 21. 19 Mat. 23. 34. 1 Pet. 4. 19 (And so from the first Chapter of Genesis to the last of the Revelations.) All these circumstances, I say, (but shall never be able to prove) are appointed, determined, and limited by God's unchangeable purpose. (These comfortable Doctrines are calculated for Newgate.  
THE first six Quotations out of the Prophets and Apostles, are Predictions only of some certain men's death; as of Shebna, King Zedekiah, the men of Judah and Inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the blessed Jesus, whose death upon all accounts is to be respected as a Case extraordinary; and therefore they argue nothing for a fatal Period, as I intimated before. And the last (viz. 1 Pet. 4. 19) is as impertinent and ridiculous, as if I should cite the first Chap. of St. John, or any other, to prove that there be as many Worlds, (as some with their Telescopes would persuade us) as there are Stars in the Firmament. The words run thus, Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their Souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. No man in his Wits would ever think, that this place could in the least prove, or seem to favour a fatal Period; or, to use his own words, That God in his unchangeable purpose hath appointed, and determined the time, the manner, (though it be hanging on the Gallows for Murder, for Patricide; or losing one's head on the Scaffold for Treason;) and place (Tyburn, Tower-hill;) of men's death; unless it be because there is one word in it, viz. Suffer. This was ever a fanatical Trick to amuse and delude the Vulgar; for let them hear a Legion of Allegations from the Pulpit, (though not one of them to the purpose, as here.) they instantly admire, and adore the man as an Angel or Messenger from Heaven; style him a Gifted, Scripture-learned, and powerful Preacher, that he hath all the Bible at his Finger's end, and had a Text for every word he thundered out of his wide Throat. Whereas others are for Reason, ancient Records, Councils, Fathers, and the like humane Learning. Thus having the credulous Multitude fast by the Nose, 'tis no difficult Province to instil into them the most erroneous, schismatical, and factious Tenants, as the most perspicuous Truths; well knowing that they want either Wit or Time to try and examine them. Read the seven preceding Verses, and you will find, that the Apostle there only predicts, what great pressures and afflictions the primitive Converts would be loaded with, for the sake of their new (and therefore as their Enemies, both Jews and Gentiles thought false) Religion. That so by knowing this beforehand, Persecution might not unexpectedly surprise them, and cause them either to fluctuate or apostatise,  
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial (terrible fire of Persecution) which is to try you: But rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy, If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you (pray observe it, for this Caution is directly against a fatal Period, and intimates that the kind or manner of their death, was not absolutely appointed; for they might suffer death for their wickedness, as well as for their Religion; or else the Precept or Advice (call it which you will) must needs be very ridiculous) suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. But if any suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God; (for the trial of the righteous) and if it first begin at us, (the true Proselytes of Christ) what shall be the end of them (the Crucifiers of the holy Jesus, and the obdurate Persecuters of Christianity) that obey not the Gospel of God? (but utter excision.) And if the righteous scarcely be saved, (have afflictions in this life,) where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? (how dreadful then is the expectation of the profane?) Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, (that suffer in the cause of their Saviour,) commit the keeping of their Souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator. (bear their pressures patiently, and commit their lives to God, who will, if he sees good, preserve them; or else make their sufferings a way and passage to Eternity.) This is enough to demonstrate (though we shall have other occasions hereafter) to his knowing Editor, with the rest of his Sticklers; or to any other that hath but common reason; how grossly God's Word is abused and wrested from its genuine and proper sense, to prop and Patronise his Heterodoxies and Mahometan frenzies.  
TO affirm dogmatically, that decollation, suspension, felo de se, or any other miserable death that happen to men; yea, and all the cursed means thereto, as fraud, rapine, treason, sacrilege, murder, etc. are all absolutely appointed by God's immutable counsel and purpose; these conceptions (I say) of the Almighty, derogate much from his goodness, mercy, and truth; and are not only diametrically opposite to his very nature, who is Love in the abstract, 1 Epist. St Joh. 4. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and cannot be the Author of sin; but to all the sacred Monuments & Records which evince, That the Period of every man's Life is mutable, and may be extended or shortened by Providence or Art, by God or Man. For,  
THE great God may (as all must yield, that will not deny his Attribute of Omnipotency, or make him a necessary Agent.) prolong or shorten the days of any man; and our Prayers, Repentance, the salubrity and purity of the Air and Water, our temperance and choice in eating and drinking, and the knowing and prudent Physician, may by God's blessing extend our days: Whereas profaneness, our immoderate passions and desires, the corrupted and impure Elements, our excess in any respect, exposing ourselves to any great and eminent perils, as the Sword or Pestilence; or an ignorant and confident Quack with his strong and improper Medicaments, may shorten our days. And he that denies this, (as W. C. out of abundance of humility, or rather ignorance doth) may as well contradict and deny not only his own reason, (reason did I say? that is a most scandalous and impious thing for a meek and mortified man, that is full of Raptures and Illuminations, to own;) but also his own experience, and the sacred History itself. First,  
'TIS evident from the Scriptures, That there is no fatal Period, but that our lives may be extended or shortened.  
OUR gracious Maker has promised long life to those that fear him, and observe his Mandates. Deus his qui ipsum timent, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fore promittit. Exod. 20. 12. Deut. 4. 40. 5. 16, 33. 8. 1. Psal. 9 16. Prov. 4. 10. Eph. 6. 2, 3. 1 Tim. 4. 8.  
AND God threatens the wicked, that for their impieties he will cut them off in the midst of their Age, that they shall not live so long as otherwise they might. Leu. 26. 25. Deut. 5. 25, 26. 6. 15. 7. 10. 8. 19 Psal. 55. 23. 104. 35. 109. 8. Prov. 10. 27.  
FROM the Examples of Er and Onan Gen. 38 7, 10. of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram Numb. 16. 32, 33. of the Jews, Exo. 31. 14, 15; of the Egyptians, Exod. 14. 28. of Absalon 2 Sam. 18. 9; of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5. 5, 10. But were there a fatal Period, all these Promises and Menaces must needs be vain, false, and ridiculous; which to affirm or imagine would be no small blasphemy: And the sad Catastrophes of the forementioned, of Er and Onan, of Ananias and Saphira, etc. were the results of his eternal and absolute Decrees, and not of his wrath and just Judgements. And that though Corah and his Confederates did not die the common death of men, but the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up; yet in (W. C's Opinion, pag. 9) they lived out all the days of their special and personal limit; or all the days appointed as their portion in the land of the living. This methinks looks Legerdemain, than honest and sound Theology.  
THERE are two places of holy Writ, (amongst several others, some whereof anon I shall have occasion to nominate,) which may cause W. C. to strike sail, and yield to right and truth, if the simple Encomiums of the Vulgar, and of the factious Party, have not metamorphozed, and puffed him up into a carnal state (which he tells us is very dangerous, and in this we believe him;) of arrogancy and self-adoration.  
THE first is, Jer. 21. 8, 9 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 die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be to him for a prey. Which clearly demonstrates, that the time, manner, and place of their death, were not limited and determined by any absolute and unchangeable purpose or Decree of God; for 'twas in their own choice and power either to extend or shorten their days. If they would remain in the City, they should die; if forsake it, they should live.  
THE second is the fifth Commandment, Exod. 20. 12. which only hath a Promise annexed to it: Honour thy father and mother, that is, thy civil Parents, (the King, Magistrates;) thy Ecclesiastical Parents, (Bishops, Pastors;) as well as thy natural Parents, that brought thee into the world; that thy days may be long in the land. [That] here intimates not the final cause, but the event; (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Grammarians speak) for this is not the end of our obedience, but an event and a consequent to follow upon it: and the Promise is used as a motive to give honour to whom honour is due. To clear the truth of this, we must observe first, That all the Promises of God for temporal things, as for life, health, wealth, are conditional, not absolute; Psal. 34. 12, 13, 14. 1 Pet. 3. 10, 11. Mat. 6. 33. and shall so far be performed as may make for our good; and therefore in Deut. 5. 16. the Promise is thus limited and declared: Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee. So that the meaning is, (saith the most Reverend and Learned Bp. of Gloucester in his Exp.) that so long as it may go well with any man, his life shall be prolonged as no farther; but if his life prove to him a displeasure and no benefit, it shall be taken away, and an eternal, which is far better, bestowed on him. Thus it happened to Josiah, 2 Kings 22. 20. Thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace, and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring on this place. Or secondly, That it may go well with thee, may carry this sense, which St. Paul intimates, 1 Tim. 1. 2. Honour and pray for Kings, that you may lead a quiet and peaceable life; for where this holy Order is broken and abrogated, all peace and quietness (as our civil Dissensions proved) is disturbed, and nothing but blood, wounds, and confusion follow. Or thirdly, This might show God's Ordinance: For the Almighty commonly gives a healthy and long life to crown our obedience even before the Sons of men, Psal. 37. 22. Jer. 17. 11. In this particular the disobedient Son was to be cut off by the hand of the Magistrate, and was to be stoned, Deut. 21. 18. And Solomon tells us, Prov. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father, and despiseth to obey his Mother, the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young Eagles shall eat it. By this we see that God's Law was, that the undutiful Son should not be long-lived, should not live so long as the dutiful and obedient. Yea sometimes God executes this vengeance with his own hands, as upon Corah and his rebellious Associates. The Story of the Kings, of all ancient and modern Records will assure us, That the Disobedient, Thiefs, Murderers, Rebels, Traitors, were not long-lived; but perished often by the sword and immature death.  
BUT our Lover of Humility, at the end of his Paraphrase on this Commandment, flatly denied all this from the Pulpit, (and I must tell you in a Parenthesis, that I first animadverted on what W. C. preached;) tho 'tis wisely omitted by the Press; and affirmed with no small confidence, (as G. S. W. G. and several others besides myself, will be deposed;) viz. That we do see by Experience, That the rebellious and undutiful to Parents do live so long as those that are dutiful and obedient. A pure Catechist; For this, I presume, is no infinitely Soul-concerning point (if I may speak in his own Dialect) or precious Doctrine to inspirit either men or children to duty and obedience; but a grand Incentive for Villains to continue in their infernal plots and designs; or, when being detected, a Salvo for them; and is, if we may believe our own Experience, and the Word of truth itself, a notorious falsity and delusion, and clearly evacuates God's promises. For Myriads, we know, of Rebels and Murderers, in the most flourishing part of their lives, have been cut off by the sword of Justice: But Mat. 5. 5. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (Dr. Ham.) very often hath a peculiar Critical signification in the Gospels, and refers to the Land of Judaea, and here by being promised to the meek and obedient, looks distinctly on the fifth Commandment, & in it on the Land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, i. e. a fruitful prosperous being here on earth, viz. long life and tranquillity; which is here said to belong by promise of God peculiarly to the meek. But when the exercises of this virtue of meekness and obedience in some singular conjunctures of time brings losses, or death upon them; they shall richly be rewarded in another world, and be made amends abundantly there for all that the practice of this virtue hath brought on them.  
BUT it may be said, (and that truly too, for aught I know;) that W. C. had not this (viz. That we do see by Experience, etc.) in his Notes. But this will not excuse him; for should I extol and preach up the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, (as in Duty and Conscience I ought,) and my Notes should be very sound and orthodox; yet if I should tell my Auditors ex tempore, or without my Notes, That the Doctrines of Transubstantiation, of Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, etc. are agreeable to God's word; I know I ought and should be questioned for it, and my Notes would not keep me in my Parsonage without an open Recantation, seeing there are honest Witnesses enough to prove it.  
BUT to do W. C. all the right imaginable, I shall transcribe verbatim his new-modeled Answers to two Texts of Scripture, which he thought might contradict (as indeed they do) his former Assertions.  
FIRST Solomon saith, Eccles. 7. 17. Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish, why shouldest thou die before thy time?  
ANSW. (pag. 8.) He that dies before his time, dies not before the time which God hath determined; an unseasonable death to man, doth not prevent God's season: To clear which, we must distinguish about death, which is Twofold. First, Natural; Secondly, Violent. A man that dies a violent death, is said to die before his time which he might have reached unto by the course of nature; Sin cuts him off, before God cuts him off: But then God cuts him off for sin. Thus many dye before their time; and except in this sense, no man dies before his time.  
TRULY Sir, in this sense (without aping you, & straining for Rhymes and Quibles,) 'tis perfect nonsense; for how can a man that dies a Violent death, be properly said in any sense to die before his time? when, according to your own words, (pag. 11.) God in his unchangeable purpose hath appointed, and determined the very moment, manner, and place of every man's death; whether Natural or Violent, whether by burning at the Stake, or hanging on the Gallows. And besides, we cannot truly affirm of many sincere, pious, and virtuous men, that were removed hence by a Violent death; Jeremy was stoned, Ezekiel beheaded, Isaiah cut asunder, Eleazar, at the age of fourscore years, cudgeled to death, none of the easiest doubtless; most of the Prophets and Apostles persecuted and slain, St. Peter endured crucifixion with his head downward, according to his own request, and St. Paul decollation, in one day at Rome, as Eusebius tells us; some burnt, others devoured by wild Beasts, or the like deaths, as St. Polycarpus, Ignatius, St. Laurence, Cyprian, and Myriads which suffered under Nero, Trajan, Antonius, Severus, Maximinus, and Dioclesian who everted Churches, and made the sacred Bibles become fuel to devouring flames; We dare not, I say, judge, That Sin did cut those glorious Saints off, (because they suffered Violent deaths,) before God did cut them off; and that then God did cut them off for sin: for this were a sign of God's justice, wrath, and fury. But rather that God did cut them off, before Sin did cut them off; either for the advancement of his honour and glory, the good of the Church, (for sanguis Martyrum est semen Ecclesiae;) or to free them from future miseries and calamities, which otherwise might befall them. So Isaiah 57 1. The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. All which are infallible Tokens of Gods infinite mercy and immense love.  
SECONDLY, David saith, Psal. 55. 2. That bloody and deceitful men, shall not live out half their days.  
ANSW. (pag. 9) For answer to this you must know (Beloved) that there is a general and special, or personal limit of man's Life. 1. The general Limit is Seventy or Eighty years. Psal. 90. The few exceptions which some have made by exceeding this limit, weakens not this general Rule. 2. There is a particular limit upon every person; the limit of one may be Forty years, when another is tied to Thirty, a third to Twenty, a fourth to Five, and a fifth perhaps may be tied to Four years; these are special Limits upon special men. Now when the Psalmist saith, That a bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days; the meaning (the subverting) of it is, that he shall not live out half the days of man's general limit: As suppose a bloody man be cut off at Thirty, he hath not lived out half Seventy or Eighty years, which are the common terms of Life prescribed unto Mankind, beyond which they cannot pass; but this man lives out all the days of his special and personal limit, or all his days which are appointed as his portion in the Land of the living. Thus the bloodiest man that is, let him die when he will, dies in the particular season appointed unto him.  
A prolix, frivolous, and childish Answer, though perhaps he may think it very Scholastic; the substance whereof in short is this: David (Beloved) dreams, That bloody men shall not live out half their days; but I (your Oracle) assure you, That the bloodiest man that is, lives out all the days of his special and personal limit; or all his days which are appointed as his portion in the Land of the living. If this is sound and Authentic, (profound Sir) What difference then (in respect of a long Life or a short,) is there between the bloodthirsty and merciful, the fraudulent and just? For a precious Saint can but live out all the days of his special and personal limit, or all the days which are appointed as his portion in the Land of the Living; and so (in your judgement) doth every notorious and precious Rogue. But suppose a Felon or Murderer is executed at three or fourscore years (as hath often happened,) then, according to your own account, his days cannot be said to be shortened in any respect; for he hath lived out all the days both of his general and special limit. If our popular Holderforth is not past shame and all goodness, he may do well (if the Parcaes will permit,) to recall his Pamphlets, which with a great deal of ostentation he has scattered amongst the Vulgar, and resign them to Vulcan, or my Lords-house for necessary uses; for he that hath but half an eye, may without an Optick-glass see, how notoriously the sacred Writ is contradicted, tortured, and scandalised by his petty Distinctions.  
THE Almighty, we concede, may permit (but not absolutely and peremptorily determine and appoint,) the fall either of this man or that; yea he may permit (for ends best known to himself,) the meek, obedient, and virtuous to suffer by or with the profane: As we have known Royal Innocency to be arraigned as the vilest Criminal, and he that was inferior to God only, to be murdered, like the holy Jesus, by the fury and outcry of the unstable Multitude, the very Scum and Rabble. Yet this Heroic and ever blessed Martyr never repined, and exclaimed against God's methods and deal as unjust or unequal; but gave us the reason of all our sad disasters and heavy pressures. Our Sins (saith he in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) being ripe, there was no preventing of God's justice from reaping that glory in our calamities, which we robbed him of in our prosperity. For punishments are but the results of sins; and therefore whatsoever Malignity lies in the effect becomes entirely chargeable upon the Cause, and we are to look upon our Vice not only as our greatest but our only unhappiness. Our numerous and gygantick Provocations did call for judgements, and that the expiring of the Breath of our Nostrils, was a great one, the whole Nation soon felt, lay gasping, ready to bid adieu to all sublunary comforts. For God in his justice to Us shortened his days, and suffered for a time Tyrants on his Throne, to become Sirens and Crocodiles to fascinate and trapan, and Lictors to scourge us; but in his mercy to Him, removed him hence, from the evil and miseries approaching; and crowned him first with Martyrdom, and then with glory. Una eademque manus vulnus opemque. The rod of our Maker when it falls upon the virtuous, being, like that of an indulgent Parent upon his only Child, the strongest argument of love and affection. He intends the greatest pity, when to the Spectators that are ignorant of his designs, he seems most cruel and inexorable; and when he seems to patronise and favour the Stratagems of the vicious, 'tis only that Their fall and His glory might be the greater; and that they might in the height of their arrogancy and presumption, like lofty Pharaoh and his army, eternally sink and perish. But many inconsiderate men, we know, are much startled, and secretly murmur;  Qui cumres hominum tantac aligine volvi Aspicerent, laetosque diu florere nocentes Vexarique pios. 
So holy David had a zealous indignation against the successes of the wicked, and repined to see them thrive in wealth and grandeur; but when he had recourse to God's Sanctuary, and entered into a serious consideration of his counsels and providence, he soon perceived the Scene to be altered, and that their Prosperity was no more but like that of a dream whilst it lasts 'tis imaginary not real. Fret not thyself then because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and whither as the green herb. But those that wait upon the Lord, those shall inherit the earth. Psal. 37. 1, 2, 9 The general common end of the wicked is untimely excision, signal punishments even in this Life; mind the sad Exits of the Sodomites, of Herod, Judas, Simon Magus, Arius, Julian the Apostate; of the Conspirators and Murderers of our late dread Sovereign, Dorislaus and Ascham stabbed, Hoyle hanged himself, Norton, being disquieted in mind, died raving mad; Harrison, Scot, Carew, Jones▪ Scroop, Axtel, precious Hugh Peter hanged and quartered: But we shall not ascribe their deplorable and immature deaths as happening unto them from the eternal Decrees, or from God's unchangeable purpose; but from their own demerits, and Gods just judgements. Whereas the Lot of the pious and obedient is length of days, and prosperity in this World; but if that fail, as God in his infinite wisdom sometimes sees good tha● it should, an abundant compensation of bliss in the Life to come shall be most certain. He that loseth his life for my sake (saith our Saviour) shall find it. Mat. 10. 39 The loss of a short temporary Life shall be rewarded with an eternal.  
THERE is one place (upon which W. C. wholly depends that at the first aspect may seem to favour a fatal Period; Job. 14. 5. His days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot pass. Upon which words two learned Critics comments thus: Significat hic apud Deum esse certissimam praescientiam dierum & mensium quibus homo victurus sit, ex qua tamen non sequitur necessitas rei (nam res est contingens) sed tantum necessitas consequentiae. The days and years of man's life, in respect of God's prescience are determined and most certain; but from hence it doth not follow that the thing itself, man's time is necessarily determined, (for 'tis contingent and vareable,) but only the necessity of the consequence; because God, whose eyes cannot be deceived, sees all things uno intuitu, that our days and months will be thus long, or thus short.  
SO the Metaph. tell us: Quae Deus praescit non possunt non evenire, & sic habent necessitatem fiendi. Idque propter infallibilitatem praescientiae divinae. Res enim sic dicuntur necessariae non nisi per connexionem ad aliud, hoc est, praescientiam divinam. Loquendo autem de rebus in se spectatis, quae praesciuntur, remota connexione ad praescientiam divinam, non omnes res sunt necessariae, quae necessit as est consequentis. Sunt enim multa in mundo casualia, fortuita, libera, quae omnia in se spectata non necessaria sed contingentia sunt. Fiunt proculdubio cuncta, ait Boet. quae futur a Deus praenoscit; sed eorum quaedam proficiscuntur de libero; quae quamvis eveniant, tamen propriam naturam non amittunt, sed priusquam fierent etiam non evenire potuissent.  
AND says the other; Causae naturales & morales suos habent effectus in vita hominis conservanda. Deus igitur illas in constituendo termino vitae, ut omniscius respexit, ita tamen ut eas, uhi velit inhibere possit. Natural and moral Causes, as wholesome food, air, water, continency, temperance etc. have their effects and operations in preserving man's Life; and God in terminating and setting Boundaries to man's Life, as he is Omniscient and foresees all things, hath an eye and respect to these; yet so that he can put a Stop to those natural and moral Causes, can inhibit them, as in his infinite wisdom he sees fit. As for Example, God sees that such a man living and doing thus and thus, will, according to the ordinary course of nature, certainly live thus long, suppose fifty, sixty, seventy years; yet God may cause that this man that might live thus long, shall die much sooner, as at twenty or thirty. So God in his mercy may shorten the days of many righteous men, take them away from the evil to come; or in his justice cut off the wicked, that according to the strength of nature, and the set bounds thereof, might have lived much longer. Yea Job himself is against a fatal Period, and therefore we cannot imagine if he intended it in the 14 Chap. he would have contradicted both himself and it in the 21 Chap. 19, 20, 21. ver. God layeth up his iniquity for his children, he rewardeth him, and he shall know it. His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months are cut off in the midst. W. C. being now forced from his strong Hold, which he thought invincible;; 'twill be his wisest way to address himself to the Koran, where he may find more kindness, and need not fear a second repulse.  
NEITHER may men's lives be shortened only, but also extended; whereof we have a pregnant example in the 2 Kings 20. beg. For God plainly signified to Hezekiah, that he should die of that very distemper he then laboured under; for he was come to the set Bounds, beyond which he could not pass, except Omnipotency be pleased to remove them farther. So ver. 1. Hezekiah was sick unto death, and the Prophet Isaiah came, and said to him. Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live. Yet the immutable Creator that decrees mutability, (as the learned Dr. Jackson words it,) and whose promises and menaces are not absolute but conditional; hearing his Prayers, and seeing his tears, removed the Boundary, recovered him with a lump of figs, (to demonstrate the use and necessity of means,) and added to his Life fifteen years. And therefore W. C's Gloss is very prodigious and Enthusiastic, (pag. 8.) The fifteen years added to Hezekiah 's Life, were added to Hezekiah 's date, not to Gods. Hezekiah looked upon himself as a dead man, that he should die of that very sickness, (and good reason, seeing God told him so;) and so in all likelihood did his best Physicians, for he was sick of the Plague; but both he and they were deceived: for God in his unchangeable purpose, had appointed fifteen years more to Hezekiah 's Life.  
STRANGE indeed: For we find in the Chapter no such learned Cheats and Pickpockets, (as all Physicians are, supposing a fatal Period;) nor the least shadow of such an interpretation: for God himself said by the mouth of his Prophet, I have heard thy Prayer, and I will add unto thy days fifteen years, and I will deliver thee and this City etc. And as a sign that God himself would effect this, and did not prevaricate; a Miracle is wrought, he brought the shadow (the Sun) ten degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz. But were the former Paraphrase true, God himself made—, and the Prophet told a Lie, and was deceived, as well as Hezekiah and his Physicians; and the words should not run, The Lord will, or did really add to Hezekiah's days fifteen years; but Hezekiah, the Prophet, the Physicians, with all the Nobles and Courtiers, not well understanding this infinitely Soul-concerning Point, viz. a Fatal Period; were so simple and credulous as to believe that God had miraculously extended Hezekiah's Life: (and who can think otherwise, that reads and believes this sacred History?) Whereas God had absolutely decreed from eternity, or in his unchangeable purpose appointed, (there is not the least difference in the Phrases,) that Hezekiah should live fifteen years longer; which being not expired, 'twas impossible for the Plague, or for God himself to put an end to his days. A feeble and impotent God that can neither extend nor shorten the Lives of his Creatures. 'Tis wonderful to see, that one petty Distinction (in Man's date, but not in Gods,) should be of such mighty force as to enervate so many plain Texts of Scripture, as have been, and may be produced for the prolonging and shortening of man's Life; and to make them speak quite contrary, even to become like a Nose of Wax, to turn either to this side or that, to prove truth to be falsehood, and falsehood truth. Should I be troubled with such an airy and Atheistical Whimsy, as to affirm with some of the ancient Peripatetics and Ethnics, That the World is eternal; (though Aristotle himself doubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) And against it is objected Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, Ergo Mundus non fuit ab aeterno. I shall most humbly crave W. C's leave, borrow his almighty distinction, and answer very magisterially, as he did to the Lords adding to Hezekiah's days fifteen years. 'Tis true, in man's date, viz. in the date and account of Moses, Aaron, and their Bigots, the World had a beginning; but in God's date 'twas eternal: for God in his unchangeable purpose had appointed it from Eternity, Such stuff as this will pass for superfine Doctrine; for powerful Preaching and sublime Raptures, with those that have their Instructers of the Geneva stamp in as great admiration because of advantage, Judas 16. as the simple Papists have their Monks and Confessors, or even as his Holiness the Pope himself.  
THE learned and judicious Beverovicius, before he could think that his Profession could find any considerable entertainment among men, thought it fit to be stated by the knowing men of his Age; viz. Whether there were a fatal end of every man's life, beyond which it were not in the power and compass of art, sobriety, or good managery to extend it; and as little in the power of any Disease or Intemperance, or even the Famine, Plague, or Sword to shorten it? Should the same Question be again started, no considering men, I presume, would hold the affirmative. For we daily see the sad effects and results of intemperance and inordinate living; we have often seen, felt, or heard of the impartial and mighty power of the Sword and Pestilence; how Myriads have been cut off, that according to the strength and ordinary course of nature, and Gods common Providence, might have lived much longer. And therefore we are not so stupid and zealously Lunatic, as not to fear the frequent Afterclaps (Fevers, Dropsies, Surfeits,) of high and constant debaucheries, or the Fury of insulting Enemies, and infectious Diseases. Our most mortified and stoutest Combatants for fatal and necessary events, will suffer their actions to contradict their Faith, (though Protestatio contra factum non valet;) and be thought timorous and ignorant Creatures, even quake and fly, to save their Lives, from any imminent danger; which, supposing their firm belief and confidence of a fatal Period, is a piece of notorious Folly. For if neither intemperance, the Sword, or Plague, can shorten our days one minute; I would fain know, in respect of our Health and Safety, why we should dread them, or avert from either; why Bacchus and Venus, daily carouzing and obscene Embraces are respected, yea are known and professed Foes to Longaevity; why we may not rest as securely in a Pest-house, as on a bed of Roses, as safe before a Cannon's mouth, as in our Closets? And so our Saviour's Advice (who minds the welfare of our Bodies as well as of our Souls,) must needs be vain and ridiculous, Mat. 10. 23. When they persecute you in this City, flee into another. For no Asylum, or City of Refuge (granting a fatal Period) can save us, or extend our days the least point of time. And so this precept or prudent Counsel of Christ to his Disciples, (viz. To flee from Persecution,) is as thwarting to W. C.'s. Doctrine, as he tells us (pag. 18.) that of Martha's to him was; If thou hadst been here my Brother had not died. Sir 'tis my hearty request that you would not be passionate, and question the Holy Jesus, as you seem to do poor silly St. Martha, for her confiding in our Saviour's power, and love to her Brother; That if he had been there, Lazarus had not died; saying, Is not this advice a thwarting of my Doctrine? Can fleeing from Persecution free us from Death, or extend our days one minute? seeing all the particular circumstance, relating to it (viz. the time, manner, and place) are unchangeably appointed by God's insuperable Power. This Counsel, 'tis confessed, of the Theanthropos, is a thwarting to your fatal and dogmatical Assertions; and so is David's address to the Lord, Psal. 102. 24. O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. Here is thwart upon thwart to try your Job-like Patience, and pregnant Wit, in forging some new Distinctions, and rhyming Evasions, seeing the Old ones are detected, and already cashiered.  
BUT farther, Were this Stoical Opinion (fit indeed for sanguinary Designs, to animate Turks and ambitious Rebels;) most clear and demonstrative; the Physicians than may burn their Books, Galen and Hypocrates; and the Apothecaries and Surgeons may pull down their Shops, and hang themselves (if they are ashamed to beg,) for want of bread, or else the Magistrates may do it for them, as being the vilest cheats in Nature; but howe-ever let me advise them that for pity sake, that they would no longer vex and torment their simple Patients with Caustics and Scarifying, nor saw off Legs and Arms though gangrened: the very moment, manner, and place of their Death are fixed and unalterable; no Art imaginable, no fervent Prayers, no gracious Providence can do them the least good. If the Eternal Decree is, that this Patient shall die of this gangrene, 'tis frustraneous, yea cruelty to cut off the mortified member; but if the Decree is, that he shall live longer, and die of some other Distemper; let the Part be never so much putrified, he shall certainly (though you apply not the least remedy,) live out all the days determined, or (as W. C. most profoundly words it,) all the days of his special and personal limit. What a ridicuculous and silly thing 'tis, (supposing a fatal Period) for pregnant Females so highly to concern themselves for fear of abortion, to be so solicitous and inquisitive after a knowing Midwife, when old goody Tittle-tattle can perform the Office as well; and, when being delivered, to undergo such cruel thirsts, and to take such care and pains about the New born Infant? If the Decree is, that both the Mother and the Child shall live, a good Midwife or a bad, or none at all, quarts and pottles of strong liquor, or clear Possets, Fish or Flesh, they cannot die; but if the Decree is, that one or both shall Die, all the charges and care imaginable will be ineffectual. And therefore 'tis no small madness to cast away our Money, and to be concerned (as some soft-natured Gossips are,) about this Nicety or that; for Praedest. ad finem, praedest. quoque ad media, if God has ordained Life, he has likewise unavoidably, or in his unchangeable purpose ordained and appointed the means, or else he will preserve it without them; but if Death is in the Pot, there is no avoiding of the Broth. This W. C. (if he understands his own Principles, which is much to be doubted;) and all the Irrespective Reprobatarians hold, and endeavour to justify; which takes away the liberty of man's will, and makes him inferior to Brutes, that by natural instinct choose what may conduce to the preservation both of themselves and their species, and avoid whatsoever is noxious and injurious to them; whereas poor man is as senseless, and incapacitated to do himself either good or hurt, as a Stock or a Stone. For if the Decree is Life, it shall be life, do what we will; if Death, do what we can, Death. How absurd and contrary to reason, experience, and to God's frequent and serious Protestations and Invitations this is, the meanest capacity may easily judge?  
SHOULD a man in a sudden and violent Distemper, a Surfeit, Pleurisy, Apoplexy, etc. despise and deride the known and usual Remedies, (as many of this Persuasion have done; though the most knowing of them will not trust and depend upon this fatal Faith, but in their Sickness are as willing to send for a judicious Physician as any;) and tell his mourning Friends and Relations, that he will not so much suspect God as to try the skill of man, or be so imprudent as to fee a Fool or a Cheat: for the time, manner, and place of his Death are unchangeably appointed by God's insuperable Power. And therefore why do you talk of the use of Means? when the strongest Poison cannot shorten my days; nor the richest Cordials, or God himself extend them one moment beyond my special and personal limit, beyond the time appointed as my Portion in the land of the living. And this I know to be true, for the Seraphical Preacher that taught and confirmed me in this secret and hidden point; (for Gods revealed word is against it,) is as infallible in the Pulpit, as the Pope is in Cathedra, and when there can explicate all obscure doubts and hard Queries, as easily as crack a nut with a hammer. I shall for brevity sake dilate only upon one, (though I have been credibly informed of many others, viz. How many Millions that were at Church one Lords day, yet were in Hell the next; And that Hell is Spatium infinitum in loco finito; infernally wise truly.) The next Sabbath day after he had informed us of the certainty of a fatal Period; from the same infallible Chair in O. C. Church, for the satisfaction of a zealous and scrupulous Brother, he informed us likewise of what substance our immortal Souls were made, viz. That the Souls of men are made of the very same Substance that the Angels are. Had our Angelical Praedicator asserted, That the Souls of men are made of the same Substance that the Man in the Moon is; his credulous and all-eared Creatures might have believed him; though others might have thought him either Lunatic, or troubled with a Vertigo, or else a little cracked in the Pericranion. And indeed the truth of the one, is no more apparent than that of the other; for the best Metaphysicians affirm, That the Angels and Souls of men are of a divers species, and so doubtless of a divers substance. Nam essentia animae ex naturà suà est incompleta & partialis, & implicat naturalem propensionem ad materiam. At verò tale quid essentiae Angelicae non convenit, quae est totalis & completa: Id ergo indicium manifestum est diversitatis specificae. And therefore I shall not make this an Article of my Creed, viz. That the Souls of men are made of the very same Substance that the Angels are; before I am ascertained by this grand Philosopher, who forgetting his Humility talks as if he had commenced Doctor with the Angels in Heaven; viz. That there is not the least difference between Spiritual and immaterial Substances, though there is between gross and corporeal. But to digress no farther; Should there, I say, be such a mad Zealot for a fixed and inevitable Period, that would try the truth of it by a plain hazard of his Life, felo de se, or the violation of the sixth Commandment, Thou shalt not kill, especially thyself, by refusing lawful and necessary means ordained by God himself, will be none of his smallest Crimes at the great and general Audit.  
SHOULD we see one in an ecstasy, in a furious rage or discontent, drink Poison, Stab, Hang, or cast himself from a Precipice; would we peremptorily conclude, (like W. C.) that this was the very moment, this the very kind and place of Death, where this desperate and wretched Miscreant should be hurried off the Stage of this World by a fatal and absolute Decree? The Lord forbidden that we should harbour such cruel thoughts of him that made and formed us; that hath proclaimed himself, and we dare believe him, to be merciful; that he is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and willeth not the death of a Sinner, but rather that he should turn and live. And can we then be so profane and sottish, as to aver, even in Print, that this mad Creature, and Legions besides that came to fearful and deplorable ends, by Melancholy, Despair, the Temptations of Satan, by Venery, Debauchery, etc. were inevitably decreed by God, or in his immutable purpose determined and appointed to become their own Executioners?  
BUT W. C. to make his sordid matter as clear as the Sun in its Meridian, ininforms us; (pag. 16.) That there are Two (he might say as truly, ten hundred thousand) sorts of Divine appointments, What should be. What shall be. What should be: He hath showed thee, O man, what is right; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love Mercy, and to walk Humbly with thy God. God hath appointed that men should be sober, temperate, true, honest, just and square in their deal; God hath appointed that men should read, hear, pray, repent, believe, be convicted, and live holily. These appointments of the Divine Majesty, are daily disappointed and violated by wicked and ungodly men.  
HERE (and in several other places, which would be too tedious to transcribe,) our Oracle contradicts himself; for he would have all God's Decrees and Appointments to be peremptory and absolute, impossible to be disappointed. So but three lines before the Mysterious Distinction, he tells us; Human appointments come to nothing, when God is against them, but Divine appointments shall stand, that is cannot be disappointed, And though he styles What should be a Divine appointment, as well as What shall be; yet presently forgetting himself, he rightly informs us, (though directly contrary to his former Positions,) That those Divine appointments of What should be, are daily disappointed and violated by wicked and ungodly men. And by this most ridiculous Distinction, he makes God to decree contradictions; that although God in his unchangeable purpose hath appointed that All men should be Holy, do Justly, and by consequence be saved; yet the generality (as the event proves,) should, or shall (utrum horum mavis) be unholy, yea necessarily damned. Which directs me to speak something concerning the Future State of the Soul.  
THE great Potentate of the Universe, 'tis true, may permit, 
The Future State of the Soul.  but not decree to permit, (as we were once told by W. C's. learned Champion:) or in his immutable purpose absolutely determine and appoint either this Sin, or that Evil: for then the Punisher of Sin must needs be the Author of it, and poor man must suffer for that which 'twas impossible for him to avoid: and the Almighty, we know, is not obliged by a Miracle always to hinder men from misery and perdition. For he has made us rational Creatutes, and gives us strength and grace, if we will but use and improve it, to follow that which is good and laudable, and to eschew the contrary; to live well and contented, though under the heaviest pressures, in this World, and after death, by the merits of the holy Jesus, who hath triumphed over both Hell and the Grave, to ascend the Heavens, and to be crowned with glory and immortality.  
AND God, we willingly grant, is immutable, James 1. 17. Heb. 6. 17. but then we must know and remember, that this Immutability does not limit or confine God, or determine, constrain, or force men's wills and actions; or certainly and necessarily appoint or infer either this man's bliss, or that man's misery.  IMMUTABILITAS divinae voluntatis non est intelligenda possitiuê, hoc est quasi Deus non possit velle mutationem vel varietatem rerum: Nec in sensu diviso, hoc est, antequam quasi uni oppositorum conjuncta est. Antequam enim Deus decernit punire aliquem hominem, poterat utique non decernere. Et haec est ipsa radix libertatis. Unde si aliquod Agens diceretur immutabile in sensu diviso, revera non esset liberum, quia libertas consistit in hoc, ut possit quis divisiuè velle & non velle idem. Sed immutabilitas voluntatis divinae intelligenda est in sensu composito, hoc est, Si Deus actuali volitione se ad aliquam rem determinaverit, est constans & tenax propositi. Et haec est immutabilitas voluntatis, quae nihil pugnat cum ejusdem libertate. 
AND the supreme Monarch of the whole World, 'tis confessed on all sides, sees all things, all accidental and casual events; but Praescientia nil ponit, this Foreknowledge doth not necessitate or compel men either to this or that, to this Virtue or that Vice, to Life or Death.  QUAE causas habent necessarias, praevidet Deus eventura necessario, quae verò à causis contingentibus pendent, contingentur eventura praevidet: Et sic rerum contingentia seu mutabilitas abundè consistere possit, cum divinae praescientiae infallibilitate; siquidem causas rerum non mutat, sed quasque suo loco relinquit. Porr●, nihil Deo praeteritum vel futurum, sed omnia praesentia. Res igitur ratione Divinae praescientiae consideratae, non ut praeteritae, non ut futurae, sed ut praesentes considerandae sunt. Veluti igitur res, quando sunt, necessariò sunt, nec tamen per hoc tollitur contingentia seu mutabilitas rerum; poterint enim aliter fieri antequam ita fierent: Ita Deo omnes res infallibiliter notae sunt, ut pote ipsi praesentes, quae tamen immota scientiae divinae certitudo non tollit aut libertatem arbitrij aut rerum contingentiam. 
THERE is a far greater disparity between God's permission, his prescience, and his absolute decreeing and appointing of Sin and final Misery; than there is between one man's only permitting and seeing another man to ruin himself wilfully, though he hath often told him the Danger, and given him such Rules and Advice whereby he might have secured himself from the least peril;) and his forcing him to Destruction against his Will, against all Reason and Humanity.  
YET Calvin, and his rigid polemic Proselytes contend, That all things, be they the most Criminal and Prodigious Acts, happen ex Dei nutu, consilio, ordinatione, & impulsu. They endeavour indeed to palliate this by telling us, That Sin is merely privative, and that the Act is only from God, but not the Pravity of it; whereas Sin is positive, (as the Learned Dr. Pierce hath sufficiently evinced;) and the Action and the Obliquity of it cannot be disjoined: and God doubtless upon no other account commands us to avoid every evil Action, but because the ratio formalis of Sin resides in the action itself.  
I shall transcribe some of their Melancholy Dreams, concerning God's most Sacred Decrees and Actions; which may well make any sober Christian blush and tremble to read them.  
HOMICIDIUM aut adulterium, quantum Dei authoris, motoris ac impulsoris opus est, crimen non est; quantum autem hominis est, crimen ac scelus est.  
DEUS movet latronem ad occidendum innocentem: Esau quoque in infantia mori non potuit, quem divina providentia in hoc creavit, ut viveret atque impiè viveret.  
DEUS poterit, si minus propri loqui velimus, dici aliquo modo aut initium aut causa peccati.  
DEUS ita agit per mala instrumenta, ut non tantum sinat illa agere, nec tantum moderetur eventum; sed etiam excitet, moveat, regat, atque hoc ipso fine crete.  
MALA, quae agunt impij, ideo agunt, quia ad haec fuere destinati.  
DEUS homines ad adulteriam, maledicta, mendacia, sanctè impellit, (sanctè here is well placed;) & ad peccata quae palam prohibet, occulta ratione incitat.  
HOMINEM non plus boni posse facere, quam facit, nec plus mali omittere, quam omittit; imo Deum decrevisse apud se, quantum boni & mali ab unoquoque praestari velit.  
HOMO ad peccandum à Deo coarctatur.  
FATEMUR ac docemus impios omnes ita a divina providentia regi, ut nihil aliud efficere queant, quam quod Deus aeterno suo & immutabili consilio decrevit.  
QUOD ais, iniquam & hypocritam esse, si Deus per decretum suum nos ea facere nolit, quae ut faciamus praecipit; contraque facere non velit, quae nobis prohibet, falsum est.  
FRUSTRA de praescientia lis movetur, ubi constat ordinatione potius & nutu omnia evenire. Cal. Inst. l. 3. c. 23. s. 6.  
THEIR ancient and first Masters, the Gnostics and Manichees, could not express themselves in harsher Notions, which make God not only to will and patronise Sin, but to impel and necessitate men to it; which is directly opposite to the Scriptures, which assert, That our Merciful Creator is so far from promoting or designing the least Sin or Evil, that he prohibits and utterly abhors it, Zach. 8. 17. Psal. 5. 5. God, we concede, may deliver up without the least injustice, an impenitent Sinner to the obduration of his Heart, especially when all that is done, is not by infusing any ill quality into him, but by leaving him now to himself, who had so often held out against God's gracious calls and invitations. So Pharaoh having hardened his own heart after the sixth Judgement, and over and above frustrated Moses' special last warning: God then (but not before) is said to harden his Heart, and would have destroyed him, but that he raised him up, or preserved him alive, even for this purpose, to make the Divine Power more illustriously visible in punishing such a notorious Offender, that would not be moved with so many Judgements of the Almighty. This indeed, viz. Pharaohs obduration, was foretold by God from the first of his sending Mose● to him, Exod. 4. 21. But this foretelling it so early is no argument that it was immediately done, but on the contrary his own hardening his own heart is also foretold, Exod. 3. 19 God shows Miracles and Signs before Pharaoh, Exod. 7. 10. and because the Magicians did the like with their Enchantments, it follows Pharaoh's heart was hardened (not he) as if it were God) hardened Pharaoh's heart, but) Pharaoh's heart waxed hard, was strong; or by an ordinary acception of Kal for Hithpahel, Pharaoh's heart hardened itself. And so it follows, v. 14. the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is waxed hard, he refuseth to let the People go. But after the judgement, that of Boils and Blains, Exod. 9 10. then 'tis said in a new Style, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart v. 12. Which was the very time at first referred to by the prediction of God to Moses.  
IN like manner it happened to the perverse Jews, who having resisted Christ after all the rest of the Prophets, killed the Son after the Servants, and rejected the Apostles Preaching after Christ's Resurrection: God then (but not before) gave them up to obduration, to become Vessels of Wrath fitted for Destruction. And after this the great Jehovah, that is a most free and gracious Agent, and is not bound to this People or that, to primogeniture or the like, (as appears by the tipical Stories of Ishmael and Isaac, of Jacob and Esau, Rom. 9) out of his gratuitous Mercy by the Preaching of the Gospel, called and invited the Gentiles to Christianity, to save them upon Christian, without legal performances, upon internal and Evangelical, without external and Mosaical obedience. (Peruse the most elaborate and Orthodox Writings of the most Learned, Reverend, and Pious Dr. H. Hammond, concerning these and the like difficulties; and thou mayst receive the clearest satisfaction.)  
BUT it could never enter into my Breast to imagine, that God from Eternity did absolutely decree the Fall, and the inevitable Perdition of the major part of mankind; or (as W. C. words it, pag. 13.) that God drew out Death's Commission before the Fall, but did not set his Hand and Seal to confirm it till after the Fall; and that in the counsel and purpose of God, Death was appointed unto men from Eternity: Which Calvin himself terms a dreadful and horrible Decree. Unde factum est, ut tot gentes unà cum liberis eorum infantibus aeternae morti involverat lapsus Adae absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est? Decretum quidem horribile fateor, Cal. Inst. l. 3. c. 23 s. 7. 'Tis strange I say, that some men should be of such sour and morose (I had almost said Diabolical) natures, as peremptorily to maintain, That God Created Souls purposely to damn them; or to use the Doctrine and the very words of J. M, That God takes as great glory and delight in damning of men, as he doth in saving of them. Monstrous Divinity, and such as is not to be found amongst the sottish Turks, or the rude Indians and Americans; and therefore I should much wonder, did I not know what Charitable, and good-natured, and how free from Pride and Selfishness our Olivarian Speakers were; that Saints (as most shamefully they styled one another) that lived in the Sunshine of the Gospel, should yet contradict the most perspicuous Truths in it. For  
THE Sacred Bible, from Genesis to the Revelations asserts, That the Divine Goodness, Clemency, Mercy, and Love, are exhibited to all Mankind really, upon Condition of Faith, Repentance, and amendment of Life, John 3, 16, 17. God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting Life. For God sent not his Son to condemn the World, but that the World (all mankind) through him might be saved. Herein (Dr. Hammond.) hath God's unspeakable Love been expressed to mankind, that he hath sent his Eternal Son to assume our nature, and to teach and give Examples of Holy Life, and at last to die for them, and rise again, and ascend the Heaven, all on this one Design, that every Person in the World, that shall receive and obey him, shall be rescued from Eternal Death, and then made partaker of Eternal Life. For this my mission from God my Father was designed all in Mercy and Charity, not to punish or condemn any man, but on purpose that all men might be rescued from Punishment.  
MAT. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Mar. 1. 15. Repent ye, and believe the Gospel. Mat. 18. 11. The Son of man is come to save that which was lost. Rom. 5. 8. God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us. 1 Ep. St. Joh. 2. 1, 2. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our Sins; and not for ours only, but for the Sins of the whole World. Non solum (Bro.) pro peccatis Electorum, sed singulorum hominum. Nam vox Mundi nuspiam usurpatur in literis sacris pro sclis electis. By the word World is never meant in the Sacred Writ only the Elect, but either signifies the whole Compages consisting of the Heaven and Earth, or the whole race of mankind, both pious and wicked; or else the whole number of the wicked. And therefore 'tis very evident, That Christ came not only to save the Elect, that is, those that have believed in him, and have thereby obtained Mercy; but also the Profane, that have rejected his Counsels, and would not submit to his easy Yoke and Golden Sceptre.  
1 TIM. 1. 15. This is a Faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation; (a Truth of an huge price, and fit to be the only Tradition or true Cabala among us Christians, instead of all the Jewish Secrets and Mysteries;) that Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners: (to rescue men out of their evil courses, and upon reformation to obtain Pardon and Salvation for the greatest Sinners, none excepted.) Psal. 145. 8, 9 The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great Mercy. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his Works. 'Tis the Title by which God was pleased to make known and proclaim himself to his People, Exod. 34. 6. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, etc. God is very forward and willing to pardon repentant Sinners, and not denying them that Grace, or proceeding in Judgement against them, till he be provoked to it by great ingratitude and obdurations: and this Mercy of his is not enclosed to a few special Favourites of his, but enlarged and vouchsafed to all and every man in the World, upon the Title of his Fatherly Mercy to his Creatures, till by their impenitence persisted in, against his means of Grace, they render themselves incapable of it. H. H. Paraph.  
GOD does seriously invite us to discard our Sins, and tells us, That all our calamities issue from our own putrid Fountains, and not from the Divine will, or any Eternal and Inconditional Decree. For God cannot do or will Evil, viz. malum culpae the Evil of Sin, though he may malum paenae the evil of Punishment. Amos 3. 6. Shall there be evil in the City, and the Lord hath not done it? that is, the Judgements and Afflictions, which befall men for their impieties are from God. So. v. 1. I will punish you for your iniquities. God is the Author of no Evil, but that of punishment. Nam idem est (saith St. Basil) Deum asserere peccati authorem, & negare esse Deum. 'Tis as impious to make God the Author of Sin, as 'tis to deny his very Being and Essence.  
PROV. 1. 23. Turn ye at my reproof. Ezek. 18. 32. I have no pleasure in the Death (violent or eternal) of him that dyeth, wherefore turn yourselves, for there is no fatal Remora, Sentence or Decree, or the least defect on God's part; and live ye. Mat. 23. 37. O Jerusalem, how often would I (as I am God, as well as man) have gathered thy Children together, and ye would not? Ye have opposed all the methods of Divine Wisdom, refused all my invitations (saith the Holy Jesus to the obstinate Jews) though never so frequent and passionate.  
SED resp. Calvinistae, Christum voluntate humana voluisse salutem Judaeorum, quia juxta hanc voluntatem ei non erat notum, qui ex ijs convertendi essent: At voluntate diviná eorum salutem noluisse, alias conversi fuissent & congregatt. Sed admisso hoc effngie, omnes Christi promissiones, earumque veritas vocabitur in dubium. Quoties enim Christus quidquam promisisse legitur, toties animi pendebit homo, an promiserit voluntate divinâ an humanâ. Et fruslra opponitur, Mat. 26. 39 Iste enim locus hoc tantum evincit, voluntatem Christi humanam, distinctam fuisse a voluntate divini sed ita ut illà voluntati divinae se semper submiserit, nec ab diversum quidquam voluerit: Non enim absolute petit ut transeat calix, sed hac conditione, si possibile esset; & additur statim haec correctio, non quod ego volo, sed quod tu vis, fiat. Cert●ssimum est (ait Casp. Er. Br.) Christum secundum voluntatam tam divinam quam humanam voluisse rebellium Judaeorum salutem: Nam verbum Dei disertè docet, Christum nihil in officio suo voluisse, dixisse, docuisse, quod non dixit, docuit, voluit, ad nutum, praescriptum, & mandatum Patris. Joh. 5. 30. 8, 26, 28, 40. 14, 24.  
CAN any sober and rational man than suppose, That God by any secret, fatal, and absolute Decree willed and ordained, that the major part of this People, whom he had covenanted with, chosen, and owned by many mercies and deliverances, should now necessarily continue blind, and oppose the means of grace offered to them by his Son, their promised and long expected Messiah? The holy Historian (Saint Luke the Physician) tells us the contrary, Acts 3. 26. Unto you (the Jews) first God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities. This doubtless then, viz. God's eternal and immutable Decree, was not the cause of their rejection; but their own contumacy and contempt of the Gospel, Acts 13. 46. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been Preached to you, (the Jews,) but seeing ye put it from you, (behave yourselves so obstinately and perversely,) and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, (uncapable of receiving Benefit by the Gospel) lo, we turn to the Gentiles.  
GOD, we know, tells us, That 'tis his Will that all men singula generum) should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim. 2. 4. That none should perish, but that all should come to Repentance. 2 Pet. 3. 9 and Rom. 11. 32. God hath concluded them all under unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all, (Jews and Gentiles which comprehend all mankind.)  
SALUTEM omnium voluit Deus noster clementissimus, non solum secundum voluntatem ejus revelatam, externam seu signi; sed etiam secundum voluntatem ejus occultam, internam, & beneplaciti. Nam volitio in Deo una est, sicut essentia. Et voluntas signi dicitur, quia est signum beneplaciti divini, seu quia significat & manifestat beneplacitum divinum: At si latet beneplacitum divinum, tum etiam signum illius beneplaciti latet, servata eadem proportione. Deinde, Quid est hipocritam & simulatorem agere, si hoc non est? Verbo sonoque exteriore ad vitam & salutem homines vocare atque invitare; sed interno decreto eoque absoluto atque immutabili eosdem a vita & salute arcere. Dei mandatum est, ut sermo noster sit ita & ita; quo ergo jure dicere licebit, Deum aliud verbo exterius testari, aliud autem in cord suo clausum servare; in voluntate signi prae se ferre animum benevolum, in beneplacito autem suo habere animum inimicum. Notum est illud Homeri, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 'Tis an odious thing to let the tongue contradict the heart, to speak fair and intent the contrary.  
THE five Virgins, mentioned Mat. 25. had they not been foolish, that is, careless and improvident, might have had as free admission into the Bridegroom's Chamber, as the five wise or provident. Hence the Prodigal Son, that made his Felicity expire with his Estate, and by his Travels had gained nothing but the knowledge of iniquity and penury; yet no sooner returns and leaves his misdemeanours, but he receives a paternal embrace. For God's arms were, are, and ever will be open to enclose the meanest Converts, and will give them such a sufficiency of Grace, both internal and external, which bringeth Salvation, and hath appeared unto all men, Titus 2. 11. which, if they resist not, will at last be found to be saving and effectual: For sufficient and efficacious grace are not two different species of Grace, but one and the same; and the Divine Grace is termed either this or that, only ab eventu, as 'tis improved by us.  
PRAY consider, Should we lash a Cripple for halting, or having clogged and fettered a Slave, require him to run a race; should we exhort the Dumb to speak, and the Deaf to her, or condemn and deride one born Blind, because he cannot distinguish colours; this would argue the highest Frenzy and Fury. And can we then be so stupid and irreligious to imagine, that the great God of Heaven, that is full of Wisdom, Equity, and Love, would invite (and upon refusal torment to Eternity) those men to walk in his Paths, and to behold the Light of the Gospel, whom he himself had shackled and blinded by a fatal and inevitable Decree? Far be it from us Christians to judge thus of a Deity, that hath proclaimed, and proved himself to be more merciful to the Sons of men, than the most indulgent Parent can be to his only Child. And surely 'twould be no small Wonder, if a Father that hath ten Sons of equal merit, should take two of them into his Favour and Protection; and expose the rest to the merciless and impetuous rage of Lions and Tigers. And if you should ask him the reason of this his inhumanity, he could answer nothing but Sic volo sic jubeo—  
I have no more reason to object and delate against my eight Children, that I have rejected, than against the two that I have cherished and embraced; I might, if I would have preserved all from perdition, but 'twas my will and pleasure only, and nothing else, that the far greater number, maugre their sad cries and expostulations, should fall and perish to eternity. This doubtless is no Criterion, or sure sign of a Paternal affection; but an evident Demonstration of one of the most prodigious Monsters in nature. I need not apply it. In short,  
THESE crude and fatal Assertions before mentioned, concerning the Divine decrees and appointments; cannot be palliated, sweetened, or well digested, by their pleading that God is under no Law, which (saith a judicious Author) is a very Lawless and unreasonable pretext; for the everlasting rectitude of his spotless nature, is more than any external Law: and pray what can Truth and Justice do, but what is holy and just? Or by their subtle distinguishing inter jus Dei absolutum & ordinatum, inter reprobationem & damnationem, inter reprobationem privativam & positivam, inter praeteritionem & damnationem. For he that avers God's absolute will and pleasure to be the Sole Cause of preterition and reprobation, may with the same confidence affirm it to be the prime (if not sole) cause of damnation. Tantum discriminis est inter praeteritionem & damnationem, quantum differentiae intercedit inter haec duo; infer mortem & nolle vitam alicui continuare, absque quâ vitae continuatione mors necessario sequitur. Whereas the Scriptures (the only Rule of our Faith, unless we will admit of Enthusiasm,) assure us, That 'tis men's crying Sins, their contumacy, impenitency, and incredulity, (& non absolutum Dei in homines & creaturas jus, non Dei beneplacitum, seu absoluta ejus voluntas, that are the real Causes both of preterition, reprobation, and damnation. Joh. 3. 18, 19 Joh. 6. 40. Mark 16. 16.  
THE Consequences and results of these Calvinistical Dreams, and fatal Doctrines, are very sad, dismal, and numerous; some whereof I shall nominate, and then conclude.  
1. THEY confine and limit God's power, and make him a necessary Agent; for he cannot punish or destroy the most blasphemous and bloodiest men, before their appointed time; nor shorten or extend the days of the virtuous.  
2. THEY derogate from God's goodness, mercy, and justice; for what greater tyranny and injustice, than to judge men to endless flames, without any intuition of faith or incredulity, of obedience or disobedience? For surely 'tis not justice, (as some Hypochondriacks fancy,) but the highest cruelty to make men miserable, that thereby he might take an occasion of showing justice.  
3. THEY contradict God's Veracity; for what more false and perfidious than to say and swear, That he willeth not the Death, but the safety and conversion of those, whom, notwithstanding by an immutable and  Decree, he hath designed to eternal Death and Misery.  
4. THEY make God with Martion, Simon Magus, the Manechees, the prime and principal Author of all the Crimes, and horrid Villainies acted under the Sun. Cum enim Causa superior & omnipotens, ita moveat & determinet causam inferiorem & impotentiorem, ut ea sic mota ac determinata non possit non peccare; stupidus sit oportet, qui non animadvertat constitui hac ratione Deum peccati causam, & quidem propriam & principalem.  
5. THEY render Christ's Nativity, his Holy Life, his bitter Death, his glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and his continual Intercession for us at the Throne of Grace; yea all Preaching and Praying, the Sacraments, and all just and virtuous Actions, to be vain, useless, and ineffectual: For to what purpose all this? if 'tis absolutely decreed from Eternity, who shall be saved, and who shall be damned, sine fide praevisa, sine praevisis operibus. Praedestinationem vocamus aeternum Dei decretum, quo apud se constitutum habuit quid de unoquoque homine fieri vellet. Non enim pari conditione creantur omnes, sed aliis vita aeterna, aliis damnatio aeterna praeordinatur. Calv. Inst. lib. 3. cap. 31. s. 5.  
6. THEY lead men, especially the Vulgar, and those of the weaker Sex, (as we have often known,) either into Presumption or Despair; some poor deluded Souls think the Gate of Mercy shut, when 'tis wide open, and become melancholy and distracted; and others, though rebels, traitors, heretics, and schismatics, grow proud and censorious, and dream that it will fall open to them (though precious and witnessing People, God's Cupboard of Plate, as in modesty they style themselves) without the least knock or striving.  
AND Lastly, They are inlets and broad roads to security and all licentiousness, if I shall live, I shall live; if I shall be saved, I shall be saved; do what I will: if I shall die, I shall die; if I shall be damned, I shall be damned; do what I can: for the Decree and Sentence either of Life or Death is eternal, is immutable, past and irrevocable. Therefore Ede, bibe, lude—  
THESE prodigious Effects and sad consequences being clear and demonstrative, 'tis prudence to stop our ears, and (if I may use W. C's. martial phrase,) to buckle ourselves against all such fatal Opinions and wild Whimsies, that are contrary to reason, and the very nature of a Deity, to the purport and Oeconomy both of the Law and the Gospel: What is asserted in this small Tract, is, I presume, consonant to both, to God's word, and to that Light (viz. Reason) he has seated in us to judge and balance things by. Here is no Popery, no Pelagianism or Semipelagianism, which some cry for want of arguments, as a sufficient confutation. For we firmly believe, that 'tis by God's grace and providence that we live, move, and have our Being in this World; and by which, by the merits of the Holy Jesus we expect Salvation in the Other. We steadfastly believe the Apostles Symbol; that God is true and just in all his ways, and righteous in all his deal; that his secret Will is not opposite in the least punctilio to his revealed; and that he that believeth and is baptised, that sincerely reputes of his former sins, and forsakes them shall be saved, shall receive plenary pardon, and upon perseverance to the end, eternal bliss; but he, and he only that stands out obstinately and impenitently shall be damned. Our extravagant thoughts, and foolish confiding and depending on our absolute Election, may be a snare and stratagem to deceive and ruin us; but our serious and hearty Persuasions, That the Divine Decrees and appointments are conditional; so that we are hereby moved and allured to come to God with a filial love and fear, and incited to duty and action, to real piety and honesty, to do as we would be done by, which comprehends both what the Law and the Prophets hath taught us; This belief, I am sure, can never delude us, no Decree can baffle this: For Godliness, 1 Tim. 4. 8. hath the Promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.  
THIS may suffice to demonstrate to all considering men, that are not biased by interest, prejudice, or prepossessions, That the present State of the Body, and the future State of the Soul, are not limited and determined by any fatal, absolute, inconditional, immutable, and peremptory Decree; but that both Body and Soul by the Divine grace and providence may (if we be not defective in our own Duty) be infinitely blessed and happy.  
FINIS.   

A Catalogue of some Books lately Printed for Tho. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet.  

DR. Littleton's Dictionary, English-Latine and Latine-English, in 4to.  
Bp. Wilkins of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, 8vo.  
Dr. Sparks Devotions on the Feasts and Fasts of the Church, 8vo.  
Mr. Wanley of Coventry his History of Man, wherein by many thousands of Examples is showed what Man hath been from the first Ages of the World to these times, in respect of his Body, Senses, Passions, Affections, etc. in Folio.  
Mr. allington's Reform Samaritan: a Visitation Sermon, Preached in Coventry, to which is annexed a Discourse about the Necessity and Expediency of Set forms in 4to.  
Mr. Meritons' History of England in 120.  
The 12. and 13th parts of Sr. Edw. Cooks Reports, in Folio.  
Dr. brown's Religio Medici, in 8vo.  
Sr. Thomas Herbert's Travels, in Folio.  
Pools English Parnassus, or a Help to English Poesy, in 8vo,  
Sr. Roger Manleys' Russian Impostor, or History of Muscovy, in 8vo.  
Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, newly altered and Enlarged throughout the whole work, according to the present Practice: by the College of Physicians, London. In Folio and 24to  
Pharamont, or the History of France, a famed Romance in 12 parts, in Folio.  
Sr. John Vaughan, late Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas, his Reports and Arguments, in Folio.  
Mr. Mieges New Dictionary, French and English, and English-French, in 4to.  
The History of France, Containing all the Memorable Actions in France, and other Neighbouring Nations, in Folio.  
Daltons' Justice of Peace, newly enlarged, Folio.  
Hudibras, the first and second part, in 8vo.  
Swinburns' Treatise of Wills and Testaments, in 4to.  
Doctrina Placitandi, or the Art of Pleading, in 4to.  
The History of Don Quixot, Folio.  
Judge Hales of the Primitive origination of Mankind, Folio.   
FINIS.   

Advertisement▪  

Now in the Press.  
THE ten Volumes of Year Books, with Tables to the whole, and references▪ never before Printed.  
And also Guillims' Heraldry, with many Additions