CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

That God hath the dominion and immediate disposing of our being and continuance in this world. When his day is come, when his Decree is expired,¹ then none can withstand; when he commands to return to the dust from whence we came, or shall say, This night thy soul shall be taken away, there cannot be any gainsaying. This truth is the more to be regarded, because it hath been doctrinally agitated by learned men, Whether there be an immovable term of life in this world prefixed to every man? and then practically it is of great concernment, as is to be showed.

That God hath the dominion and immediate disposing of our being and continuance in this world. When his day is come, when his Decree is expired,¹ then none can withstand; when he commands to return to the dust from whence we came, or shall say, This night thy soul shall be taken away, there cannot be any gainsaying. This truth is the more to be regarded, because it hath been doctrinally agitated by learned men, Whether there be an immovable term of life in this world prefixed to every man? and then practically it is of great concernment, as is to be shewed.

1. 1Observ. That God hath the dominion and immediate disposing of our being and continuance in this world.

But to explain this truth, consider, First,¹ That God hath not only determined a general or specific time for all in the world, but an individual and peculiar for every man or woman, a general term of life God hath provided, so that none shall live beyond it. No man ever lived a thousand years. In the beginning of the world, then men were longer lived, but in Moses his time, we see him affirming the ordinary bounds of a mans life to be threescore and ten,