N00657:13
A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of…
A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of being prepared for sudden changes & death. Delivered in a sermon preached at Cambridge in New England. Decemb. 6. 1696. On occasion of the sudden death of two scholars belonging to Harvard College. / By Increase Mather, president of that college. ; [Two lines from I Samuel]A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of being prepared for sudden changes & death. Delivered in a sermon preached at Cambridge in New England. Decemb. 6. 1696. On occasion of the sudden death of two scholars belonging to Harvard Colledge. / By Increase Mather, praesident of that colledge. ; [Two lines from I Samuel]
printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1697
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Man Knows not his Time.
Eccles. 9.12. Man knoweth not his Time.
SOLOMON in this Book shows the Vanity and Uncertainty of all humane affairs, and the Misery which does on that account attend men whilst they are on the Earth. He takes notice of many Vanities, one whereof is mentioned in the preceding Verse, namely, That Events & Successes are not always as men Judging by Second Causes conclude they will be. One would think that the swiftest Runner should come to the End of the Race soonest; & that when there is a battle to be fought, they that have the greatest Number and Strength should win the day; but sometimes it falls out to be quite contrary, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. For which there are two Reasons assigned. (1.) The over-ruling Providence of God. Time and Chance happeneth to them all. There is nothing that Chanceth in respect of God, who ⟨p. 8⟩knoweth and has determined all Events▪ but as to man, Casualties, Accidents happen which cause things to fall out otherwise then according to probable rational Conjectures would have been; in all which there is a Providence, and sometimes there is a great Providence in a small Accident. (2.) Another Reason is in the words before u, because Man knows not his Time: which is not to be understood Universally, as if no man did ever in any thing know what Times should pass over him: but for the most part and in most things they are Ignorant thereof. So then the Doctrine at present before us, is,