Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/139

 2. In this we are to consider first, that God our Lord, from all eternity, has determined the years of our life, and assigned the month, the day, and hour in which every one is to die, so that it is impossible (says Job) to pass it by even for one minute; neither is there any king or monarch that can add to himself or to any other one moment of life above that which Almighty God has determined. So that as I entered into the world the same day that Almighty God willed, and not before — so shall I depart out of the world the same day that God wills, and not afterwards. By this I may understand that what day soever I live I receive it of grace, and that those I have lived have been of grace; for our Lord might have assigned me a shorter time of life, as He assigned to others that died in their mother's womb or in their infancy. And seeing my life so depends upon God, there is just cause I should spend all the time of it in His service that gave it me, holding it for a great ingratitude to employ one only moment to offend Him.

Secondly, I am to consider that God our Lord in this His decree shortened or enlarged the days that some men, according to their natural constitution, might have lived, for the secret ends of his sovereign providence. For to some, either for their own prayers or for the prayers of other saints, He enlarged the days of their life; as to King Hezekias He added fifteen years, because with tears he asked it. And the like has happened to the dead who have been miraculously raised to life. To some others He shortens the days of their life for one of two ends: either for their salvation, cutting them off (as the Wise man says) " in their youth," lest wickedness should alter their understanding, or lest deceit might "beguile" their "soul;" or, on the con-