Upon my first visit I was bold to tell them who had not let fall all hopes of his recovery, that in my sad opinion he was not like to behold a grasshopper, much less to pluck another fig; and in no long time after seemed to discover that odd mortal symptom in him not mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, to lose his own face, and look like some of his near relations; for he maintained not his proper countenance, but looked like his uncle, the lines of whose face lay deep and invisible in his healthful visage before:  for as from our beginning we run through variety of looks, before we come to consistent and settled faces; so before our end, by sick and languishing alterations, we put on new visages:  and in our retreat to earth, may fall upon such looks which from community of seminal originals were before latent in us.

Not to fear death, nor desire it, was short of his resolution:  to be dissolved, and be with Christ, was his dying ditty.  He conceived his thread long, in no long course of years, and when he had scarce outlived the second life of Lazarus; esteeming it enough to approach the years of his Saviour, who so ordered His own human state as not to be old upon earth.

Though age had set no seal upon his face, yet a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in his actions; and therefore, since wisdom is the grey hair, and an unspotted life old age; although his years came short, he might have been said to have held up with longer livers, and to have been Solomon’s old man.  And surely if we deduct all those days of our life which we might wish unlived, and which abate the comfort of those we now live; if we reckon up only those days which God hath accepted of our lives, a life of good years will hardly be a span long:  the son in this sense may outlive the father, and none be climacterically old.  He that early arriveth unto the parts and prudence of age, is happily old without the uncomfortable attendants of it; and ’tis superfluous to live unto grey hairs, when in a precocious temper we anticipate the virtues of them.  In brief, he cannot be accounted young who outliveth the old man.  He that hath early arrived unto the measure of a perfect stature in Christ, hath already fulfilled the prime and longest intention of his being:  and one day lived after the perfect rule of piety, is to be preferred before sinning immortality.

ON A HEAVENLY MIND

Lastly; if length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation.  Reckon not upon long life:  think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account.  He that so often surviveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days.  Time past is gone like a shadow; make time to come present.  Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them:  be like a neighbour unto the grave, and think there is but little to come.  And since there is something