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 of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and
live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this