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.