The number of
the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far
surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds
unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since
death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt
whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right
descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be
long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since
the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time
that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a
dream and folly of expectation....
There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no
beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being
and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that
necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of
omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from
the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality
frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after
death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who can only[135] destroy
our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or
names hath directly promised no duration.
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