continuall dyeng: looke how much we liue, we
dye: how much we encrease, our life decreases. We enter not a
step into life, but we enter a step into death. Who hath liued a
third part of his yeares, hath a third part of himselfe dead.
Who halfe his yeares, is already half dead. Of our life, all the
time past is dead, the present liues and dies at once, and the
future likewise shall dye. The past is no more, the future is
not yet, the present is, and no more is. Briefely, this whole
life is but a death: it is as a candle lighted in our bodies: in
one the winde makes it melt away, in an other blowes it cleane
out, many times ere it be halfe burned: in others it endureth to
the ende. Howsoeuer it be, looke how much it shineth, so much it
burneth: her shining is her burning: her light a vanishing
smoke: her last fire, hir last wike, and her last drop of
moisture. So is it in the life of man, life and death in man is
all one. If we call the last breath death, so must we all the
rest: all proceeding from one place, and all in one manner. One
only difference there is betweene this life, and that we call
death: that during the one, we haue alwayes wherof to dye: and
after the other, there remaineth only wherof to liue. In summe,
euen he that thinketh death simply to be the ende of man, ought
not to feare it: in asmuch as who desireth to liue longer,
desireth to die longer: and who feareth soone to die, feareth
(to speake properlie) lest he may not longer die.

But vnto vs brought vp in a more holy schoole, death is a farre
other thing: neither neede we as the Pagans of consolations
against death: but that death serue vs, as a consolation against
all sorts of affliction: so that we must not only strengthen our
selues, as they, not to feare it, but accustome ourselues to
hope for it. For vnto vs it is not a departing fr[om] pain & euil,
but an accesse vnto all good: not the end of life, but the end
of death, & the beginning of life. Better, saith _Salomon_, is
the day of death, then the day of birth, and why? because it is
not to vs a last day, but the dawning of an euerlasting day. No
more shall we haue in that glorious light, either sorow for the
past, or expectation of the future: for all shall be there
present vnto vs, and that present shall neuer more passe. No
more shal we powre out our selues in vaine & painfull pleasures:
for we shal be filled with true & substantiall pleasures. No
more shal we paine our selues in heap