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A Short time of Age, is long enough to live well, saith Tully. No man dies so soon, who intends not to live better than he has done. A Beardless Youth has numbered▪ years enough, who has lived to Vertue and Eternity, for which
he was Born. Has he not spoke enough, that can perswade with one word or a nod? Has he not said enough, who arrives happily at his Port. But best of all, he that soonest attains it. So that death prevent not our Meditation, the swifter, the more happy it will be.
But I (saith the Macedonian King in Curtius) who number not my years but my Victories, if I number the Gifts of Fortune have lived long enough. How much more truely he, who Consecrates all his Life to God, and only studies to serve and please his Master faithfully, may say, I who count not these years wherein I serve God, but my desires, if I rightly compute the Benefits of my God, have lived long enough. So it is most certainly; he lives a Hundred, yea, a Thousand years, yea, Ages them∣selves and serves God, whoever sincerely and cor∣dially desires to serve his God so long, were it per∣mitted him so long to live. For God accepts the will for the deed: With whom to intend a pious Action, is oft-times as much as to have performed it. So he may be a Martyr, and expend his Blood with a Christian Valour, though he die in his Bed. So a Man may live long, and act, and suffer coura∣giously for Christ, whoever earnestly desires to live to that end. There is no man that dies not at his day, whoever dies by the Decree of the Di∣vine Will.