not to bee in the worlde, is it anie payne? Did wee then feele any paine, when as yet wee were not? Haue wee euer more resemblaunce of Death, then when wee sleepe? Or euer more rest then at that time? Now if this be no paine, why accuse we Death of the paines our life giues vs at our departure? Vnlesse also we wil fondly accuse the time when as yet we were not, of the paines we felt at our birth? If the comming in be with teares, is it wonder that such be the going out? If the beginning of our being, be the beginning of our paine, is it maruell that such be the ending? But if our not being in times past hath bene without payne, and all this being contrarywise full of paine: whome should we by reason accuse of the last paines, the not being to come, or the remnant of this present being? We thinke we dye not, but when we yeeld vp our last gaspe. But if we marke well, we dye euery day, euery houre, euery moment. We apprehend death as a thing vnvsuall to vs: and yet haue nothing so common in vs. Our liuing is but 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.