Not to fear death,[DB] 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;[DC] esteeming it enough to approach the years of his Saviour, who so ordered his own human state, as not to be old upon earth. [DB] Summum nec metuas diem nec optes. [DC] Who upon some accounts, and tradition, is said to have lived thirty years after he was raised by our Saviour.--_Baronius._ But to be content with death may be better than to desire it; a miserable life may make us wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest in it; which is the advantage of those resolved Christians, who looking on death not only as the sting, but the period and end of sin, the horizon and isthmus between this life and a better, and the death of this world but as a nativity of another, do contentedly submit unto the common necessity, and envy not Enoch or Elias. Not to be content with life is the unsatisfactory state of those who destroy themselves,[DD] who being afraid to live run blindly upon their own death, which no man fears by experience: and the Stoics had a notable doctrine to take away the fear thereof; that is, in such extremities, to desire that which is not to be avoided, and wish what might be feared; and so made evils voluntary, and to suit with their own desires, which took off the terror of them. [DD] In the speech of Vulteius in Lucan, animating his soldiers in a great struggle to kill one another.--“Decernite letum, et metus omnis abest, cupias quodcumque necesse est.” “All fear is over, do but resolve to die, and make your desires meet necessity.”--_Phars._ iv. 486. But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged by such fallacies; who, though they feared not death, were afraid to be their own executioners; and therefore thought it more wisdom to crucify their lusts than their bodies, to circumcise than stab their hearts, and to mortify than kill themselves.