innumerable. There is but one comfort left, that though it be in the
power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest
to deprive us of death.

There is no happiness within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the
optics of these eyes to behold felicity. But besides this literal and
positive kind of death, there are others whereof divines make mention,
as mortification, dying unto sin and the world. In these moral
acceptations, the way to be immortal is to die daily; and I have
enlarged that common "Remember death" into a more Christian
memorandum--"Remember the four last things"--death, judgment, heaven,
and hell. I believe that the world grows near its end; but that general
opinion, that the world grows near its end, hath possessed all ages past
as nearly as ours.

There is no road or ready way to virtue; it is not an easy point of art
to disentangle ourselves from this riddle or web of sin. To perfect
virtue, as to religion, there is required a panoplia, or complete
armour; that whilst we lie at close ward against one vice, we lie not
open to the assault of another. There go so many circumstances to piece
up one good action that it is a lesson to be good, and we are forced to
be virtuous by the book.

Insolent zeals that do decry good works, and rely only upon faith, take
not away merit; for, depending upon the efficacy of their faith, they
enforce the condition of God, and in a more sophistical way do seem to
challenge heaven. I do not deny but that true faith is not only a mark
or token, but also a means, of our salvation; but, where to find this is
as obscure to me as my last end. If a faith to the quantity of a grain
of mustard seed is able to remove mountains, surely that which we boast