LIFE AND DEATH. 335 



then the weakness of concoction, which is incident to old 

 men, might be recompensed by these helps, and concoction 

 restored to them entire. 



Length and Shortness of Life in Man. 



To the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, ninth, and eleventh articles. The History. 



1. Before the flood, as the sacred scriptures relate, men 

 lived many hundred years ; yet none of the fathers attained 

 to a full thousand. Neither was this length of life peculiar 

 only to grace or the holy line ; for there are reckoned of 

 the fathers, until the flood, eleven generations ; but of the 

 sons of Adam, by Cain, only eight generations ; so as the 

 posterity of Cain may seem the longer lived. But this 

 length of life, immediately after the flood, was reduced to 

 a moiety, but in the post nati; for Noah, who was born 

 before, equalled the age of his ancestors, and Sem saw the 

 six hundredth year of his life. Afterwards three genera 

 tions being run from the flood, the life of man was brought 

 down to a fourth part of the primitive age, that was, to 

 about two hundred years. 



2. Abraham lived a hundred and seventy and five years ; 

 a man of a high courage, and prosperous in all things. Isaac 

 came to a hundred and eighty years of age ; a chaste man, 

 and enjoying more quietness than his father. But Jacob, 

 after many crosses, and a numerous progeny, lasted to the 

 hundred and forty-seventh year of his life; a patient, 

 gentle, and wise man. Ismael, a military man, lived a 

 hundred and thirty and seven years. Sarah (whose years 

 only amongst women are recorded) died in the hundred and 

 twenty-seventh year of her age ; a beautiful and magnani 

 mous woman, a singular good mother and wife, and yet no 

 less famous for her liberty than obsequiousness towards her 

 husband. Joseph also, a prudent and politic man, passing 

 his youth in affliction, afterwards advanced to the height 

 of honour and prosperity, lived a hundred and ten years. 

 But his brother Levi, older than himself, attained to a hun 

 dred and thirty-seven years ; a man impatient of contumely 

 and revengeful. Near unto the same age attained the son 

 of Levi; also his grandchild, the father of Aaron and 

 Moses. 



3. Moses lived a hundred and twenty years ; a stout man, 

 and yet the meekest upon the earth, and of a very slow 

 tongue. Howsoever Moses, in his psalm, pronounceth that 

 the life of man is but seventy years, and if a man have 

 strength, then eighty ; which term of man s life standeth 



