Being Childless.

But by this means I am left without an heir. Well, suppose that: thou hast no heir, and I have no inheritance; and there are many kings and emperors that have died childless, many royal lines are extinguished; and Augustus Caesar was forced to adopt his wife’s son to inherit all the Roman greatness. And there are many wise persons that never married; and we read nowhere that any of the children of the apostles did survive their fathers; and all that inherit anything of Christ’s kingdom come to it by adoption, not by natural inheritance: and to die without a natural heir is no intolerable evil, since it was sanctified in the person of Jesus, who died a virgin.