A61390:106
A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons…
A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons / by Richard Steele ...
London: printed by J. Astwood for Tho. Parkhurst, 1688
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And they want not variety of Pretences whereby to justify their course: as that they are only providing for a rainy day, for troubles and Casualties that may befall them; that they ought to lay up for their Children and Posterity, or else they were worse than Infidels; yea, that they are gathering only to bestow it at their death on some pious or charitable use. And Satan is not wanting to nurse this humour in them, by suggesting to them expectations of a long life, a distrust in the Providence of God, and continual fears of want: which is nursed by the coldness of their temper, and by their consciousness of their inability to get much by their labour: And these meeting with that inveterate Self-love, which is inherent in them, and consequently an uncharitable frame of mind towards others, hardens them in their tenacious ⟨p. 59⟩temper; so that as they grow weaker, this lust grows strongert; until Divine grace doth open their eyes, or else the Earth at last stop their mouths.
And they want not variety of Pretences whereby to justifie their course: as that they are only providing for a rainy day, for troubles and Casualties that may besall them; that they ought to lay up for their Children and Posterity, or else they were worse than Infidels; yea, that they are gathering only to bestow it at their death on some pious or charitable use. And Satan is not wanting to nurse this humour in them, by suggesting to them expectations of a long life, a distrust in the Providence of God, and continual fears of want: which is nursed by the coldness of their temper, and by their consciousness of their inability to get much by their labour: And these meeting with that inveterate Self-love, which is inherent in them, and consequently an uncharitable frame of mind towards others, hardens them in their tenacious ⟨p. 59⟩temper; so that as they grow weaker, this lust grows strongert; until Divine grace doth open their eyes, or else the Earth at last stop their mouths.
- tOmnia in homine senescunt vitia: sola avaritia juvenescit. Aug. Serm. 48. ad fratres in eremo.