A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons…

Now Pleasure is the life of Life: What is Life without Delight? why do men toil to get Estates, but for the pleasure they take in them? why do others hunt for Applause, and climb for Honour, but to please their fancy and their humour? even the Scholar would take leave of his Books, if he had not Delight in them: So that Pleasure acts all mankind, and rules the world. Now those years are lamentable, wherein a man shall say, I have no pleasure in them. And this makes some Old People weary of their lives, they reckon that a Life stripped of joy and comfort, is not worth the keeping.

Now Pleasure is the life of Life: What is Life without Delight? why do men toyl to get Estates, but for the pleasure they take in them? why do others hunt for Applause, and climb for Honour, but to please their fancy and their humour? even the Schollar would take leave of his Books, if he had not Delight in them: So that Pleasure acts all mankind, and rules the world. Now those years are lamentable, wherein a man shall say, I have no pleasure in them. And this makes some Old People weary of their lives, they reckon that a Life stript of joy and comfort, is not worth the keeping.

Nevertheless, Old-age may support it self very well under this Inconvenience: Inasmuch, as the Pleasures they are deprived of, are in themselves and to their experience, dangerous Enjoyments: For nothing is more apt to disorder and fully the Soul, than carnal Pleasure. Those very Recreations which may be harmless in themselves, yet too commonly lead to Intemperance, to Lasciviousness, to Quarrels, and other mischiefs. Now if a Dish be never so palatable, yet if there be but danger of Poison in it, no wise man will meddle with it: Therefore Tully brings in Cato congratulating with himself, that he was delivered from the slavery of Pleasure, and concludes, that it is a singular Privilege of Old-age, that it frees us from that which is most pernicious in youth^o. And whatever regard weak men may have to these Vanities, the wisest among the very Heathens have concluded, that there is no plague so deadly to man as the pleasures of the body