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

SECT. II.

A Second Inconvenience which attends¹ Old-age, is this, That their Strength and Beauty is decreased^u. Those Arms and Hands which once were able and useful for any employment, are now scarce strong and steady enough to feed themselves. The Legs and Thighs that have carried them many a pleasant journey, yea, to many an holy Exercise, are grown stiff and weak, and grudge to carry them up Stairs to Bed. Yea, that Back which was the support of the whole building, and many a Load that was piled upon it, begins to bow and bend, and can scarce carry it self erect. Their Parts and Members in general are quite enervated and spent, as if they were weary of their Employment; so that there seems to be ⟨p. 140⟩left little of a Man but his Shape: according to the Proverb, Senex est, & non est. He is old, and so is No-body. Like some ruinated Palace, here was the stately Porch, there the fair Stair-case, the shape of a fair Parlour below, and the shadow of an handsome Chamber above: so here, the Carcass of the Man remains, but the Beauty is changed into wrinkles, and the Strength into weakness. They had a pleasant prospect in their Glass, but their Flesh hath bid them farewell, their Roses and Lilies are withered, and a wan duskishness hath taken possession: their Strength and Beauty are buried both together: So that it was a Saying among the Romans, Sexagenarius de ponte dejiciendus. He is sixty, make away with him.

A Second Inconvenience which attends¹ Old-age, is this, That their Strength and Beauty is decreased^u. Those Arms and Hands which once were able and useful for any imployment, are now scarce strong and steady enough to feed themselves. The Legs and Thighs that have carried them many a pleasant journey, yea, to many an holy Exercise, are grown stiff and weak, and grudge to carry them up Stairs to Bed. Yea, that Back which was the support of the whole building, and many a Load that was piled upon it, begins to bow and bend, and can scarce carry it self erect. Their Parts and Members in general are quite enervated and spent, as if they were weary of their Imployment; so that there seems to be