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

Now this is a very sensible Inconvenience: None of these afflictions are joyous, but grievous with a witness. They vex and torment the Body, that a man hath no mind to live, and yet no power to dye. Hear Job, c. 7. 20. I am a burden to my self. Job 10. 1. My soul is weary of my life. The Old person cries out with him, Job 16. 12. I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder, he hath taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces;—he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare, he poureth out my gall upon the ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach, &c. These Distempers and Pain embitter all worldly comforts; House, goods, Money, Friends, Relations, they are all dead to a man that is sick and in pain. They deprive a man of himself, he hath Ears and Eyes, but no comfortable use of them: those things that used to refresh him, now offend him; his Meat, ⟨p. 160⟩Chair, his Bed tires him; his Friends, their absence offends him, and he is disturbed with their presence; poor wretch! he is not well, and nothing is well about him, as to the giddy all things turn round. These also waste his Estate, what will not one spend for ease and health? one Remedy is commended and used, and then another; one Physician employed, and then another; skin for skin, all shall go for Life and Health. Yea, these have a sad influence upon the Soul. When it is lodged in a ruinous body, it is stifled within it self for want of motion, and move it cannot, or but lamely for want of Organs^f. It is like a traveller with a tired Horse; he spurs and strains, but his Horse is foundered; so here, the Soul would pray, and meditate, and fly upward, but the dead weight of a crazy Body hinders; so that both his flesh upon him hath pain, and his Soul within him doth mourn, Job 14. 22.

Now this is a very sensible Inconvenience: None of these afflictions are joyous, but grievous with a witness. They vex and torment the Body, that a man hath no mind to live, and yet no power to dye. Hear