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

First, Old-age is Greater in Authority, ¹than any other Age. There is an Authority resulting from the Law of Nature, as well as that which is conferred by Civil Laws; the former is that wherewith Old-age is invested. God himself, who is the Fountain of Honour, hath given them a Patent for it: so that their Authority hath something in it divine, and they seem to have a kind of Natural Government over others. Hereby the Sentence or Opinion of the Aged may well conclude, as much as the Arguments of the younger; and he must have a great deal of Wisdom or of Confidence, that shall contradict what a wise Aged person hath asserted.

First, Old-age is Greater in Authority, ¹than any other Age. There is an Authory resulting from the Law of Nature, as well as that which is conferr'd by Civil Laws; the former is that wherewith Old-age is invested. God himself, who is the Fountain of Honour, hath given them a Patent for it: so that their Authority hath something in it divine, and they seem to have a kind of Natural Government over others. Hereby the Sentence or Opinion of the Aged may well conclude, as much as the Arguments of the younger; and he must have a great deal of Wisdom or of Confidence, that shall contradict what a wise Aged person hath asserted.

1. 1§ 1. It is greater in Authority.

That there is a certain Authority in Old-age is plain from divers Scriptures. As, Isa. 9. 15. The Ancient, and the Honourable he is the Head. Now we know that the Head is the Seat of Rule. When Moses had occasion for some Coadjutors with him in Judgment, the Lord caused Seventy of the Elders of Israel, to be set apart for that work, Num. 11. 16. And so the Judges who constituted the Sanhedrin, were made up of Seventy two Elders. Again, when the Apostle would