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

To this serious Piety, Old-age is more propense, than any other age of man. Insomuch as we find divers in Scripture, and other Stories bent for Heaven in their declining years, who in the former parts of their lives minded nothing, but the World and the Flesh. They whom no Persuasions, no Ordinances, no Afflictions could fully reduce to the obedience of Christ, yet the lively sense and feeling of their own decay, and of their approach to the eternal Judgment obligeth them to true repentance, and to make their calling and election sure. So that it hath passed for an Observation, that they who are not fair at twenty, strong at thirty, wise at forty, rich at fifty, pious at sixty; are never like to be fair, or strong, ⟨p. 213⟩or wise, or rich, or religious. When any man is warned out of the House he lives in, laying aside all other unnecessary business, he sets himself to provide another Habitation: Now every decay of strength, of sense; every grey Hair, or Wrinkle is a sensible warning out of the earthly House of his Tabernacle; and he must be strangely stupid^u, that buckles not, in good earnest, to provide for his Soul, when not only it may suddenly, but must shortly go either to Heaven or Hell. These kind of Sentiments caused that learned Grotius to profess, when he approached Death, that he would gladly exchange all his Learning and Honour, for the plain integrity of one Jean Uric, who was a devout poor man, that spent eight hours of his time in Devotion, eight in Labour, and but eight in Sleep, and all other Refreshments. So also that great States-man, St Tho. Smith, Secretary of State to Q. Elizabeth, some time before he fell sick, sent for Directions to two Bishops, how he might live most piously and make his peace with God^w

To this serious Piety, Old-age is more propense, than any other age of man. Insomuch as we find divers in Scripture, and other Stories bent for Heaven in their declining years, who in the former parts of their lives minded nothing, but the World and the Flesh. They whom no Perswasions, no Ordinances, no Afflictions could fully reduce to the obedience of Christ, yet the lively sense and feeling of their own decay, and of their approach to the eternal Judgment obligeth them to true repentance, and to make their calling and election sure. So that it hath pass'd for an Observation, that they who are not fair at twenty, strong at thirty, wise at forty, rich at fifty, pious at sixty; are never like to be fair, or strong,