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

I would therefore conjure all such Unconverted Old people, to apply themselves with all speed and seriousness to this First Repentance; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, to make you new hearts and new spirits, or else infallibly you must dye. Say not with Nicodemus, How can a man be born when he is old? For the Work is possible and the Method is plain. Harder it may be for an Old man to become a New man, than for the younger; hence the Proverb, An old naught, will never be ought: That is rarely, or difficulty, according to the Greek saying^s: For that the Faculties of the Soul are enfeebled, and the Habits of Sin strengthened by continuance; former guilt and negligence, makes men to doubt of future assistance or acceptance. ⟨p. 244⟩But since God doth call Old people to Repent, sith he hath spared you alive hitherto, and to them that are joined to the living there is hope; sith there be innumerable instances of Old Converts: In fine, sith God looketh upon men, and if any, mark, if Any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profiteth me not; he will deliver him from going down to the pit, Job 33. 27, 28. Never question the possibility, but set about the work. Set the Necessity against the Difficulty, it is Turn in Time or Burn in Eternity; for Truth hath said, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. How can you imagine that a limb of the Devil, should become a member of Christ, a child of wrath become a child of God, but by Regeneration? Outward Reformation may shave the hair, but this Leprosy must be cured inwardly.

I would therefore conjure all such Unconverted Old people, to apply themselves with all speed and seriousness to this First Repentance; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, to make you new hearts and new spirits, or else infallibly you must dye. Say not with Nicodemus, How can a man be born when he is old? For the Work is possible and the Method is plain. Harder it may be for an Old man to become a New man, than for the younger; hence the Proverb, An old naught, will never be ought: That is rarely, or difficulty, according to the Greek saying^s: For that the Faculties of the Soul are enfeebled, and the Habits of Sin strengthened by continuance; former guilt and negligence, makes men to doubt of future assistance or acceptance.