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

Do you not perceive how you are in danger to be trapanned by Satan, who suggested to you in the time of youth, that Repentance was then too early, and who will now persuade it is grown too late? ye have de•err'd this work long enough already, now you must use double diligence about it. It is said of the Mulberry tree, that it casts out its buds latest, but then thrusts them all out in a night: You are late in the Vineyard, you must work the harder. The whole business of your life hitherto stands for nothing; if you be not new born, you will cease to be in this world, before you begin to live^u; if your last change get the start of this first change, you will curse the day of your birth to all eternity.

Do you not perceive how you are in danger to be trapann'd by Satan, who suggested to you in the time of youth, that Repentance was then too early, and who will now perswade it is grown too late? ye have de•err'd this work long enough already, now you must use double diligence about it. It is said of the Mulberry tree, that it casts out its buds latest, but then thrusts them all out in a night: You are late in the Vineyard, you must work the harder. The whole business of your life hitherto stands for nothing; if you be not new born, you will cease to be in this world, before you begin to live^u; if your last change get the start of this first change, you will curse the day of your birth to all eternity.

1. uQuidam tunc vivere incipiunt, cum desinendu• est: si hoc judice• mirum; adjiciam quod magis admireris, quidam ante vivere desierunt quam incipiunt. Sen. Ep. 23.

Now for your Direction in this great Work, your present business is to get a Competence of Knowledge, in the Doctrine of Religion: and then searching your own Hearts to compare them with the holy Law of God. For example, look your face in the glass of that hundred