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

And as All sin must be the Object of Mortification, so especially all Youthful sins^e. For as Chrysostom says, An Old man acting juvenile sins, is far more ridiculous than young persons, that commit those sins. To have our hearts ⟨p. 295⟩burn with Lust, or Revenge, when our veins are freezing with Age, the soul rampant and the body dying, is monstrous^f. And yet we know, how S. Hierom himself complains of scalding motions, that were ready to invade his withered body. And the Scripture gives us a sad Instance hereof, even of Solomon the best and wisest of men alive, that had done more for God, and God for him, than any man in the age he lived in; that he when he was between Fifty and Sixty years of age, should be so far enslaved to his strange wives, as to be carried by them to worship strange gods. For it came to pass, when Solomon was Old, that his wives turned away his heart, &c. 1 Kin. 11. 4. Whereby he set in such a cloud, as hath drawn his very Salvation into question. Let it be a warning to all Aged people, to see that their Corruptions be not asleep but dead, as far as is attainable in this life; that the Old man, as well as the outward man perish, and which will be a good proof thereof, that the inward man be renewed day by day. That our Thoughts, our Words, our very Behaviour and Attire proclaim, that Sin and we are parted never to meet again. It was a good ⟨p. 296⟩answer of a Lacedaemonian to one that asked him, why he wore his Beard so long? Answ. It is to mind me, that I do nothing unbeseeming my hoary hairs. A light behaviour in a grave person is foolish and loathsome: For as dead flies cause the ointment of the Apothecary to send forth a stinking saviour; so doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour, Eccl. 10. 1.

And as All sin must be the Object of Mortification, so especially all Youthful sins^e