I am about All that can be said concerning it is that it is low and mean and ordinary however confest by all it is true genuine and proper And this may be said of it beyond all other whatsoever that it is the basis and foundation of all the rest And every one of them receive their clarity of truth from the Analogy they bear to this primary Interpretation that is that these six verses are a true and proper description of the natural infirm and decrepit Age of mankind That which the Latines call Aetas Capularis the age of him who is shortly to be taken unto Death or into the Coffin or upon the Bier or into the Grave plainly the age of him who is by Course of Nature just at his last and must ere long necessarily yield to inevitable dissolution There is in that language also another word which way soever we take its Etymology that will excellently signifie unto us the Condition here delineated And that is Silicernium for whether we take it quasi siliceâ herniâ laborans he that is troubled with hard ruptures as very old men for the most part are or Sili herbâ usurus he that will soon call into use such an herb as was then accustomed to funeral entertainments or Silentibus brevi Cernendus he that will quickly be free among the dead or lastly Silices cernens he that by his age and infirmity is continually put in mind of his Tomb or rather that which seems to me most proper he that is bowed down with age so that he cannot but behold the ground whereon he now stands and under which he must ere long be laid And this answereth exactly to the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall not take upon me precisely to limit the bounds of this decrepit state forasmuch as they are various in respect of the dispositions of mens bodies of their course of lives and also of the places and ages in which they live The lives of the Patriarks before the floud were extended to almost a thousand years and yet we read not of those sad Symptomes attending them as attend us now at fourscore About the time of the Floud God abbreviates the course of mans life and seems precisely to set it at one hundred and twenty years I know very well most men would have this Text to be understood as a threatning only to the present Inhabitants of the Old World that it should be so many years before the Floud swept them all away But it seems to me and not to me only rather to intend the cutting short of the life of man for the future For it is clear by the Context that the Floud came upon the World within an hundred years after this denunciation which was made when Noah was five hundred years old And he was but six hundred years old when the Floud of waters was upon the Earth Now God doth seldome anticipate the execution of his Judgements in wrath but doth often prorogue it in mercy It is as clear also that many there were even after the Floud whose lives were prolonged beyond this appointed period but they found it very burthensome and grievous and miseries with their age dayly came upon them the first-born of death about that time began to devour their strength and to take possession of them in the right of him that was to succeed And they might then be said to die in the same propriety of Language as Adam did in the day wherein he did eat the forbidden fruit but the Psalmist gives a more exact account of this thing which may stand firm to this very day The daies of our years are threescore years and ten and if by reason of strength they be four score years yet is their strength labour and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we flee away But as the universal Fabrick that God at first extracted out of nothing draws nearer to its end so doth every particular structure therein made weaken and decay As the heaven and the earth wax old so they that dwell therein shall dye in like manner And therefore it is not to be thought that in these daies mans age should be so long nor so many arrive at it as in the daies wherein the Bow of Universal Nature abode in its greater strength Nor can we exactly put the terms of any mans old age so as to say he is now old at this present moment but was not so before for it is that which creeps on by steps and degrees as the shadow upon a Dial. Inde minutatim vires robor adultum Frangit in partem pejorem liquitur aet as Some of the flowers of age blow before othersome sometime on one bough sometime on another here one there one insensibly however when perfected you have it stand in full bloom as is to be seen in the ensuing Analysis Age is here described Generally v. 1. by way of Assertion The evil daies come Negation No pleasure in them Particularly in Symptomes forerunning death Mediately in the Weakened Faculties Internal v. 2. Rational Principal The Sun shall be darkned Inferiour The Light Irrational The Moon Subservient to them both The Stars External Animal v. 3. appearing in the Limbs Superiour The keepers of the house shall tremble Inferiour The strong mèn shall bow themselves Mouth The grinders shall cease because they are few Eyes The lookers out of the windows shall be darkned Natural v. 4. The beginning The doors shall be shut in the streets when the voice of the grinding is low Mixt v. 4. later end Of Inward and outward in want of sleep which binds up both He shall rise up at the voice of the bird Vital and natural The Active Daughters of Musick belonging to the Vital The Passive to the Animal All the daughters of musick shall be brought low Simple eminent affects and most remarkable alterations v. 5. Of The Mind Fear Lesser He shall be afraid of that which is high Greater Fears shall be in the way The Body in respect of parts Excrementitious The Almond tree shall flourish Aliment Sperm or hard The grashopper shall be a burden Sang. or tender Desire shall fail Immediately v. 6. such as belong to the Brain and the parts arising thencefrom Without the scull The silver cord be loosed Within the scull The golden bowl be broken Heart and the parts arising thencefrom as they relate to Importation The pitcher broken at the fountain Exportation The wheel broken at the Cistern Statutum est in Caelis It is a statute in Heaven for all men once to dye by vertue of which it is that man must necessarily pass through all those various steps and passages from the Womb to the Tomb that are appointed unto him in that unalterable Decree As sure as Man is born so sure he must pass along and unless it please the Lord sooner by a violent stroak to take him to
Grandmother A restorer of life and nourisher of old age Much without all question may be done by humane knowledge for the retarding and keeping off Old Age for a competent season and for the quitting and clearing of it from that multitude of grievances that do so easily beset it Though the Completion of this work be reserved in Gods own hand until he shall bring that happy state upon his People which was typified by Moses Who when he was one hundred and twenty years old had not his eye dim nor his natural force abated And was plainly prophesied by Isaiah saying There shall be no more thence an infant of daies nor an old man that hath not filled his daies for the child shall dye an hundred years old And yet farther it seems not to me in the least incongruous to Christian Religion to affirm that life it self may be prolonged There are certain waies and methods that have a natural tendency in them either to life or death As righteousness tendeth unto life so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death Abbreviation and prolongation of life stand upon the same foundation and the self-same arguments either confirm them or overthrow them both together Now most certain it is that evil men shall not live out their daies And as certain it seems to me that good men shall out-live their daies else what means that promise of additional life My son forget not my Law but lâ—t thine heart keep my Commandments for length of daies and long life and peace shall they add unto thee Yet the words of Job are everlastingly true The daies of man are determined the number of his months are with God he hath appointed his bounds that he cannot pass His Prescience and Predetermination do not at all hinder the influences of naturall Causes but he knows and disposeth of them also equally with their effects And thus those things that are with us reputed the most contingent are also fore-seen and fore-ordered as well as others The drawing of a Bow of a certain man at a venture was as well known and determined as the death of that King that fell thereby The whole Story of Hezechiah's life and death was alike predestinated yet he was sick unto death and had then certainly died had not God lengthned out his life yet fifteen years and had he not followed his appointment in making use of the Plaister of Figs. Pauls most comfortable words in his dangerous Voyage to Rome There shall be no loss of any mans life among you was a true report of the sure unchangeable and Eternal Counsel of God Yet had not the shipmen abode in the ship they could not have been saved The death and continuation of life of every man and of every individual living Creature is certainly determined yet they shall both of them as necessarily follow their constituted means as day and night do the presence or absence of the Sun But yet once more it is more than probable that such noble medicines may be found out and prescribed that may innovate the strength of all the parts of old men and bring their Temperament back again to equality that may so fortifie nature and consume or expell whatsoever is contrary thereunto as life and vigour may be restored to such a measure which may safely be called The renewing of youth It is said of Captain Naaman the Leper after he had made use of the Ordinance of God for his recovery that his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child and he was clean And thus through the blessing of God upon our weak endeavours we dayly see brought again from the Graves mouth and restored to perfect health and strength many that were Confecti morbo spent and consumed with a disease and why some that are Confecti senio wasted with age may not in like manner be renewed seems not at all impossible Nay this Elihu one of Jobs friends doth abundantly prove from the power and providence of God when he saith His flesh shall be fresher than a childs he shall return to the daies of his youth And those Critical returns of nature which are vulgarly called lightnings before death that do usually continue but for two or three hours or daies at the most are notwithstanding sometime by the strength of nature only lengthned out to so many weeks or months and there can no reason be given why a skilful and successful Artist may not be made instrumental for the farther prolonging them with greater comfort to so many years or Lustra's The whole Creation now grown old expecteth and waiteth for a certain rejuvenescency with which ere long it shall surely be blessed In the mean time this is presented unto us in a figure in those several Transformations and Renovations of the Ant and Silk-worm and many such Insectiles which are soon brought to extream old age by their incessant labour in recompence whereof by a wonderful Metamorphosis they are renewed into brisk and lively Flies And there are abundance of more perfect Creatures also which depositing their old skins or shels or some such emblem of their age are at certain seasons brought back again to a youthful state and such are Snakes Lizzards Crabs Crevises Eagles King-fishers and such like and why some such thing as this or at least something Analogous hereunto may not be wrought upon man the most perfect Creature of all the earth I am sure no one can give an account David in his Doxology intimates that there may saying concerning God in his Providences He satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the Eagles Yet were not these things thus visibly demonstrated to us God might in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alter the Course wherein hitherto he hath manifested himself And in some things he hath given us assurance that he will the way that hitherto he hath been pleased to take to bring our bodies to glory and immortality hath been through misery dust and darkness but in the last day he will take a nearer course to do the same thing Behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinckling of an eye at the last trump for the Trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed These Magnalia naturae viz. the preventing alleviating and curing as far as is attainable the diseases before mentioned the retarding of Age the prolonging of Life the renewing of Youth that have scarce entred the thoughts of Vulgar Pretenders to Physick have been as unto the practick part under our Consideration with like care and industry as what you here see in the Theory and that from principles gathered up not only from reason reading and experience but from some eminent instructive expressions of Holy Writ which are not obvious to
to follow their own hearts lusts with greediness do voluntarily bring upon themselves but it seems to me to be otherwise and that chiefly from these two reasons 1. Because I find nothing in the Allegory that is not competible to every particular person that lives to the time of this state both to the good and bad both to the righteous and the wicked Weaknesses infirmities diseases both of body and mind attend them all Isaac Jacob Eli David as well as those who lead never so contrary lives must bear the burden of their age if they live to the time It is most certainly true a course of wickedness doth wonderfully hasten both old age and death it self The wicked man shall not live out half his daies nor shall he keep off decrepitness half the time his honour shall be given away and his years unto the cruel And beside the hastening of these evils he doth infinitely augment them both for number quality he shall have a thousand fold more and a thousand fold greater Every sore shall be a Plague and every ach shall be an hell unto him but this is not the condition in this Text described but the declension of mans life as a man and that from this second reason drawn from the Context when I look immediately before the description I find youth mentioned Remember thy Creatour in the daies of thy youth when I look immediately after it I find death described The dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God that gave it Now as youth and death are appointed for all living without any discrimination of him that sweareth or him that feareth an oath as terms à quo and ad quem of their pilgrimage so this state also as an intermediate stage is as certainly appointed to them all unless it please God before that constituted time to give them a deliverance by immature dissolution It is said of Old Age Expectata diu votisque optata secundis Objicit innumeris corpus lacerabile morbis Though this state be never so much desired of men yet when it comes it brings along with it abundance of all manner of evils as the following Discourse will sufficiently make appear and therefore may well be called an evil state But here I must needs meet with this most obvious objection Is not Old Age a great blessing from God and are not gray hairs an honour do not you call that evil which God calls good How often in Scripture is it said A good old age and counted as a priviledge I must needs therefore here distinguish of old age and consider it in a threefold state First Crude green and while it is yet in the beginning while men are able to do business and go about their employments and this is but one little remove from manhood and doth immediately border upon it The second is full mature or ripe age when men begin to leave off their employments and betake themselves to retiredness when God hath no more work for them and they have no more strength for him or lastly extream sickly decrepit overgrown old age in which it may be truly said Old Age is perished when their breath is corrupt when their daies are extinct and the grave is ready for them And this only is the state the Wise man here so Rhetorically describes And that age which is so often called good I take to be the second before mentioned state and so much the rather because in most places where it is said they dyed in a good old age it is also added and full of daies by which I understand not a fulness of possibility that they lived so long as from the principles of their Composition they could not have lived any longer but a fulness as I may so say of satiety they had enough of living they lived as long as living was good they lived to a full ripe and mature age such an one as would force them to be of the mind with him in the Fable to refuse immortality in this present life and earnestly to desire it in a better There is an excellent illustration of this in the speech of Eliphaz wherein he sets down the special Providences of God towards them that fear him and are betteâ—ed by Correction Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age like a shock of corn in its season Now if a shock of Corn stand very long in the field it sheds and is spoiled and the season of it is as well lost as if it had been taken in too green Jacob most certain it is died in this good old age as well as others yet he himself saith unto the King a little before he died that the dayes of his years were few and he had not attained the dayes of the years of his Fathers in their pilgrimage Had St. Paul departed when he had fought the good fight finished his course kept the faith and was ready to be offered he had surely dyed in a good old age although his pulse had not then beaten above threescore years Now most certain it is that the arriving at this state is one of the greatest outward blessings that man is capable of in this life Nor dare I say otherwise if it should please the Lord to protract the life of man to the extreamest point it is capable of If he should withhold his hand from pushing down the house which he hath made and let it fall to decay upon its own principles his forbearance would be the greater its fall would be the lesser however in the mean time it would stand most ruinate deformed useless and incumbred with infinite inconveniencies that it was never lyable to before Heâ— quam continuis quantis longa senectus plena malis But this is not all it is not only an evil age but there is no pleasure in it As there is no condition that frail mortality is capable of so good that hath not a participation of evil so there is scarce any condition so evil that is not attempered with some good but this seems to be excluded from such a mercy as this It is said of a good Companion she will do a man good and no harm all the daies of her life But contrariwise it may be inverted concerning this bad and morose Companion she will do a man evil and no good so long as she continueth with him I have no pleasure in them I take pleasure here also in the best sense not for any sinful content whatsoever not for the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes or the pride of life but for those lawful pleasures and repasts both of body and mind that the nature of man while able might comfortably have solaced her self in The mind of man busiing it self and taking contentment in the speculation of natural causes the body of man