instruction of my Children but the prudent Parent will conclude tho some of the best Education do miscarry and some with the worst do flourish yet I ought and will take the likeliest course to bring up my Children in the fear of God Even so in this case the Old-age and Death do seize upon divers pious and circumspect persons as soon or before they come upon others yet is it the Interest and Duty of all such as regard God or wish well to themselves to use the fittest means to preserve their strength and vigour until their time and work be done For it is certain that when the success answers not the means and that Distempers notwithstanding our Piety and Sobriety do overtake us then it is permitted and ordained by the Wisdom of God for the setting forth some way of His Glory and for the real Good of the party affected For an Holy and Good God never makes Exceptions to his General Rules but in Cases reserved for his greater honour and his Servants greater good For all the paths of the Lord tho never so cross and crooked are Mercy I say Mercy and Truth to those that keep his Covenant and his Testimonies Psal. 25. 10. And thus you have had some Account of the true Causes and the best Antidotes against Old-age which is the second Point to be handled CHAP. III. The Sins of Old-age SECT I. I Come in the Third place to treat of the Vices and Sins which are most incident to Old-age for the best Wine that is hath some Dregs And tho there be none of Old-folks Sins but they are found in some Young-folks breasts yet there are some particular vices which are more proper because more common to Aged pesons than to others Nevertheless as the work of Sanctification hath been deeper and the care in Education greater so far the less lyable shall the Aged persons be unto these Corruptions He that bears the Yoke in his youth will be happily fortified against them in his age I do not therefore charge every Old man or woman with the following Faults for many have better learned Christ and are as free from them as any other but for the most part Old people are propense to these Vices First Frowardness or peevishness whereby they are prone to be morose wayward and hard to be pleased easily angry often angry and sometimes angry without a cause Seldom are they pleased with others scarce with themselves no not with God himself yea they think as poor Ionah did that they do well to be angry Too apt they are to aggravate every fault to its utmost dimensions and so never want matter for unquietness Now this is both a Sinful and Miserable distemper It is displeasing to God and it is very uncomfortable both to themselves and to others It s true that Anger in it self is not evil our Blessed Saviour was once angry but it was at Sin and it was accompanied with Grief for the hardness of their Hearts Mark 3. 5. When we are angry at Sin we are angry without Sin. And it is also true that Old people by reason of their knowledge in matters do see more things amiss and blame-worthy more Sin and more evil in Sin than others do and having liberty by reason of their Age and Authority to speak their minds they are too prone to express that which others must digest with silence and withall their bodily distempers dispose them to more testiness than others whose continual health and ease makes their Conversation more smooth and quiet and lastly they discern themselves in some danger of being despis'd and therefore are tempted to preserve their Authority by frequent and keen reproofs and reflexions and so iniquum petunt ut justum ferant they require too much lest they should receive too little But tho these things may abate the faultiness of this Sin yet they are far from being sufficient to justifie the same Say that this froppishness is their Disease rather than their Sin yet the Disease is the effect of Sin and the cause of Sin and Sin it self The mind is distemper'd by it both your own and others the Body is disordered unjustifiable words are spoken the Soul unfitted for any serious devotion and the proper ends of reproof seldom attained for as the wrath of man never works the righteousness of God so it rarely cures the iniquities of men The plaister being too hot burns more than it heals and the frequency of finding fault tempts the faulty to heed it the less yea they are prone to harden themselves in evil by retorting your unquietness upon you as a Sin you live in without reformation Strive therefore against this infirmity pray earnestly unto God for a meek and quiet Spirit connive at smaller slips be not severe against involuntary faults expect not the same Wisdom or Circumspection in young people as you have in so long time attained bridle the first emotions of anger and weigh the nature and quality of a miscarriage before you let fly at it and do not kill a Flea upon the Forehead of your Child or Servant with a Beetle Learn of Plato an Heathen who being incensed at his Servant desir'd his Friend Xenocrates who then came in that he would correct him for now saith he my anger surmounts my reason Or rather go to School to your heavenly Master Christ Iesus who was meek and lowly who being reviled reviled not again and when he suffer'd threatned not Give place to any one rather than to the Devil Resolve if others cross you that yet you will not punish your self for frowardness hurts no body so much as ones self And mortifie Pride from whence for the most part these passions spring for we are apt to assume so much and value our selves so highly that we think every one should humour us and they that expect much will meet with many disappointments Say not that the cure is impossible for in all ages there have been Instances of victories in this case There was Patricius the father of St. Augustine and there was Mr. Calvin both of them naturally of hot and hasty spirits yet did so moderate their temper that an unbeseeming word was scarce ever heard to come from them yea divers of the Heathen were eminent herein and doubtless the Grace of God will not be wanting to you if you sincerely seek it which will of lions make you lambs SECT II. A Second Folly incident to Old-age is Loquacity or Talkativeness that is an exceeding proneness to speak much so that it hath pass'd into a Proverb Senex psittacus an old person is a Parrot Herein they are twice children whose faculty you know lies this way Speech is a most wonderful and excellent Faculty conferr'd only on humane nature and for their common good and it is great pity that it should be abused As our Reason begins to work so our Speech comes in
days of her Youth wherein she had plaid the Harlot in the Land of Egypt Yea perhaps this guilt will be found in some respects greater than the first because it 's likely that then there was less knowledge and more temptation than now there is This contemplative wickedness nails on the former guilt and contracts more this demonstrates that the man would be always sinning if he could and that he is a meer stranger to true Repentance I deny not but that the first sudden glance of the memory upon former Vanities may be pleased but 't is only a surprize every pious Soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in it Thus Holy Augustine in his Confessions reflects upon his Robbing an Orchard in his younger days with all the heart-breaking Aggravations imaginable Thus Holy David cryes out Psal. 25. 7. Remember not the Sins of my Youth nor my Transgressions Labour you to write after their Copies let the remembrance of your former follies be always bitter never dwell upon the thoughts of them but with a Sigh O what a Fool what a Beast have I been O what have I done I am asham'd yea even confounded because I bear the reproach of my Youth Jerem. 31. 19. Make not the Wound to bleed again by rubbing it afresh lest it fester and grow incurable at length Let it appear some way that it is not want of power but want of will that makes you Sober A diligent care to avoid the Sins of your present Age and State will be a good proof that you would not commit the faults that are past if you were to live over your life again A better Life is the best Repentance And so much shall suffice upon this unpleasant but necessary Subject concerning the Sins of Old-age which as they should be matter of our hearty Grief so they should be the subject of our holy Iealousy and continual Caution For tho perhaps we may not be guilty in them all yet it is as unlikely that we are clear in all So that whereinsoever the Spirit of God hath in these Papers or otherwise found us out it is our indispensable duty to watch and pray with all seriousness and constancy against the same and tho they be rooted never so deep we must mortify and pluck them up tho we should they are grave Seneca's words pluck our very Hearts up with them For as one Disease is sufficient to kill the Body so any one Sin unmortified is able to send Body and Soul into Hell. On the other hand it will be one special token that we are upright before God when we keep our selves from our own Iniquity Psal. 18. 23. And yet this is but the one half of our bounden Duty For if you pluck up all the Weeds out of your Garden it will be but a desart place unless you procure some Herbs and Flowers therein so tho we should clear our Hearts of these Vices we shall have but naked and empty Souls unless we be furnished with such Graces as are proper for us which is the next point now to be treated of CHAP. IV. The Graces of Old-age SECT I. FOrasmuch as Old-age is liable to so many vicious Habits it greatly concerns all that are in Years to excell in some eminent Qualifications which may praeponderate the other or else Old-age would be a Miserable Age indeed Now tho we may well hope that they having been so long in Christs School have throughly learned Christ that they are indued with every Grace and instructed to every good work yet there be some Peculiar Graces wherein the Aged do or should excell Not that any of them is confined to Gray Hairs alone for as all the Sins above-mentioned may be found in those that are young so also the following Graces do apparently shine in many of them whereby they promise a plentiful Harvest in after-time if they hold on or mend For alas to speak the plain truth too few possess them all and too many are strangers to them all And therefore where I describe them with the following Excellencies understand it rather by way of Instruction in what they should be than by way of Assertion of what they are and you must remember also that the Denomination is à parte potiori the better sort have them and all should endeavour after them for since they are actually possessed by some they may be certainly obtained by all The First Grace most proper for Old-age is Knowledge They have or might have a great measure of all kind of Knowledge having read so much in the Book of Nature and in the Book of Providence But there is a nobler Object of their Knowledge which is God himself his Word and his Ways Herein the Aged person hath been versed for a long time 1 Ioh. 2. 13. I write unto you Fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning There is no Truth Duty Case Sin or Temptation but they have either heard or read something concerning it and that often and therefore must be supposed to have a more clear and distinct knowledge in all these things than younger people Young people think that they know much but Old people cannot chuse but sigh and smile at their ignorance They find that the more Knowledge they have the more Ignorance they discover in themselves and wherein they have been confident in their younger years they see cause to alter their sentiments afterwards For Knowledge is either Infused or Acquired by Study Reading and Converse In these the Aged must needs out-strip the Young as having been much longer conversant in the use of them and for the former the Holy Ghost doth commonly impart these Habits in the use of means and so every way the Old man hath the advantage in this accomplishment Now Knowledge is that wherein the Image of God partly consists it is the glory of Angels and it is the honour of Man. Those therefore were a strange sort of Friars in Italy that Luther writes of call'd Fratres Ignorantiae that took a solemn Oath that they would know nothing at all but answer to all questions with Nescio unless men were resolved to renounce both Divinity and Humanity at once No doubtless saving Knowledge is to the Soul as the Eye to the Body of great excellency and of great use 'T is this that Crowns the hoary head and conveys Beauty unto wrinkles Prov. 14. 18. The prudent are crowned with knowledge It s true many there are who have tasted of the Tree of Knowledge that have never tasted of the Tree of Life and knowledge of it self puffeth up so that a man may have all knowledge and yet no Charity 1 Cor. 13. 2. Yet as it is true there may be much knowledge without a grain of Grace so it is certain there cannot be one spark of Grace without Knowledge For how shall a Man know Sin unless he understand the Law of
VVeeds Being conversant most at home in their own Souls they have in their long experience discovered so much Vanity and Iniquity there that they are are very charitable Iudges of all other persons They grow like the famous Pliny who so past by others offences as if himself had been the greatest offender and yet was so severe to himself as if he would pardon no body their Charity covers a multitude of Sins In short their Age and Afflictions have so happily humbled them that they are ready to esteem every one better than themselves and so they are far from that uncharitable Censoriousness which tears mens Names in pieces and keeps up a continual civil War among mankind And then for other Acts of Charity who should be more ready to Give a part than they that know they must shortly leave the whole who should be good in his Stewardship but he that is sure he must shortly be out of it But the noblest Charity is that which respects the Soul which consists in Counselling Perswading Reproving and Praying for Others And Old-age is evidently qualified for these above the young Their Wisdom and Authority gives them a great advantage herein and they have found by experience that sometimes a word of good Counsel and charitable Reproof fitly spoken hath been like Apples of Gold. And then for Prayer it is observed that the Charity of young persons therein doth begin and end at themselves whereas the Prayers of the Aged are much imployed for the good of others Few Children pray for their Parents as the Parents pray for their Children Yea they have learned to love and pray for their Enemies as well as for their Friends and for the ungodly as well as for the godly And the poorest Old Man or Woman may be rich in these acts of Charity Therefore as ye abound in every thing in faith in utterance and knowledge see that ye abound in this Grace of Charity also It is the Apostles Exhortation 2 Cor. 8. 7. We use to say that in Winter the natural heat retreats inward and there resides about the vital parts ye that are in the winter quarter of your life let this warm Grace dwell richly in your Hearts and then it will influence all your words and actions It is the Image of God for God is Love it is the fulfilling of the Law and it is the great command of the Gospel and tho you have Knowledge Faith Wisdom Riches c. yet if you have not Charity you are nothing You are going out of the World now is your time to exercise this Grace In the World where you are going there will be no infirmities to cover no poor to relieve no injuries to forgive no ignorant persons to instruct no miserable Creature to pray for and you have but a short time for these imployments Yea perhaps you are reprieved all this while for these Services and to be useful in these and such like ways is the greatest happiness on Earth it is the next step to eternal Glory Yea nothing should hire an Old person or make him content to live out of Heaven with such a Body of Sin about him but only that they may do God and Man that service which cannot be done in Heaven And for the obtaining this sweet Grace the Scripture tells us that it is a Fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. and there it is ranked in the first place It must be sought then in the Word of God which is the vehicle of the Spirit where it being carefully read and heard we shall find an account of the infinite love of God to us and of the stupendous love of Christ. There we shall discern how nearly we are related to all men especially to all Christians and how unnatural it is for one hand to be unkind to the other And in short we shall there find that Love and Charity is still the Character of good men and hatred and uncharitableness of the bad And you must beg this Grace of God that the Spirit of Love would plant this Grace of Love in your Hearts You will feel your hearts warming as you are praying and the Lord will fill you with this Charity which is the bond of perfectness And so I have done with the Vertues and Excellencies of Old-age Whereby you may perceive that all Old things are not to be cast away But as Old Wood is best to burn Old Wine best to drink Old Authors best to read and Old Friends best to trust so Old People if they have improved their Time aright are good for something yea are eminently good for their Knowledge for their Faith for their Wisdom for their Patience for their Stedfastness for their Temperance and for their Charity And so much for the Fourth Point concerning Old-age viz. The Graces most proper for it CHAP. V. The Inconveniences of Old-age I Am come now in the Fifth place to examine the Inconveniences and Disadvantages of Old-age adding withall somewhat towards the Mitigation thereof as I pass along Some here set themselves with immoderate vehemence to cry down Old-age and to load it with such intolerable Miseries as might affright one And to this purpose they muster all the Evils which are either the effect of mens Vices or other separable Accidents of their Age and put all these upon its score to inflame the reckoning Insomuch that some of the Old Philosophers took upon them to quarrel with Providence for giving man Life and thereby involving him in a continual state of misery And all this partly out of their Ignorance of mans Primitive happiness and woful fall and partly out of their dim-sightedness about his endless felicity about all which material points they lived in great uncertainty Others on the Contrary have been ready so to mince the matter as if there were nothing in Old-age but what is desirable guilding its hairs and smoothing all its wrinkles as if the Spiritual advantage did annihilate the corporal burdens The truth dwells as I conceive between these extremes And it must be granted that as the dreggs of the purest Wines are left in the bottom so Old-age hath many Inconveniences peculiar to it for which cause those dayes are called Evil dayes wherein the man hath no pleasure or with which he is greatly displeased Eccles. 12. 1. But yet the same Old-age hath divers Priviledges to ballance them and their pressures are not properly Miseries because there is abundance of Comfort and Benefit which mitigate them We have an Elegant Description of many of them in that Twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes vers 2 3 c. Then the Sun and the Light and the Moon and the Stars will be darkned that is all Outward Comfort or Prosperity whether by Day or by Night will be eclypsed and withdrawn from us And the clouds will return after the rain that is one bodily Distemper and outward Trouble will successively follow another Then
When for the time ye ought to be teachers c. you have been long in Christs school you should be perfect in the Rules of Christian life They who had received Five talents will not be accepted unless they bring ten again If your figs be not good very good it is probable they will be bad very bad If an Aged person be not ripe for Heaven let him take heed he be not ripe for Hell. SECT VI. THE Sixth Priviledge of Old-age is That it is worthier of Respect than those of an inferiour Age. I mean hereby both an Inward Reverence and the External expression thereof and the former is and ought to be the foundation of the latter An Aged person even on that account though neither ricâ—… nor wise though neither noble nor pious yet deserves a respect for the Priority of his Being The Veneration dâ—… to them is founded on the Law of Nature Hence Plato appoints that everâ—… one should honour the Aged both in word and deed and this he often repeats And it was much observed in Three Indians once in Paris that kept strictly to the order of their Age in speaking without any Directour but the Law of Nature All the disputes abouâ—… the Antiquity and consequently the Dignity of Families or Cities is groundeâ—… on this foundation Why should Olâ—… Monuments Old Coins yea even Olâ—… Ruines be regarded and not Old men and Old women This is also directly injoyned in the Fifth Commandment where by Father and Mother that are to be honour'd Divines do rightly determine that such as are Elders by Age as well as those that are so by Relation and Office are intended And Honour in that Précept means an inward Esteem and Reverence in the heart and the same expressed by a suitable behaviour towards them in word and deed And this is expresly specified Levit. 19. 32. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man and fear thy God I am the Lord. The Iews indeed had a Tradition hereupon that it was not only fit to rise when an Aged person was passing by us but that we should rise up when they were four cubits distance from us and then we should presently sit down again thereby to manifest that we rose up in honour to them But the plain scope of that Command is only that we ought to make all due expression of Respect to the Aged And the indefiniteness of the Precept shews that it is due to all that are Aged even that pale and wrinkled face challengeth a regard and the fear of God is joyned with it q. d. As you fear God honour the Aged and because the young the rich and the proud will be loth to stoop herein therefore he adds I am the Lord Whose Authority is unquestionable and whose Will is the highest Reason who will reward the keepers of this law and punish the breakers of it Agreeable to this is that Prov. 23. 22. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee and despise not thy mother when she is old Likewise 1 Tim. 5. 1 2. Rebuke not an Elder but intreat him as a father and the younger men as brethren the elder women as mothers Where you see the Apostle interpreting the Fifth Commandment as abovesaid elder men as fathers elder women as mothers Accordingly it is threatned as a sore Iudgment when the child shall behave himself proudly against the Ancient Isa. 3. 5. and so it was resented when it was executed Lam. 4. 12. When the faces of the Elders were not honoured And we have a Comment upon this in a heathen Poet who tells us that they held it for a wickedness worthy to be expiated by Death if one that was young did not rise to shew respect to one that was Old. Let those consider this who make no difficulty to take place of their elders meerly because themselves are somewhat richer And upon this very Principle the Eldest son is by a natural right concluded to be heir and I question whether he should be defeated of it for any defects or immoralities Upon all which it is apparent that there is a special Respect and Reverence due to Old-age Now let us consider what Priviledge there is herein If there were nothing in it but a matter of Preference or precedence it were no great attainment though many an Estate hath been spent and many a Life lost for the compassing of these But this Respect is chiefly valuable for its Use. For hereby the Aged person is fenced from Contempt unto which he is liable enough through his impotence poverty and infirmities and any ingenuous man had rather dye with comfort than live in contempt But principally they are hereby preserved in a capacity of doing some good their example their instructions their reproofs and their advice will become significant We generally value mens Iudgments and Determinations according to the persons that give them Great care they should have how they advise and a great deference should be given to their advice So the Apostle 1 Pet. 5. 5. Likewise ye younger submit your selves to the elder And hereupon I would exhort and charge all young people that shall cast their eyes on these papers to remember their place and duty to deny themselves their own humours and preconceits and to strike sail to their Seniors They were praying perhaps before you had a being they had done God and their Countrey good service before you had done one stroke of work Holy Paul laid something upon seniority in Grace Rom. 16. 7. Andronicus and Iunia who were in Christ before me and by the like reason it is some Dignity to be in the world before others Insomuch as when the Latines would express their esteem of any thing they use this word of Antiquity to express it by Away then with that unchristian yea unmanly and unmannerly pertness and disrespect too frequent every where towards Aged persons Instead whereof reckon it to your good Breeding yea charge it upon your Conscience to give Honour to whom honour is due SECT VII THE Seventh Priviledge of Old-age is That they are Further from the World than younger persons are These are in the midst of it and of all its troubles and temptations but those have travelled through them and are now almost past them There are Two things in the World that make it uneasie Sin and Suffering Sin that makes it uneasie to Good men Suffering that makes it uneasie to All men A good man hath contracted a deep hatred against sin and yet he cannot be rid of it He meets with it in every place among the looser sort of people it swarms he sees and hears that every day which vexeth his righteous soul and returning home he finds it in his own heart and that grieves him most He is chain'd to a body of death without any remedy and the more knowledge and grace he hath the more he hates it and