SECTION 4. No use of sleep whither we are going. THOU wantest sleep:-Have patience, my son, for a while. Thou art going where there shall be no need, no use of sleep; and in the mean time, thy better part would not, cannot rest. Though the gates be shut, that it cannot show itself abroad, it is ever and ever will be active. As for this earthly piece, it shall ere long sleep its fill, where no noise can wake it, till the voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall call it up in the morning of the resurrection. 1 Thess. iv. 16. CHAP. XIV. COMFORTS AGAINST THE INCONVENIENCES OF OLD AGE. SECTION 1. The illimitation of age, and the miseries attending it. OLD age is that which we all desire; and when we have attained it, are ready to complain of it as our greatest misery; verifying in part that old observation, That wedlock and age are things which we most desire and repent of. Is this our ingratitude, or inconstancy, that we are weary of what we wished? Perhaps the accusation may not be universal. There is much difference in constitutions, and much latitude in old age. Infancy and youth have their limits; age admits of no certain determination. At seventy years, David was old, and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. 1 Kings i. 1. Caleb on the other hand can profess, Now, lo, I am fourscore and five years old: as yet I am P as strong this day, as I was in the day that Moses sent me to spy out the land: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and come in. Josh. xiv. 10, 11. And beyond him, Moses was a hundred and twenty years old, when his eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated. Deut. xxxiv. 7. Methuselah was but old, when he was nine hundred and sixty five. Gen. v. 27. But as for the generality of mankind, the same Moses, who lived to see a hundred and twenty years, hath set man's ordinary period at half his own term. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength, they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow. Psal. xc. 10. Lo, fourscore years alone are load enough for the strength, much more for the weakness of age: but when labour and sorrow are added to the weight, how can we but double under the burden. He was both old and wise who said from experience, that our last days are the dregs of life. The clearer part is gone, and all drawn out; the lees sink down to the bottom. Who can express the miserable inconveniences that attend old age, when our cares must needs be multiplied, according to the manifold occasions of our affairs. The world is a net; the more we stir in it, the more we are entangled. And for bodily grievances, what varieties do we here meet with. What achings of the bones, what trembling of the joints, what convulsions of the sinews, what hollow coughs, what weakness of digestion, what decay of the senses! Age is no other than the common sewer, into which all the diseases of our life empty themselves. Well therefore might Sarah say, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure? Gen. xviii. 12. Barzillai justly excuses himself for not accepting the gracious invitation of David, by saying, I am this day fourscore years old; and can I discern between good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat, or what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing-men and singingwomen? Wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? 2 Sam. xix. 35. And Lo these are they which the Preacher calls the evil days, and the years wherein a man shall say, I have no pleasure in them; when the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain; when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened. Eccles. xii. 1, 2, 3. Shortly, what is old age but the winter of life. How can we then expect any other than gloomy weather, chilling frosts, storms and tempests? SECTION 2. Old Age a blessing. BUT while we thus aggravate the inconveniences of age, we must beware lest we derogate from the bounty of our Maker, and disparage those blessings which he accounts precious: among which, old age is none of the meanest. Had he not put that value upon it, would he have honoured it with his own style, calling himself, The Ancient of days?' Dan. vii. 9, 13. Would he else have set out this mercy as a reward of obedience to himself; I will fulfil the number of thy days;' and of obedience to our parents, to live long in the land ?' Exod. xx. 12. xxiii. 20. Would he have promised it as a marvellous favour to restored Jerusalem, now become a city of truth, that old men and old women shall yet dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age? Zech. viii. 4. Would he else have denounced it as a judgment to over-indulgent Eli, There shall not be an old man in thy house for ever? 1 Sam. ii. 32. Far be it from us to despise that which God hath honoured, and to turn his blessing into a curse. Yea, the same God, who knows best the price of his own favours, as he makes no small estimation of age himself; so he hath thought fit to call for a high respect to be given to it, out of a holy awe to himself. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord. Lev. xix. 32. Hence he is pleased to put together the ancient and the honourable, Isai. ix. 15; and hath told us that the hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. Prov. xvi. 31. xx. 29. Lastly, it is made an argument of the deplorable state of Jerusalem, that they favoured not the elders. Lam. iv. 16. As therefore we too sensibly feel what to complain of, so we well know what privileges we may challenge as due to our age; even such as nature itself hath taught those heathens, which have been in the next degree to savage. If pride and skill have made the Athenians uncivil, yet a young Lacedemonian will rise up, and yield his place in the theatre to neglected age. SECTION 3. The advantages of old age-1. Fearlessness-2. Freedom from Passions-3. Experimental Knowledge-4. Near Approach to our end. It is not a little injurious, so to fasten our eyes upon the disadvantages of any condition, as not to take in the advantages also that belong to it; which carefully laid together, may perhaps sway the balance to an equal poise. Let it be true, that old age is oppressed with many bodily griefs; but what if it yield other immunities, which may keep the scales even. 1. It is not one of the least, that it gives us firm resolution and bold security, against dangers and death itself. An old man knows that little of his clue is left in the winding; and therefore, when just occasion offers, he sticks not so much upon an inconsiderable remainder. We may often see that brave spirits lodge in cottages. In my time a plain villager in the rude Peak, when thieves, taking advantage of the absense of his family, breaking into his solitary dwelling, and finding him sitting alone by his fire side, fell violently upon him; and one of them pointing his dagger to his heart, swore that he would presently kill him, if he did not instantly deliver to them the money which they knew he had lately received; the old man looks boldly in the face of that stout villain, and with an undaunted courage returns him this answer: Nay, even make a thrust: I have lived long enough. But I tell thee, unless thou mend thy manners, thou wilt never live to see half my days:-make a thrust, if thou wilt.' What young man would have been so easily induced to part with his life, and to give entertainment to an unexpected death? The hope and love of life commonly soften the spirits of vigorous youth, and dissuade them from those enterprises which are attended with manifest peril whereas extreme age teaches us to contemn dangers. 2. Yet a greater privilege of age is, a freedom from those impetuous passions by which youth are commonly overcome. Together with our natural heat, is also abated the heat of our inordinate lusts; so that now our weaker appetite may easily be subdued to reason. The temper ate old man in the story, when one showed him a beautiful face, could answer, 'I have long since ceased to be eye-sick and another could say of pleasure, I have gladly withdrawn myself from the service of that imperious mistress.' What an unreasonable vassalage our youthful lusts subject us to, we need no other instance than in the strongest and wisest men. How was Samson effeminated by his impotent passion, and weakened in his intellects so far as wilfully to betray his own life to a mercenary harlot, and endure to hear her say, Tell me wherewith thou mayest be bound to do thee hurt! Judges xvi. 6. How easily might he have answered thee, oh Delilah, Even with these cords of brutish sensuality, wherewith thou hast already bound me to the loss of my liberty, mine eyes, and my life.' How was the wisest man, Solomon, besotted with his strange wives, so as to be drawn away to the worship of strange gods! Well may the fir-trees howl, when the cedars fall. Who can hope to be free from being transported with irregular affections, when we see such great |