On Old Age by Richard Steele (Modern, Updated Translation)

Book Summary

In On Old Age, Richard Steele offers a pastoral guide designed to "instruct, warn, and comfort" the elderly. Written from the perspective of an aging minister experiencing his own physical decline, Steele combines biblical exegesis with practical observation to navigate the final season of life. He organizes the treatise into seven distinct sections, moving from the physical reality of aging to the spiritual duties required of it.

Description and Causes

Steele defines old age not merely by years, but by the "decay of strength." While he suggests fifty as a general starting point, he acknowledges that constitution and lifestyle make this variable. He identifies three types of causes for aging:

1. Original Cause: Humanity’s fall and sin, which introduced mortality.
2. Natural Cause: The gradual drying up of "native heat" and "radical moisture" essential to life.
3. Accidental Causes: Factors that hasten decay, including unhealthy air, excessive worry, unbridled passions (anger/sorrow), and intemperance.

Steele argues that while aging is inevitable, it can be mitigated by two primary preservatives: Piety (a life of holy obedience that cheers the heart) and Sobriety (moderation in food, drink, and passions).

The Sins of Old Age

Steele warns that old age often brings specific vices. He urges readers to guard against:

• Irritability: A peevishness born of physical discomfort and pride.
• Talkativeness: The tendency to speak too much about oneself or trivial matters.
• Envy: Resenting the strength and advantages of the young.
• Conceit: Assuming that age automatically confers wisdom and demanding absolute agreement from others.
• Covetousness: Steele identifies this as the most widespread sin of the elderly—a paradoxical desire to hoard wealth just as one is about to leave the world.

The Graces of Old Age

To counter these vices, Steele encourages the cultivation of specific graces that adorn the gray head:

• Knowledge: Leveraging years of study and observation of God’s providence.
• Faith: Trusting God’s promises based on a lifetime of experiencing His faithfulness.
• Wisdom: The ability to manage affairs with discretion, weighing circumstances better than the rash youth.
• Patience: Enduring physical infirmities and social slights with quiet resignation.
• Charity: Demonstrating a loving, forgiving spirit, and praying for the welfare of others.

Inconveniences and Privileges

Steele provides a balanced view of the elderly experience by contrasting its miseries with its unique benefits.

The Inconveniences: He frankly acknowledges the "evil days" of old age, including the loss of physical pleasure, the decay of beauty and strength, the weakening of memory and senses (sight and hearing), and the burden of chronic pain. He also addresses the social pain of being despised or treated as useless, and the terrifying approach of death.

The Privileges: However, he argues that old age possesses dignities that youth cannot claim. These include:

• Authority: A natural right to respect and leadership.
• Experience: Practical wisdom gained from seeing the vanity of the world.
• Freedom from Sin: The cooling of youthful lusts and passions.
• Nearness to Heaven: The comfort of knowing the difficult journey is nearly over and the reward is at hand.

The Work of Old Age

Steele insists that the elderly must not be idle but must engage in work specific to their stage:

1. Repentance: Reviewing a long life to confess sins and ensure one is truly born again.
2. Assurance: Gaining certainty of salvation so one does not die in doubt.
3. Prayer and Praise: Since active labor is done, the elderly should dedicate their time to intercession and thanksgiving.
4. Instruction: Passing on wisdom and warnings to the younger generation.
5. Preparation for Death: Setting one’s house in order (making a will) and dying to the world daily so that the final departure is calm and hopeful.

On Old Age

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Defining the Term "Old Age"

For the first point, we must arrive at a correct understanding of old age, partly through its name. The words used for it in the Eastern languages simply refer to people or things that are durable, that have lasted a long time. Some of them are used interchangeably for those who are honored by office, as well as for those who have lived many days. None of them guide us in calculating when it begins, but they include both those who are frail and those who are only weakened.

For in Genesis, Abraham was an old man (Gen. 18:11), and in another place, he is called by the very same word an old man, though he was then forty years older than before (Gen. 24:1). The Hebrews commonly call an old man one full of days or advanced in years, though sometimes they distinguish the aged from him who is full of days (Jer. 6:11). By this, it seems that old age falls somewhat short of fullness of days.

The Greek words for an old man also mean one who has lived long, or one who looks toward the earth, or whose vital moisture is dried up, leaving nothing but earthy matter. The Latin words for old age refer to a multitude of years, or decay of strength, or precedence and priority of existence. But the most usual and proper word for it describes a person who has one foot in the grave, that is, half dead already, though some derive it from the weakening of the senses, as if no one is old until they are frail and begin to lose their mental sharpness.

Our English word "old" comes from German. The High Dutch call an aged person "Alt-man." The Saxons call him "Eald" or "Olt-min"; the Low Dutch, "Oud-man."

Some derive all these from Latin, others from Hebrew, but none of them give us any light on the proper nature or distinct time of old age, though in their original meaning, they likely expressed the thing in question to some extent.

It is clear that there are various periods in a person's life, which are like so many stages in the race set before us. We get some insight into this from the Holy Scriptures. In Leviticus, where one interval of time is from a month to five years of age, a second from five years to twenty, a third from twenty to sixty, and the last from sixty to the end of life (Lev. 27:3,4, etc.).

People's strength and ability, at least in those times and places, can be gathered from their valuation, which God himself set there. Human authors have divided human life in various ways. Some into four parts, corresponding to the four seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Others into seven, assigning each part to a different planet, and so old age to Saturn. But a person's age seems most fittingly divided into: 1.) Growing age. 2.) Ripe or stable age. 3.) Decaying age.

As for the first of these, we don't need to be so precise as to begin it at conception or quickening in the womb, though a person does begin to live and grow then. The Holy Spirit in the Scripture mentioned above doesn't count age until a person is a month old. Leaving that state of infancy aside, we can distinguish growing age into infancy, childhood, and youth. Infancy ends when we begin to walk and speak.

Childhood reaches to the fourteenth or fifteenth year, and youth lasts to twenty-five. Up to these years, we usually increase in strength or height. Not that some individuals or people in some countries mature sooner, and also that females are considered to reach the second stage of their growing age two years sooner and the third stage four years sooner than males. Yet the computation above fits the nobler sex and covers most of them.

The ripe age of a person follows, when the parts of the body and the powers of the soul have reached some stability. Therefore, it may be called the best state, or as the Hebrew means in Psalm 39:5, the settled state: "Surely everyone stands as a mere breath" (Ps. 39:5). The former is the spring, this is the summer of a person's life, when those who are truly wise will gather both temporal and spiritual provisions for the winter of old age. Now this rational flower is in its prime.

"As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes" (Ps. 103:15). Many indeed are cut and gathered in their youth, and others are cut off in the middle of their days, for "when the wind passes over it, it is gone" (Ps. 103:16). It is worth noting that Enoch in the first world, Elijah in the second, and our dear Savior in the last were called away in the middle of their days. This warns us that this is not our home, but that even in times of youth and strength, we must prepare for another world.

But if the Lord still holds our soul in life by his power and patience, and if his care preserves our spirit, this brings us to old age. This ripe age commonly lasts as long as our growing age, so we can assign it twenty-five more years.

The Nature of Decay

And so we come to the third and last stage of life, the decaying age or old age, which is the subject of the following discussion. It can be described this way: that part of a person's life when, through many years, strength has decayed. For, first, it is not merely a certain number of years without some decay of nature that properly defines old age. In times before the flood, when people usually lived eight or nine hundred years, someone who was a hundred years old was very young. And we still find that many are stronger at sixty than others are at fifty.

Thus Athanasius testifies of Antony the monk in Egypt that he had all his teeth and sound eyesight when he was a hundred and five years old. Neither, second, does the decay of strength alone determine that a person is old, since diseases and other accidents may weaken and wither someone who, in terms of age, has not reached the midpoint of life.

Thus our blessed Savior was guessed to be near fifty years old when he was little past thirty, being "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3; John 8:57). But when our strength decays through many years, then old age begins.

From this it follows that neither gray hairs, nor wrinkles, nor any such external sign can prove old age. Sickness, cares, fears, or grief can produce these effects without any significant decay of strength or number of years. "Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression" (Prov. 12:25). Here the heart stoops like an old person, and that through heaviness. And "My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows old because of all my enemies" (Ps. 6:7). Here grief brings old age to the eye.

And "When I kept silence, my bones grew old" (Ps. 32:3). Here old age comes early to the bones through trouble of mind. Thus authors tell us of those whose hair became gray from sickness and grew black again with the return of health. And the story of the Dutch captain is famous, who, being frightened, had his hair turn gray in one night.

But all these being unnatural and accidental do not constitute old age at all.

Neither does any temporary eclipse of the internal faculties—the mind, memory, or imagination—certainly indicate old age. Many accidents can produce these effects in the youngest people, whereas old age does not affect the soul. Its organs may be weakened or damaged either by natural decay or by violent accidents, so they cannot function. But the soul can never properly be said to grow old because its nature is imperishable, and what never perishes can never decay. But when natural heat begins to fade, when no food can sufficiently supply that basic moisture in the body, and when the digestive ability is weakened so that both the senses and limbs begin to decay, then old age has taken you by the hand to lead you to your long home.

When Does Old Age Begin?

Now, about the precise year when old age can be said to begin, it is not as important to know as it is difficult to determine. But if we allow twenty-five years for the growing part of a person's life and count twenty-five more for the ripe or stable part, then old age usually starts at fifty years of age. Many learned people have set it there or around there, and then twenty-five more years will reach the end of most people's lives or bring them to seventy-five, an age when people commonly become weak in every way and have one foot in the grave.

It's true that a universal fixed period cannot be set here. The diversity of people's natural constitutions, occupations, diet, exercises, and so on causes old age to come sooner to some and later to others. Some people, through the advantage of their heritage, have a better stock of natural heat and basic moisture at the start than others, and consequently old age, being nothing else but the cold and dry state of the body, comes upon them more slowly. Some people's work does not drain or impair their vital energy as much as others'.

Some people are nourished by healthier and more vigorous food than others are. In short, a cheerful heart, a moderate diet, and reasonable exercise may delay old age for a time. But it will come eventually. Even a house of stone will decay and need repair (Job 14:19,20). "The waters wear away the stones; you wash away the dust of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man. You prevail forever against him, and he passes; you change his countenance and send him away" (Job 14:19,20).

As for the progress of old age, some divide it into a first, second, and third part, but they do not undertake or agree to determine their exact periods. But this is clear: there is a vigorous old age and a frail one. During the former, natural abilities are not so decayed as to make a person uncomfortable or useless.

Abraham was an elderly man (Gen. 18:11). He was old and well advanced in years (Gen. 24:1), being then about a hundred and forty years old. But "Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years" (Gen. 25:8), being a hundred and seventy-five; then he was very old. Thus Jacob was an old man at a hundred and seven years, for Benjamin is called a child of his old age (Gen. 44:20). But he lived forty years after that (Gen. 47:28). But then he was a very old man; his eyes were dim with age, and he was confined to his bed.

In the earlier part of old age, many enjoy a good stability of mind and body condition. This makes them very comfortable in themselves and very capable of counseling and guiding others. On some accounts, it may even be considered the best part of our life, when our impulsive passions are spent and we are equipped by great experience to be very useful in our generation. But when a person reaches the later part of old age and becomes weak and frail, then he becomes uncomfortable to himself and useless to others. These days may be called evil days, and of these years it may be said, "I have no pleasure in them" (Eccl. 12:1).

The Limits of Human Life

The last period of old age is death. Some indeed have lasted longer before tasting death, and some sooner. There is no certain definite year when that last friendly enemy comes.

The people before the flood lived eight or nine hundred years. Those born after the flood scarcely lived half as long, for Arphaxad, who was born after it, lived only 438 years (Gen. 11:13). And in the time of Peleg, his grandchild, the age of man shrank by half again; he lived only 239 years (Gen. 11:18-19). And in the age of Nahor, great-grandchild to Peleg, it fell to 148 years (Gen. 11:24-25).

And so the ordinary length of a person's life was gradually shortened until in Moses' time, the days of our years were seventy, and the strongest constitutions reached only eighty years (Ps. 90:10). However, there have been in all ages of the world some examples of those who exceeded the ordinary limit. The causes and purposes of this are known only to God, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind (Job 12:10).

Thus we read of many in the early times of Christianity who lived on simple food and yet passed a hundred years. And Rivet, in the end of his letter to his brother about old age, relates the pious life and remarkable death of Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, who in 1538 died above a hundred years of age. Indeed, Eusebius assures us that Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, reached a hundred and sixteen years. Our recent geographers also tell us of the Brazilians, that they commonly live to 150 years, free from diseases.

Francisco Alvarez affirms that he himself saw an Ethiopian bishop who was a hundred and fifty years old. And I have read that in one region of Italy, a survey found fifty-four people of a hundred years old, fifty-seven of a hundred and ten, two of a hundred and twenty-five, four of a hundred and thirty, and three of a hundred and forty.

Indeed, Fernão Lopes, the Portuguese king's historiographer, gives an account of an Indian who, upon clear evidence, was found to have lived three hundred and forty years, and of another Indian prince who was seen by M. D'Ottigni and had lived two hundred and fifty years.

Thus Anacreon in Pliny relates of one Arganthonius, king of the Tartessians, and similarly of Tullius Fullonius of Bononia, that lived a hundred and fifty years; of Cinyras who lived a hundred and sixty; of Aegimius who lived two hundred. And Hellanicus in the same author affirms that various people in Aetolia lived two hundred, and some three hundred years. In Greece, Nestor's age became a kind of proverb, reaching three hundred years. And Sabellicus tells of various people in Arabia who lived four hundred years. Famous is the example of Johannes de Temporibus, who bore arms under Charles the Great in 800 and was alive in the reign of Conrad III in 1124, having lived three hundred and sixty-one years. And in later times, Masseus tells us in his Indian histories of one in the age before last who lived three hundred and thirty-five years, whose teeth had fallen out several times and new ones came in their place, his gray hair returning by degrees to black again.

There have also been in our age and country many examples of those who reached an extraordinary age. In Northumberland, an old minister of God's Word named Mr. Michael Vivon, who in the year of our Lord 1657, being then a hundred and ten years old, had within two years before three young teeth spring up. And though for forty years before he could not read the largest print without glasses, afterward he could read the smallest without them, also having new hair come upon his head, and he had five children after he was eighty years old. And it was only in 1635 that Thomas Parr died in London, who had lived in the country above a hundred and fifty years, in all 152 years and nine months. Indeed, there were two brothers and a sister, Richard Green, Philip Green, and Alice, who lived not long ago near Marlborough, who were alive together, each above a hundred years old; the last of them, Richard, dying about 1685 at a hundred and fifteen years old. And a modern historian of our own tells us that in 1588 one James Sands of Harborne in Staffordshire died at a hundred and forty, his wife also being a hundred and twenty. And he mentions several others who lived to see their grandchildren's grandchildren.

Indeed, even women, though the weaker sex, have sometimes survived to a great age. The Scripture relates that Sarah, Abraham's wife, lived 127 years (Gen. 23:1), the only woman whose age is recorded in the book of God. Pliny's note of Terentia, Cicero's wife, who lived a hundred and three years, or of Clodia who lived a hundred and fifteen, is made insignificant by examples of our own. For it is recorded of Dame Hester Temple of Stow in Buckinghamshire, who, having four sons and nine daughters, lived to see seven hundred descendants from her own body. And the example of holy Mistress Honywood of Kent is well known, who lived to see three hundred of her offspring alive together; both these must have been full of days. Indeed, it was only about 1670 that one Mrs. Pyfield died in Ireland who had lived a hundred and thirty-six years. But the Right Honorable the late Countess of Desmond exceeds all recent examples in these countries; who, when she was a hundred and forty years old, had a set of young teeth and was able to walk many miles. She died within our memories, being, as it is credibly affirmed, a hundred and eighty-four years old.

In all these examples, as the strength of nature was great, so the power and goodness of the God of nature was greater. To his honor I have collected and mentioned them, not that any of us should delay our repentance or any good work upon an expectation of reaching such a length of life, since a hundred thousand are dead and decayed for every one who reaches such longevity.

The Causes of Aging and How to Slow It Down

The Spiritual Cause—The Fall of Man

Having thus described old age and selected some of the most notable examples of it, I now come in the second place to inquire into its true causes and preservatives against it. For its causes.

First, the original deserving cause is humanity's sin and departure from God. The truth is, it may seem somewhat strange that people, created at first in the image of the immortal God, placed a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor, and made rulers over all other creatures, should have their lives burdened with so many sorrows and then so soon reach old age and death. Some of the pagans foolishly accused nature of envy and cruelty toward humanity, causing such a noble creature to stay so short a time in the world and to grow old as soon as it begins to mature. Others just as wisely concluded that people were sent into this world only for punishment for crimes committed in other bodies before. And indeed, if you set aside the Scriptures that resolve the matter, it is somewhat inexplicable to have so short a history of such a noble creature. If a skilled architect should build a firm and stately structure, and once it is completely furnished, it should immediately shrink and soon decay and fall to the ground, passersby would likely question the reliability or skill of the builder or greatly wonder by what means it came to ruin, until they learn that the inhabitant himself undermined, tore down, or set fire to his own house. So in the case before us, it is a matter of grief and astonishment to see the most exquisite piece of God's workmanship on earth become frail in so short a time and reduced so soon to dust and ashes.

We must know, therefore, that humanity at first creation, being made up of a body and a soul, was neither in its own nature as unchangeable and immortal as the angels nor as frail and weak as other creatures below. Not as unchangeable, I say, in its own nature, for having a body that needed continual food supplies, that is, repairs, it follows that what needs repair is liable to decay. But while the sweet harmony in which it was first formed was not disturbed, the frame might well have lasted a long time, especially if the tree of life in Eden was intended, as some learned people think, to support, strengthen, and perpetuate life. But the tragic fall of our first parents so crushed the body and wounded the soul that neither can be fully recovered in this life. For immediately the death threatened to them began to seize the body by degrees, and fear, shame, and sorrow entered the soul. And though divine providence allowed Adam and many of his descendants to live hundreds of years so that the empty world might be populated and religion with all other useful knowledge might be obtained, preserved, and spread in the world, yet we date humanity's decaying and dying state from that word: "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). That righteous sentence brings our gray hairs upon us. "You turn man to destruction, and say, 'Return, O children of men.' In the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it fades and withers" (Ps. 90:3,6). If you inquire therefore into the ruins of human nature, the answer is that sin is the moth that, being bred in it, has frayed the garment, withers the person, and lays their honor in the dust. Every decay of our strength therefore should remind us of our departure from God by the fall and should renew our grief for it. Whether Adam wept as often as he looked toward paradise is uncertain, but surely when we find our eyesight failing, our skin wrinkling, and the pillars of the house trembling, we should mourn for that woeful disobedience and ingratitude that was the original cause of nature's decays. When your eyes can no longer serve you in seeing, let them serve in weeping for this root of sin and misery.

Don't say that you are unconcerned in what was done by another long ago. For certainly we would never feel the effects that we daily experience to our pain if we had no part in the causing of them. Those who would persuade you that no sin is inherent in you but that it is only acquired by imitation and custom must admit that the decays, feebleness, and imbalance even of the most temperate person in the world must come from some wound upon human nature that the Creator would never have inflicted without a fault. Oh, therefore, let us not only lament our actual and daily offenses but let us go to the source and bewail that first rebellion, which is the root of evil both of sin and punishment. I say again, when your bones ache and your hand shakes, let your heart mourn for the sin that has poisoned your nature and made you miserable. The body that was the instrument in the crime is justly the subject of the punishment.

The Natural Cause—Loss of Vitality

The second, which is the immediate and natural cause of old age, is the dryness and coldness of the body's temperament. According to the old philosophy, there is a certain native heat and basic moisture generated in all people at their conception, by which life is preserved. The one is like the flame, the other like the oil that feeds it. Diseases and disasters are like a thief in the candle that makes it burn out sooner. But if no such thing happens, the lamp will still consume and eventually go out. All the supplies of food and medicine cannot maintain or repair that heat or that moisture, but a cold and dry state grows upon the body until it is completely exhausted and wasted.

It is true that some inherit from their parents a greater measure of basic heat and moisture, along with more lively and vigorous spirits. These, encountering no external problems, continue longer in their strength, as can be observed in some families everywhere. Just as some fine wines preserve themselves from decay much longer than others, but eventually they turn sour and lose their spirit. So in time, that moth of mortality that lurks in all our bodies will fray that garment into rags. Things that are compound must dissolve; contrary qualities in the same subject, though evenly balanced, will wear each other out. No care or skill can preserve these houses of clay, since their foundation is in the dust (Job 4:19).

Accelerators of Aging

The third sort of causes, which may be called unnatural and additional, that accelerate or hasten old age, include some like these.

1.) Unhealthy air. For the air, being the constant food of the vital parts, must contribute much to the repair or decay of the body, and the more impure it is, the more it will impair and weaken it. From this and from the corruption of food, it is not unlikely that the age of humanity after the flood became so much reduced, so that Arphaxad, the first born in the new world, lived scarcely half as long as those before the flood, as appears by comparing Genesis 5:27 with Genesis 11:13. The air had now become more impure and unhealthy than before. However, it is most evident that people today commonly grow weak, sickly, and powerless who live in places afflicted by bad air, while others are fresh and strong at the same age who enjoy the blessing of purer air.

2.) Second, diseases are another cause that brings on old age. These must weaken the strength of nature by which our life is supported. "When you rebuke man for iniquity, you make his beauty consume away like a moth" (Ps. 39:11), and not only his beauty but his strength and spirits, for the Hebrew there says you make what is desirable in him melt away. And thus it was with holy Job: "You have shriveled me up, which is a witness against me" (Job 16:8). His severe illnesses had made him old before his time. Thus we daily see various people who, in terms of their years, have not passed the midpoint of their age, yet because of their sicknesses, and especially the residues some kinds leave behind, are old in their very youth. These are like storms outside that, battering the best-built house, will bring it to ruin sooner. Holy David said of himself, "I am like a wineskin in smoke" (Ps. 119:83), that is, my natural moisture is dried up, burned, and withered. And Hezekiah, because of sickness, complains, "My age is departed and removed from me like a shepherd's tent" (Isa. 38:12). Thus the Lord sometimes weakens a person's strength in the way and shortens his days (Ps. 102:23), implying that a person's life is like a journey through this world into another. Now by diseases he weakens us as we travel through the world, causes us to become old suddenly, and shortens our days, so that by this means some have only a winter's day of life while others enjoy a longer one.

3.) Third, another cause that hastens old age is excessive worry or labor. Each of these, when they exceed a proper amount, exhaust the spirits and produce early wrinkles, whereas when used moderately, they do us no harm but good. It is indeed part of the curse pronounced at the fall on Adam and all his descendants: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground" (Gen. 3:19). The anxious heart and sweating face hasten a person to the ground. One of these alone—excessive worry or excessive labor—will do the job, but when the mind within is eaten up by continual anxiety and the body without is worn out by extreme labors, no wonder that weakness, languishing, and old age come quickly. Then our strength gives way to labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away (Ps. 90:10). Great indeed is people's folly to ruin themselves this way, since it is certain that neither our excessive worries nor our excessive labors do us any good at all. Less worry and more prayer would benefit us much more. Yes, and they do us much harm: they disturb the mind, they upset the body, they provoke God to leave us to ourselves. Then we will soon find that it is vain to rise early, to sit up late, and to eat the bread of sorrows, whereas "the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow with it" (Prov. 10:22). Be assured, if moderate care and labor will not bring in riches, then they are not good for you, and whatever is gained otherwise has a curse in it and will bring misery to the body or the soul, here or hereafter.

4.) A fourth cause that hastens old age is intemperance, that is, excess in eating or drinking or in lustful embraces. Any of these, especially the last, bring old age into youthful years. It is sad that our life, even at its longest, is so short and our bodies by nature so frail, yet we who desire to live and will use the most unpleasant remedies for that end should so commonly invite illnesses by our excess and shamefully dig our graves with our teeth, depriving ourselves of the rest of our years. So much so that although in St. Jerome's time he said there were five thousand martyrs for every day in the year except one, yet we may sadly conclude that Bacchus and Venus have had more martyrs daily, if we may call them that, in one place or another of the world, than Jesus Christ. In this sense Seneca truly says, "We have not received a short life, but made it so." From where do most cases of gout, stone, dropsy, convulsions, and apoplexies come, with other such illnesses, but from intemperance in some of the things mentioned? A moderate use of food, drink, and marital rights tends much to the cheerfulness of the mind and no less to the health of the body, but excess in any of them either overwhelms nature or impoverishes and exhausts it, as it is observed of the more lustful creatures that they are short-lived compared to others.

If therefore you want to reach a good old age—good in terms of the comfort of your mind or the well-being of your body—resist and control your unruly appetites. Resolve with the grace of God, "You will come this far and no further." Conclude, "I am a human being, yes, a Christian, and not an animal, and so I am not to be guided by senses but by reason and religion, which teach me to use all these outward comforts as far as they will promote the glory of my Maker and the present and future good of my body and soul."

5.) Fifthly, excessive passions of the mind are another way to bring on old age, such as anger and especially sorrow. These clearly drain the vital energies and also cause physical illnesses that rush people into old age before their time. This is why Emperor Valentinian, by straining his voice too much in an angry response to some offenders, fell into a severe fever that eventually led to his death.

As for sorrow, the wisest of men tells us, "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit" (Prov. 15:13). When the spirit is broken, the body must obviously waste away and decay. These passions act like a torrent or flash flood that breaks down and overthrows everything in its path. You know that a river, while flowing in its usual stream, passes harmlessly and even beneficially through fields and meadows without breaching the banks on either side. But when a sudden heavy rain swells it, the river lashes out without mercy, tearing up the ground, fences, and trees everywhere. In the same way, our passions, when moderate, are innocent and useful. But someone who has no control over their own spirit is like a flood of water breaking loose or a city that is broken down without walls.

Yes, there have been cases where people turned gray in just a few days from sudden grief. And hundreds carry the mark of their great sorrows on their heads long before the normal course of years would bring it.

So let's not allow these vultures to feed on our hearts or give ourselves over as slaves to these unruly passions. They war not only against the soul but also against the body and will ruin both unless restrained and put to death by God's grace. Philosophy has made good progress in this area; God forbid that Christianity shouldn't go much further.

There are also other moral and natural causes of old age, but these should be enough. The curious can find more information elsewhere. From these causes, you can easily see what the best ways are to guard against old age. Though no skill or care can prevent its inevitable arrival, effective methods can delay it.

It's true that Galen tells us about a philosopher who claimed there was a way to prevent it and wrote a book on the subject when he was 40 years old. But the author notes that when this philosopher reached 80, he was wasted to skin and bones and couldn't cure himself in any way. But the most effective preservatives are:

1. Piety, and

2. Sobriety.

The Best Preservatives: Piety and Sobriety

First, serious piety. By this, I mean a life lived in faith and fear of God, with holy obedience to him. This is the godliness that has promises for the present life as well as the one to come (1 Tim. 4:8).

This is the best antidote against the poison that originally infected our nature, making it swarm with illnesses that rush us toward old age and finally death. This is certainly the best way to avoid that fatal curse pronounced so early or to turn it into a blessing. "If you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands, then I will prolong your days" (1 Kings 3:14).

"What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit" (Ps. 34:12, 14). Jerome observed, and Origen before him, that Abraham is the first person called old in Scripture, though Adam, Methuselah, and many others had more years than he did, but not his faith and obedience.

I know that some of the worst people have lived long without this, and some of the most religious have faded quickly. So I conclude that all such outward blessings and afflictions are promised and threatened conditionally. Yet it remains certain that the ordinary path to a vigorous age and a long life is the true fear of God, while ungodliness makes life short and miserable. The Holy Scripture is clear on this: "The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short" (Prov. 10:27). For surely our Lord God, who gives life, also preserves it. We can rely on his word as the best prescription and preservative in this matter.

This holy way of life contributes to this goal:

1.) In a natural way. And that:

[a] By putting to death and rejecting those sins that most directly harm the body. These include the passions and excesses mentioned above, such as anger, envy, covetousness, ambition, and many others like them, which tear and shatter the body like wind in the earth's bowels. I think no sin exists that doesn't have a harmful influence on the body, either by disordering and inflaming it or by wasting and discouraging it. Now the fear of God requires a person not only to restrain but to uproot all such sins completely.

These are the weeds that rob the sweet flowers of their nourishment and impoverish the soil where they grow. When they are cast out, the whole person benefits.

[b] True piety refreshes the body with the comforts of a good conscience. The peace, hope, and joy that come from a conscience pacified by Christ's blood and purified by his Spirit effectively nourish the whole person; they feast him daily. This is the happy heart called a continual feast (Prov. 15:15).

"And it does good like a medicine" (Prov. 17:22). There is such closeness between soul and body that whatever refreshes one also cheers the other. So the learned have judged that hope, love, and joy greatly prolong life by their influence on the body's humors and spirits—much more when these affections focus on heavenly and eternal things. The Holy Scripture speaks this way: "The fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble" (Prov. 19:23).

[c] True piety is the best preservative against old age in a spiritual way, by securing God's blessing. For when the body is dedicated to him and used for him, we can expect his blessing; it is under his special care and providence. When united to Jesus Christ, it receives beneficial influence from him.

So true religiousness, though it mainly aims at the soul's recovery and happiness, is also truly friendly to the body. "Those who fear God and walk in his ways will see their children's children" (Ps. 128:6). On the other hand, all those destroying, life-shortening diseases mentioned in "the itch, from which you cannot be cured, and every other sickness and plague" are threatened to the ungodly (Deut. 28:27, 61).

And fully: "Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God" (Eccl. 8:12-13). Therefore, if you want to extend the time of your flourishing strength, learn to love and fear God. Devote yourselves to him, give your hearts to him, use your time and strength to please and honor him. Don't stay in a state of ungodliness or rest with just a form of godliness. Resolve on that real holiness which will produce a long and happy life in this world and a longer, happier one in a better world.

2.) The second preservative against old age, which is really included in the first, is temperance and sobriety. I mean that gracious virtue which keeps the physical appetites within the bounds of reason and religion. By this, we maintain moderation in eating, neither overloading nor starving the stomach, and in terms of quality, neither overindulging it with too much variety nor harming it with noxious things. The same care applies to drinks, lest their quality be harmful or their quantity excessive.

The marriage bed should be used moderately so that the vital energies aren't exhausted. Now, human sinful nature, more than any other creature, inclines to excess in all these areas, and it's pleasing to the flesh. But it's the pleasure of poison: "In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper" (Prov. 23:32), not only the soul but the body. These excesses quietly but surely weaken nature, disrupt the harmony of the parts, breed the most fatal illnesses, and make a person old in infirmities while still young in years, as we can see every day.

So if those who give themselves to gluttony, drunkenness, or lust truly loved their own souls or even their own bodies, they would control their unruly appetites for their own sake and not pay so dearly for something they must repent of. Just as a plain and even path is much more enjoyable than always going up and down hills, so there's a thousand times more ease and sweetness in a balanced and temperate life than in the constant ups and downs of intemperance. How can a body endure that's daily burdened and inflamed by unnatural excesses?

The intemperate person is constantly feeding an enemy that it's kind to starve and treats their body like the ape said to hug its young to death. But wise sobriety is health to the navel and marrow to the bones. By it, the humors, blood, and spirits are all kept in order and vigor. Meals are pleasant, sleep is sweet, and such a person is a stranger to the indigestion and resulting illnesses that plague others.

This is how Plato, through careful temperance, extended his life—though a great scholar—past 80 years, and Galen to over 140 years. Seneca concludes that there's no better way to delay old age than frugal sobriety.

Let me then persuade all who love pleasures more than they love God or their own souls to have some pity on their poor bodies. Break off your destructive habits; don't sow the seeds of consuming diseases in your own flesh. Don't be among wine drinkers or gluttonous eaters of meat.

"Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony" (Prov. 23:2, 20). "Do not give your strength to women, or your ways to that which destroys kings" (Prov. 31:3). Don't let the beast control the person or your reason be enslaved by senses. Instead, regain proper control over your blind and brutish desires, so your days may be long and lively in the land the Lord gives you.

Objection. If someone objects here that the most religious and temperate people grow old just as soon as others.

Answer. The answer is that though in these outward things, everything happens the same to all—there's one event for the righteous and the wicked—every wise person will choose the most likely path for the blessing they desire. Though some children with no good education or example have later become outstanding people, who but a desperate person would decide, "I won't care about instructing my children"? Instead, the prudent parent concludes that though some with the best education fail and some with the worst succeed, "I should and will take the most likely course to bring up my children in the fear of God." In the same way here, though old age and death seize various pious and careful people as soon or before others, it's still the interest and duty of all who regard God or wish well for themselves to use the best means to preserve their strength and vigor until their time and work are done.

For it's certain that when the outcome doesn't match the means, and illnesses overtake us despite our piety and sobriety, then it's allowed and ordained by God's wisdom to display his glory in some way and for the real good of the affected person. For an holy and good God never makes exceptions to his general rules except in cases reserved for his greater honor and his servants' greater good. "All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies" (Ps. 25:10).

And this is some account of the true causes and the best antidotes against old age, which is the second point to handle.