old man and heavy, ver. 18. I will not here be fo bold as those that say (building their opinion upon the original word) his falling down backward and dying, was from a voluntary principle; but I dare fay, it was from an inward one his age had fo enfeebled him, that he was not able to bear the news of a defeat, especially fuch an one, wherein the ark of God was taken, but his darksom inward foe, taking advantage hereupon, firikes him furely, under the fifth rib, that he died.

The objects of old mens fears are here prefented unto us under a double notion; first, those things which are high, excelfa timebunt, aut de excelfo; they shall be afraid of that which is high: Secondly, those things which are lower, more plain and obvious, even in the way; confternati in via, vel formidabunt in viis ; fears fall be in the way. Confternation and fearfulness do not furprize men, and overthrow them all at once; nemo repente fit timidiffimus; but they come on by degrees, and first those things that have more of dread in them become the objects of their fear: High things; high, either in refpect of place, as fteep and eminent ways, hills, and mountains, steeples and towers, which formerly they could without fear afcend, and walk upon; or high, in refpect of the air, as fiery meteors, strange apparitions, thunder and lightning, and fuch like or high in respect of abstruseness, or

my

myfteriousness, as the deep and fubtile points in divinity, about the effence of God, and the duration of eternity, about the immortality of the foul, and changes of the body, and many other things, which while young they could better have borne the difcourfe of: or high, in respect of hardship, or difficulty; those great enterprises, and hazardous undertakings, which while ftrong they durft with boldness have ventured on, do now become a terror to them, even in the thought of them; but as age comes on, and their fears increase upon them, not only thofe things which are high, but even plain and eafy things become the objects of their fear; pavores in via: Mole-hills are now as dreadful as mountains were before; every thing that is near them, and about them; every thing that is plain and obvious; every matter that is facile, and easily attainable, bears itfelf with terror towards them; they are afraid of every thing they are doing: they walk in fear, fometimes, left peradventure they should dafh their foot against a ftone; fometime left that other people, heedlefly paffing by, should rush upon them, and injure them: being conscious to themselves of their own impotency, it makes them moft obnoxious to this terrible paffion, which is the great change that is made upon the mind in the time of age,

4

The

The almond-tree shall flourish.

The symptom laft treated of was in reference to the great change that is made upon the mind of man; thofe which follow have reference to the body. And that we may accurately obferve the wife man's method, we must premise one common diftinction of the parts of the body; for we must know that thefe are not independent fayings, caft forth at a venture, but a most exact and methodical treatise of the symptoms of age, as it influenceth and altereth all the parts of a man: Now the parts of the body (as the word is taken in the largeft fignification) are either animate or inanimate; either fuch as participate of the life of the whole, and are nourished by the intra-fufception of enlivened aliment; or fuch as have no life at all from the body, or in themselves, and are nourished only by the juxta-position of an excrement: Of the first of thefe, there are very many in the body of man, which are treated of in the following words of the latter of these there are very few, as the nails and the hair; and of these the hair receiveth the most notorious altération in age, which is here fignified unto us by these words; The almond-tree hall flourish.

The

The word which is here translated an almond tree is from the original word pv, advigilavit, to watch, or wake, as it is ufed in that place; The watchman waketh but in vain, Pfal. cxxvii. 1. And by way of analogy it is translated to fignify amygdalus, the almond tree: Qua prima inter arbores evigilat; because this tree before all others first waketh, and rifeth from its winter's repofe; it flowers in the month of January, and by March brings its Fruit to maturity*. The forwardness of this fruit-bearing tree is intimated unto us by the vifion of Jeremy; for the word of the Lord came unto him, faying, Jeremy what feest thou? and be faid, I fee a rod of an almond tree: Then faid the Lord unto him, thou hast well seen, for I will haften my word to fulfil it, Jer. i. 11, 12. The same word is in this text used, both for the almond tree, and for hastening; Thou haft therefore well feen. Nothing could have better represented the speedy fulfilling of the word of God, than that hafting, the almond tree. The manner that the wife man is pleased here to take, to express the great changes that happen to the body of man in the time of age, is according to that intricate, and most mysterious, and ænigmatical way of the Egyptians; whereby they are wont to express their meaning of the things intended, by some other creatures which do most resemble what they are speaking of. Now there

* Plin. lib. 16. c. 25.

there is no change that befalleth man that can be so livelily represented by the blooming of the almond tree, as that whereby the hair of the head becomes hoary and white; and therefore florebit amygdalus, must needs fignify unto us, this great alteration; which bears refemblance unto that of the almond tree in several particulars, fome of which follow hereafter.

First, They are both of them of the fame colour, and reprefent themselves alike to the fight; the bloffoms of the almond tree are perfectly white, and so are the hairs of the old man, and they are not only nakedly of the fame colour, but both of them fo, by way of eminency; not only white, but the whitest of all, none so white as they: Flores amygdali primi exiftunt & maximè funt albi præ cæteris arboribus. So also is it with man in the time of age, he is white, and no creature, living to that time, fo white as he : And hence it is that logicians make canefcere to be proprium homini, tertio modo; quod convenit omni, foli, non femper. They will allow no creatures at all to grow white when they are old, as man doth: and although our sense teacheth us, that almost all creatures tend towards that colour, yet they very much vilify it in comparison of a man, and therefore give it a far more inferior, and an unhandsome name*.

* Gricefceres,

Secondly,