Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/407

 Trot. The meaning is plain; excess in Youth anticipates old Age; they that will tear themselves in Pieces, who can patch them up? 'Tis in vain to fly to Art; Physick may cleanse the Blood, correct the noxious Humour, clear the Stomach, and help the Digesture; but Physick cannot make the Body anew; Physick cannot give a new Fund of Life, and form Nature upon a new Foundation. Physick cannot restore when the Liver is wasted, when the Lungs are spit out of the Mouth by early Catarrhs, when the Wheel is broken at the Cistern: when, as Job says, the Reins are consumed within us, what can Physick do for us? Art may assist Nature, but Art cannot give Youth, nor restore that Vigour which Vice has exhausted. When the Dart is struck through the Liver, when the Heart ceases to beat Time to the Pendulum, 'tis in vain to talk to Physicians: As you have put your selves in the Devil's stead to destroy, Physicians cannot put themselves in stead to Create: Who shall supply in Age what the Spendthrift, the Extravagant has wasted in Youth? A frugal Use of an Estate preserves it for the Heirs; whereas he that cuts the Timber down young, shall have no large high Trees to leave behind him; and he that, without manuring and good Husbandry, leaves the Land to be beggar'd, and plough'd out of Heart, shall be sure not to keep up the Rent; but the Estate will decay, and the Heir be reduc'd.

a Word, Temperance and Moderation keeps Nature in a due state of Health, and lays in an early Provision for Time, a Stock for old Age to live upon, hands on Vigour with the Years, and makes Age triumph in the goodness