God have all of them received displeasure in some of their Children Adam had the grief to see his younger Son murdered by his elder Brother Adam and to see that elder Son by a just judgement of God to be a Vagabond and Fugitive upon the earth for the punishment of his crime Of the three Sons of Noah Noah one of them discovered to his Brethren with contempt the undecent posture wherein he had found his Father in his drunkenness instead of hiding it from himself through respect as did his Brethren which drew upon his other posterity the malediction of his Father and that of God What displeasure had Isaac for the dissention which was between Jacob and Esau Isaac and which obliged him to banish Jacob many years from him and to send him into Mesopotamia till such time as Esau's anger was appeased Did not Esau marry strange Women against his will against which he had so great an aversion that he expresly recommended to Jacob not to imitate therein his Brother and never to take a Wife among the children of Canaan Jacob had the affliction to see four of his Children fall into a great crime Jacob. of which Joseph who was his youngest accused them before him He had the displeasure to hear that Reuben who was hiâ—â—â—â—est Son had abused Bala one of his Wives The indiscretion of Dina his only Daughter was the cause that she was carried away and ravished by Sichem who was a young Lord of his Neighbourhood Simeon and Levi two of his Children entred into a confederacy without his leave and against his will to revenge this fact and killing all the subjects of that Prince exposed their Father as he himself complained to the hatred of all his Neighbourhood All the world knows the affliction which the jealousy of his Children against Joseph caused him to undergo and the sorrow he had for the captivity of Benjamin whom he so tenderly loved Aaron saw two of his Sons who were consecrated to the service of the Altar Aaron punished with death for having committed a fault in the exercise of their ministery and he was so lively touched therewith that he could not eat that day of the meats which had been offered in Sacrifice nor apply himself as he ought to the functions of his Priesthood because as himself says he had his heart and his spirit overwhelmed with sorrow for this loss The great Priest Heli Heli. who was a very holy man had two very wicked Sons who after they had caused him much displeasure by the disorder of their life made him dye with grief when he was informed in what manner they were slain and the dreadful chastisement they had drawn down from Heaven by their crimes upon the whole people of Israel Samuel had but two Sons whom he had established Judges of the people Samuel But they were no sooner raised to that dignity but they suffered themselves to be corrupted with presents and appeared so self-interessed and so unjust that all the people rejected them and demanded a King of Samuel to place in their stead What displeasures did not David receive from his children David Ammon his eldest Son committed an Incest with his Sister Thamar Absalon his second Son slew Ammon at a banquet to revenge the injury done to his Sister and this Wretch having recovered the friendship of his Father studied secretly to raise the people against him then openly declaring himself and taking arms forced him to fly from Jerusalem abused his Wives in the sight of all the people and had the insolence to pursue him with his weapons in his hand and to give him battle Now if you desire to know why God permitted that these great men for whom he had done so many wonders and to whom he had testified so great love received notwithstanding such sensible displeasures from their children and that these children did so strangely degenerate from the Virtue and the piety of their parents it is easy to answer you that it is to teach Fathers and Mothers who have not the merit of these so illustrious men First that they are indebted only to Gods grace that their children cause not to them the same displeasures and that it would little avail them to have applied themselves with much care to the education of their children if he did not bless their endeavours Secondly that the greatest tryall which can befall a Christian Father and which God makes use of to prove his fidelity and his submission to the orders of his providence is to permit his children to fail in their duties and in what they are bound to render to God and that thus Fathers and Mothers ought to dispose themselves to support these sorts of afflictions and tryalls how hard soever they be with Christian dispositions when he shall please to send them Thirdly that as it is a matter of great difficulty not to commit some fault either in the manner of educating their children or in overmuch indulging them or finally in being too much tyed to them in a humane way God according to the immutable order of his Wisedom who punishes us by the same things whereby we have offended him makes use of children to chastise Fathers and Mothers for the faults they have committed upon their consideration Thus God punished the incontinence of David by taking out of the world the Son he had by Bathsheba and revenged afterwards the Adultery committed by him in secret with this Woman by the abuse which Absalon made of his wives in the open sight of all his people Finally God permits that parents should receive displeasure from their children not only to humble them and to try their fidelity and to punish the faults they may have committed in their Education but furthermore to purify the rational affection they have for them and to teach them to love them not because of the sweetness they finde in the submission and the respect they render them but because they belong to God For God will have them accustom themselves to look upon him alone in all they do for their children and to surmount all the difficulties which occur in the designe they have to bring them to his service even to suffer patiently the contempt they make of their advertisements and to pursue them by the example of St. Monioa St. Monica in spight of all their resistance till God hath touched their heart and till they have obtained their conversion by their tears and by their perseverance as that Saint obtained it for St. Augustin You will perchance tell me that I exact great things of you that I demand you should do all your actions in a spirit of Piety and Zeal for the interests of God that you should be perpetually employed to procure his glory in the children he shall please to give you and that by consequence I engage you to a continual Prayer since I propose unto you a conduct and Maxims which you cannot keep without being powerfully supported by him whose help we obtain by humble prayer All this is true Sister and I aver that to acquit your self worthily of the obligation you have to give your Children an entirely Christian Education you are to follow in this Education the Maxims of the sacred Scripture and the Advices of the Fathers of the Church to apply them from their tender Infancy to them particularly whom you de sign to live in the World to embrace the means which may enable you in this generous enterprise to overcome the oppositions which you shall meet therein and to imitate perfectly the excellent Idea's of the holy Education I have here traced to you in the conduct of God and that of his Church I avouch I say that to acquit your self worthily of all these Duties you stand in need of very powerful Graces and you ought to live in a continual search and in a profound adoration of the designes of God upon your Children You are very instantly to crave of him the use of his Lights to enter into the knowledge of their necessities you are to abandon your self to his spirit for the choice of such sentiments and feelings as you ought to instill into them and of the times when your chastisements and your instructions will be profitable unto them and you must pray unto him that since he who plants and he who waters is nothing he himself will give virtue to your Words that he will engrave in their hearts his Fear and his Love and that as he would make use of you to give them the Life of Body and to employ your cares to procure that of their Soul by Baptism he will also make use of you to conserve and strengthen in them his Spirit and his grace To conclude you are to propose to your self the attaining of a very high perfection and the faithfull practise of all the most Christian Virtues and to make it appear to the whole world by the Christian Education of your Children that you engaged not your self in Marriage upon humane considerations or upon any other score unworthy of Christianism but to make use of the terms of St. lib. of the good of Marriage c. 25. Augustin That you were not a Wife nor desire to be a Mother but for the love of Christ Jesus and for the interests of his Church FINIS
which he would have with the Church by rendring her his Body Must we not then aver after this great Apostle Ephes 3.32 That surely Marriage is a holy Institution in Christ Jesus and in his Church and that it is honourable in all Heb. 1.4 that is to say as the holy Fathers explicate it in all its parts Yes my Sister you ought to have a high esteem of the state to which God hath called you because in like manner as it was he who having drawn Eve from the side of Adam our first Father gave her to him for his Spouse 't is also he who by his invisible hand hath tyed the knot of the sacred cord of your Marriage and who gave you to your Husband You ought to do it because God intending to multiply Souls which may bless and praise him to all Eternity hath done you the favour to make choice of you to cooperate by the production of your Children and by their Education to so great a work You ought to do it because Christ Jesus by his presence at the Marriage of Cana in Galilee has sanctified all them which are to be celebrated among Christians You ought finally to do it not only because there are so many holy persons in the Old and New Testament who have lived most faintlike in Marriage but also because the Mother of Christ Jesus the most pure and most innocent of all creatures was engaged in the bonds of that indissoluble alliance which you have contracted In such sort that if by the Vow of Virginity which she made before the Angelical Salutation she was as S. Augustine relates the model of all the Virgins who were to come after her S. August lib de Virginitate c 4. Lib. 5. contra Julianum c. 22. she was no less in the opinion of the same holy Father the example of Married persons by espousing St. Joseph and by powerfully insinuating unto them by her prudent conduct that Marriage ceases not truly to subsist although by mutual consent they should propose to themselves to live in a holy Continence But above all my Sisters you ought to esteem your self happy in that your Marriage is the Sacrament and the image of that of Christ Jesus with his Church in that he hath permitted you and even ordained you to consider your Husband as the Church doth Christ Jesus to have for him all the tenderness and all the Submission you are capable of as the Church hath for Christ Jesus to leave your self to be conducted by his Spirit as the Church leaves her self to be conducted by the Spirit of Christ Jesus to enter into all his affections into all his sentiments to partake with him of all his pains all his afflictions as the Church doth them of Christ Jesus and not to wear outward Ornaments nor make use of affected dresses but as far forth as he permits you as the Church hath no more splendour and glory than what Christ Jesus communicates unto her Now if the Patriarks and the Israelites esteemed themselves very much honoured in having Children because the people of God were thereby much augmented that they hoped the Messias might be born of their blood and that they might perhaps have the advantage of affording him a Father or a Mother what Glory may not you expect by furnishing to Jesus Christ subjects of his Mercies and by putting into the World Children who may become the Members and the Brothers of the Son of God However you will merit this Glory my Sister and at the same time will acquit your self of the principal Duties of the state wherein you are ingaged if you apply your self seriously to give your Children a truly Christian and Holy Education having first laid aside the false Lights and pernicious Errours which are the cause why the major part of Fathers and Mothers neglect the Education of their Children and that they have no other Idea's than such as are altogether Carnal and as remote from the excellency of the estate to which they are called as Heaven is from Earth CHAP. II. That the Education of Children is one of the most considerable employs of Christianism And of the first Errour which makes it to be neglected which is the mean Idea Parents have of the Christian Life THat which makes Parents conceive ordinarily a low Idea of the Education of their Children is that they themselves have a very mean Idea of the Christian Life And thus as the Life they propose to lead hath nothing of hard and painful because it is all low and carnal they do not also apprehend any great difficulties in the conduct of children because they have not for them any more noble more heroick aims than they have for themselves It is therefore necessary in order to know what it is to Educate Children Christianly that it be understood in the first place what it is to live Christianly and above all it is necessary to be rid of an Illusion which deceives the greatest part of the World perswading it self that none but Religious Persons are called to Sanctity and that the common Life of Christians hath nothing that is labourious or painful To convince you of the contrary it sufficeth my Sister to make you observe that the state of Christianism is a state of Sanctity and of Innocency that all they who make profession thereof ought according to the express words of the Gospel to be perfect as their Heavenly Father is perfect Mat. 3.48 and as * Chrysost cont vit vitae Mon. l. 3. St. Chrysostome well observes that there ought to be no other difference between the Religious and them who live in the World but only that these engage themselves in the bonds of Marriage whereas the Religious conserve all their Liberty and have great advantages above Married persons for the more easy accomplishment of the promises of Baptism And that no doubt may remain in your spirit concerning this point and that you may entirely banish from thence this first Errour which causes all the irregularities that slide into the manners of Christians I will here simply translate what this great Doctor of the Greek Church hath written in one of his Works which he adresses to a faithful Father of Children This great Saint after he had made appear that persons engag'd in the world are no less obliged than the Religious to observe exactly the Commandements of Christ Jesus which he hath given us in the Gospel because there is no distinction in the Words and that for example he hath absolutely forbidden to Swear or to behold the Wife of ones Neighbour with criminal desires concludes that all the other Precepts of the Gospel which are not addressed to one particular estate which is there expressed extend themselves commonly to all the world and that by consequence our Saviour having declared in general that true Happiness consists in Poverty of Spirit and in Tears in the Hunger and Thirst after Justice
Children Christianly For this Christian Education consisting in establishing them in a Christian Life it must destroy in them all that is opposite to this Life as the love of Honours of Pleasures and even of all unprofitable things In such sort that as in effect the Christian Life of the common people of the World ought not to be different from that of Religious persons in the Interiour Virtues which make the Essence of Christian Perfection it is also clear that in what concerns the ground of Virtue the Education of Children ought not to be different from the Institutions of Religious people since in truth we are all Religious of the General Religion of Christ Jesus CHAP. III. Of the second Errour which causes the Neglect of the Education of Children which is the little care Parents have to preserve them in Innocency IF the mean Idea which Parents form to themselves of the Christian Life and the small feeling they have in their hearts of the great Purity to which this life obliges us is cause of the little care they take in the Education of Children surely the false Imagination they have that it is a small matter to lose ones Innocency and that it is easily recovered contributes also extreamly to make Fathers and Mothers slide into this dreadful negligence And yet can there be a more horrible Infidelity than to violate one of the most holy and most inviolable alliances which God hath made with men which is that of Baptism by which we are initiated into Christ Jesus And what outrage commit we not against God says Tertullian Tertulian de Paeniten c. 5. when after having renounced the Devil who is his Enemy and have put him under God we raise him up afterwards and returning to to the Devil we render our selves his Trophee and his joy to the end that his spirit of malice having recovered the Prey which he had lost may triumph in some sort over God himself This moved an ancient Father of the Church to say that if one falls after Baptism Pacianus in Catech. he will be in worse estate than he was before he was Baptized because the Devil will keep him faster bound in his fetters as a fugitive slave whom he hath overtaken in his flight and Christ Jesus can no more henceforth suffer death for him since he who is resuscitated from the dead cannot any more dye This moved St. Paul to say in his Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 6.4 That 't is impossible for them who have once been illuminated who have tasted the guift of Heaven who have been rendred partakers of the Holy Ghost who have been nourished with the sacred word of God and with the hope of the happinesse of the world to come and who after this have fallen away should be renewed again unto Repentance because as much as in them lies they crucify the Son of God afresh and expose him to open shame This means not my sister that there remains no hope of pardon for them who having been once delivered by Christ Jesus re-ingage themselves by their sins in the servitude of the Devil for it is most true that Christians sinning voluntarily after the knowledge of the truth finde a Sacrifice of Propitiation for their sins But it means that to obtain this pardon and deserve to be again once more purified by the Blood of this innocent Victime the sinner must according to the language of the Fathers pour forth not only natural Tears but Tears of heart which flow from a sincere Repentance and perform actions of strong Mortification and Pennance above the Idea which people are wont to form of it So that one may say 't is much more easy to conserve the Innocency of Baptism than to recover it by this means when one hath once lost it Besides that even when one hath recovered it there is still as great a difference between sinners converted and them who have conserved the Innocence of their Baptism as there is between a Subject pardoned by a King after his Treason and another who hath been always faithful to him between a broken Member which is cured and a Member which hath remained always sound entire What then should not Fathers and Mothers do to hinder their Children from falling into this dreadful misery And since there is nothing but a Christian Education which can preserve them with how great zeal ought they to apply themselves unto it And how high an esteem ought they to conceive of a Vocation which engages them not only to inspire into their Children all the sentiments of Christian Piety and of the sublimest perfection of the Gospel but moreover to use all sorts of precautions and to seek out all means possible to conserve them in their Innocence and to estrange from them all such things as may give the least occasion to alter or diminish in them the charity andgrace of Christ Jesus CHAP. IV. How far forth Fathers and Mothers are interested in the Christian Education of their Children and in particular of what Importance it is to Mothers WHat Interest Fathers and Mothers have in the Christian Education of their Children See Eccles 22.3 That a Childe who is wise and well instructed is all the joy of his Father whereas a Childe who is stubborn and bred up in the follies of the World despises his Mother and causes to her much sadness And again Pro. 29.15 Instruct your Son and no will be a comfort to you in all your calamities and will afford you great content whereas you will receive much confusion if he is ill educated And in Ecclesiasticus Eccle. 30.3 He who well instructs his Son shall be praised in his person and that he shall be the subject of his glory in the midst of his Domesticks and of his Friends If he comes to dye adds he it will scarcely appear because he leaves behinde him a Successour who resembles him He hath had the happiness and the comfort to see him himself in his life time and at his death he hath no affliction or confusion before his Enemies because he leaves a Son who can protect his family against their insults and acknowledge the favours of his friends And surely if reasoning even according to the Maxims of the World all the glory of a Father and of a Mother of a Family consists in the settlement and good government of their House what is there more advantagious to Fathers and to Mothers than to have Children well educated Since according to the Wise man the prudence and the good conduct of Fathers shining in the manners of their Children nothing can more cause their memory to be honoured than the good Education they have given them What avails it to a Father that he hath heaped up a vast quantity of Riches that he hath made many Freinds and acquired much Wealth if he leaves Children who for want of good Education will dissipate all his goods in superfluous and criminal expenses
person of the first Woman and he presents to you another occasion to save your selves to wit the Education of your Children whom you ought to consider as so many helps he affords you to arrive at his glory Eve alone shall not be saved by the means of her Children but all they of her Sex shall not gain Heaven but by the care they have taken in the Education of them whom God hath bestowed on them in Faith in Charity and Innocency 'T is upon this ground that the same Apostle will have the first thing upon which Widows are to be examined when they were to be chosen for the Churches Ministry to be In what manner they have educated their Children As if the most evident mark of the Sanctity of a Mother were that of her Children and that it was needless to seek any other proof of her fidelity towards God and of her zeal for the good of the Church but her fidelity and her zeal to see that the conduct and the conversation of her Children was solidly Christian The foundation of all this is that Children in their low age are much more frequent with their Mothers than with their Fathers and that Fathers have right to repose themselves upon them untill their riper years And thus it belongs to them to watch particularly over their Children in their Infancy as from whom God will demand a more exact account of these years the most important of our lives As Children have almost always their Mothers before their eyes may we not presume that they do nothing but what they have seen them do that they have entred into all their ways and to make use of S. Chrysostoms terms that 't is as it were by necessity that they are become their likes And moreover since nothing can be hid from Mothers concerning the secret Inclinations of their Children because they have been witnesses of all their cries of all their plays and of all their motions may one not without injustice attribute to them all the unhappy effects which have followed the Passions that they suffered to encrease in their hearts and are they not cause of the crimes which they hindred them not to commit by not opposing themselves to the bad customes which they contracted under their government CHAP. V. Wherein particularly consists the Obligation which Parents have to endeavour the Christian Education of their Children WHat we have hitherto said sufficiently shews the Obligation which Fathers and Mothers have to labour with care to bestow on their Children a Christian Education since we have made it manifest that this Education is one of the principal Duties of persons engaged in Marriage and that they are highly obliged especially the Mothers to be very careful and faithful therein But because one cannot be too clearly convinced of this verity we must my Sister more fully establish it by shewing that it is that which God particularly exacts of Parents To be perswaded of this there needs no more but to consider on one side the submission of wills to Fathers and Mothers wherein God will have Children to live the feelings of love and acknowledgement which he commands them to have for them and the recompences he promises them to encourage them to honour them and on the other side the Authority which he gives Fathers and Mothers over their Children and the rigour wherewith he revenges the contempt they receive of them It was not enough says St. Chrysostom that God in the designe he had to recommend to parents the good Education of their Children imprinted in their heart a natural inclination which should so powerfully draw them as that they could not without using violence to themselves disobey him he would moreover that Children should have great respect towards their parents thereby to render them more dear and more agreeable and that their Obedience and their Love might be as so many charms which should allure them to take special care of them in their Infancy And since nothing more strongly engages us not to neglect business than the confidence they have in us and the absolute power they give us could God impose a sweeter necessity upon Fathers and Mothers in regard of their Children than in making them their Masters and by entrusting them with their Education to imprint on their foreheads the authority which is necessary to succeed therein By revenging so severely the injuriries done by Children to them who brought them into the World and punishing them with death when they offend them doth he not sollicit them not only to educate them in the fear and in the submission they owe to them lest Justice should take them from them but moreover to nourish them in the respect and in the fidelity which they owe to him who is truly their Father And what a confusion must it needs be to parents to see that God hath taken so much care to hinder their Children from affronting them and that they have taken so little care that these same Children should be hindred from treading under their feet his Commandements and his Ordinances But if that which God hath done in favour of Parents permits them not to neglect this Education that which he hath done for their Children doth not less indispensably oblige them to employ therein all their Vigilancy and their whole industry What then The Son of God shall annihilate himself for their love he shall have laboured so many years and suffered so many torments to sanctify them and Fathers and Mothers would not humble themselves to instruct them or use the least violence to themselves to form them in Virtue He who needs no creature made himself poor and rendred himself obedient even to death thereby to give them example and to encourage them to contemn the World and to labour for Eternity and they whose very Salvation is advanced by the means of their Children shall they not think of shewing them the way to Heaven and endeavour to withdraw them from that which leads them to eternal punishments He hath made them members of his Body in order to make them partakers of his Glory and they who have had the happinesse to procure this good for them shall they not take care to procure for them all the Spiritual Health and all the necessary proportion to encrease in Christ Jesus who is their Head and to receive from him by being united to him the encrease which he communicates as St. Paul says to all the parts of his Body by the efficacy of his influence Certainly there 's nothing more unjust nor more punishable than this conduct nor is there any thing which Fathers and Mothers ought not to do to avoid it They are to educate for God their Children as he commands them because his sole possession can make them happy They ought to do it because the exactness of his Justice will render them responsable for all the faults these their Children shall commit by their negligence They ought to
do it because their labour shall receive infinit blessings from God himself But above all they ought to do it because thereby they will cut off as much as in them lies the source of all the evils which are done in the World which is bad Education and they will thereby re-establish the source of all good and of all Virtues which is good Education Finally is it not this good Education which prepares the Spirits to receive the clearest lights and which plants in the Soul the first dispositions to all the Virtues Is not that it which spreads in the hearts the seed of the most heroick actions and which lays the Foundations of all that which must appear best to the eyes of the whole World in the succession of ages It fills the Courts of Princes wih faithful generous and disinteressed Subjects the Parliaments with firm and unbiassed Magistrates and Judges Colledges with Religious Persons and Secular families with prudent and charitable Masters and with respectful and submissive servants In fine it is the good Education which augments the mystical Body of Christ Jesus and which compleats the number of the Elect and of the Blessed There 's nothing but it which can banish all the Vices reigning now in the World because there 's but it alone which can imprint in it dread and horrour 'T is it only which can make the spirit of Poverty flourish again by exciting in the Hearts which it informs a contempt of all creatures 'T is by it alone that the love of sufferings may be re-established among Christians by banishing from the yet-tender Bodies the eases and delicacies of the World and accustoming them timely to suffer 'T is it alone which can conserve Order and retain Inferiours in respect and submission to their temporal and spiritual Superiours in using them to the practice of an exact Obedience 'T is it alone which can revive charity and zeal towards our Neighbour by insinuating into them an esteem and a tenderness to all the World Lastly there 's nothing but it that is capable to change the whole face of Christianisme to produce a happy Reformation in all the Church to preserve Children in their Innocence and in the grace of Baptism and to trace in the Life of Men a lively Image of the all-holy and all-divine Life of Christ Jesus CHAP. VI. With what Dispositions Parents are to labour in the Christian Education of their Children I Cannot better in my judgement express to you my Sister the Dispositions and sentiments in which you are obliged to labour in the Education of your Children than to conjure you to consider them as goods which God deposes in your hands and which belong not at all to you You will finde no difficulty to enter upon these thoughts if you well examine that you have no share of that which is in them most considerable that is to say of their souls that what you communicate to them in regard of the Body is nothing but what you received from your Ancestors and that even to speak justly they hold nothing from you but sin which by an unfortunate necessity derived from the crime of our first parents you could not hinder your self from communicating unto them 'T is for this cause that your first care after you brought them into the World was to send them to the Church to the end that they being there divested of the Old-man wherewith they had been cloathed in your bosom they might take a new Nativity in Christ Jesus in the bosome of the Church and that the criminal Life which you communicated unto them being as it were buried and drowned in the Waters of Baptism they might there receive a new life by becomming the Members of Christ Jesus and be enrolled in the number of the Adoptive Children of the eternal Father to come to be one day in Heaven associates of the Glory of his only Son and the coheyrs of his Kingdom 'T is not therefore enough to have said that you ought to look on them as the goods of God which he deposes in your hands since they are really his Children whom he hath committed to your care that 't is the price of his Blood which he consigns to you and that he offers to you in them many favourable occasions to make appear the zeal and the fidelity you have for his interests What a glory is it my Sister to be admitted to the same Ministery with the Angels to be chosen to be the visible Guardian and Governess of Souls which Christ Jesus hath redeemed with his Blood and which he hath destinated in quality of his Spouses to reign with him eternally You are then to receive your Children at their return from the Church with great sentiments of Humility and Reverence And if in the thought of St. In his Homelie oâ— the manner how Anna educated Samuel Chrysostome the Mother of little Samuel respected that Childe because he was vow'd to the service of the Temple if she considered him as a Golden Vessel designed to a sacred use which is not to be touched but with a holy apprehension of profaning it and if according to the relation of the most ancient of our Historians Euseb l. 6. c 2. the Father of Origen frequently discovered the bosom of his Son when he slept and was yet an Infant to kiss him with much respect and reverence looking on him as the dwelling and tabernacle of the Holy Ghost there inhabiting are you to have less respect for your Children who have in like manner been replenished with the grace of Jesus Christ and consecrated to the worship of God by Baptism Wherefore watch carefully for their conservation Fear to suffer profane hands to touch them cherish them nourish them as the Members of Christ Jesus and perswade your self that your House should be all Holy since it encloses those Children whom he hath sanctified and rendred so dear to his Church to which they belong as being purchased by the blood of her Bridegroom and who puts them not into your hands but because he expects you should have a more tender and a more perfect care of them than strangers The conformity with Christ Jesus which they have received in being re-born in the bosom of the Church is only gross and imperfect and according to the terms of the Apostle St. James they become thereby but only as a beginning of the new creature James 1.18 and therefore it is that she consigns them to your care to the end you may make them the perfect Imitators of Christ Jesus that you may draw in them his Image and that as the Apostle says of himself Gal. 4.19 you may not fear to suffer the pains and pangs of a second bringing forth Children till such time as Christ Jesus is formed in their actions their inclinations their affections and their cogitations The Church hath rendred them by the consecration she hath made of them the living Temples of the Holy
sanctified in Baptism and that they are there replenished with the graces and gifts of the Holy Ghost yet the concupiscence is not taken from them in this Sacrament and there remains in their hearts a certain Inclination towards the creature which is the cause of all the sins committed in the World and which is commonly attributed to the corruption of Nature 'T is this concupiscence which in the opinion of St. S. Aug. l. 1. Conf. c. 7. Augustin causes children to covet the duggs of their Mothers with so much greediness and to seek for the bosom of their Nurse with such sensible signs of impatience 'T is through it that they demand with so much eagerness and tears the things which are hurtful unto them that they are vexed and displeased with them who will not submit to them that they shew themselves froward against free persons and such whose age should render venerable to them against their Fathers and Mothers and against so many others who are incomparably wiser then themselves and that they strive even as much as they can to hurt them by striking them because they will not do what they desire of them nor will blindly obey them in things which would prove pernicious unto them And thus pursues this Father the weakness of the Body is innocent in Children but the spirit of Children is not so and we suffer in them patiently many things not because they are not bad since one cannot suffer them in persons more advanced in age but because we hope they will vanish together with their Infancy You are therefore my Sister to consider your children as totally enclined and wholly bent to evil And do not doubt but these impatiences which they make appear this obstination not to will but what themselves will this despight this love of play this disgust of their first instructions this curiosity this desire of overcoming this ardour to command this aversion they have from Prayer this jealousy they conceive upon the signs of friendship given to their Brothers or Sisters this envy and this desire to ravin from others all they possess finally the inclination they have to lye and the esteem they have for the glittering vanities and ornaments of the World proceed from the same principle which causes the hatreds the murthers the envies the jealousies the desire and the love of the goods of the earth and of the Pomps of the World and which causes them to fall who are in a ripe and advanced age into greater disorder In effect grace being not given to man but to perfect his Nature the action of grace supposes that of nature and man must be capable to reason before he can be assisted and sustained in his ratiocination So that the superiour part of the soul being not capable in children to do its functions and the regulation of the inferiour depending on its orders and its lights this which hath no need of extraordinary succours to carry it on towards its object but which hath a natural bent towards pleasing things which cannot be regulated by grace which doth not yet act in them seizes upon the command and gives liberty to all the passions to sally forth and to make appear in all the actions of children and in their weakest motions the Empire they have in their hearts and the violence wherewith they draw them towards creatures And this is it St Aug. l. 1. Confess exclaims S. Augustin which is the pretended innocence of children There is none for them Lord there is none for them my God and I demand your pardon yet at this day for having been of the number of these innocents For 't is the very same and this first corruption of their spirit and of their heart which passes by sequel into all the rest of their life Such as they were in respect of their preceptours and of their Masters they are in regard of Kings and of Magistrates After they have committed petty-Injustices to get Nuts Balls and Birds they commit great ones to heap up Money to get fair Houses and to have a multitude of Servants Their irregularity encreases with their age as the great Punishments which the laws ordain succeed the light Punishments of children And thus my God and my King when you said in the Gospel That the Kingdom of Heaven is for them who are like to children you did not only propose the Innocence of their Spirit for a modell of Virtue but also the littleness of their Bodies as the image of Humility CHAP. IX The Maexims which ought to be followed to render the Education of Children Christian 'T Is upon these Principles I have now proposed that all the advices and all the Maxims which the Fathers of the Church have given to Parents touching the Education of their children are supported And 't is without doubt for this subject that the sacred Scripture enjoyns them to use therein a holy Rigour and a just severity because their age being susceptible of apprehension which is a natural motion there 's nothing but fear that can retain them in their Duty and render them capable of Discipline This you will observe in the ensuing Maxims Maxims drawn from the Sacred Scripture SOlomon says in the Proverbs Pro. 13.24 That he who chastises not his son doth truly hate him and that he who loves him with a reall love watches incessantly to his Education and pardons him in nothing Pro. 22.15 That folly and the inclination to disorderly things is as it were collected and heap'd together in the heart of a Childe and that there is nothing but a somewhat severe conduct that can drive it from thence Pro. 33.13 Take great heed pursues this Wise-man that you permit not your children to take overmuch liberty and that you withdraw them not your self by a too great facility from your Discipline for your son will not dye for being a little chastised You shall strike him with the rod and give him some blows and you will deliver at the same time his soul from Hell by hindring him from falling by this rational severity Pro. 29.15 The Wand and Correction give Wisdom whereas a Childc left to his own will affords nothing but confusion to his Mother Pro. 24.5 Educate well your Son he will prove your comfort and he will fill your soul with joy Eccle. 52.5 Be not therefore ashamed says Ecclesiasticus to make shew of great solicitude and a strong application for the well bringing up of your Children Eccle. 30.1 He who loves his Son chastises him for every fault he commits and almost continually Eccle. 30.8 As an untam'd Horse becomes restive and hard to be managed so a Childe who is left to himself becomes sturdy and temerarious Eccle. 30.9 If you nourish your Son with Milk which is the symbol of meekness he will make you fearfull and you will become terrible to your self If you play and render your self over-familiar with him he will bring you sadness Eccle. 30.10
Do not laugh nor divertise your self with your Children for fear lest one day you may repent it and that in the end you be not constrained to shew extraordinary signes of sorrow and of confusion which you may receive from them Eccle. 7.25.26 If you have Children instruct them well make them pliable from their tender age If you have Daughters watch over their bodies and never shew them an over-cheerful countenance You pereeive my Sister throughout all these passages which are so many Oracles of the Holy Ghost that Fathers and Mothers are obliged to Educate their Children with a holy severity which hinders them from contracting bad customs and which by the fear of chastisements brings them to an aversion and to a horrour of the vety shadow of the least vice You see that God forbids them to play to divertise themselves and to laugh with them and by consequence he ordains them not to appear in their presence but in a posture which may instill into them a respect and which may entertain them in the Submission and the Obedience which he himself hath commanded them to observe But because these advices are somewhat general and that the multitude of diseases causes a multiplication of the remedies the Doctours of the Church have treated of the Education of Children a little more in particular and have endeavoured to prevent the other evils which proceed from the small care which is taken therein or from the negligences which are therein committed Maxims drawn from St. John Chrysostom ST John Chrysostom after he had made the recital of the misfortune of the high Priest Heli Chrysost Hom. 9. in 1. Epist ad Timoth. ch 3 as I have already related unto you addressing himself to Fathers speaks to them in this sort Listen to this you Fathers and bring up your Children with great care in the Discipline and in the Correction of our Lord. Suffer them not ever to do such actions which as pleasant as they are cease not to be malicious and do not pardon them in any fault upon pretext of their infancy Keep them above all in a great restraint and in a great sobriety Advertise them correct them affright them threaten them and if need requires make them feel the effects of your threats You have in your Children a considerable and very precious pledge keep it with great care and do all things to hinder the ravishing of it away from you Be not so void of reason as to take a greater care of your goods and pofsessions than of them for whom you heap up all those things Exercise their Spirits whilst they are yet tender to Virtue and to Piety and then you may think of procuring for them the other comodities of life Will you leave your Son rich see that he be Virtuous and that he be Charitable for that 's the means whereby he will encrease his Patrimony or at least 't is that which will render him as content with his pittance as if he possessed all the Earth But if he is vicious great riches will only serve to furnish him wherewith to entertain his bad customs and to cause him to abandon himself without controll to all sorts of debauchery Mothers it belongs to you to take care of the Daughters you have and this is not hard for you to do Order it so that they keep continually at home Instruct them principally in piety and devotion teach them a contempt of riches and of all worldly Pomps and Vanities And since if you thus educate them they will not only save their own Souls but moreover them of their Husbands and of their Children perform all that concerns them with a serious application as labouring in one sole person for the glory and for the Salvation of many others For a Daughter should go forth of the house of her Parents to enter into that of her Husband perfectly instructed in every thing that is necessary for the good government of a Family and she ought to be so perfect that like as a little leaven communicates its qualities to all the paste so she should cause her Virtues to pass into all them whom she is to conduct and govern Let the manners of your male-children be so honest and their purity so singular that they may deserve prayse from God and from Men. Let them learn under your Discipline Abstinence and Sobriety not to make superfluous expences but to let alone all magnificence which is commonly sought after in things of shew and lustre to employ their goods lawfully to be submissive to you and to be obedient to the least of your Words How long shall we suffer our selves to be led by the meer feelings of the flesh Hom. 21. super Epist ad Ephes c. 6. and how long shall we bend downwards to the Earth Let us prefer before all other sollicitudes that of correcting and instructing our children in the fear of our Lord. If your son learns from his tender Infancy to live Christianly he will acquire goods much more considerable and a glory far greater than the World can procure him You will not gain so much by instructing him how to heap up exteriour riches as in teaching him how to contemn them do so then if you desire to make him rich since he is truly so who needs nothing Do not strive to settle him in a condition wherein he may acquire great glory by his learning but teach him to put a small value upon all worldly glory Seek not out means to make him live long upon earth but such means as are necessary to procure for him an eternal life in heaven Think not of making him so much an able man as of rendring him a faithful man He stands in need of Modesty and not of Eloquence of good manners and not of crafts and subtilties of good actions and not of fine words endeavour to render his soul pure rather than his tongue polished Not that I forbid the instruction of children but 't is this I cannot endure that one should only strive to teach them human Literature and neglect to inform them what is necessary for their Salvation Let us put our children by our prudent conduct into an estate to endure patiently all sorts of accidents and not to become insolent in prosperity If they who make the Statues and Portraits of Princes receive so much glory why should not we respect great recompences for having adorned the Image of the Soveraign of all Kings and for having restored to him his true lineaments which were defaced by making our children conformable to Christ Jesus by making them meek affable easy to forget injuries inclinable to do good to all the World to converse with all people with gentleness and humanity and finally to despise the Earth with all its alluring Vanities Behold my Sister after what manner St. Chrysostom conceived children should be educated wherein he perfectly agrees with all the other Fathers of the Church who all of
the most prudent If you choose a Coachman a groom of the Stable St. Chrysost Ser. 19. upon Matth. you take care said St. Chrysostom speaking to Parents that he be not subject to wine that he be not a thief and that he be skilful in drenching and dressing Horses But if you will provide a Master for your children to form and fashion them you trouble not your selves in the choice of him the first who presents himself is good enough and yet there is no employ either greater or of more difficulty than that is For what is of higher importance then to form the spirit and the heart and to regulate all the conduct of a young man Great is the esteem of a skilful Painter and an Engraver but what is their art in comparison of his excellency who works not on a cloath or on a Marble-stone but upon the spirits Yet we neglect all these things We trouble not our selves to render our children Christians but eloquent and this very desire is for our own interest For the end we propose to our selves is not simply that they be eloquent but that they may grow rich by their eloquence Now if they could become rich without being eloquent we would sleight as well the eloquence as all the rest 7. Maxims touching the Motives whereby to engage Children to labour and to do what one desires of them NEver propose to them for a recompence the vain Ornaments of the World neither make use of such things as have no value but among worldly people to bring them to do what you desire It would prove a means to inspire into them a love for such things and to make them esteem them as true goods whereas you ought to study how to make them despise them For notwithstanding that all the goods of the earth are things in themselves indifferent yet you ought to propose them to children as dangerous yea even as evil by discovering unto them only the disorders they cause in such as possess them And you should says St. S. Jerom. epist ad Gaudent Jerome carry your self in such sort towards them as that they may think the World hath been always in the miserable estate it now is that they may remain ignorant of what pleasing things passed in the ages foregone and spent that they may shun the Maxims and the customs which are in use at this present and that they may aspire after the goods which are promised to us in Heaven Now if you had rather follow the sentiment of them who as the same Saint relates fancy that it is more to the purpose to satiate in childrens infancy the thirst which Men but particularly Women have after these sorts of vanity to entertain it and cause it to encrease in them by refusing to afford them such Ornaments as they see others use take care at least as this great Doctour advises Gaudentius that your children may perceive how they of their own age are praysed for not using such sorts of Ornaments Make much of them your self in their presence speak with prayse of their modesty and of their comportment and insensibly strive to instill into yours a disgust of all exteriour trickings and trimmings which the World admires Strive to make them comprehend that you do not allow them such things but only because they are yet little ones and tell them that if they were indued with perfect reason you would not give them such things as are fit only for children If we must drive out of our hearts one desire by another you may perchance cure that which they have for these things of shew and lustre by awaking the natural desire which all children have of putting themselves in the rank of such persons as are more advanced in age and in judgement Avoyd nevertheless that unhappy conduct which St. Chrysostom reprehends in the Parents of his time and which is but too common in this of ours according to which Fathers and Mothers excite not their children to virtue to studie and to other laudable exercises but only by humane and temporal considerations and which are all founded upon ambition and upon interest See how this great Saint expresses the sentiments of one of those Fathers tyed to the World by making him speak in these terms to one of his children Behold my Son behold this man he was very meanly born and had many other inconsiderable qualities and yet because he was eloquent he passed through the greatest Offices and employs he hath heaped up vast riches married a wealthy wife built proud Pallaces finally he hath made himself dreaded and respected by all the World This other O my Son proceeds this worldly Father got not the reputation he hath at Court but because he was perfectly skilled in the Latine Tongue And thus it is exclaims this great Doctour that we enchant the ears of your children to introduce into their hearts the two most violent passions which are in the world to wit the desire of riches and that of vain-glory which corrupt and stifle in their souls all the seeds of virtue which cause to spring up there such a quantity of thorns and bryars and which spread about so much sand and dust that their spirit remains barren and uncapable to produce any fruit 'T is of this disorder that St. Augustin complains to God S. August l. 1. Confess c. 9. n. 1. when making reflexion upon the conduct they had used towards himself in the time of his youth and raising himself towards God he says to him Have I not just cause O my God to deplore the miseries and the deceits which I experienced in that age since they proposed to me no other rule of living well but to follow the conduct and the advertisements of them who laboured only to inspire into me the desire and the ambition of appearing one day with renown in the world and to excell in this art of Eloquence which gains honour among men and gets false and deceitful riches Whereby it plainly appears that if it is good as we have observed to give praises to children it is not to make them love the praise nor to make them labour for vanity but only to make them love Virtue which alone deserves to be praised 8. Maxims touching the care Parents ought to take for their Childrens health and for what concerns their bodies BE not over-sollicitous to procure for them all the commodities of life When they shall prefs you to grant them something which is not absolutely necessary for them endeavour to make them understand that Christians ought to let alone superfluous things that they may supply the necessities of their neighbour Say to them my Children this is not ours God gave it not unto us but only that we might with it do works of charity and we should rob the poor if we should waste it in things unprofitable But if they have some infirmity or any disease however you spare nothing secretly
them The childe will become wiser says Solomon by the chastisement of the culpable and of him who gives him evil example Prov. 21.11 Leave them not alone but as little as may be with the domesticks and especially with Lacquais and Foot-boys These kinde of persons to insinuate themselves and to get the favour of the children please them ordinarily with nothing but sottish follies and instill nothing into them but the love of play of divertisement and of vanity and are only capable to corrupt the best natures and such as are most inclinable to goodness St. Jerome after he had recommended to a Lady of quality to use great circumspection in the choice of such Maids as she was to take to accompany her Daughter and to ferve her counsels her not to suffer them to make any particular friendship with them but to hinder them from talking together in private and from making between themselves certain petty-mysteries of I know not how many things This great man knew the danger there is in leaving children to take too much liberty with all sorts of domesticks and how much it is to be dreaded that this familiarity should come at last to make them lose their Innocence 12. Maxims touching the freedom which is to be given to children to express their thoughts and their opinions THis advice of St. Paul ought to be well weighed Ephes 6.4 Fathers do not irritate your children by an over harsh carriage towards them and by using them with overmuch rigour but take care to educate them in the discipline and in the fear of our Lord lest as he adds in another place Coloss 3.2 they should fall into a discouragement of spirit and of heart Which is as if the Apostle had said Take heed of reprehending continually your children and of treating them with too much severity in small matters Do not your self oblige them by your rigour to wound the respect which they owe to you and by commanding them things of too great difficulty do not constrain them to disobey you They must be permitted when they are a little advanced in age to have the liberty to present unto you their reasons and their complaints nor ought you to treat them harshly when they fancy they are in some sort wronged by your way of proceeding with them Imitate the prudence of that charitable Father of whom it is said in the Gospel that seeing his eldest son highly offended at the manner of his receiving his younger son into his favour and having understood that for this cause he would not enter into the house went forth himself to entreat him to come in And that son having reproached him Luk. 15.29 That he had now served him many years without ever disobeying him in any thing he commanded and that nevertheless he had never bestowed on him a kid for the entertainment of his friends but that as soon as this his other son who had wasted his means among harlots was arrived he had slaughterd for him the fat calf This good Father far from being offended with his discourse strives on the contrary to sweeten his spirit with words full of tenderness and goodness Ib. v. 31.32 My son says he you are always with me and all that I have is yours but it was fit to make a feast and to rejoyce because your brother was dead and he is revived he was lost and he is found again See how this wise Father disdains not to justify his proceedings before his son and how he endeavours by the testimonies of charity and of the preference which he gives him to diminish the resentment and the indignation he had conceived against him and against his younger brother Behold what manner of proceeding you are to propose to your self since 't is that of God himself in regard of his children which Christ Jesus hath laid open to you under this parable Think not my Sister that it is from the authority which God hath given to Fathers and to Mothers over their Children not to make them to do what they desire of them but by the way of power and command nor that Children act always against the respect they owe to their Fathers and Mothers when they finde difficulty to approve all that they do or all that they say Children ought in many occasions to submit their lights to them of their Parents and to prefer their judgement before their own but 't is also the duty of Parents to communicate to their children those very lights to which they pretend they ought to subject themselves They ought to conduct them by truth and not by humour and fancy and they ought to gain their hearts by the love of that good which they desire to instill into them and not by captivating their will under the yoak of a command full of threats and of terrour St. Jerome speaking of the manner to educate children says that one must use severity with much prudence because the persons whom one treats over-severely seek with more eagerness than they do who are left to more liberty to divert and comfort themselves with the trifles of the world from the harsh usage to which they are enslaved 13. Maxims touching the patience wherewith Parents are to support their children and to moderate their resentments of injuries received from others 'T Is not enough for a Christian Father and a Christian Mother not to irritate their children by holding over them a too severe hand in things indifferent or which are not absolutely criminal they are moreover to be disposed to support patiently their greater disobediences and to suffer their greater outrages without suffering themselves to be transported to such resentments as would be no less dismal to themselves then to their children We have a proof convincing this truth in a dreadful history related by St. S. Aug. Serm. 31. de diversis l. 22. de civit chap. 8. Augustin in several of his works and which cannot be too often presented to Fathers and Mothers amidst the displeasures they receive from their Children There was in the Town of Caesarea in Cappadocia a widow of quality who had ten children to wit seven sons and three Daughters the eldest of all these children so far lost the respect he ought to his Mother that after he had loaded her with many injurious words he was so rash as to strike her His Brothers and his Sisters were witnesses of this outrage not only without opposing themselves but even without speaking one sole word in defence of their Mother This poor Woman having her heart pearced with sorrow for so great an injury and suffering her self to proceed in the resentment of the affront she had received took a resolution to lay her curse upon her wretched son who had so highly offended her Hereupon she goes forth of her at day-break to pronounce this imprecation against him upon the sacred Font of Baptism The Devil presented himself to her in her way under the form
of her husbands brother who was Uncle to her children and questions her whether she was now going she answered that she went to lay a curse upon her eldest Son because of the insupportable injury he had done to her then that accursed fiend who had no difficulty to finde an entrance into the heart of this Mother which the spirit of revenge and of anger had opened unto him perswades her to extend her malediction upon all her other children since their silence rendred them no less criminalls than their eldest brother This Woman therefore suffering her self to be enflamed with choler against all her children by that envenomed counsells of this tempter comes to clip and embrace the Baptismal Font spreads abroad her hair discovers her breast and demands of God in this posture that he will revenge her of all her children in such a manner as that they may bear about them over all the earth the marks of the chastisement laid upon them for the outrage she received from them and that they may imprint by their example a terrour into the spirits of all people Her prayer was heard so speedily that her eldest son was struck at the same instant with a horrible trembling in all the Members of his body and within less then one year all her other children were punished with the same chastisement one after another according to the order of their birth Then this unfortunate Mother perceiving her curses to have been so efficacious and being no longer able to support the reproaches which her conscience suggested to her of her impiety nor the confusion which she suffered before the world for permitting her self to be transported to so great an extremity strangled her self and ended her accursed life by a death yet more accursed St. Augustin upon the occasion of one of these children whose name was Paul and who had been miraculously cured having caused to be read to his people the recital which this young man had made of this History as I have now told it and making reflections upon the circumstances which accompany it exclaims Aug. serm 32 de diversis Let children learn from this example to respect their Fathers and their Mothers and let Fathers and Mothers fear to fall into choler against their children 'T is said in sacred Writ That the blessing of a Father establishes the House and that the curse of a Mother roots it up even to the foundations This we see accomplished in these accursed children who being at this present vagabonds over all the earth have no establishment in their own countrey and who not only serve for a dreadful spectacle to all men but also by presenting their punishment and their misery to the eyes of all them who look upon them should above all affright proud children who fail in their duty towards them who brought them into the world Learn then O children to render unto your Fathers and Mothers according to what is commanded you in the sacred Scripture the respect and the honour which is due to them But you Fathers and Mothers remember when your children offend you that you are Fathers and that you are Mothers This unhappy Mother invoked God against her children and she was heard because God is truly just and because she had been truly offended True it is that there was but one only among them who had injuriously struck her and the other had only been silent in this occasion or had not uttered a word in her defence But surely God is just who heard her prayer and who gave ear to the expressions which grief put into her mouth All this while what shall we say of this poor Mother Was not she her self punished by God with so much more rigour by how much she was heard more readily and more conformably to her own desires 'T is thus my Sister that this great Saint believed that God permitted this Mother should make so unhappy an end after she had abandoned her self to such choler against her children to teach Fathers and Mothers not to suffer themselves to be transported easily to such resentments although most just in appearance and not easily to lay their malediction upon their children however so reasonable a cause they may seem to have for so doing and never to implore the succour of God against them during the violence of their indignation for fear lest God hearing the prayers which grief drew from their hearts and granting to them the things which passion alone inspired them to demand of him the revenge which they call down upon their childrens heads falls not upon their own and hurry them not on to despair when the heat being passed over and the feeling of nature having got the upper hand they shall perceive themselves to have been the cause of the misery and ruine into which their wretched children are reduced And this reflexion ought to make so much the deeper impression in the spirit of Fathers and Mothers because this miserable Mother we have here spoken of was in desperate hazzard of being damned for all eternity for having suffered her self to be transported to that excess of revenge against her children whereas the said children were not punished for the fault they committed against her but only during this life and that God afforded mercy to the major part of them at the instant prayers and importunities of holy men to whom they had recourse in their affliction as was seen in two of them who were recovered in one at Hippo and in another of them at Revenna 14. Maxims touching the Equality which Parents are to keep among their Children IF God gives you many children take care to unite them in perfect friendship with one another let the younger respect the elder let the elder condescend to the younger as being yet less rational and make in every thing appear so just an equality in the marks of love and tenderness towards them that they may have no manner of jealousie against one another The only embroidered robe which Jacob gave to Joseph was cause of the hatred his Brethren conceived against him and that they hatched the design to take away his life Upon which St. Ambrose makes this pithy reflexion It very frequently falls out that the affection of Parents is hurtful to their children when it stays not within the limits of a just moderation and this happens when either through an over-great goodness they pardon their faults or that testifying more love to some than to others they extinguish by this preference that fraternal affection which should keep them united in friendship The greatest advantage which a Father can procure to one of his children is to leave him the love of his Brethren As Fathers and Mothers cannot exercise a more glorious liberality towards their children so also the children cannot receive from their Fathers and Mothers a more rich Inheritance than that It is just that nature rendring them equal the favour of them who gave
them birth should continue them in a perfect equality Piety permits us not to fancy that Money gives an advantage to a childe since it is that very thing which ruins piety Why then do you still marvel that so many differences arise among Brethren upon the occasion of a piece of land or of a house since one sole garment excited so much envy among the children of Jacob But what adds this holy Doctour shall we blame this Patriark for preferring one of his sons before all the rest Can we take from Fathers and from Mothers the liberty of loving them more whom they believe deserve better their affection and is it just to take from Children the emulation and the desire of pleasing them more who gave them their birth Finally Jacob loved Joseph more than all his brethren because he foresaw that this childe would be one day more virtuous than the others and because he discovered already in him more visible and more illustrious marks of goodness These last words of St. Ambrose contain very important instructions for Fathers and Mothers For although they are obliged to have an equal charity for all their children it is notwithstanding a very hard matter not to resent sometimes in themselves more tenderness for one than for another and there are even some occasions wherein they are obliged to make it more appear All the difficulty then consists in knowing how to regulate and to distribute the testimonies which they give them according to the rules of Christian charity and according to the lights of Faith It consists in not preferring them who are of a more flattering and facetious humour but also more free and inclinable to evil before them who make shew of more coldness but withall of more reservedness and more modestie not to cherish them more whom we design for the world then them whom we will consecrate to Religion to avoid the disorder which a holy man of France hath reprehended with so much zeal in a Letter he addresses to all the Church where he reproaches Fathers and Mothers of high injustice for making greater advantages of such of their children as followed the world than of them who made profession of a holy and religious life What is more just and more reasonable says he than that he will of parents should agree with that of Christ Jesus that they should prefer in the distribution of their goods and of their charges them whom God hath preferred by the choice he hath made of them to link them to his service Happy he who loves his children by the motive of divine love who regulates the charity he bears them by that which he owes to Christ Jesus who in the bonds of nature which tye him to his children looks upon God as their Father who making sacrifices to God of that which his love obliges him to give to his children draws for himself an eternal gain and happiness and who lending to God as we may say that which he distributes to his children procures for himself an everlasting recompence by procuring for them temporal commodities But now adds he Fathers and Mothers follow Maxims far different from these and much deviating from the piety which here appears They never leave less of their goods than to such of their children to whom they should leave the greater share in regard of him to whose service they are engaged and they of their family whom they least esteem are they whom the spirit of Religion should render most considerable Finally if they offer to God some one of their children they prefer their other Brethren before them They judge them unworthy to succeed them in their worldly means who are found worthy to be dedicated to the Altar And one may say that their children did not become contemptible unto them but because they began to be precious before God This disorder is but too common in the age we now live in in which Parents content not themselves to design to the Church or to Religion such of their children who are meanliest qualified but they moreover even neglect their education and use all means imaginable to deprive them of their succession They strive by all manner of ways to have some Benefice fall into their hands and when they have once obtained it they substitute the goods of the Church and the patrimony of Christ Jesus instead of that which was due to them by their birth They make them renounce all the just pretensions they have by the natural and civil Laws because they render them depositaries of such goods as were designed by the piety of the faithful for the subsistance of the poor and they bereave them of what lawfully belonged unto them upon pretext of having procured for them that which they cannot according to the Canons and Rules of the Church apply even to their own uses because it is not obtained by the ways prescribed by the said Canons and the same Rules of the Church As if says Salvian Parents should not rather tye themselves to leave goods to such of their children as they know are capable to make the best use of them and as if they ought not to prefer them who employ their means only in works of a charity before them who will assuredly dissipate them in their vain and superfluous expences There is another disorder crept in among the faithful and which no less destroys the equality which Parents owe to their children which is to think of setling them only who either by the rank of their birth or for some particular qualities best please them They fear lest by parting their goods equally among all their children they cannot raise up as they would the splendour and the glory of their Family The Eldest could not possess nor sustain the Offices and the employs which they strive to procure for him if his Brothers and his Sisters should have the same advantages which he hath they must therefore be put into such an estate as not to be able to dispute this right with him They must be thrust into Cloysters whether they will or not and they must be timely sacrificed to the interests of him whom they designe for the world and for vanity You cannot my Sister take too much care to avoid all these disorders which are contrary to the charity and to the Justice you owe to your children Endeavour therefore to keep among them a perfect equality But if you have some mark of tenderness and of preference to give to any one of them let it be to the most obedient and to them who tend with most ardour to goodness and to virtue to the end that that may excite an emulation in the others and that they encreasing all equally in the fear of God and in the pursuit of virtue may deserve all the like testimonies of goodness and of affection 15. Maxims touching the lodging of Children TAke care not only for your Sons but also for your Daughters that as much
entire Obedience I promise by him who lives eternally that I will give him no share in my goods but that I wholly disinherit him for ever The Church believed these vows of Fathers and Mothers so advantagious to children that she obliged the said children to observe them all their life There was no difference put between the destroying of ones self and the going forth of a Monastery after they had made this manner of engagement and the children had scarcely need of any other Profession than this solemn promise by which they were consecrated to God Whence it is The 4. Council of Toledo that in the 4th Council of Toledo it is said that whether a person is engaged in a Monastery by the devotion of his Parents or by his own choice he is always obliged to stay there nor is it permitted him to return to the world And that according to St. Isidore he who is placed in a Monastery by his Father and his Mother is to know that he is bound to remain there the rest of his life There was nothing unjust nor over-rigorous in this proceeding but on the contrary it was full of justice and highly advantagious to the children For if according to the rules of law a Father may in case of extreme necessity sell his son and make him for ever a slave to men in order to preserve a temporal life why shall it not be permitted by the rules of the Gospel to the same Father to offer his children to God and to procure for them a true liberty by engaging them to his service upon the design of procuring for themselves as well as for them an eternal life and happiness What is there in this action on the Fathers side which is not holy and conformable to his duty This Sacrifice being made with a most sincere intention and with a piety altogether disinteressed was it not a convincing proof that he had changed the natural love which Parents have for their children into a Charity totally Divine that he had surmounted that so common a desire which men have to conserve their Name and their Family particularly when they have but one only Child and that they possess much Wealth Finally that he had renounced those so sweet comforts which Parents feel in the conversation of their own children On the childrens side is this engagement to Religion to be dreaded Is not the yoak of Christ Jesus easy and his burden light especially to children who have not yet been sullied with any vice who have not yet been corrupted by any evil customes who from their cradle have been formed to Virtue who have been trained up in Piety who have had nothing but good examples before their eyes who have sucked as one may say together with the Milk the Rules of Christian Sanctity and who not knowing the world have had no share in its delights and vanities But however holy and laudable this practice was we must nevertheless grant my Sister that the Church hath with great wisdom limited the devotion of Parents She hath considered that what was formerly the effect of a great and sincere devotion was somtimes scarcely any more than an effect of avarice and cupidity that Parents oftentimes in these days sought not so much in placing their children in Monasteries to give them to God as to discharge themselves of those children to render the others richer and better provided for in the world And so she hath stopped by her laws their authority and set bounds to their power because they on the one side made it serve their ambition and on the other side oppressed the liberty of their own Children Yet she hath not bereaved them of the power to place them in their tender age in Monasteries to have them there educated and to put them in a state by this happy retrait to march on both more couragiously and more swiftly and also with less danger towards Heaven supposing they have no other end in this action than his glory and the salvation of their children and that they offer them to Monastries in an indifference of their being Religious or returning to the world as it shall please God to dispose of them But in this last practise there are two principal things to be observed in order to follow therein the spirit of the Church The first is the choice of the Monastery For Parents would be so far from procuring their childrens salvation that they would endanger their destruction if they took no care in placing them in Religious Houses to see whether those Houses are indeed Religious and whether they there will not engage their children to embrace their institute by perswasions which are altogether humane and by a spirit which is totally opposite to that of God Wherein it is so much more important that Parents suffer not themselves to be deceived by how much the least negligence would be very criminal before God in a matter of so great consequence The Second thing which Parents ought to observe is That when their children are in a house truly Religious and of a solid and disinteressed piety they draw them not forth of it to return to the World lest by taking them for a time from Christ Jesus who demands them to sanctify them they should give them to the world which demands them to corrupt them I know they want not specious pretexts for this they say that a true vocation must be tried that grace will triumph amidst the conflicts that a Resolution which is from God cannot be shaken either by the life of the world or by the lustre of Riches and that the prudence of the Holy Ghost when it is in a soul cannot be deceived by the cunnings of the spirit of darkness But I also know Sister that it is said in holy Scripture That he who seeks and loves danger shall perish in it and that consequently one cannot without a very great blindness bring back into the middle of the world such children as have been holily separated from it and fancy that they cannot be sanctified in a Cloyster unless the world could not have force enough to corrupt them God will have us try our selves but not put our selves into the hands of the World and of the Devil to try our selves He on the contrary commands us to fly from the mortal Enemies of our salvation for fear of falling into their snares to save our selves in the solitude for fear to perish with Babylon and to hide the treasure which we have found for fear lest in shewing it the Devil who seeks incessantly to take his advantages should take it away from us The Prudence of Gods holy spirit cannot be deceived but it leaves us and abandons us when we quit his house and the place where he cleared and enlightned us to enter into a place of darkness and of crimes And if the Charity which is in us could not be extinguished the Apostle would not advertise us not
changed if we may say it into its substance This made one of the most clear-sighted among the Pagans to say That one of the things we should chiefly take care of in the Education of children whom we intend to leave a long time Quintilian in their Nurses hands is concerning the chusing of these Nurses For says he they must be very wise and we ought as far forth as may be to take such as have the best qualities and whose manners are best regulated But although we ought principally to have regard to their good conduct we must not omit to examine their way of speaking For they are the persons whom the children first hear and whose language they strive to imitate and naturally we retain much more firmly what we learn in our tenderest years just as a Vessel new-made conserves almost ever after the odour of the first liquor powred into it It happens that even the bad qualities adhere much more strongly and that Evil makes a deeper impression than good yea the good it self easily changes into evil whereas it is very seldom that vicious habits and customs turn into good ones This also made Plato ordain that we should not only endeavour with much care and watchfulness to educate children well when they are three years old but moreover he extremely recommends to Mothers that during the time of their being with childe they should keep themselves free from all sort of alterations and generally he exhorts Fathers and Mothers to exempt themselves as much as may be from all passions for fear lest communicating to the bodies of their children such affections as reign in them they should pass even to their souls and lest their bodies being formed of a blood burning with choler or inflamed with an unchaste Fire or that being conceived in a bosom filled with Pride and Vanity their Souls should contract inclinations of Fevenge Impurity and Ambition We also see Sister that God hath bestowed very particular Benedictions upon such Children as were consecrated to him in their Mothers womb Sampson Samuel and St. John Baptist in the Old Testament St. Augustin St. Bernard in the New are authentick proofs of the advantages which are derived from this holy practise And it is most certain S. Chry. l. 1. cont vitupera vitae Mâ—nast that God despises not so rational a devotion and a so well regulated piety but that on the contrary he lends his all-powerful hand to assist Fathers and Mothers who make such use of it to make their children perfect Images of his own Son and that he causes all things to contribute to their sanctity But to speak ingeniously of things as I conceive and apprehend them and God grant it may not be as it is commonly done there are many Fathers and Mothers who would be loath their children should receive so signal a Grace and the most rational of them would willingly yeild to follow these important Maxims in regard of those children whom they design to the Church or to Religion but not in regard of those whom they look upon as the prop of their Family and the Heyrs of their Honours Offices and Riches Wherefore one cannot too much endeavour to undeceive the World of an illusion which is so criminal in its Principles and so detestable in its effects and consequences CHAP. XII That these Maxims and these Advices are principally to be followed in the Education of such children as are designed for the World IF all Christians are obliged as undoubtedly they are to tend to the same perfection it is also an undoubted truth that there ought to be no difference in their Education and I say not only that there ought to be an equality among them who are designed to leade a common life and them who are consecrated to a more particular profession of piety but there is no doubt that one ought to apply a greater care in the Education of the first than of the second and that if Parents are concerned fot the publick interest for the glory of their children and for the salvation of their souls they are not to neglect any of the Maxims nor any of the Advices which we have drawn from the Scripture and from the Fathers in the Education of them whom they designe for the World To make you comprehend how much the interest of Common-wealths and Kingdoms is ingaged in the perfect Education of such as are to fill up the Dignities and to possess the most eminent Employments I need only conjure you St. Chry. l. 3. cont vituper vitae Monas after a Father of the Church to cast a view upon them who have introduced into the World all the Disorders which now reign therein and to consider who they are that follow them Whether they are such as have learned to live in a repose and in a retrait or such as invent new pleasures and new divertisements They who subsist honestly of their own patrimony and are satisfied with the conveniences which God hath given them or they who only study to enrich themselves with the goods of the poor They who are content with a mean train and a moderate table and with what serves only for necessity or they who will have a magnificent train and a sumptuous table open to all commers And to speak more Christianly whether they who live with great meekness and great modesty who think only of submitting themselves and of suffering themselves to be directed who esteem themselves the last of men and seek the least honourable places who have always before their eyes the Vanity of the world and the nothing of creatures or they who look to be respected and who render themselves terrible by their injustices and by their violences who will command every one and omit nothing to usurp the Magistracies scarcely remembring any longer that they are men so strangely are they puffed up with pride and so full are they of self-esteem and vanity Now if they are these later who overturn estates who trouble families who cause the murders the slaveries and all the miseries which we see and lament and if they arrived not at this extremity of injustice but because their parents neglected their Education is it not evident that it is the interest of Kingdoms that every Father of a Family should follow the Rules we have proposed that so by faithfully practising them they may bring their children to embrace the documents of the Fathers of the Church and of the Doctours of the world and as Saint Chrysostom says That they may by their care render them sparkling lights to shine amidst the darkness which Vices have spread abroad in the World and to shew the way of Heaven to so many unhappy wretches who go astray And this Sister is the second motive upon which the truth I have advanced is established and upon which is grounded the obligation of Parents to educate according to the Maxims of the Church Fathers those Children whom
an account of what they have learned examine them whether they comprehend what they say and because they are not capable of themselves to make good use of it you are to apply to the little occasions of their souls that which hath best pleased them or that which hath the nearest touched them You are to make preservatives against the vices you see them most inclined to and remedies against the imperfections which they most ordinarily fall into You are with words full of tenderness and sweetness to instill into them the love of the Virtues there praysed the horrour of the Vices there condemned and to leave them always in a sacred hunger of this celestial nourishment I mean in the desire to hear the Word of God which you are to excite by little rewards and by an honest liberty you will give them to recreate themselves when they have well remembred what you told them or what they heard from others Prevent the Solemnities to instruct your children in the Mysteries the memory whereof are then celebrated and accommodate your self to their age to make them enter into the Spirit and into the practise of those Virtues which are honoured in the said Mysteries Entertain them frequently with the life and actions of Christ Jesus and repeat often to them what Tradition and the Gospel teach us of those of his holy Mother And because children are strongly inclined to hear the recital of such things as they can least imitate and of events accompanied with fear and horrour relate unto them the conflicts of the Martyrs the temptations of the Anchorets the miracles of the Confessours And as there is almost no day wherein the Church proposes not to her children a meditation upon the life of some Saint let no Evening pass without proposing to them some action of Virtue and without prescribing to them some little practise of piety for the Morrow The Confessarius of the famous S. Lewis who wrote the Life of that great King says That each Evening he caused his Children to come into his Chamber where he always spoke to them some words of edification before he sent them away As for example in the time of the Birth of our blessed Saviour representing to them the cold which little Jesus endured in the Crib may you not excite them to suffer for his sake the incommodity of the season and the cold they feel in the School or in the Church If they complain that they are denied the things they desire Why may you not say to them Well my children consider how many other things you have Alas our Saviour Christ had not a little bed as you have to lye on nor fine linnen nor a good Coat to cloath him He was almost naked in a manger and upon straw and yet all things belonged to him although he would not make use of them but left them for our use and comfort Is it not then very reasonable we should want some small matter for the love of him Go he can and will reward you in Heaven If they finde it painful to follow you to the Church tell them that they are far from doing as our Lord did Luke 2.41 who stole himself away from his Parents to remain in the Temple and who made every year a long journey to go thither with them If they shew some Impatience in their small sufferings say to them Ah my children how far are you from enduring the torments which so many Saints suffered for Christ Jesus How will you endure Martyrdom when you shall be men if you cannot now endure the pricking of a Pin And if you cannot bear a little blow from your Brother or from your Sister when will you be so perfect and patient as to turn your other Cheek to him who hath struck one of them Instill into them a great love and a great esteem of their own littleness and Infancy Repeat frequently unto them that which is advantagious for Infants in the Gospel Tell them how our Lord reprehended his Apostles Matt. 18.19 for hindring such Infants as they are to come unto him that he took one of them and placed him in the middle of his Disciples and that he said several times that one must become like them to enter into Heaven And thus at the same time they grow according to the Body make them conserve in their Soul a great love for the qualities and the dispositions of Infancy Bring them up in a great respect and in a great confidence for their Guardian Angels Let them know principally the life of that Saint whose name they bear and the obligation they have to imitate him or her And as it is said of Christ Jesus Matt. 2. that he grew in the house and under the conduct of his holy Mother in Wisdome in Age and in Grace before God and before Men let your children advance by your care by little and little in the knowledge of the sacred Mysteries and in your colloquies and your instructions let all things serve you as St. Paul says to make them encrease in Christ Jesus Ephes 4.15 Above all teach them to prefer God and his Commandements before all other things Tell them often that they ought to have for him much more tenderness and more respect than they have for your self Imitate that excellent Mother of whom mention is made in the Book of Maccabees who to encourage her children to endure constantly their torments for the defence of the Jewish Religion excited them to look upon God as their Father and to esteem themselves happy in sacrificing their lives for the glory of him of whom they received them and who had prepared lives much more glorious for them in Heaven Imitate the admirable art she made use of to strengthen the youngest of her seven children whom the Tyrant endeavoured to withdraw from the resolution of dying and do you as she did make use of the consideration of such things as you have done for your children thereby to engage them to persevere in Virtue Take compassion my Son says she to him 2 Maccab. 7.17 upon a Mother who hath born you in her bosom who hath nourished you whole years with the Milk of her Breasts and who hath educated you with tenderness even till this time I demand of you my Son by all these considerations that you will lift your heart and your eyes towards Heaven and that in imitation of your Brothers you will receive death with joy that I may have the satisfaction to see you partaker of their glory 'T is thus that you should make use of the power which the gratitude and the love your children have for you gives you over their spirit to engage them to raise up themselves to God and to honour him to whom alone they are indebted for the care you employed in their Education And because there are occasions in this life where the tenderness and the respect which children have for their Parents may prove
a scandal to them and may hinder them from loving and following truth make them to know that there is none but God alone to whom we owe an entire submission and without any condition that there are no persons no estates no dignity no profession in this life which we ought not to love with limitation and that thus they owe you neither Obedience nor Complacency in such things as would be contrary to the Law of God Repeat often and explicate unto them these words of our Lord If any one comes to me and hates not his Father and his Mother and his Wife and his Brothers and his Sisters and moreover even his own life he cannot be my Disciple Luk. 14.20 Whereupon St. S. Hilary upon the words of the 118. Psal Iniquos odio habui Hilary says these admirable words This discourse of Christ Jesus appears harsh and it seems to be a rude and insupportable precept to force and engage one to a kinde of impiety towards Fathers and Mothers as to the highest degree of Christian perfection yet God commands in this nothing that is harsh nothing that is not well beseeming his goodness nothing that is contrary to his other Commandements And Fathers and Mothers cannot be offended that he thus ordains us to hate them although we owe to them in that quality much tenderness and affection since it is also enjoyned us to hate our selves Christ Jesus knew that there are many Fathers and many Mothers who have such an inconsiderate love for their children that when they see them persevere in the glory of Martyrdom they conjure them to yeild to the times they entreat them to change their opinions and they employ to weaken them the motives of a Piety which is altogether irregular Thus the Hatred says this great Saint which Children then conceive against their Fathers and Mothers is honourable and it is just and advantagious to hate them who strive to divert us from the love of Christ Jesus Avoid therefore my Sister the fault which this Saint reprehends in Parents and from which they finde much difficulty to defend themselves unless they have a zeal altogether sincere and disinteressed for their Children Imitate those Parents of the first ages of the Church who never made shew of greater joy than when they saw their children ready to be sacrificed for the defence of Truth and for the cause of Christ Jesus Reade I pray you the Lives of Saints and the History of the Church and you will see a great number of these Examples of Constancy You shall there meet with a holy Mother nam'd Theodora who after she had encouraged her eldest Son to suffer constantly such miseries as they forced him to undergo for the Faith and had exhorted him with much ardour to consider that he should purchase by these soon-passing torments an eternal happiness she her self was thrown into the Fire with this her dear Son and two other of her Children You shall there see a holy Mother who having a son called Meliton among the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste Meliton one of the 40. Mart. who had been exposed stark-naked in a frozen Pond in the greatest rigour of Winter and in a Country where cold was in extremity and who beholding that although they had broken his Legs as they had done them of his companions who expired in that last torment he was nevertheless yet alive contented not her self to exhort him to perseverance but having observed how they hurried away upon Carts the Bodies of the other Martyrs to bring them to a prepared Wood-Pile where they were to be burnt to ashes and that they left her son behinde in hopes to induce him to adore the Idols and to make him renounce Christ Jesus she took him upon her shoulders to carry him her self all alive as he was to his companions But this blessed childe dying in his dear Mothers arms in the way thither she nevertheless marched on with her now dead burden till she came to the burning pile of wood into which she cast the Body of this Blessed Martyr that he might have the glory to be consumed by the fire for the interests of Christ Jesus as were the Bodies of the other Martyrs which had been before thrown into it You shall there see a Dame of qualitie named Dionysia whose example according to the relation of an Affrican Bishop called Victor who writ the History of the Martyrs of the Church of Affrick Victor Affric l. 3. c. 1. persecuted by the Wandales was the cause of the salvation of almost all her Countrey You shall there see that this generous Woman perceiving that her only Son by name Majoricus who was very delicate and very young began to tremble at the apprehension of the torments which she endured darted upon him such piercing looks and employed so forcibly her maternal authority to reprehend him that she rendred him even more valiant than her self insomuch as this young Champion fought Faiths battel with joy and remaining victorious over his torments and over death gathered the Palm of Martyrdom After he had breathed forth his blessed Soul the noble Mother having embraced him as a holy Sacrifice which she had offered to God and to which she ardently wished to be for evermore united carried him home caused him to be buried in her house and poured forth her Prayers almost continually over his Sepulchre How heroick Sister are these Actions and how pure and disinteressed was the charity which produced them What zeal courage and constancy appeared therein And how well did these Mothers know what love they should bestow on their children since they used not the authority they had over them but only to encourage them to confess Christ Jesus and not to be ashamed of the Gospel But because according to the observation of a holy Father the Discourses one makes use of to excite to Virtue S. Chry. ho. 20. super Ephes carry with them I know not what kinde of repulse for them to whom they are addressed and with whatever sweetness one seasons them they still cause a sadness and a dejection in their spirits therefore Sister you may make use of another means than that of Words to instruct them and you may handsomely gain that of them by Lecture which the fear of tiring them caused you to smother in silence and not to inculate unto them by Discourse The Second Means Lecture or Reading CAuse your children to reade the History of the holy Scripture the New Testament the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles St. Gregory of Nisse Brother of St. Basil the Great in a letter wherein he describes the Life of St. Macrina his Sister speaking of the manner how her Mother educated her says That she took extreme care to have her instructed not adds he as they ordinarily instruct them of that age by explicating unto them the Fables of Poets For she conceived that that was to act against the shamefacedness
and civility of Virgins and the means to empoison those well-born and yet tender souls by shewing to them in Tragedies of Women transported by love and in Comedies such shameful filthinesses as are unfit to be heard by persons of their Sex who are obliged not so much as to think of them But in lieu of these she caused her to learn such passages of the sacred Scripture as were most easy to be understood and most proper for her age Thus she began by the Wisdom of Solomon out of which she selected the sentences which were most convenient to regulate her life and all the motions of her spirit She was also very skilful in the Psalms and divided them into certain hours St. Jerome in the Letter he wrote to a certain holy Widow whereof I have already made frequent mention to teach her in what manner she was to train up her Daughter will have this little girl to apply her self timely to the reading of the holy Scripture to learn in the Proverbs of Solomon the Rules and the Maxims of good life to accustom her self by the Lecture of Ecclesiastes to despise the World and to trample under her feet all its grandures and all its vanities to furnish her self with examples of courage and of patience by reading the Book of Job that afterwards she should reade the Gospels and have them always in her hands that she should reade with fervour the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles and after she shall have filled her self with the riches she hath heaped up by these precious Lectures let her moreover reade the rest of the Books of sacred Scripture He will also have her reade the works of the holy Fathers take delight therein and seek there the nourishment and the establishment of her Faith St. Chrysostom acknowledges no other source of all the evils which are committed in the World S. Chry. ho. 9. Ep. ad Coloss but the ignorance of the holy Scriptures Listen says this Father all you who are engaged in the World and who have a Family and children to govern S. Chry. ho. 21. in ep ad Eph. c. 5. how St. Paul recommends particularly unto you the reading of the holy Scripture with great diligence Think not that the Lecture of holy Books is unprofitable to your son One of the first things he will there finde will be the obligation he hath to honour you and without doubt God hath so permitted it that you might not say 't is only for solitary and Religious persons to reade it Say not that you have no designe that your Son should be Religious and that therefore he needs not this reading since you ought at least to make him a good Christian and that those children who are designed to live in the World are they to whom the science of the sacred Scripture is principally necessary There is says the same Saint much weakness and a strong inclination to wickedness in children the weakness and this dangerous inclination encreases dayly by the impression they receive from such things as they learn What bad effects then may it not have in a young man to know that those Hero's of antiquity whom they admire were lovers of Wine and good cheer that they were slaves to their passions and that the motives they had in all their enterprises were Pride and Ambition Let them therefore seek for a Counter-poyson in the sacred Scripture and apply them from their tenderest Infancy to this holy reading I well see that I shall seem to dallie adds this Saint because I always say over the same thing yet I will never cease to do what is in me to render your children perfect Christians To this end teach them to sing the Psalms of David S. Chry. ho. 9. in ep ad Colos c. 3. those Spiritual Canticles being full of that Divine Phylosophy which Christ Jesus came to teach men instructing them by recreating them Psal 1. v. 1. and 14. They will learn there in the beginning to fly the company of the wicked and to seek that of the good And as there is scarcely any Mysteries and Verities in Christianism which are not contained in that sacred Poesie they will there see the small solidity that can be found in all creatures the sweetness and the advantage that is found in the practise of Virtues and finally they will there finde the knowledge of their duties towards God and towards their Neighbour 'T is thus that by accustoming them betimes to taste these things you will render them easily capable of higher truths And like as Fruits of Trees retain much of the quality of the earth where they are planted and of the waters which moysten them so the actions which your children shall do during their whole life time and which will be properly the fruits of their souls will always retain something of the sweetness and of the purity of those wholesome waters which they drew in their Infancy from the holy Scriptures I believe Sister that nothing needs to be added to these Words issuing out of so holy and so eloquent a mouth upon an occasion wherein the Holy Ghost communicated to him not only the lights which he bestows on all them who preach the Gospel but wherein according to the common opinion of Divines he assisted him more particularly than he did the other Doctours to give him entrance into the sentiments and feelings which he had inspired into St Paul and which this great Patriark explicated to his people Now if you desire to know more fully the importance of this second means I have proposed to you S. Aug. Conf. l. 1. take the pains to reade in that excellent Translation which is published of the Confessions of St. Augustin four or five of the last Chapters of the first Book You shall see how that great Saint examining there all the actions of his life by the help of the lights of that Grace which he had received in Baptism and which ever after he had strengthned makes it appear that the study of Poets and profane Authours is in regard of children who are engaged therein as a Sea full of Monsters and of rocks where the best provided suffer shipwrack and that the choicest and most eloquent Words of the Courtiers of Augustus are but Golden Vessells full of Poyson which are presented to us by drunken Doctours and by men who have lost their right reason and their good sense You will see how he there brands with Idolatry this manner of instructing children and that addressing himself to God as it were to complain to his Divine goodness of the Tyranny which is exercised upon their spirits by instilling Vice into them by these studies he exclaims and utters these admirable Words What then Lord was there no other means to exercise my spirit and my tongue Without doubt O Lord had I discovered your praises in your sacred Scriptures and had they made me reade them they had