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
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
from their Infancy and then they will never need our threats or our severity We carry our selves towards them in such sort as if a Physitian having said nothing to a sick person whom he saw fallen into a languishing condition and having prescribed him no remedies for his cure whilst they were capable to have their effect ordains him a great number after the noble parts were corrupted by the disease and that he was become incurable All the evill we see says he in another place Chrys ho. 46. in 1. epist ad Tim. proceeds from our own laziness and from our negligence and because we strive not to inform our children in piety in their most tender years We take much care and pains to have them instructed in the profane Arts and Sciences we procure for them with all our power advantagious employments in the Court and in the Camp We hourd up Wealth for them We get them Freinds In brief we do all we can to render them considerable in the world but we take no care to acquire them the favour and love of the King of Angels nor to make them obtain one day an honourable rank in the Court of Heaven And surely did parents timely accustom their children to the yoak of a holy discipline whilst they are yet young did they take pains to bring them by little and little to their duty when they first begin to be froward and hard to be ruled if they strove to cure the diseases of their soul when they have not yet taken root and to pull up their passions before they are grown strong we should have nothing to do with laws nor with judgements nor with punishments and chastisements For the Law as St. Paul says is not made for the Just but because we neglect their Education we enwrap them in a world of miseries and oftentimes we our selves deliver them up to the Executioners and throw them headlong into hell In Christianism it is the Maxim of a wise and discreet conduct to do all and to omit nothing which may strengthen us against the assault of vices But the means Sister to succeed in so holy an enterprise is in the lowest age of your children to seize upon all the avenues of their spirit and of their heart and to render virtue the absolute Mistress there by a prompt banishment of every thing which may make there the least vicious impression True it is that children are not capable to distinguish virtue and vice having not yet the use of reason But yet as a famous Divine observes they may contract according to the Idea's and the Fancies which they receive by their parents education a certain inclination which will much help them or much hurt them when coming to the use of their liberty they must apply themselves to vice or to virtue in making a good or bad choice and as St. Basil says that at the same time when reason shall dictate unto them the good they ought to do S. Basil in his great R. Rule 10. the habit and the custom will facilitate the execution And think not Sister that this is little considerable For if in the judgement of St. Thomas and several other Divines Man is bound by a natural precept and upon pain of Mortal sin to convert himself to God as soon as he hath the perfect use of reason it cannot be but that which serves for a disposition to so important an action must be of highest consequence What Father is there who knowing his son to be in danger of loosing his life or to fall into the hands of Enemies if he passes such a way endeavours not to put him in safety and to secure him from the dangers which threaten him And what Mother is there whose Daughter being loaden with precious Jewells watches not with much care for fear lest Robbers should bereave her of them We cannot doubt but that the devil employs all his industry to make a childe lose the grace of his Baptism and that he endeavours to determine him at first to make choice of Vice And since he hath no stronger Weapons to conquer us than our own inclinations can it be doubted but that he will easily bring about his designe if he findes those of a childe totally inclined to vanity and to the love of Worldly pomps and pleasures This made St. Gregory the Great say S. Greg. l. 4. Dial. c. 18. That although we are piously to believe that the baptized children who dye in their Infancy enter into the Heavenly Kingdom yet we ought not to imagine that all they who can speak are saved because there are some of them against whom Parents shut Heaven gates by the bad Education they give them The same Saint after he had related the dreadful chastisement which God laid upon a Father in the City of Rome for having suffered his Son of five years old to blaspheme the name of God thunders out these astonishing words 'T is thus that God would make known to this unhappy Father how highly he was culpable and that he would make him understand how by neglecting the Soul of this little Infant he nourished a great sinner for Hells eternal flames These are his own expressions And this undoubtedly made Sara whom the Apostle St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.2 proposes to all Christian Women for their pattern resolve to urge Abraham to drive Agar and her son out of his house because she feared lest Isaac should be corrupted by him and lest they should contract bad customes together And the resolution of this prudent Woman was so just Gen. 11.12 that God approved it having made known to Abraham that he ought not to oppose a designe which was so discreet and so advantagious to Isaac And surely even as a small straying which was not perceived in the beginning of a journey carries one extremely astray from the place one intended to go and as a little breach in a Damm being neglected causes in the sequel great spoils and havocks even so a small evil becomes mortal if one applies not a prompt remedy and that which in Infancy was only a simple affection for things indifferent becomes in a more advanced age a violent love for things prohibited The fair Language of Graccus's mother contributed much to his Eloquence says S. Jerome Hortensius learned to speak well in his own house St. Jerom. in epist ad Latam and Alexander the Great could not quit the Vices of a Governour who had taught him in his Infancy notwithstanding that he was otherwise very powerful and had conquered the major part of the World which shews how hard it is to blot out of the spirit of a young man the tinctures it hath taken in his Infancy that it conserves almost always the first impressions it hath received and that as St. Ireneus says what one learns in that age becomes as it were the same thing with our Soul St. Ireneus in ep ad Florin and is
they design for the World For it is certain that Virtue hath this advantage to make it self esteemed by its own enemies and that if it hath not sufficient allurements and charms strong enough to gain all mens hearts yet it hath power and strength enough to draw their admiration See we not that sweetness and humility in Artists contents more than their adress and their industry If there is a Judge who will not be corrupted is he not desired by all sorts of persons to be the arbitratour of their life and fortune And they who have the least Ambition and the least love for Offices and Commands are they not says St. Chrysostom most welcom in the Courts of Soverain Kings and Princes Do not fear that the modesty of your Daughters in their dress that their reservedness in company that the little entercourse they have with young Gallants will render them less esteemed or less sought for in Marriage Their simplicity their meekness their affection for such things as concern the good government of a Family and their contempt of worldly ornaments will make them better known than strutting and vanity And if men for their diversion seek such as live according to the Maxims of the world they will not have for wives but such as follow the laws of the Gospel such as love retiredness and such as have no inclination to the Modes and Pomps of the World This fidelity to follow the Maxims of the Holy Fathers in the Education of those Children whom we designe for the World is it not advantagious to purchase them the love and esteem of all people but it is even more necessary for the salvation of their souls than for that of those Children whom they designe for Cloysters and for retrait The sole comparison which St. Chrysostom makes use of is sufficient to prove this Even as S Chry. ho. 21. in Ephes. says this Father he who stays always in the Haven stands not in so much need of a Pilot well experienced of so great a number of Mariners and of a Vessel so well equipped as he who is always at Sea and who must provide to resist the windes and the tempests so he who is designed for the solitude being to leade a quiet life and exempt from troubles and turmoils hath no need of such great strength and so many lights as he who is to sustain the most powerful shocks of the Flesh of the World and of the Devil Now if these irreconcilable enemies of mens salvation raise their strongest batteries against Children in their tenderest age they who introduce them into the World without having taught them in that tender age to contemn pleasures Riches and Honours do they not expose them naked and unarmed to the cruelty of the said Enemies We must therefore train them up to the combat from their Infancy discover to them the crafts and cunning of their enemies teach them the means to surprize and to defeat them make them know that it is almost impossible to conserve perfect health amidst the contagion and that living in the world they must always conquer or always be conquered How can they defend themselves from Ambition seeing all others greedy to make themselves great unless they are strongly perswaded of the small solidity which is found in the establishment proposed by the world Can they keep themselves to an indifference amidst the affected complacencies and the allurements of Women who will strive to gain their freindship in order to get possession of their persons and of their means unless they are perfectly convinced of the obligation they have to adhere to God alone and to prefer him before all things Or rather being not solidly setled in Piety and in the fear of God will they not suffer themselves to be carried a way by Example and by custom and losing by the Vicious habits so contracted their eternal salvation will they not make an unhappy experience of the truth of these words of St. Jerome That it is very easy to become like the wicked S. Jerom. ad Letam and to imitate in a short time the Vices of them to whose Virtue one cannot attain CHAP. XIII The means which facilitate the application of these Maxims and these Advices in the Christian Education of Children ALL these means Sister may be reduced to the care which parents ought to take to instruct their children themselves in their own persons But because we cannot receive Instruction but by the means of Speech Reading and actions and that he who plants and he who waters are nothing but that it is God who gives the encrease which he gives not ordinarily but to an humble Prayer it will be easy for you to bring up your children according to the Maxims of the Fathers of the Church if you entertain them with such things as you ought if you make them reade such Books as will profit them if you your self give them examples which they may imitate and if you take care to engage God by their Prayers and by your own to pour out his benediction upon your instructions upon their lectures and upon your Examples The first Means Speech Words or Discourse IT cannot be sufficiently deplored that Parents now adays study so little to render the Conversations which they have with their children and with their Domesticks truly Christian It seems they dare not discover to them the sentiments they have for God They hide themselves from them to say their Prayers and to acquit themselves of their least Christian duties And as if God had not placed them in their houses to give light to such as enter into it and dwell in it they rob them of their lights and contribute by a conduct so dimply shining to form the darkness which is spread over the whole World This unhappy proceeding is the cause that they ordinarily entertain themselves with nothing but trifles and things altogether unprofitable that to furnish matter for conversation they examine the actions of their neighbour they censure them and they discover their secret and unknown crimes that all their talk is but a concatenation of detraction of falshood of vanity and of pleasure and that that which should be as it were the sensible Communion of Saints in Christ Jesus and the image and expression of the communion and society which we have begun with God and with Christ Jesus by Baptism 1 Joan. 13. becomes a source of malice and is in effect nothing but a sequel of that miserable conversation which our first Parents had with the Devil Ephes 2.3 which caused the ruine of all their posterity and which rendred all their children the children of anger and indignation Shall we then wonder that the major part of the Children of Christians live in so great disorders that they are so perfectly knowing in what is necessary to frequent companies and to render themselves pleasing and that they know so little what is necessary to go to Heaven
Book because a very special care hath been taken that it should contain nothing which is not drawn from the two most pure Fountains of Truth which are The Sacred Scripture and the Works of the Church-Father THE Approbation of the Doctors THe Education of Children is one of the things of greatest importance in the World The Pagans looked upon it as the only good of the Common-Wealth they applied thereto all their cares and they composed Books upon this subject which are not the least considerable of Antiquity Which notwithstanding one may say that all their Solicitude and all their diligence proved unprofitable They sought a good which was impossible for them to discover The darkness of Paganism hindred them to acknowledge Virtue and in instructing others they could never frame to themselves any other than a gross Idea thereof and a shadow far distant from the Verity But the School of Christianism ought to be replenished with Masters much more clear-sighted and illustrated by the Lights which shine from the Fire enkindled in the Souls of the Faithfull by the Grace of Christ Jesus The sacred Scriptures and the works of the Fathers furnish the Matter and Form to make people truly good and there may be found all the precepts which are necessary to instruct Fathers and Mothers in what they ought to teach their Children The Author of this Treatise is assuredly of the number of these excellent Masters His Piety and his Learning sparkle out without Ostentation in all the passages of his Book We have read it with all possible exactness and we judge it very profitable and very necessary to be published c. Given at Paris the 24 of February 1666. T. Fortin Roileau THE CONTENTS The Preface Page 1. Chap. I. Of the Excellency of Christian Marriage pag. 6. Chap. II. That the Education of Children is one of the most considerable employs of Christianism And of the first errour which causes it to be neglected which is the mean Idea men have of the Christian Life p. 14. Chap. III. Of the Second Errour which causes a neglect of the Education of Children which is the little care Parents take to preserve them in Innocence p. 25. Chap. IV. How highly Fathers and Mothers are interessed in the Christian Education of their Children and in particular of what importance it is to Mothers p. 30. Chap. V. Wherein particularly consists the Obligation which Fathers and Mothers have to endeavour the Christian Education of their Children p. 42. Chap. VI. With what Dispositions they are to labour in the Christian Education of their Children p. 50. Chap. VII What Ideas or Forms they ought to propose to themselves for their imitation in the Christian Education of Children p. 68. Chap. VIII An Introduction to the Maxims which Christians ought to follow in the Education of Children p. 77. Chap. IX The Maxims which ought to be observed to render the Education of Children Christian p. 84. I. Maxim Drawn from the sacred Scripture p. 85. II. Maxim Drawn from S. John Chrysostom p. 88. III. Maxim Concerning the manner how Parents are to love their Children p. 95. IV. Maxim Concerning the care they ought to take to disintangle Children from the World and to inspire into them Christian Sentiments and Feelings p. 98. V. Maxim Concerning the search they ought to make of the predominant inclinations of their Children p. 102. VI. Maxim Touching the Instruction of Children p. 104. VII Maxim Touching the Motives whereby to engage Children to labour and to do what one desires of them p. 112. VIII Maxim Touching the care Parents ought to take for their Childrens health and of what concerns their Bodies p. 117. IX Maxim Touching what is particularly to be avoided in conversation before Children p. 120. X. Maxim Touching the Corrections of Children p. 122. XI Maxim Touching the differences and disagreements which Children ordinarily have with the Domesticks and the liberties they take with them p. 125. XII Maxim Touching the freedom which is to be given to Children to express their thoughts and opinions p. 128. XIII Maxim Touching the Patience wherewith Parents are to support their Children and to moderate their resentments of injuries received from others p 132. XIV Maxim Touching the Equality which Parents are to keep among their Children p. 140. XV. Maxim Touching the Lodging of Children p. 150. XVI Maxim Touching the Complacency which Parents have in their Children p. 151. XVII Maxim Touching the Plays and Recreations of Children p. 152. XVIII Maxim Touching what Company ought to be permitted to children p. 155. XIX Maxim Touching the care which is to be taken to induce children to do what they ought to their Fathers p. 160. Chap. X. Important Advices for the Christian Education of Children p. 165. I. Advice Concerning the Exercises and ornaments of the world p. 165. II. Advice Touching worldly Songs p. 183. III. Advice Touching Romances p. 194. IV. Advice Touching Balls Dancings and publick Meetings p. 203. V. Advice Touching Stage-Plays p. 218. VI. Advice Touching Gaming and against the Wantonness and Idleness of Worldlings p. 246. VII Advice That in the Education of Children Parents should particularly propose to themselves to induce them to consecrate themselves to God and to serve him p. 280. Chap. XI At what Age these Maxims and these Advices ought to be applied p. 303. Chap. XII That these Maxims and these Advices are principally to be followed in the Education of such Children as are designd for the world p. 317. Chap. XIII The means which facilitate the application of these Maxims and Advices in the Christian Education of Children p. 326. The I. Means Speech Words or Discours p. 327. The II. Means Lecture or Reading p. 352. The III. Means Example p. 364. The IV. Means Prayer p. 371. Chap. XIV What is most opposite to the application of these Maxims and these Advices in the Christian Education of Children p. 394. OF The Christian Education Of CHILDREN The Preface NOthing is more common among men then Marriage and nothing is more unknown then the Duties of this so common a condition The major part of them who engage themselves therein look only on its outside and on that which it hath of carnal and terrestrial and they do not at all inform themselves either of the obligations which it includes or of the extreme difficulties there are to acquit ones self Christianly therein They embark themselves and enter upon this voyage of their whole lives without knowing whether they go or what course they are to stear and contracting an undissolvable alliance with a strange person they scarcely known him who must be not only the Companion of their happiness or unhappiness in this life but who must be one of the principal causes thereof both in this life and for all Eternity To embrace solemnly a Regular life under the Obedience of a Superiour chosen among many for his Virtues and for his good qualities there must be at least a year of
triall according to the Ordinance of the Church but to have a Maid rank her self under the Obedience of a Husband and take upon her the charge of a Family which requires almost the submission of a Religious person and the prudence of a Superiour they fancy that no time is too short they conclude these kinde of affairs in the space of a Month or Fifteen days without making reflection upon the dispositions and upon the qualities the persons have to acquit themselves of these Duties Yet when they are once engaged there is no more means left to give back They must keep on to the end of their earthly pilgrimage and satisfy the duties of their condition or renounce their salvation They may well repent themselves of the rashness of their engagement but they are no longer free to change it Wherefore they who finde themselves thus tyed up seeing that God forbids them to disengage themselves ought to believe that 't is his will they should remain in that State in whatever manner they entred into it and that they should sincerely apply themselves to know and to practice that which he demands and expects of them The knowledge of these Obligations which the light of God gives to some Souls which are thus engaged without having maturely considered of it is for them in some sort the beginning of their Vocation For if one cannot say that they were called to the State of Marriage yet one cannot doubt but that at least they were called in Marriage and that suffices to move them to remain therein in peace and repose according to the advice of St. Paul Let every one remain in the Vocation and in the State to which God hath called him 1 Cor. 7.20 All then they have to do is humbly to adore the designes of God upon them to content themselves with the measure of grace he gives them and by not hiding from themselves the difficulties and the obligations of their State to resolve to accomplish faithfully whatever God appoints them Now if the persons who have slieghtly engaged themselves in Marriage are obliged not to hide from themselves the Difficulties and the Obligations of that Estate they who as you my Sister have not embraced it but after many Prayers and serious Reflections may they neglect them without being unfaithful to the lights and to the graces by which God hath made them conceive the Hope of being sanctified therein by accomplishing the things which he exacts of them Wherefore to be in a condition to practice them yet more perfectly then you perchance have done hitherto you must quit all humane sentiments and feelings and raise up your self above all the low and carnal aspects which people have ordinarily of Marriage to the end you may enter into the sentiments of Christ Jesus and into the designes he had in exalting this humane alliance to so high a dignity CHAP. I. Of the Excellency of Christian Marriage ONe of the principal reasons which induced the Saviour of the world to place so great a dignity upon the humane alliance of Marriage was the will he had to sanctify by this means the generation of Children and to give to married persons the necessary graces to apply themselves holily to their Education For as St. Augustin observes August l. 1. de Nupt. c. 8. The will of faithful people not determinating it self in Marriage only to put Children into the world to dye but to the end that they being born again in Christ Jesus may receive eternal life how could they have acquitted themselves of this Duty with greater ease than in receiving when they contract this holy alliance the particular grace which our Lord hath annexed to it and which he hath merited for them by his Passion 'T is by this grace that Marriage hath been re-established in its first dignity from which it was fallen after sin in the law of Nature and in the law of Moses And as the holy Council of Trent says 'T is by it that the natural love which married persons bear to one another hath been perfected that the iudissoluble union of their hearts hath been strengthned and that all their actions have been sanctified The 2d Motive which induced Christ Jesus to raise the Marriage of Christians to the dignity of a Sacrament was that he might give us an exteriour and sensible signe of the infinite love he bears us and of the strict Union he hath contracted with the Church which is his Spouse so that the principal glory of them whom he unites by this sacred knot is the honour they have to represent perfectly unto us this Divine alliance This is that which St. Paul admirably expresses in his Epistle to the Ephesiaus in such terms as I could wish could be engraven in the bottom of your heart and which I conjure you to keep continually in your Memory Let the Wives says this Apostle be submitted to their Husbands as they are to God for the Husband is the Head of the Wife as Christ Jesus is the Head of the Church which is his Body and whereof he is the Saviour Wherefore as the Church is submitted to Christ Jesus so Women ought to be submitted in every thing to their Husbands And you Husbands love your Wives as Christ Jesus hath loved his Church and hath delivered himself to death for her to the end he might sanctify her after he had purified her by the Word in the Water of Baptism and that she might appear before him full of Glory having neither blemish nor wrinkle nor any such like thing but being holy and irreprehensible Thus Husbands ought to love their Wives as their own Bodies He who loves his Wife loves himself for no one hates his own Flesh but nourishes it and entertains it as Christ Jesus doth his Church because we are the Members of his Body making a part of his Flesh and of his Bones And 't is for this that it is sayd in the Scripture that a man shall abandon his Father and his Mother to live with his Wife and that of two which they were they should become one selfsame Flesh Thus let every one of you love his Wife as himself and let the Wife respect and honour her Husband Eph. 5.22 c. You see by this my Sister that St. Paul makes a continual Parallel of Jesus Christ and of his Church with the Christian Bridegroom and his Spouse that he concludes the Duties of the Wife towards her Husband and the Duties of the Husband towards his Wife of the Submission which the Church hath for Christ Jesus and of the Grace which Christ Jesus communicates to his Church and that he gives no other Idea or Form of the mutual Love or Fidelity which they owe to one another and of the indissoluble Union which ought to be between them than the Love which Christ Jesus hath for his Spouse than the Fidelity which this holy Spouse hath for Christ Jesus and than the Union
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
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
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
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
that what he thus ordains us to do is not that he may know our will since that cannot be concealed from him but to enflame our desires by the instance of our prayers and to render us capable to receive that which he is ready to grant us For by how much his Presents are great and magnificent by so much our hearts are little and limited to receive them Therefore the Scripture says Open your Hearts Now these so excellent and so sublime Goods which the Eye hath not seen because they are not colours which the Ear hath not heard because they are not sounds and which are not elevated in the heart of man because the heart of man ought on the contrary elevate it self towards them these Goods I say shall be communicated unto us with so much more aboundance by how much we have believed with more Faith hoped with more Confidence desired with more Ardour 'T is therefore by a continual Desire founded upon Faith Hope and Charity that we pray without intermission But if at certain hours and certain times we employ Words in prayer 't is only to animate us by those exteriour signs to conceive these holy affections to make us observe what progress they have made in our heart and to excite us to encrease them For the effect of our prayer is by so much greater by how much the ardour of our desires hath been greater So that when the Apostle says Pray without ceasing he intends only that we should desire without ceasing to obtain that happy life which is no other than the eternal blisse of him who alone can give it us If then we demand this of God incessantly we pray incessantly But because the cares and Incumbrances of the World cool sometimes our desires we recall at certain hours of the day our spirit to prayer and we re-place before our Eyes by the Words which we address to God this last end whether we ought to tend by our desires for fear lest that which begins to fall into Tepidity should pass into a Coldness and proceed in the end to be totally extinguished if it be not re-inkindled by frequent prayers This being so it cannot be bad or unprofitable to employ much time in prayer when our leasure permits it that is when it hinders us not from acquitting our selves of other laudable and necessary things to which our duty obliges us although in these very occupations we ought always to pray by the activity of our desires For it is to be observed that it is not one and the same thing to pray along time or to pray with many words as some imagine but that there is a difference between a long and continual desire since it is written That our Lord passed over the night in Prayer and that he prayed very long And there is reason to believe that he would induce us thereby to imitate his example he who prayed so perfectly to his Father in the time of his mortal life and who hears us so mercifully with his Father in eternity They say that our Brethren the Hermits of Egypt make frequent Prayers but very short and that they only lift up their hearts to God from time to time by lively and ardent prayers without staying too long upon them for fear lest this application and this fervour of spirit so necessary in prayer should relent or be dissipated if this prayer were too continual This also gives us to understand that as we ought not to weary and blunt our spirit by forcing our selves to entertain it in this fervour when it begins to slacken so we ought not to hasten to interrupt it when we feel it continues Because if on the one side one ought to bannish from prayer the superfluity of Words one ought on the other side to sustain it by continual desires and demands so long as the spirit perseveres in its application and in its fervour For to speak too much in prayer is to employ superfluous Words to ask a thing necessary and to pray much is by holy and continual motions of the heart to press him to whom we pray to render himself favourable to our demands But oftentimes this passes more in sighing than in speaking Discourses have not so great a part as tears and then it is that he whose eternal word made all things makes it appear that they are not the temporal Words of men which are pleasing to him but their sighs and tears 'T is then Sister this prayer of the heart and this entertainment with God which is done in silence in recollection in the disengagement from all exteriour things and by the interiour sighs and affections of the soul that Christian Mothers ought to make their Children love and practise 'T is a Yoak which is good for them to bear from their youth and as soon as they begin to make use of their understanding and their reason 'T is a Yoak which replenishes the Soul with comfort and sweetness 'T is a Yoak which sustains and strengthens and renders them who bear it capable to raise up themselves above themselves and above all earthly objects And do not alledge to me S. Chrysost says St. John Chrysostom that Children are not capable of this fervour of this recollection and of this application which Prayer requires since we have in Scripture the examples of several children and of many young people who have by the means of Prayer drawn upon them very great blessings Samuel was but twelve years old when God called him in the Temple Samuel and discovered to him the designes he had upon the house of Heli. Solomon was very young when he made that admirable Prayer which moved God to render him the wisest and the most powerful Prince that ever was Finally Solomon Daniel Daniel was no more than eight or nine years of age when by a feeling of piety he refused to eat the Meats presented to him from the table of King Nabuchodonosor and by the means of Fasting and Prayer he merited those extraordinary gifts which rendred him at the age of twelve years the deliverer of the chaste Susanna and afterwards the Miracle of his age Nor must Mothers alledge their domestick affairs and the cares of their family to dispense themselves from following their Prayers since we see in that little Collection of Pietie now newly printed Recuil de piete that a Princess of our days prescribed to her self a method of praying three times every day Marg. de Portug Dutchess of Parma to wit half an hour in the Morning half an hour at mid day and half an hour in the Evening For if persons of that condition and so much engaged in the world as Princes are have the fidelity to apply themselves to this Exercise and acknowledge the need and the fruit thereof what a lesson should not this Example give to all other persons who have more leasure and liberty and with what ardour should all
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