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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84659	Theion enōtikon, A discourse of holy love, by which the soul is united unto God Containing the various acts of love, the proper motives, and the exercise of it in order to duty and perfection. Written in Spanish by the learned Christopher de Fonseca, done into English with some variation and much addition, by Sr George Strode, Knight.; Tratado del amor de Dios. English	Fonseca, Cristóbal de, 1550?-1621.; Strode, George, Sir, 1583-1663.	1652 (1652)	Wing F1405B; Thomason E1382_1; ESTC R772	166,624	277

incorruptible What is Musick but an harmony or consonancy of various discordant sounds What 's health but a temper or accord of the elements and parts of the body Some write that the stone Tuces if broken though then lesse weighty sinketh but so long as it is one whole and intire then and so long it swimmeth and keeps from sinking under water and the like power hath love and unity in all other bodies Consider and know that if the Almighty Architect of the world had not breathed or infused a spirit of unity into the upper and celestiall parts with the inferiour elementary that these had soon been scorched and indeed consumed by those Again the inferiour parts ever stand in need and crave the help benefit or influence of those above them as the earth of the water the water of the aire the aire of the fire and the fiery element of the Heavens in which if one Sphere should thwart and not gently yeeld to the others influence or motion they as the inferiour world would suddenly perish and be consumed The great Creator of these and all things in and under them Genesis 1.31 gave not the high praise and title of very good unto them untill himself by his most admirable power and goodnesse Gen. 1.31 had united them by love and so made them all one I cannot but acknowledge the saying of that Philosopher to be good and wise who called this kinde of love the Soul of the world For as the soule gives life and motion unto the body so doth love unto all other things and as the soule cherisheth and enlightens the bodie so doth love beautifie and inrich the world In a word there is no creature nor part of the world either great or small but hath if not all yet the greatest part of its perfection subsistence or continuance from this love But besides this kinde of love hitherto spoken of which in unreasonable creatures may more strictly be called inclination there is a love properly so termed which hath its working in the will both of God Angels and men Parmenides though an Heathen could say That love in God preceded the Chaos or the creation of the world as causing and making both Take this love as in man and then hear another Philosopher call it the Pilot a second the Sun a third the guide and director of the will of man and of all his choice actions CHAP. II. What love is and how it is the cause of all passions THings high and immense having some resemblance to infinity hardly come under the limits of a strict definition which hath caused the ancients to set forth love by Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks Yet so that some have in generall described it by negatives as that it is a thing which is I know not what affecteth and worketh I know not in what manner and which hurteth I know not how S. Gregorie calls it the fire in mans heart which according to the working thereof either cherisheth or destroyeth the Tabernacle of its residence and it may well be conceived that when the holy Ghost descended in the figure or shew of fire Act. 2.3 that that fire signified the love and accord to be amongst the holy Apostles being assembled together in one place which is the complement and blessing of all good Assemblies when they are all of one minde and one heart in a godly innocent love The fire which came from Heaven to consume the Sacrifice God commanded ever to be continued Levit. ● 13 that so it might never be extinguished or put out Isaiah saith Isa 31.9 That God hath his fire in Sion and his furnace in Jerusalem each Symbols of Gods love burning in the temple of our souls Now Philosophy teacheth that love is a passion both of complacency and such as fasteneth the thing or person beloved in the heart of the lover and it addeth That this love is the originall cause of all other passions in man according as they please or displease suit with or are contrary to our love and desire For the soule of man hath two great powerfull faculties called by Philosophers the concupiscible and the irascible In that are love hate desire fear joy and sorrow arising from the presence or absence of something or other which is either truly or apparently good And according as the concupiscible part is affected with grief want or losse of that which is desired so more or lesse the irascible part is inflamed or incensed to the prosecution or revenge of the affronts or bereavings of the souls desire S. Basil compared this passion unto the Shepherds dog more valued by him then many of his sheep not for that the dog hath any wooll or gives any milk but because by his watchfulnesse and barking he defendeth the flock from the wolf and so the concupiscible faculty or part of the soule proposeth to it self matter of delight and content and the irascible removeth or converteth the inconveniences and difficulties which crosse or oppugne this desire And these are the two wings wherewith mans soule flyeth in the pursuit of great Acts and without which she appears as a Galley unoared and a bird unwinged each unable to move or help it self A certain Philosopher hath compared the body of a man to a Coach drawn with two horses Conceive them to be love of good and hatred of evill But considering that they are disorderly and oft-times unruly God hath assigned them a discreet guide that is reason to rule and govern them Seneca the Philosopher calleth this the Guardian and S. Augustine termeth it the Author and Mover of all our actions be they good or evill as having tied at its girdle the keyes of all our wills and affections Betwixt love and concupiscence some put this difference 1. That concupiscense aimeth at a supposed good that is absent but love both at the absent and present 2. Concupiscence after the having and enjoying the thing desired as being satisfied groweth cold or ceaseth for the present to desire whereas love by possessing and injoying increaseth and is more ardent towards the thing beloved For the possession or enjoyment of the thing beloved serveth as fuell to continue and increase the flame or fire whereas things desired by a concupiscence being injoyed die and are often resolved into the smoak of disgrace or the ashes of hate CHAP. III. The power and force of Love SOlomon saith Love is strong as death But if we examine the strength of each we shall finde love to be the stronger ●antic ● 6 T is true that all earthly things submit to the power of death the young as the old the King as the Peasant the rich as the poor the wise as the fool Scepters and spades are both alike to death All know this truth would we did but half so well consider and prepare for it And as the jurisdiction of death so is that of love universall None ever escaped the

in ordinary is the utmost and if saith he by reason of strength they live eighty years yet is their strength labour and sorrow and although King David a man of an excellent constitution lived to seventy years as it is computed by the best yet this saith he is but an hand-breadth or indeed as nothing before thee ô Lord Ps 39.5 for would the God think of the everlasting joyes in heaven of the wicked of their never dying torments in hell they both might say that this hand-breadth of time was as nothing We read of a beast called from the continuance of its life the Ephemeris which though it live according to his appellative name but one day yet it falls presently to provide for sustenance as though it might live years Mans life be it at the largest as in ordinary the term of seventy years yet in respect of eternity or indeed of the frailty and uncertainty of the continuance thereof it is in 〈…〉 often called a day and yet man much like that beast labours builds purchaseth as though he were to live for ever and although he be here but a pilgrim a stranger and travailer to another place yet like an unwise factor he stores up all his goods here whence he is as to morrow to depart and never transports them whither he is to go there to give an account of his employment and to enjoy his well spent travailes for ever and such is the folly and most deplorable vanity of man Which error will appear the greater to him that considers the frailty of mans life in respect of the materials whereof mans body consists 2 Of the artifice and curious workmanship whereby it is wrought 3 How it is subject to the power almost of every thing to be broken and dissolved Now the best and strongest materiall of mans body is earth and as Adam was made out of it so he and mankind is called from the earth Adam and homo man so that man much resembles a swallows nest made of straw and dirt such mans bones and clay such his flesh and how frail and easily broken this or that is may appear when we see a little boy with a slick to pull that down in pieces and less then that every nothing of violence to do as much to the body of man for what of earthly vessells account we more britle then a Venice glass yet this kept up and secured from violence or outward force shall outlast two lives of any man a China dish so preserved shall indure twenty mens lives Whereas such is the materials of mans body that let him diet and behave himself according to Galens best rules let him lye warm and enjoy himself a bed without spending his spirits yet even in this diet and enjoyment without any hurt or violence done unto him he shall consume and molder away unto that whence be was taken Now to the weak brittleness of mans materials if you add the curious nice composition and joyning of his parts you may rather wonder how he should live a moneth then to mervaile that he should die so young the Psalmist to the honour of Gods great power and wisdome acknowledged that man is wonderfully made Ps 139.14 and that so much beyond the art and skill of any the best workman in the world that when any piece pin or wheel in the most exquisite work of man may be renewed if broken repaired if worne and put again in its place if out of frame yet to do the like in mans body exceeds the skill of all the best Physitians that ever were for be the heart be the liver be the brain wounded yea be they but pricked with a needle be they putrefied or be they displaced all the work is spoiled and comes to nothing and mans life is lost But if you consider how the least and weakest externall things have power to destroy this body of man can you say less then that he is a frail and brittle piece I will not complain as some have done yet I may tell you that God by his journyman Nature hath sent all other creatures some way or other armed or strengthened into the world against outward force or hurt and man only is put forth naked weak unfenced so that take him at his best growth strength there is no element nor any little part of any element fire aire water or earth though man be made of these but is able to undo him and take away his life Yea a flie a kernell a haire hath done as much to many and not only the living in a corrupt aire may do the like but the sent of a little subtile infection conveyed by a glove a piece of linnen or the like may do the same thing But if to these we add that which both history and philosophy confirme that a man may de dissolved by extreme joy caused by that which is good and harmeless how then may any man deny this certain and known truth that mans life is a frail thing or rather nothing but frailty And not only thus frail but a thing unstable and mutable daily and hourly running on and making way to its corruption and dissolution Therefore when you see and observe the motion and going down of a watch the running of the water in a stream which returnes not the burning of a candle which wasts in giving light of flowers grasse leaves which in the morning are green and flourishing and ere night are cut down and withered or will you think on and consider what is a vapor a shadow a dream or the dream of a shadow Thus know in seeing thinking and considering these all or any of these that you see think and consider the continuall mutability and change of mans life running and flying to its last end Neither may we wisely wonder or justly complain when we consider this that Abel the youngest of all the world dies first or that in the bils of mortality we finde more children die then old men for God in his wonderfull wisdome and goodnesse hath thus provided and ordered it for man that he may hence learn two lessons that it is no argument of Gods disfavour but an evidence of his love to take us early from the worlds miseries and betimes to estate us in eternall felicity and secondly that man considering what a chang●●ble thing his life is he may provide against it all he can or may and the best that he may and can is to thinke on and labour for an exchange of this mutable life for an unchangeable to come And to this end God hath so fixed his greater and lesser lights in heaven that looking on them we may daily and hourly consider that although to us they seem not to move yet they are in continuall motion and tending to their journies end and that it is alike in man And further to these heavenly visible lessons he hath joyned his legible instructions in his holy

ΘΕΙΟΝΕΝΩΤΙΚΟΝ A DISCOURSE OF HOLY LOVE By which the SOUL is united unto GOD. Containing the various Acts of Love the proper Motives and the Exercise of it in order to Duty and Perfection WRITTEN IN SPANISH By the learned CHRISTOPHER de FONSECA Done into English with some Variation and much Addition By Sr GEORGE STRODE KNIGHT LONDON Printed by J. Flesher for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane 1652. Charitie The Epistle Dedicatory Dear Children THE good old Patriarch Jacob constrained in his later days to live in a strange Country considered the manner how to make himself happy and to bless his Children before his death Such were the thoughts of my heart in these sad distracted times when in the declination of my age I was inforced to eat my bread in forein parts where having abandoned the thorny cares and troubled cogitations of worldly imployments some way to alienate the weight of my pressing afflictions I resolved by studious endevours to find the right and true way to my eternal habitation and heavenly Country as it is manifested in the book of God which although alsufficient every way for mans salvation yet I omitted not to cast mine eyes on such objects as might prove helps to discover the clearest and easiest paths for my better conduct thereunto to which end amongst other books I translated this treatise intituled the Love of God Compiled in Spanish by the learned Christopher De Fonseca This when I had finished and considered that the generall subject of the whole work was love and the severall parts thereof might tend to the better ordering of a Godly Moral and Civil life I knew not unto whom more fitly to recommend it as the Legacy of a dying man then to you my dear children the living Cions of my Corporall stock and the comfortable cares of my drooping age and this I do the rather bequeath unto you as confident that you like Noahs good children will not onely turn your own eyes from your fathers nakedness in this his undertaking but as much as in you is labour to cover the same from others But that which especially invites me to address this tract unto you is that you may not only be put in minde so far as God shall inable you to imitate your father in Holy Love whereby I may seem to revive and live again in you but that making your selves first Scholars and followers and then having your hearts replenished with the Spirit of Love and your feet conducted in the right paths of Charity you may become guides of others unto the heavenly Canaan After which as my soul ever longed move then after all earthly goods worldly contents or fleshly delights so that herein you may imitate and exceed me your father is the earnest desire hearty counsel and most fervent prayer of Your most tender affectionate father GEORGE STRODE The Contents Chapter 1. OF the division of Love into its kindes Fol. 1 Chapter 2. What love is and how it is the cause of all our passions Fol. 3 Chapter 3. Of the power and force of love Fol. 6 Chapter 4. That love is silent yet active Fol. 9 Chapter 5. How love lesseneth or facilitateth things most difficult Fol. 11 Chapter 6. Love extracteth delights and glory out of sufferings and torments Fol. 13 Chapter 7. Love transformeth the lover into the thing beloved Fol. 15 Chapter 8. Vehement love causeth extasies Fol. 19 Chapter 9. Love exchangeth and counterchangeth all with its beloved Fol. 21 Chapter 10. The motives and causes of love Fol. 25 Chapter 11. Love is only conquered and remunerated with love Thus far of love in generall Fol. 29 Chapter 12. The love of God is not to be parrallelled Fol. 33 Chapter 13. By the same means that mans love decreaseth Gods love increaseth Fol. 36 Chapter 14. Gods jealousie Fol. 39 Chapter 15. Gods revealing his secrets unto man is a great demonstration of his love Fol. 40 Chapter 16. God seemeth to be solitary without man Fol. 42 Chapter 17. Charity is the most eminent amongst all the virtues Fol. 44 Chapter 18. Our love to God is to precede all other loves Fol. 47 Chapter 19. God must be loved with the whole heart Fol. 52 Chapter 20. The love of the heavenly Angels unto man Fol. 58 Chapter 21. Of the love which man oweth to his neighbour Fol. 61 Chapter 22. The manner how we are to love our neighbour Fol. 72 Chapter 23. That we ought to love our enemies Fol. 77 Chapter 24. Motives and reasons inducing love to our enemies Fol. 86 Chapter 25. To pardon is a sign of honour and of pusillanimity to revenge Fol. 93 Chapter 26. Of friendship Fol. 102 Chapter 27. Of the comfort and benefit of friendship Fol. 111 Chapter 28. Of self-love Fol. 115 Chapter 29. Temporall goods connot give content Fol. 121 Chapter 30. Temporall goods deserve not mans love Fol. 123 Chapter 31. The brevity frailty mutability uncertainty and misery of mans life abateth the love thereof Fol. 140 Chapter 32. The honour of this world deserveth not mans love Fol. 157 Chapter 33. Pleasures and delights are not worthy of mans love Fol. 168 Chapter 34. Of the love of women Fol. 175 Chapter 35. Of the inordinate love of eating and drinking Fol. 185 Chapter 36. Of the immoderate love of apparel Fol. 195 Chapter 37. Of favorites to Princes and Conquerours in war Fol. 202 Chapter 38. Of the mutuall love of the maried couple Fol. 208 Chapter 39. Of the love of Parents and Children Fol. 247 Chapter 40. Of the love of our native Country Fol. 262 Holy Love CHAP. I. The division of Love into its kinds THat which is most pleasing and delightfull to the Soule and Nature of man next unto God is Love Of which I intending to speak by way of Preface I must tell you that there are two kinds of Love the one metaphorically so termed which is that naturall inclination in things insensate and irrationall whereby they are moved according to that which may most work to their rest or better being By the power and strength of this Love the fire ascends the earth descends the aire and water ever strive to attaine and reach their own Region or place wherein and where never till then they are at rest And I may not altogether improperly call that quality strength or vertue Love which doth so unite and knit all the parts of this great world the Vniverse together that without it both it and all the parts thereof would soon be dissolved and come to nothing of what they are An ancient Philosopher called this kinde of love unity and to this loving unity other Philosophers attributed so much that they conceived the whole world and all in it to be nothing else but that or but one entire thing which though consisting of many various and different natures are yet by Love collected drawn together and knit into one which so long as it holds to be one becomes

no God or with the Epicure he regardeth not our works below but that we may for all him eat and drink and die These and such like are the great causes of all our sinnes S. Paul professedly hath exprest so much when he saith The Gentiles have given themselves over unto all lasciviousnesse Ephes 4.19 to worke all uncleannesse with greedinesse Whereof the cause is exprest in the verse before when he saith this they did having their understandings darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindnesse of their hearts And the Prophet Hosea saith there is no knowledge of God in the land Hos 4. ● and what then follows but ver 2. swearing lying killing stealing adultery so that blood toucheth blood I may adde another cause or the ingenderer of love which is likeness Like will to like is seen among the beasts among whom sheep flock not with woolves nor will Harts heard with Lions And the like to this in man some Philosophers have attributed it to the complexion in men among whom we finde the company gesture voice and looks of some to be displeasing and distastfull to others for which the person disaffecting at first happily can give no sufficient reason Others and more neerly to reason and truth have given the cause of this love betwixt men to be the likenesse of their qualities and dispositions as the sinner hateth the righteous whatever the alliance is as it was seen in Cain to Abel Ismael to Isaac Esau to Jacob so on the other side the good just and wise love each other S. Paul hath determined this piece when he saith Be ye not unequally yoaked for what fellowship hath righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse 2 Cor. 6.14 and what communion hath light with darknesse and what concord hath Christ with Belial The Pythagorean and Platonique Philosophers were of opinion that the soules of men had a kinde of harmonious concent each to other so that as in musick one string being struck another will quaver and offer to give the like sound though not touched so say they and not improbably fareth it with the souls of many men S. Ambrose giveth another cause or parent of love which is conversation when as he tells us that to this end God walked with man in Paradise and that it is said of Enoch that he walked with God and though God had given Adam all the goods of the aire earth and water yet with none of these or any or all of the Beasts took he any delight but onely in that consort which God gave him as a companion to his body and solace to his soule and to her he cleaves and so of two they are made but one by a loving converse and agreement If any aske how this comes to passe that likenesse and conversation should thus beget continue and increase love the reason is easie and plain for seeing every man naturally loves himself and the rather because he is ever conversant with himself therefore it must needs follow that whatever is neerest to or most like him that he most neerly loveth and most desireth Can any give any other reason why man or woman delights to see their face in a glasse but because it represents them and makes them as it were to see and know themselves by this representative whereby the imagination apprehends it self CHAP. XI Love is onely conquered and repayed with Love LOve that is the inward affection of the heart is the soul as it were of the soul of man yea of the whole world for by it the world continueth and without it it could not stand as was shewed before We thank not the water nor the aire nor any inanimate or animate thing for doing us good it this good proceed from a naturall disposition in themselves without an affection of doing good to us For this latter is it which truly is called love and he that thinks ro requite this with gold or other gifts of price returns scarce drosse for gold Our Saviour and his Apostles have summed up all the Law in this kinde of Love and after all their precepts and counsels call for this love as the fulfilling of all For he that hath this cannot but believe and endeavour to work according to what is required or desired by Christ and his Apostles Our blessed Saviour promiseth heaven to him that gives but a cup of cold water in his Name Mat. 10 4● and for his sake and can any imagine that heaven is of so mean a value or water so much worth as that heaven should be given for a cup of water no not the cup of water nor all the waters under heaven can be valued with heaven but the cordiall love and affection of the heart this is that God esteems and therefore calls to every one for it when he saith My Son take all earth heaven and all as my gift and for all onely give me but thy heart Prov. 23. ● It was not Abels sacrifice nor the widows mite cast into the Treasury that God so highly prized and commended but the love of the sacrificer and giver which he esteemed more than all the worlds good For all these are his The earth is the Lords Ps ●4 1 and the fulnesse thereof And when we have these or any part thereof we receive and hold them as his gift and for all he onely requires our love which onely is ours to give If you tell me Prov. 21. ● the heart of Kings and so of all men is in the hand of the Lord he turneth it whither soever he will And that without God 2 Cor. 3.5 we cannot so much as think a good thought and therefore not love I answer that though all things in man are of him through him Rom. 11.36 and to him as the Apostle speaks yet of all things in man mans will is most his own and this so lest by God to man that for it when it freely loves God it may return him in recompence as it were his love again The free present of a paire of pigeons with man is more esteemed than the return of 100 l. which was lent and the borrower bound to repay God often expresseth his regard to the love of his servants when he asks them Am I delighted with the sacrifices of goats and bullocks Ps 50.9 and who requires these things at your hands Isa 1.12 and by his Prophet Jeremiah I spake not to your fathers Jer. 7.22 nor commanded them when I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning sacrifices to be satisfied or served therewith Save onely by these as outward testimonies of your inward affections which indeed as to me are the onely sacrifice and service And from hence iris that God and man repay love with love For love hath an Adamantine power that is able to draw the hardest heart of iron unto it self by a mutuall love For the very apprehension of

2 Cor. ●2 14 The parents ought to lay up for their children which thing if they doe not then saith the same Apostle 1 Tim. 5.8 That man that provides not for his own hath denyed the faith and is worse then an infidell for the heathens and infidels do it yea he is worse then the very beasts all which provide for their young except the Raven which as some write forsake theirs featherlesse and meatlesse leaving them to be nourished either by the dew from heaven from flies in the aire or from small wormes breeding in the nest and this if the Naturalists observation holds heightned the miracle that God wrought when he caused these Ravens such unnaturall birds to their own to feed the Prophet Elijah But to this duty of Parents providing for children I must give a memento or two which may concern the parent and some other that may respect the child to that which concerns the Parent we have a proverb or by-word Happy is that child whose father goes to the Devill and I remember when Rebecca intended in love to Jacob the younger to rob Esau the elder and and the heir of his birth-right Jacob said to his mother by this fraudulent and false way I shall bring a curse upon my self and not a blessing but what is the mothers reply upon me be the curse my son so I make thee great and Lord of all but worthily deserves that Parent the curse and justly is he rewarded with hell who fears neither the curse nor hell so he can make his son rich and great A learned Father of the Church August having reproved the immoderate raking together of riches in many men was answered by these men that all they did was for their children and every man was bound by Gods law to provide for them whereunto be replyed this seems to be the voice of piety but indeed it is the excuse of iniquity and better it were your children should want wine then you water to cool your tongue or better they should want fire here then you should burn in hell hereafter But certainly if Parents were so besotted with their love to their children as to hazard their own everlasting damnation and torture for their children yet did they consider how little benefit these ill gotten goods bring to their children and posterity in the end they would not be so hell-hardy as they are for hear what the Prophet speaks Psal 37.35.36 I have seen and so have we the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green Baytree yet he passed and loe be was not yea I sought him but he could not be sound and the Aegyptians when they would expresse such a father and his son they portrayed one twisting a rope and an other ravelling it ou● and indeed often it comes so to passe that the house reard by fraud and iniquity becomes like an house that is built of a liquid substance that the sun will consume or if not yet God as the Lord of the earth may take his own if ill gotten from him where he findes it and this without all or any shew of injustice Therefore Fathers that your estates may prove durable to your children and comfortable to your selves get them in the fear of God and by honest and just means and in the distribution of them be just and equall not giving all or the most of all to one for the raising or propagating a name and little to the rest I am not ignorant that diverse people doe it and herein they do right well because herein they seem to imitate the Jews who indeed left those lands in Canaan which came unto them and were divided by lot these for the most part as by prescription or law descended to the elder and again because the elder among them both in sacred and civill affairs and titles had the preheminence before and above the younger But neither before nor after the law given by Moses did this hold as a law that the elder should enjoy all the lands except as before I say that which by Gods immediate prescript was so divided to them by lot For before the law observe the eldest of Jacobs children Reuben Simeon and Levi and of the twelve Joseph and Benjamin the youngest yet Judah the fourth son he hath the dominion and Joseph and Benjamin the greatest part in their fathers blessing but yet so that although be gave them most whom he most aff●cted for the inward endowments and goodnesse of the soul yet he gave them all of his blessing from God liberally and proportionably to their several abilities And did not Isaac the like what did King David a man after Gods own heart who having had six sons elder then Salomon yet intended in their life time and afterward actually setled the crown upon Salomon the younger it hath been so much practised by many that it bath almost become a proverb Who best deserves best have Yet so that all may be as heirs of their Fathers spirituall so of his earthly and temporall blessing and that with some indifferent measure and proportion For although a river cut and divided into many streams runs not so strongly nor makes so great a shew or noise yet thus divided it doeth lesse harm by breaches or overflowings and more good by watering and refreshing the land And I am sure that an house bridge or castle built or setled upon most arches buttresses or piles of stone stands more firmely and for continuance then that which stands but upon one for if this one failes as oft it is seen in the heirs of England all the house falls to decay with him and is gone Now if two strings to the bow holds surest then say I why not to have two three or four rather then to trust all to one but if you shall adde hereunto the heart-burnings contentions troubles and wars not only between Davids children or Isaacs or between the Edomites and Israelites the issue and posterity of Esau and Jacob but of thousands more upon unequall distributions you will soon conclude that it is neither wise good nor safe to give all or most of all to one because he is the elder but either to give the most to the best or proportionally to divide it among all And because the children of great men and gentlemen as well as of others grow from good to bad and from ill to worse therefore it behoves parents as much as in them is and in their life time not to bring up their children to be meer gentlemen that is to hawke hunt or to eate drink and play which was the sin and destruction of the old world and is taxed by the Apostles which is the same in our days but as the Apostle wisely and holily hath given us in charge 1 Cor. 7● 20 Let every man abide in that calling wherein he was called which words imply no lesse then that every man should have a