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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	speak_v	time_n	word_n	2,779	5	3.8641	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32905	The golden book of St. John Chrysostom, concerning the education of children translated out of the Greek by J.E., Esq.; De educandis liberis. English	John Chrysostom, Saint, d. 407.; Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.	1659 (1659)	Wing C3978; ESTC R10323	26,823	144

THE GOLDEN BOOK OF St. Iohn Chrysostom Concerning the EDUCATION OF CHILDREN Translated out of the Greek BY I. E. Esq LONDON Printed by D. M. for G. B●del and T. Collins at the Middle Temple Gate in Fleetstreet 1659. To my Most Incomparable Brothers GEORGE EVELYN Of Wotton in Surrey and RICHARD EVELYN Of Woodcot in Surrey Esqrs My Dear Brothers AMongst the very many diversions which I have experimented to mitigate and attemper the sorrowes which do still oppresse me for the loss of my Children and especially of that One so precious to me I have found nothing that has afforded me a greater consolation then this That it pleased God to give me opportunities and such a subject to work upon as I cannot but hope he has in mercy accepted And truly when I seriously contemplate the felicity of all those which are Well out of this miserable world I find the griefe which wee conceive for their absence to be a meer 〈◊〉 and does nothing at all concerne them whom we mourne for that have served God their Generation with honour and left a memorial without reproach You have Brothers both of you lost Children but none of them for whom you had reason to be so sensible as my selfe because they died Infants and could not so intirely engage your affections as if they had arrived to yeers of more maturity and the Spring had flattered you with the expectation of a fruitful harvest as me it did But because we are all obnoxious and that Cuivis potest accidere quod cuiquam potest be assured That of al the afflictions wch can touch the heart in this life one of the most superlative is the loss of a hopeful child and till I had the experience of this my self I have often wondered That David should suffer himselfe to be so far transported for the death of a Rebel that had violated all the Relations which ought to be betwixt a Son and a most indulgent Father I know well that another cause might contribute to the effect but all who shall read that sad story cannot but impute as much to his paternal affections as by man could be expressed These are Brothers the contingencies which since we can never be exempted perfectly of have caused me to seek the remedies which I presume here to have at last encountred and which I here likewise affectionately present unto you Let us make our Children fit for God and then let us not be displeased whensoever he takes them from us Deus nobis illos educandos non mancipio dederat There are a multitude of other precepts that I might recollect out of the consolatory Writings which are at hand Plutarch and Cicero Seneca and others But all their Topicks S. Hierom and some few Christians only excepted are most of them derived from Philosophy the pride and courage of another Institution and afford us but uncertain consolations in the wiser estimate of things So that hereby we may be less troubled in wanting the writings of Diogenes Clitomachus Carneades Possidonius upon the same Subject there being nothing capable truly to compose the mind of a good man for the absence of his friend or of his Child like the contemplation of his undoubted felicity It is that which I therefore endeavor here to secure in offering to you this Golden Book of S. Chrysostom which having afforded me soe great a consolation I cannot but ●hope may be likewise acceptable to you and useful to as many as have either bin touched with the like resentiments or that do establish for an infallible Maxime that saying of Plato {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That those who are well and rightly instructed do easily become good men And the thing is verily of so great importance That some have taken Education for Religion it selfe All for another Nature which he that shal read of the Laconick Discipline will not easily dispute This is certain That were this one thing well secured Princes would have good Subjects Fathers good Children Wives good Husbands Masters good Servants God would be sincerely served and all things would be well with us And here I would now end did not my Affections a little transport me and the hopes that you will yet indulge it if whilst I erect to my dear Child no other Monument I shew to the world how neerly I concurr'd with the Instructions of this Golden Book before I had seene it and what may be expected from a timely Education if now that we may both read and have it we with diligence pursue it I cannot with S. Augustine say of my son as he of his Annorum erat ferè quindecim ingenio praeveniebat multos graves doctos viros But this I can truly affirm He was little above five years old and he did excel many that I have known of fifteene Tam brevi spatio tempor a multa compleverat He was taught to pray as soon as he could speak and he was taught to read as soon as he could pray At three years old he read any Character or letter whatsoever used in our printed Books and within a little time after any tolerable Writing hand and had gotten by heart before he was five years of age seven or eight hundred Latine and Greek words as I have since calculated out of his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} together with their Genders and Declensions I entred him then upon the Verbs which in four months time he did fectly conjugate together with most of the irregulars excepted in our Grammar These he conquered with incredible delight and intelligence of their use But it is more strange to consider that when from them I thought to set him to the Nouns he had in that interim by himself learned both the Declensions and their Examples their exceptions Adjectives Comparisons Pronouns without any knowledg or precept of mine insomuch as I stood amazed at his sedulity and memory This engaged me to bring him a Sententiae Pueriles and a Cato and of late Comeniu● the short Sentences of which two first and the more solid ones of the last he learned to Construe and Perse as fast as one could well teach and attend him for he became not onely dextrous in the ordinary rules by frequent recourse to them for indeed I never obliged him to get any of them by heart as a task by that same carnificina puerorum upon occasions but did at this age also easily comprehend both the meaning and the use of the Relative the Ellipsis and Defects of Verbs and Nouns unexpressed * But to repeat here all that I could justly affirm concerning his promptitude in this nature were altogether prodigious so that truly I have been sometimes even constrained to cry out with the Father as of another Adeodatus Horrori mihi est hoc ingenium For so insatiable were his desires of knowledg that I well remember upon a time hearing one discourse of

Terence and Plautus and being told upon his enquiring concerning those Authors that the Books were too difficult for him he wept for very grief and would hardly be pacified But thus it is reported of Thucydides when those noble Muses were recited in his hearing at one of the most illustrious Assemblies of Greece from whence was predicted the greatness of his Genius To tell you how exactly he read French how much of it he spake and understood were to let you onely know that his Mother did instruct him without any confusion to the rest Thus he learned a Catechism and many prayers and read divers things in that Language More to bee admired was the liveliness of his judgement that being much affected with the Diagramms in Euclid he did with so great facility interpret to me many of the common Postulata and Definitions which he would readily repeat in Latine and apply it And he was in one hour onely taught to play the first half of a Thorough Basse to one of our Church Psalmes upon the Organ Let no man think that we did hereby crowd his spirit too full of notions Those things which we force upon other children were strangely natural to him for as he very seldome affected their toyes to such things were his usual Recreations as the gravest man might not be ashamed to divert himself withal These were especially the Apologus of Aesop most of which he could so readily recount with divers other Stories as you would admire from whence he produced them But he was never without some Book or other in his hand Pictures did afford him infinite pleasure above all a Pen and Ink with which he now began to forme his Letters Thus he often delighted himself in reciting of Poems and Sentences some whereof he had in Greek Fragments of Comedies diuers Verses out of Herbert and amongst the Psalmes his Beloved and often repeated Ecce quam Bonum and indeed he had an ear so curiously framed to sounds that he would never misse infallibly to have told you what Language it was you did read by the Accent only were it Latine Greek French Italian or Dutch To all I might add the incomparable sweetness of his countenance and eyes the clean fabrick of his body and pretty Adresses how easily he forgot injuries when at any time I would break and crosse his passions by sometimes interrupting his enjoyments in the midst of some sweet or other delicious things which allured him that I might there●● render him the more indifferent to all things though these he seldom quitted without rewards and advantage But above all extremely conspicuous was his affection to his younger Brother with whose impertinencies he would continually bear saying he was but a child and understood no better For he was ever so smiling cheerful and inperfect good humour that it might be truly verified of him as it was once of Heliodorus Gravitatem morum hilaritate frontis temperabat But these things were obvious and I dwel no longer on them There are yet better behind and those are his early Piety and how ripe he was for God Never did this Child lye in bed by his good will longer then six or seven Winter or Summer and the first thing he did being up was to say his French Prayers and our Church-Catechism after Breakfast that short Latine Prayer which having encountred at the beginning of our Lillies Grammar he had learned by heart without any knowledge or injunction of mine and whatsoever he so committed to memory he would never desist till heperfectly understood yet withall this did he no day employ above two houres at his Book by my order what he else learned was most by himselfe without constraint or the least severity unseene and totally imported by his own inclination But to return Wonderful was it to observe the Chapters which himselfe would choose and the Psalmes and Verses that he would apply upon occasions and as in particular he did to some that were sick in my family a little before him bidding them to consider the Sufferings of Christ how bitter they were and how willingly he endured them How frequently would he pray by himself in the day time and procure others to joyn with him in some private corner of the house apart The last time he was at Church which was as I remember at Greenwich at his return I asked him what he brought away from the Sermon He replyed That he had remembred two good things Bonum Gratiae and Bonum Gloriae which expressions were indeed used though I did not believe he had minded them I should even tire you with repeating all that I might call to mind of his pertinent answers upon several occasions One of the last whereof I will only instance when about Christmas a Kinsman of his related to us by the fire side some passages of the presumptuous fasting of certain Enthusiasts about Colchester whilst we were expressing some admiration at the passage That sayes the Child being upon the Gentlemans knee and as we thought not minding the discourse is no such wonder for it is written Man shall not live by bread alone c. But more to be admired was his perfect comprehension of the sacred Histories in the Method of our Golden Auth●r so as it may be truly affirmed of this Child as it was once said of Timothy Quod à puero Sacras liter as noverat Nor was all this by rote onely as they term it for that he was capable of the greater mystery of our salvation by Christ I have had many infallible indications And when the Lords day fortnight before he died he repeated to me our Church-Catechism he told me that he now perceived his God-fathers were disengaged for that since he himself did now understand what his Duty was it would be required of him and not of them for the future And let no man think that when I use the term Dis-ingaged it is to expresse the Child meaning with a fine word for he did not only make use of such phrases himself but would frequently in his ordinary discourse come out with such expresions as one would have admired how he came by them but upon enquiry he would certainly have produced his authority and either in the Bible or some other Booke shewed you the words so used How divinely did this pious Infant speake of his being weary of this troublesome world into which he was scarcely entred and whilest he lay sick of his desires to goe to Heaven that the Angels might convey him into Abrahams bosome passionately perswading those that tended him to dye with him for he told them that he knew he should not live And really though it were an Ague which carried him from us a disease which I least apprehended finding him so lively in his Intervals yet the day before he tooke his leave of us he call'd to me and pronounced it very soberly Father sayes he you have often told