Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A56118
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Instructions to a nobleman's daughter concerning religion at first designed for one, now directed to all of that rank, and useful to young persons of quality, and others of that sex : with sacramental and other suitable devotions / by John Provoste.
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Provoste, John.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing P3877; ESTC R35367
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45,590
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134
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Kings Daughter The Son of God who vouchsafed to be born as Man in all the Forms of Meanness chose a Noble mans Daughter for the Subject of a Miracle to raise her when dead and so a Noblemans Son to rescue him from Death I have not designed one word to lessen Birth but all to make it greater by Vertue added to it and adorning it With the same design I have spoken of Riches and Pleasures and all the desirable Advantages of the World and which are only of this World I would not have them excluded I would have those who possess them not to love them better than themselves and not to exclude Religion and then Happiness too which never goes in to any Place but where Religion goes in before it The Things of the World have too much wrought on many Aged and not Imprudent Persons Much more then is there need of Caution to one of your Age and your Quality when too many of the same greater Figure have abused their worldly Advantages being first abused themselves by the ill Counsels of those who have been too near them Indeed your Ladyship gives me no occasion to suspect that you had ever any to Misguide you or that you are to be Misguided when I by a delightful Experience have viewed so much Virtue as should either make me think you had never been attacked by ill Counsels or you had always Virtue Strong and Wise to conquer them There are Persons in the World and may you be always one of those upon whom Ill Advice is no less ineffectual then Good is very often on others ill things cannot stand before them and as no venemous Beast can live in some Climates they dye as soon as they come near them or within the fatal Air of this so mighty Innocence There is a Serpent to every Daughter of Eve as well as there was to Eve her self and so to every Son of Adam But however the Serpent be more subtle then any Beast of the Field there are those who will be innocent be he never so Crafty and they will not eat of the Fruit and without eating of it their Eyes are opened and they know Good and Evil and so as to pursue and to avoid Every good Person has something of an Exorcist in him the Apostolical Power of casting out Devils is hot lost to him it is continued the evil Spirit cannot bear his Presence as he could not bear that of Christ when he sell down before him and cried out I beseech thee torment me not Besides the many Temptations from others there is a Tempter within our selves there is a Principle of Vanity in the Nature of Man in this too earthly Nature which carries us on to these Vain Earthly Things with a fierce Desire as fierce alas as if they were not Vain From this Principle which seems to be almost as old as our Nature rise all the Sins of our following Life these are only so many irregular ways into which our Inclinations divide themselves for the Pursuit of earthly Things From this Principle of Corruption in our Souls rise all our Sins as from another of natural Corruption in our Bodies do rise the several Diseases of them The best of us therefore may have need to be upon our Guard against the Things of the World and good Reason there is to keep low and to correct betimes that prevailing Cause of Corruption by Advice and by Endeavour In order to your successful Progress in this Course of Religion you will I am sure be easily and soon Exhorted to have shall I say Or to continue a suitable and devout Regard to that Day of the Week which is particularly designed for Religious Offices The Day which is set apart and for something and that can be no other than holy Duty the Day which we call the Lord's Day in a prophane Jest if we do not keep it to the Lord if our use of it be Prophane that is not Religious He who regardeth a Day regardeth it unto the Lord. Man is Born to Labour as Job has told us he is designed by God to be always in Action and that Action as much as may be worthy of himself and useful to himself or others They who have the lowest Respect for this Day pretend not then to do the Business of their particular Calling and therefore should they not do that of their general Calling as they are Christians This one Day was not set apart only to be a Blank a void Space in our Time and to have nothing written upon it If we could be contented to lose one Day as to our own Interest in every Week of so short a Life yet God is not willing to allow the loss of one as to his Service we complain says a Learned Heathen that Life is short and Time is swift and yet like Men very Unthrifty and very Poor we mispend our too little time as if we had too much Whatever time we mispend we should take care like Men luxurious in their Expences and yet still just in ther Principles to mispend none but our own Indeed if we should take this Care we should mispend no Time because none is ours much less that which God has made His more than any other His in a peculiar manner Not only God but Man all the Authority of Man that of the Church and that of the State has made it God's own Time And if any Sacred Thing which one Man gave to God another cannot take away but with the blackest Guilt much less that which God has given to himself and Man gave to God Our using well this part of our Time will prevent our abusing every other part because it will advance us to such a State of Mind it will lead us into such Rules of Life that we shall learn to be always careful and resolve to be always good Surely we shall be so if we remember an Apostles Saying that we are not our own and then not our Time because if we our selves are not our own then not any thing belonging to us which can be held no otherwise than our Being is and must pass over with our selves to the great Sovereign Lord. You are ready I know to keep this Day with all the solemn Care and you are to perform the Duties of it with all the solemn Reverence The fix'd and ordinary Duties of it are Praying and Hearing Meditation and Reading and Acts of Charity and moreover there is an extraordinary Duty the receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper seeing your Years now meet and come up to your devout Inclinations and Time now almost overtakes your Piety and Prudence which as swift as Time is have been so much before it Since this is so great which now we see how great must that be which we may expect the good Things we view at a distance though so far off yet appear not little they already entertain our Eyes with a pleasing
Instructions TO A Nobleman's Daughter CONCERNING RELIGION At first designed for One now directed to all of that Rank and useful young Persons of Quality and others of that Sex WITH Sacramental and other suitable DEVOTIONS By John Provoste M. A. LONDON Printed by W. R. for D. Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-bar and L. Stokey at the Golden-key over against the Muse-gate at Charing-cross 1700. ERRATA PAge 5. line 19. read despised p. 8. l. 14. r. Subjects l. 22. r. Catechism p. 10. l. 14. r. capable l. 25. r. reading p. 12. l. 12. after Blessings 2 Comma l. 13. r. Baptized l. 19. after understood put a Period l. 21. r. may l. 25. r. advance l. 26. r. not p. 16. l. 10. r. Epicurus p. 17. l. 6. r. no. l. 12. r. Joy p. 18. l. 6. r. blamable l. 20. after Pray put a Semicolon l. 21. after Heaven put a Comma p. 20. l. 2. r. understanding l. 13. r. fashioned p. 22. l. 13. r. Eyes see p. 28. l. 6. r. me p. 33. l. 14. r. ineffectual p. 34. l. 18. r. to l. 20. r. Wise p. 38. l. 12. r. then l. 19. r. earliest p. 39. l. 12. r. themselves p. 49. l. 2. r. Images p. 69. l. 23. r. 2 Sacrament p. 70. l. 16. r. John p. 18. l. 4. r. Prov. 31. TO THE Right Honourable THE LADY Madam I Hope your Ladyship has all the Satisfaction which the Country can give to any one or your own Expectation promised to your self and whereas Expectation is often raised above Enjoyment I hope Enjoyment now rises high and surmounts all your gay Notions of it I know and methinks at this very Instant I have a sense and a share of that Joy which your Ladyship is affected with upon your Retreat from the Town Let that Joy encrease and in the Country and in every Place and in every thing let it still be greater and so much rather because it 〈…〉 greater than you deserve 〈…〉 same Virtue and Prudence which make you deserve it will be sure to make your Jâ—y and all Things very Innocent I have sometimes exercised your Ladyships Condescension and with that easie Mildness which you shew â—n all Occasions and with which you have already learned to bear all Evils you have seemed to bear the Trouble of Reading my Instructions But you never had so much Advantage from my Writing as now to satisfie for the Trouble nor I so good Occasion to give it I doubt not but you will have the same Thought of the Occasion I have my self and so I may hope for an Effect equal to it I have often beheld your growing Piety with a secret and rising Satisfaction and I cannot but endeavour to continue and improve my own Satisfaction by Exhorting Advising Intreating your Ladyship to continue and improve your Piety Seeing I have so great a pleasure in the View I am become a Party and my own Interest that I may have it still engages me to do all I can for the enlargement of a thing which gives it A thing which is so good in it self and so advantageous to you and which you seem to Repay and Reward for all its Advantage by the graceful Light and Beauty you reflect upon it when like a well-set Diamond it appears in you and borrows from you I have with so much Pleasure observed that Piety which was your own original Growth and then with how much more shall I observe and with how Innocent a Pride any part of your piety hereafter which has been planted in your Mind by my Endeavour and which being placed in so Rich and Noble Ground must there be to a Wonder fruitful by your own I shall see it with a Joy refined and high with a greater than that of the King in History when he saw the fair and goodly Tree his own Hand had set and then his Delight in Surveying the Growth of the Tree scarce was equal to this of remembring that he had set it I should think my self to do Service to the World in doing this to your Ladyship who may be so useful to the World and to Religion by the Influence of your Example by the Authority of your Interest and by the Prudence of your Zeal to make use of both as of every thing to the best and most worthy Purposes So shall I have in this my Writing that glorious Hope of doing the greatest Good by the shortest way to many in one as when the chief City is taken all the Neighbouring Country very often comes in by an easie Surrender or is Conquered with it And surely the thing will as much become your Quality as it will be promoted by your Zeal that there should be a numerous Train to attend you in your Course of Virtue and in your Journey towards Heaven All the Religious Things when carried on by you to others will at the same time be improved and become more inviting by their passing through your Hands as Liquors take a fragrant and more grateful tast from the Vessel through which they pass When there have been already such shining Effects of your Virtue and when the Cause is so fruitful and sure so generous and always ready to produce them I may oblige my self and the World by all my pleasing and most agreeable Presages and yet my Gift of Foretelling may not be like those Effects extraordinary as they who pretend to the Faculty of declaring things to come do little more than argue from the same Causes to the same Effects The Country gives you leisure and you want nothing for the raising a Good-will to read such things as this before you and the Country gives not only leisure but a new Argument for Religion because there the invisible things of God are understood by the things which are made By every Flower you gather and every Fruit you eat by the meanest Herb you tread on and the least thing you see in the Garden or in the Field The Country has already no little part in your Favour it has so large a Place in your Affections that it could lend some even to things less Grateful the most disagreeable things would cease to be so when this should recommend them to you But surely the Country will have new Endearments and more lively Charms when you shall begin to apprehend it as having all the convenience not only to breath but to think more freely too and as having at the Leisure and Liberty and Enlargment not only for many other Purposes but for one thing which you love more than the Country and then all things for Religion Thus I have frankly declared the Design of these Papers and your Ladyship will generously pardon the length of them and all their Faults whereof I think my self to be guilty with Authority because the Design is such as gives the highest Authority to this and to any other Action and to all the harmless Errors of it When I