yet may they see God notwithstanding the opinion of the Father that Duras Infantum Pater and not withstanding the hard-heartedness of the pretended Mother-Church of Rome in this a Step-Mother rather than a true Mother to her Children The Hebrew Children that dyed before the eighth day and consequently before they were circumcised and those Bethlemitish Children that were baptized in their own blood and that child that being born was also baptized and buried in the flames being thrown into the fire again the arms of that Midwife that delivered the Martyred Mother of a live child doubtless were not excluded Heaven for want of a Sacrament which they did in no wise neglect or contemn but could not have these being comprehended in the Covenant made and sealed to and with their Parents had a right and title to the heavenly inheritance were of with God and co-heirs with Christ Again consider That God may have taken away your Children from the evil to come on the place where they lived When Storms Tempests and Troubles are abroad you Parents call home your Children and so doth God God saith by his Providence in these cases to his Children though your Children also Come my Children enter into your Chambers and shut the door till all these calamities be overpast 'T is a common saying Quem diligit Dous moritur Juvenis he whom God loves dyes young and sometime and in some cases God calls the sins of Parents to remembrance and slays their Children If so it be this is a Lamentation and ought to be for a lamentation But upon your Repentance God may give other Children in room of them he hath taken from you or himself be better than ten Sons than all Sons and Daughters could be unto you Learn of Aaron the Priest of the Lord who when he had lost Nadab and Abihu both in one day and after an extraordinary manner did not say If it be so why is it thus but saith the Text And Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 he was dumb and opened not his mouth because God had done it Jonah was angry because God had smitten and withered the Goard that came up in a night and perished in a night but Aaron acquiesced in Gods handy-work though he slew his two Sons by fire in an extraordinary manner in all this Aaron sinned not nor charged God foolishly Behold he taketh away who can hinder him Who will say unto him what dost thou If thou art either barren or by the death of thy child childless thou mayest do well to educate others Children you may adopt some Kinsman or Friend or Neighbours Child and cultivate them and sow the seeds of Virtue and Learning in them and make such your heirs else make the Church or Poor your heirs and do not prodigally therefore waste your Estates or live idly and wastefully Again If you have no Child be humbled under the want of this blessing for Children are so and then encrease and abound more in your Devotions towards God the less you are to care for the things of the world the more reason you have and the more care you should have how to serve and please God 1 Cor. 7. CHAP. VII Of Parents that have bad Children IF Parents have Children and they prove crosses to them how great is that cross If blessings prove curses if comforts turn to sorrows and your light be darkned in the Heavens thereof how great is that darkness And yet this may be the case of a good man or woman for Parents are Parents as men and women and not as Christians and Grace and Virtue is not Ex traducè is not propagated A righteous Noah had a prophane Cham a good David a rebellious Son Absolom Of some Children we may say Blessed is the womb that bare them and the paps that gave them suck of others It had been good for them and for their Parents too if such children had never been born 'T is more tolerable to have none than wicked Children It is the Speech and Protestation of King James in his Preface to his Book to the Prince I protest before that great God I had rather not be a Father and Childless than be a Father of wicked Children I charge you saith he as ever you think to deserve my fatherly blessing to follow and put in practise so far as lieth in you the Precepts hereafter following And if ye follow the contrary course I take the great God to record that this Book shall one day be a witness betwixt me and you and shall procure to be ratified in Heaven the Curse that in that case here I give unto you And I find in the life of Reverend Mr. Robert Bolton that he had told his Children so much both in the time of his sickness and before he verily believed that none of them durst think to meet him at that great Tribunal in an unregenerate estate I confess 't is a sad Meditation for a Parent to think of the life or death of a wicked Child David that was presently comforted for the death of the young Child he had by Bathsheba refused to be comforted for the death of Absolom sorely lamenting Oh Absosom my Son my Son I would to God I had dyed for thee Oh Absolom my Son my Son 2 Sam. 18.33 It is thought it was for the manner of his death the ill condition he dyed in and for his Soul that he pierced his heart so deeply and that he wept so sorely Let good Parents that have bad Children give them good counsel and good example and pray daily with all earnestness for the return of their Prodigals St. Austins Mother Monica her Prayers for her Son when a Manichee were heard at last and he was converted and became one of the greatest and best Lights of the Church since the Apostles times 'T is thought one cause why Hezekiah wept so sore at the tidings of death was because he was then Childless but could the Prophet have told him that he should have such a Son as Manasseth that should commit such abominations how needs must such tidings have made his ears to tingle and pierce his heart thorough with many sorrows Yet this may somewhat alleviate Parents grief that have bad Children Manasseth when he was in Chains sought the Lord and was found of him at the last and that out of his loyns by his Son Amon came the Mirror of Kings King Josiah And if thou hast matter of sorrow from thy own immediate Child thou mayest have abundant cause of rejoycing from thy Grandchild thy Childrens Children may praise the Lord and this may be part of thy happiness thus to see thy Childrens Children and peace upon Israel And sith so it is that sometimes godly Parents have ungodly Children this should moderate your desire of Children and your grief for the want of them Let none be so impatient or passionate as Rachel saying to God or their own Husbands Give me Children or
namely that younger widows should marry and guide the house and not be received into the Office of Deaconesses of being servants to the Church to relieve or look to the sick and to succour the poor because such persons if they should make such a promise to the Church to continue in that state all the days of their life would be apt to break it either by being wanton against Christ committing fornication or else would be under the power of their husband and so not be at liberty to serve the Church Now therefore the Apostle concludes that none should be received into the Church as Deaconesses under the age of threescore at which time saith one the Vow of not marrying would be ridiculous Therefore the Pope and his Clergy saith Dr. Fulk admitting other widows or virgins to profess or vow Continency do sin against the express Commandment of the H. Ghost Nor was the want of Monasteries and Monkish and Nunish Rules and Orders in the Apostles times the occasion of this Prohibition or restraint For saith my Author the Incontinency of Nuns and Monks in Cloysters and under all your Rules and Orders hath and doth daily give sufficient proof that Lust will not be kept out by the walls of your Monasteries nor by the Rules and Prescripts of your Orders So then as the experience of some younger widows that had followed after Satan was a sufficient reason to cause the Apostle to refuse all young widows to the Office of Deaconesses so the experience of so many Milch Nuns and filthy Monks and Friers teach us that no young persons are to be admitted to any Vow or Profession of perpetual Continency Let me add here what the said Doctor hath out of Wierus de Praestig Daemon l. 3. cap. 9 11. edit 3. That the Devil helpeth the Nuns in their abominable lusts in divers Nunneries in Germany namely in the Province of Colen where the Devil in the likeness of a Dog was seen to fall upon them in the day time in most beastly manner about the year of our Lord 1558. also in the Nunnery of Nazanth in Colen the Nuns in most filthy manner suffered the same illusion oftentimes in the sight and presence of many anno 1564. The state of the Church saith Gerson Chancellor of Paris is grown altogether bruitist and monstrous and should give an Item to the Overseers to enquire whether the Cloysters of Nuns be not become the Stews of Harlots and who would think saith the Author of the Triumph of Rome over despised Protestancy that so wise a man as Caesarius Branchedorus could so far over-reach as to say that the lusts of whoredom and gluttony and other shameful enormities had gotten such a head that young men did pati muliebria and Priests did facere virilia and that their Nuns did as it were openly profess unchastity and at last that whosoever was noted to be a shameless Adulterer or a wild Ruffian that had lavish'd out all his Patrimony anu pene ventre was sure to betake himself to the Court of Rome as his Sanctuary And again Who could have looked for such language to fall from so grave an Author as Espencaeus that our Ancestors wish'd that our Clerks should turn their wives into their sisters but now our age turns them into Lemmans and Whores and consequently their lawful issue into Bastards And again God hath taken away our sons and the Devil hath given us Nephews and could imagine that so learned and ingenious a â—â—n as Erasmus would so far wrong his neighbours as to say that a number of Monasteries are so degenerated that the Stews are more chaste and sober and modest then they The supplication of Beggars tender'd to King Henry VIII assured him that by virtue of the Sacred Votaries there were a hundred thousand Whores in this our Nation Fryar Menolem in the Pulpit cryed to the Clergy Ye my Masters of the Church do not damn your souls Ye have now Birds in the Cage that chirp to you by night yt know my meaning put them away So the Author of Romes Triumph over despised Protestancy which some say was Bishop Hall Our Church Historian tells us that King Stephen's fury fell most fiercely on the Dean and Canons of Pauls for crossing him in the choice of their Bishop for he sent and took their Focaria's that is Roger Hoveden being Interpreter their Concubines and cast them into the Tower of London where they continued many days not without much scorn and disgrace till at last those Canons ransom'd their liberty at a great rate F. Hist Book 3. p. 27. From these premises I hope we may safely draw this good and honest Conclusion That marriage is not to be prohibited to a whole Order of men within the pale of the Church neither directly nor by consequence and that 't is not expedient to suffer young men and young maids or women to vow Celibacy all their lives It was piously said of Pope Pius the second That for great causes Priests wives were taken from them but that for greater causes they ought to be restored to them again See Platina in the life of the said Pope It is better to marry than to burn saith St. Paul and the Canons of St. Paul's Church aforenamed had much better have had Wives than Focaria's Fire-makers or Concubines How horrible is it that the Church of Rome doth hold That 't is much better and less offence for a Priest to use another mans wife than to marry one of his own after that he hath once accepted and married our dear Mother the holy Church for his wife during life But leaving such Apocryphal Doctrine of the Romish Church I come to the Canon of the holy Scripture 1 Cor. 7.2 To avoid fornication let everyman and therefore Spiritual persons are not exempted have his own wife and every woman and therefore Nuns are not interdicted have her own husband and to avoid fornication it is enjoyned and therefore all persons of both Sexes who have not the gift of Continency are bound to marry nor can any Vow or Oath be vinculum iniquitatis i. e. a Bond of Iniquity and oblige against God's Law which saith Thou shalt not commit Adultery and It is better to marry than to burn Besides if two Oaths be taken and the one contradict the other the first is obligatory and not the second Now all Priests and Nuns in Baptism vowed to keep all God's Commandments and therefore the Seventh not to commit Adultery Those Scriptures Be ye holy for I am holy and Pray continually concern all Christians as well as Priests and Professed persons and therefore if they be interpreted to oblige from marriage they oblige the Laity as well as the Clergy to use the ordinary distinction Besides Aaron and his Sons though married persons were daily both morning and evening to attend upon the Sacrifice and to burn Incense every morning Exod. 30.7 and this Incense was a Type of Prayer
Leah which two did build up the house of Israel and I may say also Which two did build up the Church of God And if they built up God's Church on Earth they made ready a people prepared for the Lord in Heaven And as Jerusalem which is above is said to be the Mother of us all so in another respect Jerusalem that is below I mean the Church on Earth doth bring forth Sons and Daughters to God and is the Mother of all the Children of men that are indeed also the Children of God and Members of the new Jerusalem in Heaven or above CHAP. V. Of the Education of Children CHildren of themselves a blessing prove a cross and a curse too unto their Parents if not cultivated or well managed by a good Education Teach a Child the way he should go and he 'll not forsake it when he is old Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit â—dorem Testa diu Although ragged Colts prove often good horses yet let the horses run till they are six or seven years old wild and unbroken it will be a hard matter to tame and manage them 'T is good that a man bear the yoke in his youth Blaspheme not saying A young Saint will prove an old Devil rather a young Devil is like to prove an old Beelzebub You may bend the Oak as well as the Osier whilst it is young and tender Now now is the time the season the very nick article and joynt of time when you may turn your Children which way you please Oh then now teach them mind them to remember their Creator in the days of their youth bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let God have the first-fruits of their time the flower of their age dedicate them to God betimes by engaging them to him and his service in the first place God would have Children presented to him in the Temple at forty days old our Saviour saith Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God And our Lord was pleased with the Childrens Hosanna's as he rode in Triumph to Jerusalem Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained or perfected praise saith the Psalmist Psal 8. God of old call'd to young Samuel again and again whilst he was a Child rather than to old Eli. We keep a day to Commemorate the young Infants of about two years old that were murthered for the cause of Christ as well as of St. Stephen the Protomartyr and of St. Paul the aged that were put to death for the name of the Lord Jesus God of old seal'd the males amongst the Israelites at eight days old for his own his peculiar Treasure And if God will own your Children why do not ye Parents present them to him Children within the pale of the Church God looks on as his Children And if ye take his Children your Sons and Daughters which you brought unto him and offer them to Molock to Baal to Idols or bring them forth and up to the Murtherer or the Abaddon the Destroyer of souls by evil or careless Education a thousand times better had it been they had never been born How will Children in Hell curse their Parents that by their evil counsel or evil example or want of good Precepts and good Paterns brought them to the place of torment Oh therefore teach them by instilling good Principles into them betimes and guide them by your good example always be able to say to them Be ye followers of us as we are of Christ or Walk so as ye have us for an example drop good and precious instructions daily into these narrow mouth'd Vessels and when they are old they will retain the good infused into them in their young days Chasten them if they offend if you love them but in measure that it may appear you love them Correct them but not in anger lest they be discouraged lest you provoke them to wrath also lest your bitterness to them imbitter their spirits towards you Teach them Affability Courtesie Gentleness Humility that as you love them so may every body else that so they may pass their time in peace and quietness both at home in their own bosoms and abroad in the world Next after they are fitted by a competency of Learning for some honest and suitable Calling be sure you dispose of them accordingly considering what Bishop Sanderson hath left on Record in one of his Sermons that Idle Gentlemen and idle Beggars are the pests of the Commonwealth Let yours therefore be careful to maintain some honest Trades or Callings that they be not unfruitful These things are good and profitable unto men Whereas the Grecians would have all Children to be bound to keep their Parents when old the Athenians put in this Exception Vnless their Parents had taught them no Trade whereby to get their living Every man saith Mr. Perkins besides his general Calling as a Christian must have some personal particular Calling to walk in either publick or private either in the Church or Commonwealth or Family Adam his personal Calling assigned him by God was to dress and keep the Garden and Christ the second Adam lived with Joseph saith Mr. Perkins in the calling of a Carpenter And hereupon it was that the Jews said Is not this the Carpenter the son of Mary Mark 6.3 Nor is it a calling to devote your Sons and Daughters to be Monks and Nuns in the Monasteries beyond Seas The ancient Church saith the same Author condemned all Monks for Thieves and Robbers that besides the general duties of Prayer and Fasting did not withal employ themselves in some other Calling for their better maintenance Give your Children then Callings If you ask what Callings I answer 1. according to their Natural inclinations And secondly according to their Natural parts and gifts Those Children which excel in the gifts of the body bring them up to Mechanical Arts those Children which excel in gifts of the mind bring them up to the Liberal Sciences to Academical Learning that they may be serviceable thereby in Church or Commonwealth Athanasius that famous Bishop was first put to Learning because he was found by the Sea side doing the part of a Minister amongst a company of little Children like himself examining and baptizing them according to the solemn Order used in the Congregation The Athenians before they placed their Children in any Calling did first bring them into a Publick Place where Instruments of all sorts were laid and they observ'd with what kind of Instrument they took delight to the like Art after did they apply them with good success Christians may do well to follow the example of the Heathens in this so rational a practice Choose Callings for your Children for which they are fitted and to which they are inclined they then will delight in ther Employment and their lives will be comfortable to them their very