Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A19016
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The Countesse of Lincolnes nurserie
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Lincoln, Elizabeth Clinton, Countess of.; Lodge, Thomas, 1558?-1625.
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1622
(1622)
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STC 5432; ESTC S116629
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10,084
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30
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THE COVNTESSE OF LINCOLNES NVRSERIE AT OXFORD Printed by IOHN LICHFIELD and IAMES SHORT Printers to the famous Vniversitie 1622. TO THE RIGHT HONOVrable and approved vertuous LA BRIGET COVNTESSE OF LINCOLNE FOR the better expressing keeping in memorie my Loue and your Worthines I doe offer vnto your LA the first worke of mine that ever came in Print because your rare example hath given an excellent approbation to the matter contained in this Booke for you haue passed by all excuses and haue ventured vpon doe goe on with that loving act of a loving mother in giving the sweete milke of your owne breasts to your owne childe wherein you haue gone before the greatest number of honourable Ladies of your place in these latter times But I wish many may follow you in this good worke which I desire to further by my kinde perswasion And such women as will vouchsafe to read this little short treatise may be put in minde of a duty which all mothers are bound to performe and I shall be glad if any will consider and put in practice that which is both naturall and comfortable I hope they will at the least commend with me such as do this good deede and no more speake scornefully of that which is worthy of great praise and for my part I thinke it an honour vnto you to doe that which hath proued you to be full of care to please God and of naturall affection and to bee well stored with humility and patience all which are highly to be praised to giue praise to any person or thing deseruing praise I dare doe it for this louely action of yours I can with much thankefulnesse praise God for all his gracious guifts of grace and Nature wherby he hath inabled you to doe the same desiring also with my heart that you may euer and euery way honour God who hath honoured you many wayes aboue many women and I reioyce that I can beare witnesse that God hath adorned you with fayre tokens of his loue and mercy to your soule As the practise of true Christian religion dedicating your selfe to Gods seruice answerablenesse to all holy commands of the holy God which are Testimonies of Gods loue and doth challenge a very great esteeme from me amongst the rest that can truly iudge and rightly discerne what is best I am full of thoughts in this kinde or of this matter yet I say no more but this Goe on and prosper Hold fast all that is good Trust in God for strength to grow and continue in faithfull obedience to his glorious Majesty And I wil not cease to intreat the Lord of Heauen to powre aboundantly all Blessings of heauen and earth vpon you and your Children as they increase in number Your LA in the best and fastest loue ELIZABETH LINCOLNE TO THE COVRTEOVS chiefly most Christian Reader THE Generall Consent of too many mothers in an vnnaturall practise most Christian Reader hath caused one of the Noblest and Fairest hands in this land to set pen to paper As ashamed to see her sex farther degenerate desirous for the glory thereof to haue all both rightly knowe and answere their kind hath made Honour it selfe stoop to these paines which now shee sends thee to pervse Three things easily Inuite to Read what to view is offred Eminency or Interest in the Author Rarity in the handled Matter Breuity in the quicke dispatch These three meet in this won The Author so Eminent in Honour thou canst hardly be anciently Honourable and not be interested in her Honours acquaintance scarcely not Alliance Next for the Rarenesse a peculiar tract of this subiect I belieue is not in thine hands Lastly it s so briefe as I am perswaded it smoothly gliding thee along in the reading Thy sorrow will be it lands thee so soone What may giue satisfaction to a Reader let me acquaint thee next is here to be found These are two things Vsefulnesse of the subiect Fulnes for the prosecution If method and soundnesse can make Full this is Full. What not alone Confirmation vshering in the Assertion but Refutation for vshering out Obiections can doe to making Sound and Through this is Such The Accommodation to these particulars Gentle Reader I leaue to thy selfe least I become tedious whilst am honoring Breuity The pay assure thy selfe will bee larger then the promise The Wine much better then the Bush. This one word and I le stand out of the gate thou mayest goe in If Noble who readest likenesse is Mother Nurse of liking this comes from Nobility Approue the rather and practise If meaner blush to deny what Honour becomes speaker to perswade to president to lead the way to And so I either humbly take my leaue or bid farewell Blest is the land where Sons of Nobles raigne Blest is the land where Nobles teach their traine To Church for blisse Kings Queenes should Nurses be To state its blisse great Dames Babes nurse to see Go then Great booke of Nursing plead the Cause Teach High'st low'st all it's Gods and Natures lawes THOMAS LODGE THE COVNTESSE OF Lincolnes Nurserie BEcause it hath pleased God to blesse me with many children and so caused me to obserue many things falling out to mothers and to their children I thought good to open my minde concerning a speciall matter belonging to all childe-bearing women seriously to consider of and to manifest my minde the better even to write of this matter so farre as God shall please to direct me in summe the matter I meane Is the duty of nursing due by mothers to their owne children In setting downe whereof I wil first shew that every woman ought to nurse her owne childe and secondly I will endeavour to answere such obiections as are vsed to be cast out against this dutie to disgrace the same The first point is easily performed For it is the expresse ordinance of God that mothers should nurse their owne children being his ordinance they are bound to it in conscience This should stop the mouthes of all replyers for God is most wise and therefore must needs know what is fittest and best for vs to doe to prevent all foolish feares or shifts we are giuen to vnderstand that he is also All sufficient therefore infinitely able to blesse his owne ordinance and to afford vs meanes in our selues as continuall experience confirmeth toward the obseruance thereof If this as it ought bee granted then how venterous are those women that dare venter to doe otherwise and so to refuse and by refusing to dispise that order which the most wise and allmighty God hath appointed and in steed thereof to chuse their owne pleasures Oh what peace can there be to these womens consciences vnlesse through the darknes of their vnderstanding they judge it no disobedience And then they will driue me to proue that this nursing and nourishing of their own children in their own bosomes is Gods ordinance They are
hath gone before you so made the way more easie and more hopefull by that which shee findeth possible and comfortable by Gods blessing and no offence to her Lord nor her selfe shee might haue had as many doubts and lets as any of you but she was willing to try how God would enable her he hath giuen her good successe as I hope he will doe to others that are willing to trust in God for his helpe Now if any reading these few lines returne against me that it may bee I my selfe haue giuen my own children suck therefore am bolder and more busie to meddle in vrging this point to the end to insult ouer to make them to bee blamed that haue not done it I answer that whether I haue or haue not performed this my bounden duty I will not deny to tell my own practise I knowe acknowledge that I should haue done it and hauing not done it it was not for want of will in my selfe but partly I was ouerruled by anothers authority and partly deceiued by somes ill counsell partly I had not so well considered of my duty in this motherly office as since I did whē it was too late for me to put it in execution Wherefore being pricked in hart for my vndutifullnesse this way I studie to redeeme my peace first by repentance towards God humbly and often craving his pardon for this my offence secondly by studying how to shew double loue to my children to make them amends for neglect of this part of loue to them when they should haue hung on my breasts haue beene nourished in mine owne bosome thirdly by doing my indeauour to prevent many christian mothers from sining in the same kinde against our most louing and gratious God And for this cause I add vnto my performed promise this short exhortation namely I beseech all godly women to remember how we elder ones are commaunded to instruct the yonger to loue their children now therefore loue them so as to do this office to them when they are borne more gladly for loue sake then a strunger who bore them not shall do for lucre sake Also I pray you to set no more so light by Gods blessing in your owne breasts which the holy Spirit ranketh with other excellent blessings if it be vnlawfull to trample vnder feete a cluster of grapes in which a little wine is found then how vnlawfull is it to destroye and drie vp those breasts in which your owne child and perhaps one of Gods very elect to whom to be a noursing father is a Kings honour and to whom to be a noursing mother is a Queens honour might finde food of syncere milke euen from Gods immediate prouidence vntill it were fitter for stronger meat I doe knowe that the Lord may deny some women either to haue any milke in their breasts at all or to haue any passage for their milke or to haue any health or to haue a right minde and so they may be letted from this duty by want by sicknesse by lunacy c. But I speake not to these I speake to you Whose consciences witnesse against you that you cannot iustly alleage any of those impediments Doe you submit your selues to the paine and trouble of this ordinance of God trust not other women whom wages hyres to doe it better then your selues whom God and nature ties to doe it I haue found by grieuous experience such dissembling in nurses pretending sufficiency of milke when indeed they had too much scarcitie pretending willingnesse towardnesse wakefulnesse when indeed they haue beene most wilfull most froward and most slothfull as I feare the death of one or two of my little Babes came by the defalt of their nurses Of all those which I had for eighteene children I had but two which were throughly willing and carefull diuers haue had their children miscarry in the nurses hands and are such mothers if it were by the nurses carelesnesse guiltlesse I knowe not how they should since they will shut them out of the armes of nature and leaue them to the will of a stranger yea to one that will seeme to estrange her selfe from her owne child to giue sucke to the nurse-child This she may faine to doe vpon a couetous composition but she frets at it in her minde if she haue any naturall affection Therefore be no longer at the trouble and at the care to hire others to doe your owne worke bee not so vnnaturall to thrust away your owne children be not so hardy as to venter a tender Babe to a lesse tender heart bee not accessary to that disorder of causing a poorer woman to banish her owne infant for the entertaining of a richer womans child as it were bidding her vnloue her owne to loue yours Wee haue followed Eue in transgression let vs follow her in obedience VVhen God laid the sorrowes of conception of breeding of bringing forth and of bringing vp her children vpon her so vpon vs in her loynes did shee reply any word against Not a word so I pray you all mine owne Daughters and others that are still child-bearing reply not against the duty of suckling them when God hath sent you them Indeed I see some if the wether be wet or cold if the way be fowle if the Church be far off I see they are so coy so nice so luke-warme they will not take paines for their own soules alas no maruell if these will not bee at trouble and paine to nourish their childrens bodies but feare God bee diligent to serue him approue all his ordinances seeke to please him account it no trouble or paine to doe any thing that hath the promise of his blessing and then you will no doubt doe this good laudable naturall louing duty to your children If yet you be not satisfied inquire not of such as refuse to doe this consult not with your owne conceit aduise not with flatterers but aske counsell of syncere and faithfull Preachers If you be satisfied then take this with you to make you doe it cheerefully Thinke alwaies that hauing the child at your breast and hauing it in your armes you haue Gods blessing there For children are Gods blessings Thinke againe how your Babe crying for your breast sucking hartily the milke out of it and growing by it is the Lords owne instruction euery houre and euery day that you are suckling it instructing you to shew that you are his new borne Babes by your earnest desire after his word the syncere doctrine thereof and by your daily growing in grace and goodnesse thereby so shall you reape pleasure and profit Againe you may consider that when your child is at your breast it is a fit occasion to moue your heart to pray for a blessing vpon that worke and to giue thanks for your child and for ability freedome vnto that which many a mother would haue done and could not who haue tried ventured their health taken much paines and yet haue not obtained their desire But they that are fitted euery way for this commendable act haue certainely great cause to be thankfull and I much desire that God may haue glory and praise for euery good worke and you much comfort that doe seeke to honour God in all things Amen FINIS Isa. 31.2 Gen. 17.1 Gen. 21.7 1. Pet. 3.6 1. Sam. 1.23 Gen. 21.7 1. Tim. 5.14 Ver. 10 Philip. 4.8 Lam. 7.3 Gen. 24.61