God have all of them received displeasure in some of their Children Adam had the grief to see his younger Son murdered by his elder Brother Adam and to see that elder Son by a just judgement of God to be a Vagabond and Fugitive upon the earth for the punishment of his crime Of the three Sons of Noah Noah one of them discovered to his Brethren with contempt the undecent posture wherein he had found his Father in his drunkenness instead of hiding it from himself through respect as did his Brethren which drew upon his other posterity the malediction of his Father and that of God What displeasure had Isaac for the dissention which was between Jacob and Esau Isaac and which obliged him to banish Jacob many years from him and to send him into Mesopotamia till such time as Esau's anger was appeased Did not Esau marry strange Women against his will against which he had so great an aversion that he expresly recommended to Jacob not to imitate therein his Brother and never to take a Wife among the children of Canaan Jacob had the affliction to see four of his Children fall into a great crime Jacob. of which Joseph who was his youngest accused them before him He had the displeasure to hear that Reuben who was hiâ—â—â—â—est Son had abused Bala one of his Wives The indiscretion of Dina his only Daughter was the cause that she was carried away and ravished by Sichem who was a young Lord of his Neighbourhood Simeon and Levi two of his Children entred into a confederacy without his leave and against his will to revenge this fact and killing all the subjects of that Prince exposed their Father as he himself complained to the hatred of all his Neighbourhood All the world knows the affliction which the jealousy of his Children against Joseph caused him to undergo and the sorrow he had for the captivity of Benjamin whom he so tenderly loved Aaron saw two of his Sons who were consecrated to the service of the Altar Aaron punished with death for having committed a fault in the exercise of their ministery and he was so lively touched therewith that he could not eat that day of the meats which had been offered in Sacrifice nor apply himself as he ought to the functions of his Priesthood because as himself says he had his heart and his spirit overwhelmed with sorrow for this loss The great Priest Heli Heli. who was a very holy man had two very wicked Sons who after they had caused him much displeasure by the disorder of their life made him dye with grief when he was informed in what manner they were slain and the dreadful chastisement they had drawn down from Heaven by their crimes upon the whole people of Israel Samuel had but two Sons whom he had established Judges of the people Samuel But they were no sooner raised to that dignity but they suffered themselves to be corrupted with presents and appeared so self-interessed and so unjust that all the people rejected them and demanded a King of Samuel to place in their stead What displeasures did not David receive from his children David Ammon his eldest Son committed an Incest with his Sister Thamar Absalon his second Son slew Ammon at a banquet to revenge the injury done to his Sister and this Wretch having recovered the friendship of his Father studied secretly to raise the people against him then openly declaring himself and taking arms forced him to fly from Jerusalem abused his Wives in the sight of all the people and had the insolence to pursue him with his weapons in his hand and to give him battle Now if you desire to know why God permitted that these great men for whom he had done so many wonders and to whom he had testified so great love received notwithstanding such sensible displeasures from their children and that these children did so strangely degenerate from the Virtue and the piety of their parents it is easy to answer you that it is to teach Fathers and Mothers who have not the merit of these so illustrious men First that they are indebted only to Gods grace that their children cause not to them the same displeasures and that it would little avail them to have applied themselves with much care to the education of their children if he did not bless their endeavours Secondly that the greatest tryall which can befall a Christian Father and which God makes use of to prove his fidelity and his submission to the orders of his providence is to permit his children to fail in their duties and in what they are bound to render to God and that thus Fathers and Mothers ought to dispose themselves to support these sorts of afflictions and tryalls how hard soever they be with Christian dispositions when he shall please to send them Thirdly that as it is a matter of great difficulty not to commit some fault either in the manner of educating their children or in overmuch indulging them or finally in being too much tyed to them in a humane way God according to the immutable order of his Wisedom who punishes us by the same things whereby we have offended him makes use of children to chastise Fathers and Mothers for the faults they have committed upon their consideration Thus God punished the incontinence of David by taking out of the world the Son he had by Bathsheba and revenged afterwards the Adultery committed by him in secret with this Woman by the abuse which Absalon made of his wives in the open sight of all his people Finally God permits that parents should receive displeasure from their children not only to humble them and to try their fidelity and to punish the faults they may have committed in their Education but furthermore to purify the rational affection they have for them and to teach them to love them not because of the sweetness they finde in the submission and the respect they render them but because they belong to God For God will have them accustom themselves to look upon him alone in all they do for their children and to surmount all the difficulties which occur in the designe they have to bring them to his service even to suffer patiently the contempt they make of their advertisements and to pursue them by the example of St. Monioa St. Monica in spight of all their resistance till God hath touched their heart and till they have obtained their conversion by their tears and by their perseverance as that Saint obtained it for St. Augustin You will perchance tell me that I exact great things of you that I demand you should do all your actions in a spirit of Piety and Zeal for the interests of God that you should be perpetually employed to procure his glory in the children he shall please to give you and that by consequence I engage you to a continual Prayer since I propose unto you a conduct and Maxims which you cannot keep without being powerfully supported by him whose help we obtain by humble prayer All this is true Sister and I aver that to acquit your self worthily of the obligation you have to give your Children an entirely Christian Education you are to follow in this Education the Maxims of the sacred Scripture and the Advices of the Fathers of the Church to apply them from their tender Infancy to them particularly whom you de sign to live in the World to embrace the means which may enable you in this generous enterprise to overcome the oppositions which you shall meet therein and to imitate perfectly the excellent Idea's of the holy Education I have here traced to you in the conduct of God and that of his Church I avouch I say that to acquit your self worthily of all these Duties you stand in need of very powerful Graces and you ought to live in a continual search and in a profound adoration of the designes of God upon your Children You are very instantly to crave of him the use of his Lights to enter into the knowledge of their necessities you are to abandon your self to his spirit for the choice of such sentiments and feelings as you ought to instill into them and of the times when your chastisements and your instructions will be profitable unto them and you must pray unto him that since he who plants and he who waters is nothing he himself will give virtue to your Words that he will engrave in their hearts his Fear and his Love and that as he would make use of you to give them the Life of Body and to employ your cares to procure that of their Soul by Baptism he will also make use of you to conserve and strengthen in them his Spirit and his grace To conclude you are to propose to your self the attaining of a very high perfection and the faithfull practise of all the most Christian Virtues and to make it appear to the whole world by the Christian Education of your Children that you engaged not your self in Marriage upon humane considerations or upon any other score unworthy of Christianism but to make use of the terms of St. lib. of the good of Marriage c. 25. Augustin That you were not a Wife nor desire to be a Mother but for the love of Christ Jesus and for the interests of his Church FINIS
may be all the defects of their faces they employ all imaginable addresses and artifices to cheat the eyes of their beholders All the world enters there with this disposition which is so vain but so precious to corrupted nature to love and to make ones self loved Nor is one content to have this disposition they explicate it by all manner of means and oftentimes the looks the gestures and the very dressings explicate what the tongue dares not express Who can represent all the snares which the devil then lays for young people What indiscreet compliances What passionate respects What dangerous adhesions What feigned and dissembling protestations What vain impertinent and Idolatrous discourses It seems as if all they who compose these assemblies had forgotten not only that they are Christians but even that they are Men so much they make appear in their gestures in their postures in the motions of their bodies of effeminacy of wantonness of irregularity You would imagine it were a troop vowed to pleasure and which had undertaken by common consent to place the creature in the place of God I dare not here paint forth unto you what passes in the heart of all such persons whose passion to please and to be beloved rules all their motions There it is that the gross and impure vapours which arise from the dirt and mudd of the flesh St. Aug. l. 2. Conf. c. 2. and from the boilings of youth obscure the hearts and overclowd them in such sort that they cannot discern the pure and resplendent serenity of a lawful affection from the darksom images of an infamous love 'T is there that they swim in this unhappy joy and the dismal pleasure whereby the children of the world tye themselves to base things by the irregularity of their corrupted will and being animated by their passions which as fumie wine dim by their imperceptible vapours the highest part of their souls forget God to adhere to the creature What desires What dreads What impatiences What envies What jealousies What suspicions What displeasures What irregular Motions toss their spirit and their heart One cannot my Sister explicate all the interiour evils which these Assemblies ordinarily cause and produce and without taking notice of the quarrels flights and murders which there take their birth our tongue is too chaste to express the other unhappy effects and the rest of the dangerous sequels of these meetings where the most innocent souls learn to lose their shamefac'dness and become in the end the sacrifices of an infamous pleasure What shall I say of the laws and of the rules which are observed so inviolably in these Assembles and which the spirit of licentiousness hath there established of that indispensable obligation which the persons where such meetings are made have to open their door indifferently to all the world of the liberty which all young people have to enter in to examine all the persons who compose it to adhere to such as best please them to entertain them to leade them out to dance and to use with them such freedoms as the Parents would be ashamed to permit in their particular houses Insomuch as properly speaking the places where these sorts of Assemblies are held are as it were the infamous and publick houses where Parents expose their own Daughters to the most licentious Gallants and where these Daughters by the little modesty and reservation which appears in their dress in their looks in their garb and in all their comportment prostitute themselves to the eyes and to the desires of all them who there enter and even instill into the more moderate motions contrary to their duty and who too frequently degenerate into most shameful practices Shall any one wonder after this S. Charls Bor. tract against Dances if St. Charls Boromeus in an excellent Treatise he made against Dances and in which he shews that they are condemned by the Holy Scripture by the Councils and by the Fathers relates that when he was yet a Student having constrained with his companions a Philosopher of a very solid judgment to go to a Ball this Philosopher after he had well observed all the circumstances of that assembly and the actions which were there done was struck with astonishment and presently told them that surely it was an invention of the Devil to destroy souls and to corrupt the manners of the faithful And think not Sister that the Dances which are done in private and with less pomp are less dangerous St. Ambrose in the Books he made for the instruction of Virgins S. Amb. l. 3. de Virg. and which he addressed to Marcellina his Sister after he had set down that all Christians are obliged according to the precept of St. Paul Coloss 3. to refer to Christ Jesus all their words and all their actions compares divertisements to remedies and says that as remedies profit not the body but when they are used according to the advice of the Physitian and that on the contrary they serve oftentimes to entertain the disease when they are taken contrary to his advice So all that we do according to the rules which Christ Jesus who is the Physitian of our Souls hath prescribed unto us contributes to their health and serves them for a remedie whereas that which is not conformable to his spirit and to his rules insensibly weakens and destroys her strength It follows then concludes this holy Doctour that a Christian should place all his joy in a good conscience and not in Feastings in Dancings and in worldly Meetings For the chastity is not in security and the pleasure which allures us ought to be suspected when the Dance is the companion or the end of the divertisement we seek for There is no one said an Ancient who dances being sober unless he has lost his wit If according to the very Pagan-wisdom drunkenness or folly is the cause of Dancing what can we think the sacred Scripture would insinuate unto us when it represents unto us the Fore-runner of Christ Jesus condemned to death at the desire of a Dancer but that the pleasure which Herod took to see the Daughter of Herodias dance before him was more unfortunate unto him than the sacrilegious resentment he had of the freedom wherewith that Saint had presumed to reprehend him Then after he had made reflexion upon the greatness of the crime wherein this Prince was engaged having been as it were enchanted by this unhappy dance and by the boldness of this Girl in daring to dance before him he adds these words What could this Daughter learn of an incestuous Mother but to lose all Modesty In effect is there any thing more proper to excite shamefull passions than to discover as they do in dancing those parts of the body which nature and civility oblige to hide then to conduct the eyes with a certain artifice and cause the looks to agree with the undecent postures of the body and then to mark
Authors of these Plays cover themselves and however pure and holy may be their intentions there is nevertheless such a mixture in their Works and the Saints also whom they bring upon the Theatre testify there so much tenderness touching love which is the predominant passion of Comedies that it is very hard for the hearers not to be transported and that instead of sanctifying the stage by the actions of the Martyrs there represented they profane not the sanctity of their sufferings by the amorous sictions which they there intermingle And in effect if they there represent the Martyrdom of a Virgin-Saint Theodora must it not be some Intrigue of love which makes her die And are they not constrained to suppose that another Lady is desperately in love with the young Prince who hath a violent passion for the Saint and that an enraged Mother spares not the Blood of this Saint to fatisfy the passion of that poor wretch And even the Saint in the sequel of the Play comes lastly to discover the secret passion she hath for a young man and although the Authour makes her beat it down yet she ceases not to give place to the hearers to justify in themselves by her example the passion they resent and to entertain it under pretext of not consenting thereto They learn of her to look upon the motions of an irregular Love as the impressions which in their birth form bravest passions And the young man whom she loves as Christian as he is and ready to endure death for the defence of the Faith and of the purity of this Saint ceases not to perswade her to espouse this young Pagan-Prince who loves her So that if one sees in this Piece of Poetry in the person of a Virgin-Saint Faith triumphing over the most shamefull punishments one there sees at the same time profane Love triumphing over many wretches which it hath subjected to it self and pursuing even to death a holy Virgin and a generous Martyr One there beholds the motion of Christian Charity which obliges this illustrious Saint to expose his life for the defence of the purity of that Virgin-Saint so much obscured by the feigned passion which the Authour foists into his and into her expressions that the hearers know no more then the actors whom he introduces on the Stage Whether it is the zeal of a lover or the fury of the Christian And although the Saint declare himself in the sequel that he acted not in this occasion but by a motive of Christian generosity yet this appeares mixed with so many tender and passionate words and with so many circumstances which tend to turn away the spirit from consideration and to carry it on to profane Love that whatever remains in the minde of the Spectatours is a high idea of the strong passion which this Lover had for the person he loved Behold what are these examples of Innocence of Virtue and of Piety they so much brag of But rather behold how in the Comedies they make use of Christian generosity and charity which the Saints made appear in their actions to raise up the lustre of profane love and to give it an esteem and to excite its flames in the heart of the Spectatours But Sister to make you see yet more cleerly how meerly imaginary the difference is which is pretended to be between the Comedies of these our times and the Spectacles of the Ancient and that it is neither Scruple nor Capriciousness but a true zeal which moves them who blame them thus to decry them you must observe that the Fathers of the Church have scarcely said any thing against the adhesion which people had in their days to spectacles which may not be applied with much justice to the Comedies of our time Tertullian in the Book he made of Shews and Spectacles undertakes to shew that these divertisements could not be accomodated to the spirit of Religion we profess and to the duties of a Christian that the reason why they have so many Defenders is the fear man hath of having the number of his pleasures diminished that it is in vain to fancy that Christians did not abstain from them but because they being resolved to suffer death for the Faith renounced all the pleasures of life to the end they might less love it and not be retained by pleasures which are as it were fetters that fasten us to it but that they abstained because although these divertisements are not forbidden in express terms in the sacred Scripture yet they cease not to be there sufficiently condemned First in the passages which forbid us to follow the irregular desires of covetousness and of satisfying our Passions For it is certain says this learned man that the seeking of pleasures is one of the most violent passions of man Tertul. l. de spectat c. 4. and that among pleasures that of spectacles is one of them which most transport him Secondly in the passages which oblige us to tend always to perfection which consists in the subjection of Passions to grace which cannot be acquired but by banishing from the spirit all that may serve to strengthen them and to entertain them Whereas says he chap. 15.16 Spectacles on the contrary make the passions revive in the hearts of the most mortified persons they re animate them they fortify them and after they have put them who behold them as it were out of themselves they excite in them motions of hatred of love of joy of sadness which are by so much more irregular by how much one oftentimes loves what they should hate or which deserves no esteem and one hates on the contrary that which they are not permitted to hate Thirdly in the passages of sacred Writ which forbid us the least impurities and the least dishonest or frivolous words For why says this great man chap. 17. should it be permitted to a Christian to see represented on a Theatre such things as he is not permitted so much as to think of and to hear that spoken of there which ought no where be once named before him Finally Tertullian shews that spectacles may not be permitted to Christians First by the judgement which men make of such as represent them and who pass in their opinion for infamous persons chap. 21. Secondly by the judgement which God himself gives of them there being nothing in the spectacles which he condemns not chap. 23. Thirdly because the said spectacles are of the number of the pomps of the devil which we have renounced by our Baptism chap. 24. Fourthly because the very Pagans judged that a man was become a Christian when he absented himself from them acknowledging that the instinct of Christian Piety removed from the Theatre all such as professed it chap. 25. Fifthly because it is impossible to conserve there the feelings of piety which a Christian ought always to have in his heart Sixthly because all the objects there represented are only proper to divert
an account of what they have learned examine them whether they comprehend what they say and because they are not capable of themselves to make good use of it you are to apply to the little occasions of their souls that which hath best pleased them or that which hath the nearest touched them You are to make preservatives against the vices you see them most inclined to and remedies against the imperfections which they most ordinarily fall into You are with words full of tenderness and sweetness to instill into them the love of the Virtues there praysed the horrour of the Vices there condemned and to leave them always in a sacred hunger of this celestial nourishment I mean in the desire to hear the Word of God which you are to excite by little rewards and by an honest liberty you will give them to recreate themselves when they have well remembred what you told them or what they heard from others Prevent the Solemnities to instruct your children in the Mysteries the memory whereof are then celebrated and accommodate your self to their age to make them enter into the Spirit and into the practise of those Virtues which are honoured in the said Mysteries Entertain them frequently with the life and actions of Christ Jesus and repeat often to them what Tradition and the Gospel teach us of those of his holy Mother And because children are strongly inclined to hear the recital of such things as they can least imitate and of events accompanied with fear and horrour relate unto them the conflicts of the Martyrs the temptations of the Anchorets the miracles of the Confessours And as there is almost no day wherein the Church proposes not to her children a meditation upon the life of some Saint let no Evening pass without proposing to them some action of Virtue and without prescribing to them some little practise of piety for the Morrow The Confessarius of the famous S. Lewis who wrote the Life of that great King says That each Evening he caused his Children to come into his Chamber where he always spoke to them some words of edification before he sent them away As for example in the time of the Birth of our blessed Saviour representing to them the cold which little Jesus endured in the Crib may you not excite them to suffer for his sake the incommodity of the season and the cold they feel in the School or in the Church If they complain that they are denied the things they desire Why may you not say to them Well my children consider how many other things you have Alas our Saviour Christ had not a little bed as you have to lye on nor fine linnen nor a good Coat to cloath him He was almost naked in a manger and upon straw and yet all things belonged to him although he would not make use of them but left them for our use and comfort Is it not then very reasonable we should want some small matter for the love of him Go he can and will reward you in Heaven If they finde it painful to follow you to the Church tell them that they are far from doing as our Lord did Luke 2.41 who stole himself away from his Parents to remain in the Temple and who made every year a long journey to go thither with them If they shew some Impatience in their small sufferings say to them Ah my children how far are you from enduring the torments which so many Saints suffered for Christ Jesus How will you endure Martyrdom when you shall be men if you cannot now endure the pricking of a Pin And if you cannot bear a little blow from your Brother or from your Sister when will you be so perfect and patient as to turn your other Cheek to him who hath struck one of them Instill into them a great love and a great esteem of their own littleness and Infancy Repeat frequently unto them that which is advantagious for Infants in the Gospel Tell them how our Lord reprehended his Apostles Matt. 18.19 for hindring such Infants as they are to come unto him that he took one of them and placed him in the middle of his Disciples and that he said several times that one must become like them to enter into Heaven And thus at the same time they grow according to the Body make them conserve in their Soul a great love for the qualities and the dispositions of Infancy Bring them up in a great respect and in a great confidence for their Guardian Angels Let them know principally the life of that Saint whose name they bear and the obligation they have to imitate him or her And as it is said of Christ Jesus Matt. 2. that he grew in the house and under the conduct of his holy Mother in Wisdome in Age and in Grace before God and before Men let your children advance by your care by little and little in the knowledge of the sacred Mysteries and in your colloquies and your instructions let all things serve you as St. Paul says to make them encrease in Christ Jesus Ephes 4.15 Above all teach them to prefer God and his Commandements before all other things Tell them often that they ought to have for him much more tenderness and more respect than they have for your self Imitate that excellent Mother of whom mention is made in the Book of Maccabees who to encourage her children to endure constantly their torments for the defence of the Jewish Religion excited them to look upon God as their Father and to esteem themselves happy in sacrificing their lives for the glory of him of whom they received them and who had prepared lives much more glorious for them in Heaven Imitate the admirable art she made use of to strengthen the youngest of her seven children whom the Tyrant endeavoured to withdraw from the resolution of dying and do you as she did make use of the consideration of such things as you have done for your children thereby to engage them to persevere in Virtue Take compassion my Son says she to him 2 Maccab. 7.17 upon a Mother who hath born you in her bosom who hath nourished you whole years with the Milk of her Breasts and who hath educated you with tenderness even till this time I demand of you my Son by all these considerations that you will lift your heart and your eyes towards Heaven and that in imitation of your Brothers you will receive death with joy that I may have the satisfaction to see you partaker of their glory 'T is thus that you should make use of the power which the gratitude and the love your children have for you gives you over their spirit to engage them to raise up themselves to God and to honour him to whom alone they are indebted for the care you employed in their Education And because there are occasions in this life where the tenderness and the respect which children have for their Parents may prove