Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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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
themselves Children still How much happier would they be if they were so indeed They would then have something like Excuse now they have not All that we did and learn'd in the more serious Undertakings of our Childhood was only designed for Discipline and Method to dispose us for the doing and learning more hereafter as he can never be Rich who keeps not that which he has gain'd and he can never be Skilful in any Art or Science who forgets the first Notions of it he once was taught A Father of the Church said upon a like Occasion nothing is to be dispised by those who are to be instructed and led into the knowledge of things for if they look upon the first Elements as little things how shall they attain the perfect and great things in knowledge These early things which the Church has taught us are not Scaffold work to be taken down again but Foundation and he that would take away the Foundation when the House is near the being finish'd would only undermine it and never finish it Whoever discards the knowledge of the Catechism when he is no more a Child he either at the same time renounces all knowledge of Religion but surely if that knowledge were necessary in Childhood it is much more necessary afterwards or he at the same time designs a much higher Knowledge in Religion and because he is still going forward he leaves the first behind him not as too heavy but as too light or little to carry with him Indeed he must not here forget those things which are be hind if he will reach forth to those things which Are before if he will press towards the Mark of the Prize of the high Calling The more he values those other things he would understand the more he is to value these first things without which he cannot understand the other and the more Knowledge he has attained the more humble he is or should be and so not apt to despise the meanest Truth as well as Person be owes the greater regard to these original Truths to which he owes all his highest Improvements Indeed they are not the meanest Truths they are the first in Order and Dignity as well as in Time and Place because they are the Doctrines of things necessary to Salvation and no Good so great as Salvation no Truth so great as that which teaches things necessary to it The other Doctrines are the Issues of these by a natural Consequence and so they cannot be nobler than these till the Off-spring shall claim more Honour than Parents from whom they derive all they have The other parts of Religion are but so many several Streams that flow from these which therefore should have all the Reverence from us as Fountains had so much from the Heathens were Sacred and were Adored The Doctrines of the Catechism are very far from being those of the lowest Rank they have so much the Character of the Scripture from whence we received them as Fruits have the Nature of the Soil wherein they grow that however there are things in the Catechism for the lowest there are also many for the highest and most manly Understanding The things are so high that they are subjects more of Belief then of Enquiry and yet when they have Mystery enough to puzzle the Enquirer they have at the same time Evidence enough to baffle the Unbeliever Evidence like that of Witnesses against a Malefactor to Condemn him The Doctrines still are great however the style of the Catechism like that of the Scripture be very plain as the greatest Person may appear in the plainest Dress There is so much more of the nicer Art to reduce sublime and awful things to easie and familiar Words and there is more Authority in such a Language as there is often a more prevailing Authority in a condescending and lowly Behaviour That Noble Person had a very just Opinion †The Lady Catherine Manners afterwards Marchioness of Buckingham of our Catechism who acknowledged it to be a plain Summary of saving Truth and being of a Roman-Catholick Family and Education she seemed in this Acknowledgment to give a generous Pledg that there should be Success to their Endeavours who were Zealous to teach her new and better Principles The Religious Beginnings of Childhood are in things necessary to Salvation that our happy End the End of our Faith may be in Salvation it self our Christian Beginning is in things more necessary as in the first part of a Feast we find the Meats which have more substance and nourish more Our first entrance is in the needful things of Belief and Knowledge both because this Belief and Knowledge are the Root to all the goodly Branches of Religion and there must be first a Root before there can be an enlargement of the Tree into spreading Branches and useful Fruit and because the former Time of our Age is not so capable of nor has such Occasion and Exercise for the several good Works which are the other chief parts of Christian Duty but it is already capable of Knowledge which should prepare us for them That being planted in the House of the Lord you may flourish in the Courts of the House of our God in His Church and you my bring forth more Fruit in your Age that you may grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ your reading over the Catechism once every Month of your Life and your reading it with all the Wisdom and careful Observation of your more perfect Age would be a most useful Office when you may be above the giving an account of it to others you can never in a Life of all those Years I wish you out-live the Necessity of giving it to your self and to God There is a Precept to all even to the oldest Christians for the being ready always to give account to others to give an Answer to every Man that asks a Reason of the Hope which is in them So needful is the continuance of this first Knowledge that you cannot know any thing else aright without having still an Eye to this and then steering by it you are to take it with you wherever you go in whatever you do It is the Standard by which all your Knowledge is to be tryed and it is the Rule to which all your Practice hereafter is to be reconciled As the Catechism is always to be well remembred so is it to be well considered by you No part of it you are to consider more than your Vow in Baptism and the Explaining of the Commandments in the Catechism the Performance of which Commandments so explained is one great part of the Performance of that Vow and the great the principal Exercise of your wisest Age and of the best Endeavours in all the Time which is to come and I hope with a long Train after it of Days and Blessings upon your doing that which you were not only Baptized