Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44302
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The honourable state of matrimony made comfortable, or An antidote against discord betwixt man and wife being special directions for the procuring and preserving of family peace.
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B. D. aut; J. R. aut
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1685
(1685)
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Wing H2601; ESTC R215302
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102,808
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275
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places above your inferiours tho' you ought to order and manage your actions with such gravity as may gain some awe and respect from their hearts and tho' you ought to uphold the honour and preheminence of that station wherein God hath set you by all prudent means yet you must not carry your selves towards your inferiours with any proud supercilious or fastuous deportment As you need not indent your cheeks with continual smiles so neither plow your foreheads with rough and fâ—wre wrincles A sober affability and unaffected and amiable gravity will sufficiently chastise contempt and nourish a reverend love Rigid austerity in words and actions will produce a slavish dis-spirited temper in Children and Servants that when they come to years they are so pusillanimous that they are rendred unfit to manage the work of their Generation The dogged carriages of your superiours with a word and a blow to Children and Servants upon every trifling occasion works in them an over-much rustick slavery makes them dejected dull and stupid and unfit for any service Carry your selves therefore in that manner that they may neither fear or have your morosity nor grow wanton upon the commonness of your carriage 9. Be careful not to manifest too much severity against a fault when 't is ingeniously and fully confest for if you do you will cause your Children and Servants to deny the truth another time When superiours are equally severe when their inferiours confess as when they deny the truth of the fact they provoke them to lye If a confession of a fault doth not procure a moderation of correction yea sometimes an omission of correction another time inferiours will obstinately deny what they have done and add sin to sin And let such superiours know that they are guilty of every such lye their inferiours tell and shall answer for it as their own sin I have here given those general directions how Husbands und Wives should carry themselves to their inferiours because their disorderly carriages to Children and Servants have caused hot contests between them When the one hath fallen fiercely upon a Child or Servant the other hath disliked it and thereupon have fallen out with each other and have been so furious against each other that they have not been reconciled in a long time Therefore O Husbands and Wives as you desire to have a comfortable enjoyment of each other observe those directions in your carriages to your inferiours But I pass on to the next particular to give some particular directions to Husbands and Wives concerning the education of their Children 1. Beware of manifesting your affections to one Child more than another but shew equal love to them all otherwise that will be an heinous crime in one which will seem no blemish or fault in the other For an unequal affection blinds the judgment and the child that is respected is dealt harsher with whereby it is very much discouraged dejected and grieved 2. Do not overmuch restrain them from innocent and lawful recreations but give them some convenient liberty to refresh themselves in the exercise of them which may better dispose them to receive benefit by your education and be a means the sooner to make your godly instructions to them 3. Beware of base vilifying language in your rebukes which will provoke Children to be dogged sullen and grow worse rather than reform them 4. Do you sometimes wink at small things in Children and not chide them for every trifle else as Children grow older Parents will grow contemptible 5. Let not the Mother chide or correct the Child in the Fathers presence but if the Father doth not observe the present ill behaviour or know of a former miscarriage let the Wife then inform the Husband whose right then it is to chide or correct by the authority of his place or deal with the Child when the Father is gone forth for otherwise she doth not respect her Husbands superiority over her self as well as the Child 6. Use not many words in rebuking your Children Let your words be few proper and weighty and let your carriage be grave but not fierce 7. Do not upbraid your Children with former miscarriages in your passionate heats for which they have received reproof and correction before but when the same faults are again renewed give new reproofs or corrections as the nature of the offence doth require 8. Study the constitutions of your Children Mildness will do better with some than severity and the dispositions of others need severity to be exercised towards them 9. When the Husband rebukes a Child let the Wife be silent and not plead for him in the childs hearing If the Husband doth what is not proper let her tell him of it in private 10. If you are angry with Children for some miscarriage forbear rebuking or correcting till your spirits are cooled That cannot be done regularly that is done in fury Whatever is done rashly will be done disorderly and so no good effect can be produced 11. Be careful that you be not causers of your childrens undultifulness and disobedience by your bad examples and ill behaviour If you have not walked so circumspectly as the duties of your Children might be due unto you even in regard of your behaviour you have brought on your selves the guilt of your Childrens want of duty You should be holy grave and modest in your lives and eminently exemplary for practical godliness and then your instructions will more effectually influence their hearts and breed and continue in them an awe and reverence of your parental authority But alas in how many places are Parents of careless and loose lives of peevish and froward humours bewraying their neglect of Religion going to Religious Exercises when they â—â—st making every trifling occasion a sufficient excuse for neglecting Christian duties sometimes pretending inability of body when laziness and want of affection is the principal cause of their neglects Others carry no gravity â—n their doings nor modesty in their behaviours but live most dissolutely and often incontinently Others swear fearfully without regard speaking profanely not respecting the frailty of the youth that hear them Sometimes Husbands and Wives let unkind speeches pass from them one towards another in the presence of their Children to the great impairing of their credit with them Other Parents are too careless of bringing up their Children in the fear of God in the nature and admonition of the Lâ—rd as they are bound Ephes 6.4 〈◊〉 these are means to make Children fillâ—â— reverence to their Parents and to tempt them to sin and tho' you may be grieved that your Children want a reverend regard of you yet your selves have been causers of the same Pray then consider O ye Parents what cause ye have given of y ur Childrens disobedience and bewail it and be watchful against such carriages for the future as have heretofore occasion'd their disobedience for surely what duties the Law bindeth all Children to perform it
as strictly bindeth all Parents to deserve The Parents evil doth not at all excuse the Childs miscarriages but it maketh him guilty of his Childs offence Beg then of God to pardon your past miscarriages and to work such gracious principles in you that you may never more be precedents in sin to your Children that you may not by your bad examples draw them into the ways of their ruine Your labouring by an holy life to deserve duty from your Children will exceedingly forward your Childrens performance of their duties in you So that it is your great concern to beware of speaking or doing any thing before your Children that you would not have them to imitate you in for Children are more forward to imitate the examples of their Parents in things that are evil than in things that are good Therefore be patterns of good to them be patterns of meekness and not of wrath that they may observe that in your behaviours that deserves their imitation and so may be followers of you in well doing O that Parents would strictly observe those directions that their Children may be piously educated whereby they may be able to take comfort in their modest respectful and orderly behaviour towards them 12. Abuse not your parental authority by provoking your Children to wrath or by imbittering their Spirits Ephes 6.4 And this is done 1. By denying them that which is their due in Food Raiment or means of Education neglecting to bring them up in an honest Calling whereby they might get their living in the fear of God Lament 4 3 4. 2. By commanding them to do things unjust in themselves as in 1 Sam. 20.31 or by unjust and rigorous commands about things in their own nature indifferent 1 Sam. 14.28 29. You lay great burthens upon your Children pressing them still with your authority You injoyn them what you list not weighing well what they like and not carefully considering as well their natures as your own desires as well their comfort and convenient being as your own affection and will to have it whereby your Childrens lives are very much imbitter'd 3. By inveighing with bitter w rds against them giving them furious speeches and violent language chiefly when there is no cause as Saul did to Jonathan 1 Sam. 20.30 4. By beating them unjustly when there is no fault 1 Sam. 20.33 or immoderately unreasonably and basely when there is a fault doing it with bitterness without compassion instruction and prayer These unnatural carriages exceedingly provoke Children to wrath and thereby your Children are provoked by you to sin for Children cannot bear cruel injuries from their very Parents without being incited thereby to sinful anger Therefore the Apostle saith Provoke not your Children to anger yet I say Parents are not to with hold seasonable necessary and moderate correction from their Children although theâ— Children should be enraged and provoked 〈◊〉 wrath by it for tho' they must not provokâ—â— them to wrath yet they must not neglect 〈◊〉 bring them up in the nurture and admonitiâ—â— of the Lord. They must not go from one exâ—ream to another i.e. from Regidity to too much Lenity Whiles Parents are cautioned against rigid severity 'T is necessary to guard them against too much indulgence that they may â—â—t let their Children persevere in Vicious â—â—urses without controule Parents ought to take care of their Childrens Souls faithfully indeavouring to beat down sin in them by nurture or correction and using all means possible to bring them up for Sons and Daughters to the Lord Almighty 13. When ever you reprove instruct when ever you find fault with any evil your Children have done inform them of some good that they should be doing There are many that are apt to be much in reproving faults that are seldom or never teaching duties The Wife thinks it her special priviledge to check and the Fathers duty only to teach yet when they are teaching them Wives will quarrel with their Husbands for not giving better instructions to their Children but will not allow their Husbands to speak to them in their presence or they will find fault with the matter or manner of instructing Indeed while Children are young the duty of teaching and instructing them is more incumbant on the Wife then the Husband for while the Wife keeps in her place and as she ought to be Tit. 2.15 A keeper at home she is most conversant with them and hath most oportunities of conversing with them by way of Instruction the good Wife that Solomon mentions in Prov. 31.26 She opened her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness She looketh well to the ways of her houshould Those are far from having a law of kindness in their tongues who are still casting forth in their Expressions the filth of their froward minds and that Wife is far from carrying her self as a Christian Parent that is always raging against pretended faults but never giving loving instructions or good advise or counsel Parents ought to be giving pious instructions to their Children when there is no cause of reproof they ought to instruct every day but reprove them only when an offence is committed Instruction is seasonable when there is no need of reproof but reproof is never profitable without instruction When a fault is reproved the evil of it must be shewn to the Child offending and the necessity if desisting and the danger of continuing such a practice must be demonstrated and how the Child ought to behave himself in his carriage towards God and them must be demonstrated If Husband and Wife were faithful in this respect there would not be such jarrings and contentions between them as there are 14. Before you instruct or correct Children or Servants beg God to direct you how to manage your instructions and corrections and to sanctifie them to their benifit you cannot expect God to succeed that which you do not beg God to bless Instructions are so often given without success because so often given without Prayer and your Corrections are so often given in passion that they are seldom given with moderation and the gratifying of passion â—s oftner the ground of Correction then Reformation because angry superiors will not allow themselves time to pray before they do correct So that is made an act of rashness which should be an act of seriousness You complain of your inferiors stubbornness Children and Servants are stubborn your instruction and correction doth influence them very little but when did you make a solemn work by solemn or ejaculatory Prayer before you entred upon it Blame your neglects of duty to God as the ground of your riors neglect of duty to you Lastly If Wives would live in peace and amity with their Husbands if any of of them are married to a man that had Children by a former Wife let such a Wife beware that she do not vilifie her Children in law nor represent every Childish act as an