Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	child_n	parent_n	see_v	3,977	5	4.5623	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61722	Strafforiados. The lieutenant's legend as it was first compared, and now published, according to the originall copie. Writ by his owne hand in the Tower.	Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of, 1593-1641.	1652 (1652)	Wing S5796; ESTC R219679	14,375	34

foundation of his hopes cannot stand But future judgements are strangers to his thoughts So he may injoy the pleasures of Sinne for a season Eternity is quite razed out of the Calendar of his memory He holds the Pellican a good naturall Mother in feeding her young-ones to her owne ruine but he holds that Child a meere Naturall that would requite that parentall favour to his owne danger Whence it is that He accounts no Bird more foolish then the Storke in carrying his aged Parents upon his Wings and providing for them whose unweldy condition cannot purvey for themselves I have often observ'd it nor could I well credit what my eyes had seene how Nature could possibly become such a Changeling as to wish no being to those from whom they had their being Many Children have found their Parents to be their best Stewards yet rather then be troubled with such Dispensers they could wish that care supplyed by Hyrelings There was an antient Decree that He who neglected his Parents in their age should reap no benefit by their Death Var de Antiq. Rom. Viget Macrob. Valer. Max. Rhodolph Agric. de Leg. Nat. Now how many Children should we finde disinherited were this Law to all intents and purposes executed That Law no doubt was well intended if it were but ordain'd onely to preserve in their Progeny pretenses of Duty It is hope of preferment that begets in most Children this Shady Semblance of Obedience Take away this Hope and you shall finde an icy Zeale Broad-spred Sycamours all for Shadow none for Fruit. Were it not then just for Parents to adopt Strangers their Heyres seeing those who should be their Lineall Heyres make themselves such Strangers to their cares But the heart of a Father is of a more waxen and indulgent temper so blind has affection made him as He generally values those most whose actions deserve least These he tenderly huggs who would follow his Hearse with dry eyes and who in the height of his extreames will rather Prey on him then Pray for him So apt is Nature to deprave judgement and to play the Impostor with her Multiplying Glasse presenting more comforts in the worst then can possibly appeare in the best When affection has forfeited her discretion and lost the eyes of her judgement by mistakes Vertues seeme Vices and Vices Vertues It were wisdome then for Nature to suspend her eyes and to fixe them with an impartiall reflexe both on merit and immerit This will beget that emulation in goodnesse which Children before knew not at least pursude not because they were by their Parents undistinguished or unrewarded But little need we to presse this Argument Experience tells you whom I should admonish that a Father is more ready to give then a Child to requite Be it your care to reteine in this my last Farewell these finall Directions which may prove as usefull to you as any Portion I can bequeath you Your youth inform'd me that your Dispositions were different which caus'd me to bestow you severall waies For Philosophy had told me and Experience taught me that Nature could not be forc'd Yet have I highly tax'd my Indulgence for giving such way to the freedome of youth Some of you pretended for Armes others for Arts. You who were for Armes had got such a Surfet of the Schoole as your Plea was incapacity to your Booke by reason of your want of memory or impregnancy or some other innate defect So as your desire was to inlist your selves after the garbe of these stirring times amongst Souldiers of Fortune to ingage your persons for the Campe but as I conceited it only to dis-ingage your selves of the Whip And I assented to it and some progression have you made in it without much losse or increment of Honour March along then with this advice In the first place be no lesse Cautious then Conscientious of the Grounds for which you fight Be He never so valiant if the Cause be nought for which he ingageth it is Rashnesse and no Valour For win He or lose He the issue redounds ever to his Dishonour Sub quocunque Regimine critis constituti non reluctantes sed integrè subditi Albanus Arnobius Evander Euthymius Allegeance is a just ground in what Orbe soever the State be Spheared though in these dayes unfortunately mannaged But Actions are not to derive their equity from event or successe Nor to receive their Censure from the losse of a Field Fortune is not alwaies Vertues Shadow If this last designe of theirs bearing such a face of Loyalty redeeme their fame it is an unexspected recovery England cannot be more in Gods eye then Iudaea and yet Infidels are become Lords of that Seat where our Heavenly Lord and his Apostles trode Let me advise you be no Scotch pretenders in making Religion your colour when Plunder is your aime Though their booties inrich them their Newtrall Factions seemingly secure them They must come off with losse before the maine Battaile determine the Quarrell ☞ Make not such use of your strength as injuriously to intrench upon an others State Doe no man wrong When the Sword is in your hand let Grace be in your heart Let that daring insolence so familiar with a Souldier be to you an uncivill Stranger Walke in the wayes of Innocency and end these dayes of your warfare in it Preferre a glorious Death before a vicious life Better is it to dye with an Abel then to live a Cain Be it your prime care every Morne to make your peace with God Suffer not your inward Enemy to have any advantage of you Whatsoever your Outward have Though the Bullet make no distinction betwixt a Prince and a Common Souldier Those Christian Memorialls recommended to you in your youth should better prepare you then to fall like Beasts without remembring your future condition The Marriner and Souldier ought of all others to be ever provided of this Spirituall Armour Three inches onely distanceth the One from Death and a Paper-sconce the Other Of all Others every houre may be your last Be it then your constant Taske in the Service of your Campe to make Heaven your Care March after this manner and the Lord of Hoasts will goe along with you and improve these actions of valour to your Fame His Honour Now for you who are for Arts. As it has beene my care to season you in all Sciences Humane and Divine be it your care not to invert them but rank them according to their Degrees Imploy your Humane as Handmaids your Divine as their Mistresses Now Religion must be the foundation which being strengthned and cherished by that sweetly-distilling influence of Devotion is not to consist onely in Speculative knowledge but Proficiency of Action For Religion being the Mystery of our Salvation is a practicall Syllogisme whose premisses goe for nothing if there be not the active conclusion of well-doing The promise is not made to Him that knowes this

Himselfe with foure young ones presenting his foure Sonnes two whereof were ever billing and pecking at his eyes the other two scratching his face These were unkind Chickens unnaturall Eaglets yet many such Branchers may we find ayring neare most of our Nests But heavy judgements are reserv'd for such Unnaturalists The Ravens shall pick out their eyes and the terrors of unprepared ends shall surprize them These who are sick of a Father shall find sickly comforts in the death of a Father The Inheritance which their Nimrod-desires hunted after with such greedinesse shall but serve for fuell to increase their unhappinesse As their wishes murdred him living so shall his ill-requited memory present to their profuse houres and mis-spent Estates Myriads of miseries at their dying But admit which were rare to finde that these longing Heires should be followers of their Fathers steps in a thriving providence yet must they expect from their children in offices of Obedience a just Acquittance Such Parents seldome God blesseth with obedient Children who neglected the duty they ought to their Parents when they were Children Illud expectandum est à nobis quod praestitimus nostris Paterculus So as whether these undutifull ones be Frugall or Prodigall Misery through a loathed satiety or Poverty through their profuse society have ever accompanyed their Evening Yea I have known some of these who either touch'd with remorse of Conscience or driven to want through their own licentiousness could have wisht to have digg'd up their contemned Fathers with their nayles so they might have injoy'd them For all the dis-esteem which their neglectfull youth while they were living exprest unto them or poysonous disgraces their unmanag'd course aspersed on them Yet was it no Filiall Zeale but an Experimentall want that wrought upon them this course O the deceiving hopes of a disconsolate Father What restlesse cares anxious hopes and solicitous feares hourely awake him sleeping and daily incounter him waking He neglects no time to increase his store no wayes unsought to improve his estate He eates the bread of carefulnesse and apportions himselfe the very least of all his Family to raise an higher foundation to his posterity O sandie ground-work What an imprudent house-holder is He who shares in his owne with the least and lowest of his Meniey to beget affliction to himselfe dis-affection in others Where Large Inventories commonly make forgetfull Executors loose Successors Poore indisposed providence Be these the fruites of broken sleepes and needy repasts Is it wisdom to lay up his treasure in the hopes of those who mourne for nothing more then to be their owne Treasurers by disseising a too industrious Father of his care and coyne together O what a joyfull sound does the Passing Bell afford to a thirsty Prodigall who long before the crawling worme has either untwisted his Shrowd or those funerall flowers which stuck his Corpse lost their colour has buried the memory of his indulgent Father in those healthlesse Healths of lasting Oblivion In what account are we to hold those houres that are incountred with such confluence of griefs Peruse Annals of Time and in what did Old Priam exceed young Tro●lus but in years teares calamitous Children and numerous cares Let the foolish Father whose penurious life has bene wholly bestow'd on Sparing to give more length of line to his Successours Spending cast up his Accounts and examine what profit or parentall comfort his nightly cares and watchfull indeavours have returned him Methinks I see him turne over leafe after leafe and accompt day after day yet he findes nothing worthy his care nor what may answer his toyle Yet take this notice as an Addition to his folly Though He found nothing all his time that might promise him least assurance in them of performing his Bequest yet such is his groundlesse confidence as He recommends to their care what he forgot to doe in his life Sundry pious workes which eyther his affection so closely cemented to the World would not suffer him to performe Or the foolish hope He had in his Heire made him transferre that Worke to his trust But the carelesse Unthrift makes his late Fathers Charge the least of his Care He findes in himselfe such liberty of conscience as He can dispence with the Execution of such Bequests He findes all that his Father left him little enough for his owne Share as He hopes within short time the World will shew it Memorialls of dead Fathers are to be buried with them Thus discharge such as these their trust to purpose Legacies and Pious Offices must become their owne Trustees Their Testator is committed to Earth whose memory accompanies his Obsequies Both subject to one Fate And deposited in one Urne And those who survive Him hold him rightly serv'd What mad Man is He that will intrust Him at his Death who never answered his trust in his life Expectance begets obedience Injoyment shutts up affection in an Act of Oblivion If hopes make not a Child Obedient Possession of what He hoped for will hardly doe it O see to what shadows this Worldlings substance is reduced Before He returne well to Earth all his early and late providence is resolved to Ayre He has bid the World a long farewell which makes his jolly Spend-thrift farewell and deliciously in it Those Consorts which his Father hated must be his onely Copesmates In their Careere they sing a merry Requiem for his Soule whose Rest is the least of their Care His interment gives intertainment to those who will never leave his debaucht Heire till his Estate has left him He has made choise of them and for a World he would not change them whose onely Office it is to contrive the way how he may gallantly spend as it is His to finde a purse how to defray the charge of their Projects Thus must an aged providence be thawed and to nothing dissolved by a Youthfull expence Were the length of his dayes proportion'd to his expence his exhausted State before he saw halfe of his dayes would be contracted to a Scrip or his Prospect through his numerous ingagements confined to a Grate But Death is many times so kinde as to impose a period to his miseries and to end him before they wholly make an end of him But be his dayes long or short his memory cannot chuse but rot being a branch shred and cut off from the root It is a promise and He is faithfull in his performance that makes it Length of dayes shall be unto him who Honours his Parents which implyes an Abridgment to his who dishonours them The wicked and deceitfull man shall not live to see halfe his Dayes And shew me a more deceitfull Liver then He who deceives the trust of a Father If Obedience be better then Sacrifice no doubt but Disobedience is the Sacrifice of Fooles It seemes he desires to have his dayes short who by his Rebellious course labours to shorten his Fathers dayes The