Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A60374
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A father's legacy. Sir Henry Slingsbey's instructions to his sonnes. Written a little before his death
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Slingsby, Henry, Sir, 1602-1658.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing S3995; ESTC R220066
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17,170
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98
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A FATHER'S LEGACY Sir Henry Slingsbey's INSTRUCTIONS To his SONNES Written a little before his Death LONDON Printed by J. Grismond 1658. A FATHER'S LEGACY To His SONNES IT is not unknowne unto me my dear Sonnes how many persons of quality have bestow'd their Pens on this Subject wherein I am to address my self out of my fatherly and tender care towards you The ground of my discourse shall be Instruction whereto I am confident you will be ready to give the more serious attention in regard it proceeds from his mouth and devotion of his heart who with a parental and tender affection ever loved you while he was living and now dying leaves you this Memorial as my last Legacy for your future benefit improvement and direction Our last expressions usually retain the deepest impression especially being uttered by a tongue whose relation did highly indear us and whose words are the very last he shall speak upon earth being within few houres to pay his debt to Nature and stand at that Barre and appear before that High Court of Justice from whence no Appeal will be admitted But my Preamble must not be long seeing the definite Sentence of death hath limited my time so short My beginning shall receive life from Him from whom we all derive our beginning whom you are above all things to fear and that with no servile but filial fear not so much for fear of punishment or hope of reward as out of pure zeal and cordial love to his sacred Majesty who will recompence our momentany sufferings with Crownes of immortal glory and cloath our constancy with incorruptible robes of beauty But no combat no conquest you are to fight a good fight before your warfare become a triumph And trust me my Dear Sons such influence has my long imprisonment wrought upon me nay such divine operations has his powerful Spirit acted upon my poor Soul as I hold him a weak-hearted souldier that faints under the conduct of such a Commander who patiently died for our sins and victoriously rose for our justification I must ingenuously confess that upon my first restraint my conflict was something difficult before I attained this Christian attemperature and composure to my resolves I could not for a season but friendly converse with that which I now mortally hate He that consorts with the Pelican cannot chuse but smell of the Wilderness I begun by help of my solitude and long retirement a place to me of infinite improvement to recollect my self and seriously to meditate how my too near and familiar society with the world though never deeply drenched in it was the high way to procure a divorce with God It was my study therefore to leave it with my affection before such time as I became enjoyned to leave it by a necessitated dissolution I considered how the life of a wise man was to return to God and to hold all things under him as Secondaries Him onely the Primary Good This was the Mirror that flattered not During my late privacy occasioned by my captivity store of vacant houres were reserved for me the expence whereof conduced more highly to my inward benefit and advantage then all my fore-past liberty For before I knew not what it was to wrastle with my self till restraint an useful though unwelcom Messenger brought me to a due and exact consideration of my self and the present condition whereto I was reduced Yet in this my retire and recesse from the world I could not chuse but encounter with some dangerous Remoraes to foreslow my passage and proficience Assiduate Offices of profest amity visits of friends with other obligiug ties of relation were daily contriving new but affectionate wayes how to call me from my self and reduce my thoughts to a more familiar converse with the world and considerable motives to induce and effectual enough to operate upon a meer humane fancy were presented to me but none more powerfull acting then my tender reflexion upon your young and unexperienced condition my dearest children whom as it had ever been my constant care to educate in a corresponsive way to your extraction so it was my desire that my ancient and lineally descended estate might without incumbrance fall upon you my Elder Sonne together with such a competent conferment upon your younger Brother as the conveniency of his fortunes might disingage him of that servile condition which too usually the young Gentry of our Land through neglect of timely provision become liable to I mean beholdingness or dependence on the Elder The discussion of these seriously weighed brought me to consider what I could not forget with honour how you were those precious pledges wherein I had treasured all my inferior hopes being next in care to the eternity of my Soul In this my Treaty with the World I bethought me likewise how your virtuous Sister whose pure and unblemished fame has conferred an high additament to my comfort and incomparably revived me in this my irrevocable Sentence to the Scaffold how She I say was not to be neglected but highly tendred for though she appeared compleatly qualified and with the choicest ornaments of Nature richly furnished nay with Noble Relations sufficiently strengthned yet there is something more required to make a person of Honour be she never so personally accomplished a Mistress of great Fortunes These were thoughts of a long discourse and strong debate neither were they with less vehemency seconded by such whose setled and immutable affections such was their integrious candor and intimacy to me in my greatest extremes aimed no less in their prudent advice at the future success and advancemēt of mine then their own And their Bosome-Counsels dispatched it so as what the constancy or what others termed it pertinacy of opinion would not assent to the amicable care of faithfull Trustees effected This quieted my thoughts and brought me again to my self And I found this calm and well setled composure a precious princely structure I found no Billows dispassionately acting to endanger the passage of my late surcharged Vessell All appeared to me as in a calm Sea and as one in a safe harbour I begun to recall to mind those Divine Contemplations which my late converse with secular occasions had so prejudicially estranged from me I begun to take a more serious view of what I had to my intellectual gain observed and what I had in my own default neglected I took my mark as by a Landskip how the world was a shop of disguises and false faces And I concluded upon my review of these summing them up to their utmost period How all things were vanity save onely to please God and to serve him Make this your Anchor-hold and you may saile safely you shall manage your affections with that equal and discreet temper as nothing can be possibly acted by you to disparage you or lay the least aspersion on your honour It is not to be questioned but the high estimate that men set upon