which he would have with the Church by rendring her his Body Must we not then aver after this great Apostle Ephes 3.32 That surely Marriage is a holy Institution in Christ Jesus and in his Church and that it is honourable in all Heb. 1.4 that is to say as the holy Fathers explicate it in all its parts Yes my Sister you ought to have a high esteem of the state to which God hath called you because in like manner as it was he who having drawn Eve from the side of Adam our first Father gave her to him for his Spouse 't is also he who by his invisible hand hath tyed the knot of the sacred cord of your Marriage and who gave you to your Husband You ought to do it because God intending to multiply Souls which may bless and praise him to all Eternity hath done you the favour to make choice of you to cooperate by the production of your Children and by their Education to so great a work You ought to do it because Christ Jesus by his presence at the Marriage of Cana in Galilee has sanctified all them which are to be celebrated among Christians You ought finally to do it not only because there are so many holy persons in the Old and New Testament who have lived most faintlike in Marriage but also because the Mother of Christ Jesus the most pure and most innocent of all creatures was engaged in the bonds of that indissoluble alliance which you have contracted In such sort that if by the Vow of Virginity which she made before the Angelical Salutation she was as S. Augustine relates the model of all the Virgins who were to come after her S. August lib de Virginitate c 4. Lib. 5. contra Julianum c. 22. she was no less in the opinion of the same holy Father the example of Married persons by espousing St. Joseph and by powerfully insinuating unto them by her prudent conduct that Marriage ceases not truly to subsist although by mutual consent they should propose to themselves to live in a holy Continence But above all my Sisters you ought to esteem your self happy in that your Marriage is the Sacrament and the image of that of Christ Jesus with his Church in that he hath permitted you and even ordained you to consider your Husband as the Church doth Christ Jesus to have for him all the tenderness and all the Submission you are capable of as the Church hath for Christ Jesus to leave your self to be conducted by his Spirit as the Church leaves her self to be conducted by the Spirit of Christ Jesus to enter into all his affections into all his sentiments to partake with him of all his pains all his afflictions as the Church doth them of Christ Jesus and not to wear outward Ornaments nor make use of affected dresses but as far forth as he permits you as the Church hath no more splendour and glory than what Christ Jesus communicates unto her Now if the Patriarks and the Israelites esteemed themselves very much honoured in having Children because the people of God were thereby much augmented that they hoped the Messias might be born of their blood and that they might perhaps have the advantage of affording him a Father or a Mother what Glory may not you expect by furnishing to Jesus Christ subjects of his Mercies and by putting into the World Children who may become the Members and the Brothers of the Son of God However you will merit this Glory my Sister and at the same time will acquit your self of the principal Duties of the state wherein you are ingaged if you apply your self seriously to give your Children a truly Christian and Holy Education having first laid aside the false Lights and pernicious Errours which are the cause why the major part of Fathers and Mothers neglect the Education of their Children and that they have no other Idea's than such as are altogether Carnal and as remote from the excellency of the estate to which they are called as Heaven is from Earth CHAP. II. That the Education of Children is one of the most considerable employs of Christianism And of the first Errour which makes it to be neglected which is the mean Idea Parents have of the Christian Life THat which makes Parents conceive ordinarily a low Idea of the Education of their Children is that they themselves have a very mean Idea of the Christian Life And thus as the Life they propose to lead hath nothing of hard and painful because it is all low and carnal they do not also apprehend any great difficulties in the conduct of children because they have not for them any more noble more heroick aims than they have for themselves It is therefore necessary in order to know what it is to Educate Children Christianly that it be understood in the first place what it is to live Christianly and above all it is necessary to be rid of an Illusion which deceives the greatest part of the World perswading it self that none but Religious Persons are called to Sanctity and that the common Life of Christians hath nothing that is labourious or painful To convince you of the contrary it sufficeth my Sister to make you observe that the state of Christianism is a state of Sanctity and of Innocency that all they who make profession thereof ought according to the express words of the Gospel to be perfect as their Heavenly Father is perfect Mat. 3.48 and as * Chrysost cont vit vitae Mon. l. 3. St. Chrysostome well observes that there ought to be no other difference between the Religious and them who live in the World but only that these engage themselves in the bonds of Marriage whereas the Religious conserve all their Liberty and have great advantages above Married persons for the more easy accomplishment of the promises of Baptism And that no doubt may remain in your spirit concerning this point and that you may entirely banish from thence this first Errour which causes all the irregularities that slide into the manners of Christians I will here simply translate what this great Doctor of the Greek Church hath written in one of his Works which he adresses to a faithful Father of Children This great Saint after he had made appear that persons engag'd in the world are no less obliged than the Religious to observe exactly the Commandements of Christ Jesus which he hath given us in the Gospel because there is no distinction in the Words and that for example he hath absolutely forbidden to Swear or to behold the Wife of ones Neighbour with criminal desires concludes that all the other Precepts of the Gospel which are not addressed to one particular estate which is there expressed extend themselves commonly to all the world and that by consequence our Saviour having declared in general that true Happiness consists in Poverty of Spirit and in Tears in the Hunger and Thirst after Justice
Children Christianly For this Christian Education consisting in establishing them in a Christian Life it must destroy in them all that is opposite to this Life as the love of Honours of Pleasures and even of all unprofitable things In such sort that as in effect the Christian Life of the common people of the World ought not to be different from that of Religious persons in the Interiour Virtues which make the Essence of Christian Perfection it is also clear that in what concerns the ground of Virtue the Education of Children ought not to be different from the Institutions of Religious people since in truth we are all Religious of the General Religion of Christ Jesus CHAP. III. Of the second Errour which causes the Neglect of the Education of Children which is the little care Parents have to preserve them in Innocency IF the mean Idea which Parents form to themselves of the Christian Life and the small feeling they have in their hearts of the great Purity to which this life obliges us is cause of the little care they take in the Education of Children surely the false Imagination they have that it is a small matter to lose ones Innocency and that it is easily recovered contributes also extreamly to make Fathers and Mothers slide into this dreadful negligence And yet can there be a more horrible Infidelity than to violate one of the most holy and most inviolable alliances which God hath made with men which is that of Baptism by which we are initiated into Christ Jesus And what outrage commit we not against God says Tertullian Tertulian de Paeniten c. 5. when after having renounced the Devil who is his Enemy and have put him under God we raise him up afterwards and returning to to the Devil we render our selves his Trophee and his joy to the end that his spirit of malice having recovered the Prey which he had lost may triumph in some sort over God himself This moved an ancient Father of the Church to say that if one falls after Baptism Pacianus in Catech. he will be in worse estate than he was before he was Baptized because the Devil will keep him faster bound in his fetters as a fugitive slave whom he hath overtaken in his flight and Christ Jesus can no more henceforth suffer death for him since he who is resuscitated from the dead cannot any more dye This moved St. Paul to say in his Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 6.4 That 't is impossible for them who have once been illuminated who have tasted the guift of Heaven who have been rendred partakers of the Holy Ghost who have been nourished with the sacred word of God and with the hope of the happinesse of the world to come and who after this have fallen away should be renewed again unto Repentance because as much as in them lies they crucify the Son of God afresh and expose him to open shame This means not my sister that there remains no hope of pardon for them who having been once delivered by Christ Jesus re-ingage themselves by their sins in the servitude of the Devil for it is most true that Christians sinning voluntarily after the knowledge of the truth finde a Sacrifice of Propitiation for their sins But it means that to obtain this pardon and deserve to be again once more purified by the Blood of this innocent Victime the sinner must according to the language of the Fathers pour forth not only natural Tears but Tears of heart which flow from a sincere Repentance and perform actions of strong Mortification and Pennance above the Idea which people are wont to form of it So that one may say 't is much more easy to conserve the Innocency of Baptism than to recover it by this means when one hath once lost it Besides that even when one hath recovered it there is still as great a difference between sinners converted and them who have conserved the Innocence of their Baptism as there is between a Subject pardoned by a King after his Treason and another who hath been always faithful to him between a broken Member which is cured and a Member which hath remained always sound entire What then should not Fathers and Mothers do to hinder their Children from falling into this dreadful misery And since there is nothing but a Christian Education which can preserve them with how great zeal ought they to apply themselves unto it And how high an esteem ought they to conceive of a Vocation which engages them not only to inspire into their Children all the sentiments of Christian Piety and of the sublimest perfection of the Gospel but moreover to use all sorts of precautions and to seek out all means possible to conserve them in their Innocence and to estrange from them all such things as may give the least occasion to alter or diminish in them the charity andgrace of Christ Jesus CHAP. IV. How far forth Fathers and Mothers are interested in the Christian Education of their Children and in particular of what Importance it is to Mothers WHat Interest Fathers and Mothers have in the Christian Education of their Children See Eccles 22.3 That a Childe who is wise and well instructed is all the joy of his Father whereas a Childe who is stubborn and bred up in the follies of the World despises his Mother and causes to her much sadness And again Pro. 29.15 Instruct your Son and no will be a comfort to you in all your calamities and will afford you great content whereas you will receive much confusion if he is ill educated And in Ecclesiasticus Eccle. 30.3 He who well instructs his Son shall be praised in his person and that he shall be the subject of his glory in the midst of his Domesticks and of his Friends If he comes to dye adds he it will scarcely appear because he leaves behinde him a Successour who resembles him He hath had the happiness and the comfort to see him himself in his life time and at his death he hath no affliction or confusion before his Enemies because he leaves a Son who can protect his family against their insults and acknowledge the favours of his friends And surely if reasoning even according to the Maxims of the World all the glory of a Father and of a Mother of a Family consists in the settlement and good government of their House what is there more advantagious to Fathers and to Mothers than to have Children well educated Since according to the Wise man the prudence and the good conduct of Fathers shining in the manners of their Children nothing can more cause their memory to be honoured than the good Education they have given them What avails it to a Father that he hath heaped up a vast quantity of Riches that he hath made many Freinds and acquired much Wealth if he leaves Children who for want of good Education will dissipate all his goods in superfluous and criminal expenses
them The childe will become wiser says Solomon by the chastisement of the culpable and of him who gives him evil example Prov. 21.11 Leave them not alone but as little as may be with the domesticks and especially with Lacquais and Foot-boys These kinde of persons to insinuate themselves and to get the favour of the children please them ordinarily with nothing but sottish follies and instill nothing into them but the love of play of divertisement and of vanity and are only capable to corrupt the best natures and such as are most inclinable to goodness St. Jerome after he had recommended to a Lady of quality to use great circumspection in the choice of such Maids as she was to take to accompany her Daughter and to ferve her counsels her not to suffer them to make any particular friendship with them but to hinder them from talking together in private and from making between themselves certain petty-mysteries of I know not how many things This great man knew the danger there is in leaving children to take too much liberty with all sorts of domesticks and how much it is to be dreaded that this familiarity should come at last to make them lose their Innocence 12. Maxims touching the freedom which is to be given to children to express their thoughts and their opinions THis advice of St. Paul ought to be well weighed Ephes 6.4 Fathers do not irritate your children by an over harsh carriage towards them and by using them with overmuch rigour but take care to educate them in the discipline and in the fear of our Lord lest as he adds in another place Coloss 3.2 they should fall into a discouragement of spirit and of heart Which is as if the Apostle had said Take heed of reprehending continually your children and of treating them with too much severity in small matters Do not your self oblige them by your rigour to wound the respect which they owe to you and by commanding them things of too great difficulty do not constrain them to disobey you They must be permitted when they are a little advanced in age to have the liberty to present unto you their reasons and their complaints nor ought you to treat them harshly when they fancy they are in some sort wronged by your way of proceeding with them Imitate the prudence of that charitable Father of whom it is said in the Gospel that seeing his eldest son highly offended at the manner of his receiving his younger son into his favour and having understood that for this cause he would not enter into the house went forth himself to entreat him to come in And that son having reproached him Luk. 15.29 That he had now served him many years without ever disobeying him in any thing he commanded and that nevertheless he had never bestowed on him a kid for the entertainment of his friends but that as soon as this his other son who had wasted his means among harlots was arrived he had slaughterd for him the fat calf This good Father far from being offended with his discourse strives on the contrary to sweeten his spirit with words full of tenderness and goodness Ib. v. 31.32 My son says he you are always with me and all that I have is yours but it was fit to make a feast and to rejoyce because your brother was dead and he is revived he was lost and he is found again See how this wise Father disdains not to justify his proceedings before his son and how he endeavours by the testimonies of charity and of the preference which he gives him to diminish the resentment and the indignation he had conceived against him and against his younger brother Behold what manner of proceeding you are to propose to your self since 't is that of God himself in regard of his children which Christ Jesus hath laid open to you under this parable Think not my Sister that it is from the authority which God hath given to Fathers and to Mothers over their Children not to make them to do what they desire of them but by the way of power and command nor that Children act always against the respect they owe to their Fathers and Mothers when they finde difficulty to approve all that they do or all that they say Children ought in many occasions to submit their lights to them of their Parents and to prefer their judgement before their own but 't is also the duty of Parents to communicate to their children those very lights to which they pretend they ought to subject themselves They ought to conduct them by truth and not by humour and fancy and they ought to gain their hearts by the love of that good which they desire to instill into them and not by captivating their will under the yoak of a command full of threats and of terrour St. Jerome speaking of the manner to educate children says that one must use severity with much prudence because the persons whom one treats over-severely seek with more eagerness than they do who are left to more liberty to divert and comfort themselves with the trifles of the world from the harsh usage to which they are enslaved 13. Maxims touching the patience wherewith Parents are to support their children and to moderate their resentments of injuries received from others 'T Is not enough for a Christian Father and a Christian Mother not to irritate their children by holding over them a too severe hand in things indifferent or which are not absolutely criminal they are moreover to be disposed to support patiently their greater disobediences and to suffer their greater outrages without suffering themselves to be transported to such resentments as would be no less dismal to themselves then to their children We have a proof convincing this truth in a dreadful history related by St. S. Aug. Serm. 31. de diversis l. 22. de civit chap. 8. Augustin in several of his works and which cannot be too often presented to Fathers and Mothers amidst the displeasures they receive from their Children There was in the Town of Caesarea in Cappadocia a widow of quality who had ten children to wit seven sons and three Daughters the eldest of all these children so far lost the respect he ought to his Mother that after he had loaded her with many injurious words he was so rash as to strike her His Brothers and his Sisters were witnesses of this outrage not only without opposing themselves but even without speaking one sole word in defence of their Mother This poor Woman having her heart pearced with sorrow for so great an injury and suffering her self to proceed in the resentment of the affront she had received took a resolution to lay her curse upon her wretched son who had so highly offended her Hereupon she goes forth of her at day-break to pronounce this imprecation against him upon the sacred Font of Baptism The Devil presented himself to her in her way under the form
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
in Persecutions and Sufferings and that the Rich and such as live in the abundance of all things in the Divertisements and applauses of the world are truly unhappy it is no more permitted to seculars than to Religious to fancy or acknowledge any other fountains of happiness then Poverty Tears Contempt and Sufferings and that all Christians ought equally to defy Riches Pleasures Honours as the most probable causes of their perdition Thus adds he this distinction which is put between persons living in the world and them who renounce it is a meer invention of men The holy Scripture knows it not but will have all Christians and even them who are engag'd in Marriage observe the same Rules and the same Institute as do the Religious Hearken to what St. Paul says and when I name St. Paul it is as if I produc'd to you the words of Christ Jesus himself This great Apostle writing to married persons who labour in the Education of their Children doth he not require of them all the exactness and all the perfection of a retired and solitary life For doth he not cut off from them all the pleasures they might take either in the ornaments of cloathes or in the delicateness of drinking and of eating when he says 1 Timothy 2.9 Behold the order I give you as to what concerns the Women I desire that they should be clad modestly and that their manner of cloathing and dressing themselves may breath nothing but decency and chastity that they wear no frizled hayr nor ornaments of Gold or of Jewels nor sumptuous habits but that they be cloathed as may beseem Women who make profession of piety and who ought to make their piety appear by their manners and actions And when he adds in the sequel speaking of widows Chap. 3. v. 5. She who lives in delights is dead according to the spirit although she be living according to the body And in another place speaking of all the faithful in general Having what is needful to live and wherewith to cloath our selves we ought to be content could he exact any thing more of Religious persons After St. Chrysostome hath thus run over all the Rules which St. Paul prescribes to Married people and the conduct which he ordains them to observe whether for their Conversations in which he not only forbids idle babling and the reciting of Fables and human Inventions but moreover pleasant fancies and immoderate gayeties whether for the Meekness and for the Charity which he enjoyns them to have towards one another not suffering them to be transported in words against their Neighbour Ephes 4. and commanding them even to be so far affectioned to procure the good of all the World as to abandon their proper Interests for the conservation of Peace with their Brethren After I say that he had made it appear how St. Paul imposes upon Married persons such Laws as the most solitary Monks have much ado to accomplish he adds the words following What can we finde greater and more excellent than these Rules And since St. Paul commands us to be above choler clamours desires of Riches of good cheer of magnificence in Cloaths of vain-Glory and of other Pomps of the World to have nothing to do with the Earth and to mortify our Bodies is it not evident that he requires no less perfection in all Christians than Christ Jesus required in his Disciples seeing that he even ordains us to be so dead to sin as if we were effectually buried and really dead to the World But to make you see that it is the designe of the Apostle mark that the most powerful Argument he employs to exhort Christians to patience and Humility is the obligation they have to render themselves conformable to Christ Jesus Now if he doth not ordain us to take for the model of our Life the Religious nor even the Apostles but Christ Jesus himself and if he threatens with such horrible punishments them who imitate not this amiable Saviour what reason can any one have to pretend that there are States in Christianism more obliging than others to tend to a greater and higher perfection since it is commanded to all the world to attain to the self same Salvation that is to imitate Christ Jesus Behold that which undoubtedly overthrows the whole Universe People imagine that none but Religious are bound to live well and that others may live negligently they are deceived this is not so but all the World is obliged to follow the same Maxims and to enter into the same Reflections And fancy not says he that it is I who advance this Verity 'T is Christ Jesus himself who teaches it 'T is he who is to judge the whole World and who will judge it according to the same Maxims as sufficiently appears by the rigorous Sentence he pronounced against the wicked Rich man who is not tormented because he being Religious was cruel but who burns in the flames which shall never be quenched because he had overmuch affection for the Pomps of the World and that living in the abundance of Riches and Pleasures and being covered with Purple and sumptuous Garments he despised and neglected to succour Lazarus who was reduced to great misery Surely when our Lord says come to me all you who labour and who are burdened and I will ease you Take my yoak upon you and learn of me that I am meek and humble of Heart and you shall find the rest of your Souls he speaks not only to Religious persons but to all sort of people When he enjoyns to enter into the strait way he lays not this command only upon Religious but equally upon all men Jesus these are the proper tearms of the Gospel said to all If any one will give himself to me let him renounce himself let him dayly bear his Cross and let him follow me And when he said that if any one came to him and that he did not hate his Father and his Mother his Wife his Brethren his Sisters and even his own Life by despising all these things when there is question of the service and of the glory of God he could not be of the number of his Disciples that is to say Christian he did not except any Estate nor any Profession even as he excepted not any Father nor any Mother when he said that he who loved his Son or his Daughter more than him was not worthy to belong to him I conceive then concludes this great Doctor that no one will be so bold nor so contentious as to dare to deny after such convincing proofs that the Divine Laws do not equally oblige him who lives in the World and him who is retired out of it to the same perfection and that in whatever estate Christians live they are to beware of falling into such dangerous opinions as thwart these verities They who are thus perswaded begin my Sister to comprehend how difficult a matter it is to educate
of the Virtues which you perhaps have neglected If Christ Jesus hath lost in you some of his rights and dues let him finde them in them If you cannot have the glory of Virginity have at least the advantage of being Mother to a Virgin If you have not loved your God with all your heart procure that he be loved by all them who depend on you Let the innocence and the Sanctity of your children be opposed to the errours of your life and let their fidelity and their Submission to his Commandements extenuate your Unfaithfulnesse and Disobedience St. Ambrose puts all these sentiments into the mouth of a Christian Mother whom he introduces thus exhorting her Daughters to Virginity You may says this Holy Mother to her children justifie your Father and discharge your Mother before God by making appear in your conduct those graces which we have perchance neglected or whereof we have made bad use The only thing which may hinder us from repenting our selves of our Marriage is to see you draw some profit from the labours we have endured and I shall esteem my self almost as happy to be a Mother of Virgins as if I my self had preserved Virginity Consider my Daughters who she was whom the Son of God coming into the World to redeem it chose for his Mother She was a Virgin Thus it is my Daughters that I wish the purity of your life may repair the defects of mine And in the first Book which this Holy Doctor made for the Instruction of Virgins addressing his speech to Fathers and Mothers You have understood says he to them what are the Virtues which you ought to teach your Daughters to practise and what Rules you are to follow in their Education A Virgin is a gift the most pleasing one we can offer to God and the richest Present which Parents can make to his Divine Majesty 't is a sacred Hostie the Sacrifice whereof being dayly renewed renders God propitious towards the Mother who presents it Do not therefore propose to your self my Sister any thing that is mean or indifferent in the Education of your Children since you your self are so much interessed therein and that even the cries and tears of your children in the cradle intercede for you with God and pray for you as St. Jerome avers writing to a Roman Dame concerning her Daughter You have already seen the strict Obligation which all Christians have to tend to the highest perfection let therefore your principal care be to bring your children to it and let it be your only ambition to make them great Saints They are as so many living and precious stones wherewith God designes to build the celestial Jerusalem and according as they shall be found more fair better polished and fitlier wrought and prepared they shall be put in a place more eminent and you from them shall derive greater glory They are in your house as statues of Gold which you ought to form and embellish every day if you desire they should represent perfectly their true Modell which is Christ Jesus and that they should be his true Images They are the Dwelling houses and the Tabernacles chosen by God for his habitation and therefore take heed as St. John Chrysostom advises lest by your fault the Temple of God be turned into a retreat of Thieves and that Christ Jesus should give to you the same reproach which he gave to the Jews Know proceeds this Father that the hearts of your children become the retreats of thieves when you permit base and servile desires to possess them and irregular concupiscences to master them For 't is these sorts of affections which more cruel and more dangerous than theives ravish from them the liberty which grace gave them and which after they have pierced them through on all sides and covered them with most dangerous wounds reduce them into the slavery of Passions and vices Wherefore I conjure you my Sister to form a resolution without delay to proceed in such sort as that your children fall not into this accursed servitude Propose to your self to do all you possibly can to conserve them in the Innocence and in the grace they received in Baptism And since by your offering them to the Church you tacitly obliged your self to make them keep the pact and bargain they made with God in that Sacrament have alway that engagement before your eyes and seek incessantly in Prayer in reading and particularly in leading a good life such graces as are necessary for you in order to acquit your self faithfully of this your Duty which is the greatest and holiest of the World CHAP. VII What Idea's or Forms they ought to propose to themselves for their Imitation in the Christian Education of Children I Cannot better assist you my Sister in this enterprise than by proposing to you some Model which you may follow and upon which you may fix your eyes to conduct you securely in a design wherein 't is so hard a matter to succeed well This Model is no other than God himself For if Fathers and Mothers in production of their children express an Image of his fruitfulness is it not just that they should propose to themselves for the prime Idea of the Education of these same Children the conduct which this Celestial Father holds in regard of all men I stay not upon this that the cares of his Providence respect only the interests of our Souls nor upon that that God proposes for the end of all his works to put us in possession of eternal happiness I entreat you only to observe what hath been his conduct in regard of the Jewish people whom all the Fathers after St. Paul look upon as in an estate of Infancy and Puerility in respect of Christians whom Grace according to St. St. Chrysost upon Galat. ch 4. Chrysostome hath rendred ripe in years Behold the care God takes to retire that people out of Egypt to separate them from Idolaters and to interdict them from all commerce with strangers lest their Example or their Doctrine should corrupt and pervert them He gives them his Law and his Commandements He inspires them with a holy horrour if we may say so of his greatnesses and of his Majesty to the and they should fear to offend him He rigorously chastises their least Infidelities and their sinallest Disobediences And out of the care he hath to make them acknowledge that 't is he alone who supplies all their necessities who protects them against all their enemies and who affords them all the goods they possess he endeavours to make them enter into the feelings of love and gratitude for his bounty and into an humble submission to the orders of his Divine Wisdom and Will He instructs them in the most hidden truths and in all the Mysteries of Christ Jesus But he instructs them as Children that is by presenting only shadows unto them and Figures and by making them to practice after a gross manner and
changed if we may say it into its substance This made one of the most clear-sighted among the Pagans to say That one of the things we should chiefly take care of in the Education of children whom we intend to leave a long time Quintilian in their Nurses hands is concerning the chusing of these Nurses For says he they must be very wise and we ought as far forth as may be to take such as have the best qualities and whose manners are best regulated But although we ought principally to have regard to their good conduct we must not omit to examine their way of speaking For they are the persons whom the children first hear and whose language they strive to imitate and naturally we retain much more firmly what we learn in our tenderest years just as a Vessel new-made conserves almost ever after the odour of the first liquor powred into it It happens that even the bad qualities adhere much more strongly and that Evil makes a deeper impression than good yea the good it self easily changes into evil whereas it is very seldom that vicious habits and customs turn into good ones This also made Plato ordain that we should not only endeavour with much care and watchfulness to educate children well when they are three years old but moreover he extremely recommends to Mothers that during the time of their being with childe they should keep themselves free from all sort of alterations and generally he exhorts Fathers and Mothers to exempt themselves as much as may be from all passions for fear lest communicating to the bodies of their children such affections as reign in them they should pass even to their souls and lest their bodies being formed of a blood burning with choler or inflamed with an unchaste Fire or that being conceived in a bosom filled with Pride and Vanity their Souls should contract inclinations of Fevenge Impurity and Ambition We also see Sister that God hath bestowed very particular Benedictions upon such Children as were consecrated to him in their Mothers womb Sampson Samuel and St. John Baptist in the Old Testament St. Augustin St. Bernard in the New are authentick proofs of the advantages which are derived from this holy practise And it is most certain S. Chry. l. 1. cont vitupera vitae Mâ—nast that God despises not so rational a devotion and a so well regulated piety but that on the contrary he lends his all-powerful hand to assist Fathers and Mothers who make such use of it to make their children perfect Images of his own Son and that he causes all things to contribute to their sanctity But to speak ingeniously of things as I conceive and apprehend them and God grant it may not be as it is commonly done there are many Fathers and Mothers who would be loath their children should receive so signal a Grace and the most rational of them would willingly yeild to follow these important Maxims in regard of those children whom they design to the Church or to Religion but not in regard of those whom they look upon as the prop of their Family and the Heyrs of their Honours Offices and Riches Wherefore one cannot too much endeavour to undeceive the World of an illusion which is so criminal in its Principles and so detestable in its effects and consequences CHAP. XII That these Maxims and these Advices are principally to be followed in the Education of such children as are designed for the World IF all Christians are obliged as undoubtedly they are to tend to the same perfection it is also an undoubted truth that there ought to be no difference in their Education and I say not only that there ought to be an equality among them who are designed to leade a common life and them who are consecrated to a more particular profession of piety but there is no doubt that one ought to apply a greater care in the Education of the first than of the second and that if Parents are concerned fot the publick interest for the glory of their children and for the salvation of their souls they are not to neglect any of the Maxims nor any of the Advices which we have drawn from the Scripture and from the Fathers in the Education of them whom they designe for the World To make you comprehend how much the interest of Common-wealths and Kingdoms is ingaged in the perfect Education of such as are to fill up the Dignities and to possess the most eminent Employments I need only conjure you St. Chry. l. 3. cont vituper vitae Monas after a Father of the Church to cast a view upon them who have introduced into the World all the Disorders which now reign therein and to consider who they are that follow them Whether they are such as have learned to live in a repose and in a retrait or such as invent new pleasures and new divertisements They who subsist honestly of their own patrimony and are satisfied with the conveniences which God hath given them or they who only study to enrich themselves with the goods of the poor They who are content with a mean train and a moderate table and with what serves only for necessity or they who will have a magnificent train and a sumptuous table open to all commers And to speak more Christianly whether they who live with great meekness and great modesty who think only of submitting themselves and of suffering themselves to be directed who esteem themselves the last of men and seek the least honourable places who have always before their eyes the Vanity of the world and the nothing of creatures or they who look to be respected and who render themselves terrible by their injustices and by their violences who will command every one and omit nothing to usurp the Magistracies scarcely remembring any longer that they are men so strangely are they puffed up with pride and so full are they of self-esteem and vanity Now if they are these later who overturn estates who trouble families who cause the murders the slaveries and all the miseries which we see and lament and if they arrived not at this extremity of injustice but because their parents neglected their Education is it not evident that it is the interest of Kingdoms that every Father of a Family should follow the Rules we have proposed that so by faithfully practising them they may bring their children to embrace the documents of the Fathers of the Church and of the Doctours of the world and as Saint Chrysostom says That they may by their care render them sparkling lights to shine amidst the darkness which Vices have spread abroad in the World and to shew the way of Heaven to so many unhappy wretches who go astray And this Sister is the second motive upon which the truth I have advanced is established and upon which is grounded the obligation of Parents to educate according to the Maxims of the Church Fathers those Children whom
do it because their labour shall receive infinit blessings from God himself But above all they ought to do it because thereby they will cut off as much as in them lies the source of all the evils which are done in the World which is bad Education and they will thereby re-establish the source of all good and of all Virtues which is good Education Finally is it not this good Education which prepares the Spirits to receive the clearest lights and which plants in the Soul the first dispositions to all the Virtues Is not that it which spreads in the hearts the seed of the most heroick actions and which lays the Foundations of all that which must appear best to the eyes of the whole World in the succession of ages It fills the Courts of Princes wih faithful generous and disinteressed Subjects the Parliaments with firm and unbiassed Magistrates and Judges Colledges with Religious Persons and Secular families with prudent and charitable Masters and with respectful and submissive servants In fine it is the good Education which augments the mystical Body of Christ Jesus and which compleats the number of the Elect and of the Blessed There 's nothing but it which can banish all the Vices reigning now in the World because there 's but it alone which can imprint in it dread and horrour 'T is it only which can make the spirit of Poverty flourish again by exciting in the Hearts which it informs a contempt of all creatures 'T is by it alone that the love of sufferings may be re-established among Christians by banishing from the yet-tender Bodies the eases and delicacies of the World and accustoming them timely to suffer 'T is it alone which can conserve Order and retain Inferiours in respect and submission to their temporal and spiritual Superiours in using them to the practice of an exact Obedience 'T is it alone which can revive charity and zeal towards our Neighbour by insinuating into them an esteem and a tenderness to all the World Lastly there 's nothing but it that is capable to change the whole face of Christianisme to produce a happy Reformation in all the Church to preserve Children in their Innocence and in the grace of Baptism and to trace in the Life of Men a lively Image of the all-holy and all-divine Life of Christ Jesus CHAP. VI. With what Dispositions Parents are to labour in the Christian Education of their Children I Cannot better in my judgement express to you my Sister the Dispositions and sentiments in which you are obliged to labour in the Education of your Children than to conjure you to consider them as goods which God deposes in your hands and which belong not at all to you You will finde no difficulty to enter upon these thoughts if you well examine that you have no share of that which is in them most considerable that is to say of their souls that what you communicate to them in regard of the Body is nothing but what you received from your Ancestors and that even to speak justly they hold nothing from you but sin which by an unfortunate necessity derived from the crime of our first parents you could not hinder your self from communicating unto them 'T is for this cause that your first care after you brought them into the World was to send them to the Church to the end that they being there divested of the Old-man wherewith they had been cloathed in your bosom they might take a new Nativity in Christ Jesus in the bosome of the Church and that the criminal Life which you communicated unto them being as it were buried and drowned in the Waters of Baptism they might there receive a new life by becomming the Members of Christ Jesus and be enrolled in the number of the Adoptive Children of the eternal Father to come to be one day in Heaven associates of the Glory of his only Son and the coheyrs of his Kingdom 'T is not therefore enough to have said that you ought to look on them as the goods of God which he deposes in your hands since they are really his Children whom he hath committed to your care that 't is the price of his Blood which he consigns to you and that he offers to you in them many favourable occasions to make appear the zeal and the fidelity you have for his interests What a glory is it my Sister to be admitted to the same Ministery with the Angels to be chosen to be the visible Guardian and Governess of Souls which Christ Jesus hath redeemed with his Blood and which he hath destinated in quality of his Spouses to reign with him eternally You are then to receive your Children at their return from the Church with great sentiments of Humility and Reverence And if in the thought of St. In his Homelie oâ— the manner how Anna educated Samuel Chrysostome the Mother of little Samuel respected that Childe because he was vow'd to the service of the Temple if she considered him as a Golden Vessel designed to a sacred use which is not to be touched but with a holy apprehension of profaning it and if according to the relation of the most ancient of our Historians Euseb l. 6. c 2. the Father of Origen frequently discovered the bosom of his Son when he slept and was yet an Infant to kiss him with much respect and reverence looking on him as the dwelling and tabernacle of the Holy Ghost there inhabiting are you to have less respect for your Children who have in like manner been replenished with the grace of Jesus Christ and consecrated to the worship of God by Baptism Wherefore watch carefully for their conservation Fear to suffer profane hands to touch them cherish them nourish them as the Members of Christ Jesus and perswade your self that your House should be all Holy since it encloses those Children whom he hath sanctified and rendred so dear to his Church to which they belong as being purchased by the blood of her Bridegroom and who puts them not into your hands but because he expects you should have a more tender and a more perfect care of them than strangers The conformity with Christ Jesus which they have received in being re-born in the bosom of the Church is only gross and imperfect and according to the terms of the Apostle St. James they become thereby but only as a beginning of the new creature James 1.18 and therefore it is that she consigns them to your care to the end you may make them the perfect Imitators of Christ Jesus that you may draw in them his Image and that as the Apostle says of himself Gal. 4.19 you may not fear to suffer the pains and pangs of a second bringing forth Children till such time as Christ Jesus is formed in their actions their inclinations their affections and their cogitations The Church hath rendred them by the consecration she hath made of them the living Temples of the Holy
the most prudent If you choose a Coachman a groom of the Stable St. Chrysost Ser. 19. upon Matth. you take care said St. Chrysostom speaking to Parents that he be not subject to wine that he be not a thief and that he be skilful in drenching and dressing Horses But if you will provide a Master for your children to form and fashion them you trouble not your selves in the choice of him the first who presents himself is good enough and yet there is no employ either greater or of more difficulty than that is For what is of higher importance then to form the spirit and the heart and to regulate all the conduct of a young man Great is the esteem of a skilful Painter and an Engraver but what is their art in comparison of his excellency who works not on a cloath or on a Marble-stone but upon the spirits Yet we neglect all these things We trouble not our selves to render our children Christians but eloquent and this very desire is for our own interest For the end we propose to our selves is not simply that they be eloquent but that they may grow rich by their eloquence Now if they could become rich without being eloquent we would sleight as well the eloquence as all the rest 7. Maxims touching the Motives whereby to engage Children to labour and to do what one desires of them NEver propose to them for a recompence the vain Ornaments of the World neither make use of such things as have no value but among worldly people to bring them to do what you desire It would prove a means to inspire into them a love for such things and to make them esteem them as true goods whereas you ought to study how to make them despise them For notwithstanding that all the goods of the earth are things in themselves indifferent yet you ought to propose them to children as dangerous yea even as evil by discovering unto them only the disorders they cause in such as possess them And you should says St. S. Jerom. epist ad Gaudent Jerome carry your self in such sort towards them as that they may think the World hath been always in the miserable estate it now is that they may remain ignorant of what pleasing things passed in the ages foregone and spent that they may shun the Maxims and the customs which are in use at this present and that they may aspire after the goods which are promised to us in Heaven Now if you had rather follow the sentiment of them who as the same Saint relates fancy that it is more to the purpose to satiate in childrens infancy the thirst which Men but particularly Women have after these sorts of vanity to entertain it and cause it to encrease in them by refusing to afford them such Ornaments as they see others use take care at least as this great Doctour advises Gaudentius that your children may perceive how they of their own age are praysed for not using such sorts of Ornaments Make much of them your self in their presence speak with prayse of their modesty and of their comportment and insensibly strive to instill into yours a disgust of all exteriour trickings and trimmings which the World admires Strive to make them comprehend that you do not allow them such things but only because they are yet little ones and tell them that if they were indued with perfect reason you would not give them such things as are fit only for children If we must drive out of our hearts one desire by another you may perchance cure that which they have for these things of shew and lustre by awaking the natural desire which all children have of putting themselves in the rank of such persons as are more advanced in age and in judgement Avoyd nevertheless that unhappy conduct which St. Chrysostom reprehends in the Parents of his time and which is but too common in this of ours according to which Fathers and Mothers excite not their children to virtue to studie and to other laudable exercises but only by humane and temporal considerations and which are all founded upon ambition and upon interest See how this great Saint expresses the sentiments of one of those Fathers tyed to the World by making him speak in these terms to one of his children Behold my Son behold this man he was very meanly born and had many other inconsiderable qualities and yet because he was eloquent he passed through the greatest Offices and employs he hath heaped up vast riches married a wealthy wife built proud Pallaces finally he hath made himself dreaded and respected by all the World This other O my Son proceeds this worldly Father got not the reputation he hath at Court but because he was perfectly skilled in the Latine Tongue And thus it is exclaims this great Doctour that we enchant the ears of your children to introduce into their hearts the two most violent passions which are in the world to wit the desire of riches and that of vain-glory which corrupt and stifle in their souls all the seeds of virtue which cause to spring up there such a quantity of thorns and bryars and which spread about so much sand and dust that their spirit remains barren and uncapable to produce any fruit 'T is of this disorder that St. Augustin complains to God S. August l. 1. Confess c. 9. n. 1. when making reflexion upon the conduct they had used towards himself in the time of his youth and raising himself towards God he says to him Have I not just cause O my God to deplore the miseries and the deceits which I experienced in that age since they proposed to me no other rule of living well but to follow the conduct and the advertisements of them who laboured only to inspire into me the desire and the ambition of appearing one day with renown in the world and to excell in this art of Eloquence which gains honour among men and gets false and deceitful riches Whereby it plainly appears that if it is good as we have observed to give praises to children it is not to make them love the praise nor to make them labour for vanity but only to make them love Virtue which alone deserves to be praised 8. Maxims touching the care Parents ought to take for their Childrens health and for what concerns their bodies BE not over-sollicitous to procure for them all the commodities of life When they shall prefs you to grant them something which is not absolutely necessary for them endeavour to make them understand that Christians ought to let alone superfluous things that they may supply the necessities of their neighbour Say to them my Children this is not ours God gave it not unto us but only that we might with it do works of charity and we should rob the poor if we should waste it in things unprofitable But if they have some infirmity or any disease however you spare nothing secretly
more than would a lawful occupation by the disquiets which it causes in them He adds that although he will not say positively that Lay-people are as strictly obliged as Ecclesiastical persons to avoid these Games yet he entreats them all and particularly such as are of great quality to consider that if they sin only venially yet their fault ceases not to be very great that they exercise a traffick no less shamefull than the gain they make of it and that they are oftentimes bound to Restitution and lastly that they cannot without drawing upon themselves a great confusion before God and committing a great indecency receive the Sacred Eucharist unless they are resolved to abstain for the future from these sorts of Games Other Casuists though more remiss Sanches Molina Escobar yet still maintain that whoso gives Gamesters an entrance into his house and makes thereof an Academy for them to play at hazards sins very grievously because one rarely plays at those games without mortal sin and because every one is obliged by the natural law not to furnish others with the matter and occasion of sin From whence one of them concludes Escobar Moral Theo. p. 1. Exam. 12. c. 2. that they who expose their houses to these sorts of games do not only sin mortally but that if they who have there won money do not restore it when they are bound to it they themselves are obliged in conscience to do it You need only my Sister apply all these Maxims to Gamesters to be perswaded that very few of them are innocent The major part of them play only at such games wherein chance hath chief soverainty and which by consequence are forbidden They play for considerable sums and which by little and little drain their purses or notably incommodate their Family A Woman thinks her self moderate when she exposes her self to lose but forty or fifty Pistols in an afternoon not only without the consent of her Husband but even against his will and she considers not that she really robs him of all that she plays away because he is master of the Community according to the civil law and as says St. Augustin S. Aug. Ep. 99. ad Eccl. because she cannot say I may do what I please with my proper goods since she may not dispose of her own person as she pleases and because she belongs entirely to her Husband Nor do the Husbands on their side render themselves less criminal in exposing to hazard the goods of their Wives and Children and in exposing themselves S Ambr. in Tobiam c. 11. as says St. Ambrose to change their estate at each chance of their play there being no more stability in their estate than is in the Dice and Cards which they incessantly shake and shuffle As to the games which are permitted how many are there of them which are not accompanied with circumstances which render them criminal Do they not spend therein whole days and nights and instead of using them to divert the spirit and to fortify the body do they not very frequently destroy the forces both of the one and the other by the excesses therein committed How small soever is the sum they play for do they not fall into passion See we not there reigning spight envy jealousie wrangling Do not Pride and desire to win and overcome regulate as one may say all their motions So that it may be said that it is a very hard matter to play innocently at any game and without feeling I know not what alteration which declares either that the Soul is not yet cured of her spiritual infirmities or that she is ready to relapse into them unless she promptly quits this contagious exercise I know Jonas Bish of Orleans says the Illustrious Jonas Bishop of Orleans in the excellent work he made at the intreaty of the Comte de Mathfred to teach that Lord in what manner he ought to live in the state of Marriage what they answer who love Play and Gameing What evil do we say they what sin do we commit in Play But it must be answered them that they offend God in several manners Frst in that it is almost impossible to play without Lying without forswearing or without being transported into choler and discord and in the second place because in case one should commit none of these excesses yet 't is always a sin to be thus in idleness which is the enemy of the soul Remember then whoever you are that delight in gaming that you must one day render an account to God of the days and hours you have wasted I know moreover adds he that many will answer me with indignation For what then serves the world to a secular person if it is not permitted him to play when he pleases and to take his divertisement I will not answer them but in the very Words of our Saviour What will it avail a man to gain the whole world and to lose his Soul Now it is very certain that the soul reaps no profit by all the plays Furthermore let them listen to the advice which the Apostle St. John gives them in these Words Love not the World nor that which is in the World If any one loves the World the love of the Father is not in him For all that which is in the world is but concupiscence of the Flesh or concupiscence of the Eyes or Pride of life which come not from the Father but from the world Now the world passes and the concapiscence of the world passes away with it but he who does the will of God remains eternally Let them hearken again to the Apostle St. James Whoever will be a freind of the World makes himself an enemy of God Behold Sister how this Bishop who was in the beginning of the nineth age one of the greatest ornaments of the Church of France and all they who were instructed as he was in the science of the Church have answered the reasons which they make use of yet at this day to justifie the passion they have for Play Now it is easy to judge from thence that they believed it to be a sin to employ a considerable time in Play however innocent and otherwise permitted there being no moment of our life since we arrived to the age of discretion whereof God exacts not of us a faithfull employment since we must render to him an account at the day of Judgement of all the unprofitable words we have spoken This appeared to that learned Prelate to be worthy of so great consideration that in the excellent Treatise he writ for the instruction of Pepin King of Aquitania the son of Lewis le Debonnaire this was the first thing he exhorted him dayly to think upon Endeavour therefore my Sister to educate your Children in an aversion from all manner of gaming And as a divertisement is the most ordinary pretext for their engagement therein regulate so their spirit and their heart as to
entire Obedience I promise by him who lives eternally that I will give him no share in my goods but that I wholly disinherit him for ever The Church believed these vows of Fathers and Mothers so advantagious to children that she obliged the said children to observe them all their life There was no difference put between the destroying of ones self and the going forth of a Monastery after they had made this manner of engagement and the children had scarcely need of any other Profession than this solemn promise by which they were consecrated to God Whence it is The 4. Council of Toledo that in the 4th Council of Toledo it is said that whether a person is engaged in a Monastery by the devotion of his Parents or by his own choice he is always obliged to stay there nor is it permitted him to return to the world And that according to St. Isidore he who is placed in a Monastery by his Father and his Mother is to know that he is bound to remain there the rest of his life There was nothing unjust nor over-rigorous in this proceeding but on the contrary it was full of justice and highly advantagious to the children For if according to the rules of law a Father may in case of extreme necessity sell his son and make him for ever a slave to men in order to preserve a temporal life why shall it not be permitted by the rules of the Gospel to the same Father to offer his children to God and to procure for them a true liberty by engaging them to his service upon the design of procuring for themselves as well as for them an eternal life and happiness What is there in this action on the Fathers side which is not holy and conformable to his duty This Sacrifice being made with a most sincere intention and with a piety altogether disinteressed was it not a convincing proof that he had changed the natural love which Parents have for their children into a Charity totally Divine that he had surmounted that so common a desire which men have to conserve their Name and their Family particularly when they have but one only Child and that they possess much Wealth Finally that he had renounced those so sweet comforts which Parents feel in the conversation of their own children On the childrens side is this engagement to Religion to be dreaded Is not the yoak of Christ Jesus easy and his burden light especially to children who have not yet been sullied with any vice who have not yet been corrupted by any evil customes who from their cradle have been formed to Virtue who have been trained up in Piety who have had nothing but good examples before their eyes who have sucked as one may say together with the Milk the Rules of Christian Sanctity and who not knowing the world have had no share in its delights and vanities But however holy and laudable this practice was we must nevertheless grant my Sister that the Church hath with great wisdom limited the devotion of Parents She hath considered that what was formerly the effect of a great and sincere devotion was somtimes scarcely any more than an effect of avarice and cupidity that Parents oftentimes in these days sought not so much in placing their children in Monasteries to give them to God as to discharge themselves of those children to render the others richer and better provided for in the world And so she hath stopped by her laws their authority and set bounds to their power because they on the one side made it serve their ambition and on the other side oppressed the liberty of their own Children Yet she hath not bereaved them of the power to place them in their tender age in Monasteries to have them there educated and to put them in a state by this happy retrait to march on both more couragiously and more swiftly and also with less danger towards Heaven supposing they have no other end in this action than his glory and the salvation of their children and that they offer them to Monastries in an indifference of their being Religious or returning to the world as it shall please God to dispose of them But in this last practise there are two principal things to be observed in order to follow therein the spirit of the Church The first is the choice of the Monastery For Parents would be so far from procuring their childrens salvation that they would endanger their destruction if they took no care in placing them in Religious Houses to see whether those Houses are indeed Religious and whether they there will not engage their children to embrace their institute by perswasions which are altogether humane and by a spirit which is totally opposite to that of God Wherein it is so much more important that Parents suffer not themselves to be deceived by how much the least negligence would be very criminal before God in a matter of so great consequence The Second thing which Parents ought to observe is That when their children are in a house truly Religious and of a solid and disinteressed piety they draw them not forth of it to return to the World lest by taking them for a time from Christ Jesus who demands them to sanctify them they should give them to the world which demands them to corrupt them I know they want not specious pretexts for this they say that a true vocation must be tried that grace will triumph amidst the conflicts that a Resolution which is from God cannot be shaken either by the life of the world or by the lustre of Riches and that the prudence of the Holy Ghost when it is in a soul cannot be deceived by the cunnings of the spirit of darkness But I also know Sister that it is said in holy Scripture That he who seeks and loves danger shall perish in it and that consequently one cannot without a very great blindness bring back into the middle of the world such children as have been holily separated from it and fancy that they cannot be sanctified in a Cloyster unless the world could not have force enough to corrupt them God will have us try our selves but not put our selves into the hands of the World and of the Devil to try our selves He on the contrary commands us to fly from the mortal Enemies of our salvation for fear of falling into their snares to save our selves in the solitude for fear to perish with Babylon and to hide the treasure which we have found for fear lest in shewing it the Devil who seeks incessantly to take his advantages should take it away from us The Prudence of Gods holy spirit cannot be deceived but it leaves us and abandons us when we quit his house and the place where he cleared and enlightned us to enter into a place of darkness and of crimes And if the Charity which is in us could not be extinguished the Apostle would not advertise us not
from their Infancy and then they will never need our threats or our severity We carry our selves towards them in such sort as if a Physitian having said nothing to a sick person whom he saw fallen into a languishing condition and having prescribed him no remedies for his cure whilst they were capable to have their effect ordains him a great number after the noble parts were corrupted by the disease and that he was become incurable All the evill we see says he in another place Chrys ho. 46. in 1. epist ad Tim. proceeds from our own laziness and from our negligence and because we strive not to inform our children in piety in their most tender years We take much care and pains to have them instructed in the profane Arts and Sciences we procure for them with all our power advantagious employments in the Court and in the Camp We hourd up Wealth for them We get them Freinds In brief we do all we can to render them considerable in the world but we take no care to acquire them the favour and love of the King of Angels nor to make them obtain one day an honourable rank in the Court of Heaven And surely did parents timely accustom their children to the yoak of a holy discipline whilst they are yet young did they take pains to bring them by little and little to their duty when they first begin to be froward and hard to be ruled if they strove to cure the diseases of their soul when they have not yet taken root and to pull up their passions before they are grown strong we should have nothing to do with laws nor with judgements nor with punishments and chastisements For the Law as St. Paul says is not made for the Just but because we neglect their Education we enwrap them in a world of miseries and oftentimes we our selves deliver them up to the Executioners and throw them headlong into hell In Christianism it is the Maxim of a wise and discreet conduct to do all and to omit nothing which may strengthen us against the assault of vices But the means Sister to succeed in so holy an enterprise is in the lowest age of your children to seize upon all the avenues of their spirit and of their heart and to render virtue the absolute Mistress there by a prompt banishment of every thing which may make there the least vicious impression True it is that children are not capable to distinguish virtue and vice having not yet the use of reason But yet as a famous Divine observes they may contract according to the Idea's and the Fancies which they receive by their parents education a certain inclination which will much help them or much hurt them when coming to the use of their liberty they must apply themselves to vice or to virtue in making a good or bad choice and as St. Basil says that at the same time when reason shall dictate unto them the good they ought to do S. Basil in his great R. Rule 10. the habit and the custom will facilitate the execution And think not Sister that this is little considerable For if in the judgement of St. Thomas and several other Divines Man is bound by a natural precept and upon pain of Mortal sin to convert himself to God as soon as he hath the perfect use of reason it cannot be but that which serves for a disposition to so important an action must be of highest consequence What Father is there who knowing his son to be in danger of loosing his life or to fall into the hands of Enemies if he passes such a way endeavours not to put him in safety and to secure him from the dangers which threaten him And what Mother is there whose Daughter being loaden with precious Jewells watches not with much care for fear lest Robbers should bereave her of them We cannot doubt but that the devil employs all his industry to make a childe lose the grace of his Baptism and that he endeavours to determine him at first to make choice of Vice And since he hath no stronger Weapons to conquer us than our own inclinations can it be doubted but that he will easily bring about his designe if he findes those of a childe totally inclined to vanity and to the love of Worldly pomps and pleasures This made St. Gregory the Great say S. Greg. l. 4. Dial. c. 18. That although we are piously to believe that the baptized children who dye in their Infancy enter into the Heavenly Kingdom yet we ought not to imagine that all they who can speak are saved because there are some of them against whom Parents shut Heaven gates by the bad Education they give them The same Saint after he had related the dreadful chastisement which God laid upon a Father in the City of Rome for having suffered his Son of five years old to blaspheme the name of God thunders out these astonishing words 'T is thus that God would make known to this unhappy Father how highly he was culpable and that he would make him understand how by neglecting the Soul of this little Infant he nourished a great sinner for Hells eternal flames These are his own expressions And this undoubtedly made Sara whom the Apostle St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.2 proposes to all Christian Women for their pattern resolve to urge Abraham to drive Agar and her son out of his house because she feared lest Isaac should be corrupted by him and lest they should contract bad customes together And the resolution of this prudent Woman was so just Gen. 11.12 that God approved it having made known to Abraham that he ought not to oppose a designe which was so discreet and so advantagious to Isaac And surely even as a small straying which was not perceived in the beginning of a journey carries one extremely astray from the place one intended to go and as a little breach in a Damm being neglected causes in the sequel great spoils and havocks even so a small evil becomes mortal if one applies not a prompt remedy and that which in Infancy was only a simple affection for things indifferent becomes in a more advanced age a violent love for things prohibited The fair Language of Graccus's mother contributed much to his Eloquence says S. Jerome Hortensius learned to speak well in his own house St. Jerom. in epist ad Latam and Alexander the Great could not quit the Vices of a Governour who had taught him in his Infancy notwithstanding that he was otherwise very powerful and had conquered the major part of the World which shews how hard it is to blot out of the spirit of a young man the tinctures it hath taken in his Infancy that it conserves almost always the first impressions it hath received and that as St. Ireneus says what one learns in that age becomes as it were the same thing with our Soul St. Ireneus in ep ad Florin and is