Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	overcome_v	young_a	youth_n	22	3	8.2150	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62640	Six sermons I. Stedfastness in religion. II. Family-religion. III. IV. V. Education of children. VI. The advantages of an early piety : preached in the church of St. Lawrence Jury in London / by ... John Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.; Sermons. Selections	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1694 (1694)	Wing T1268A; ESTC R218939	82,517	218

is so very seldom in our thoughts Thirdly Because this Age is of all other the fittest and best to begin a Religious course of Life And this does not contradict the former Argument tho it seems to do so For as it is true of Children that they are most prone to be idle and yet fittest to learn so in the case we are speaking of both are true that youth is an Age wherein we are too apt if left to our selves to forget God and Religion and yet at the same time fittest to receive the impressions of it Youth is aetas Disciplinae the proper Age of Discipline very obsequious and tractable fit to receive any kind of impression and to imbibe any tincture Now we should lay hold of this golden Opportunity This Age of suppleness and obedience and patience for labour should be plyed by Parents before that rigor and stiffness which grows with years come on too fast Childhood and Youth are choice Seasons for the planting of Religion and Virtue and if Parents and Teachers sleep in this Seed time they are ill Husbandmen for this is the time of plowing and sowing This Age is certainly the most proper for Instruction according to that of the Prophet Isa 28. 9. Whom shall he teach knowledge Whom shall he make to understand Doctrine Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast For precept must be upon precept and lin● upon line here a little and there a little And the sooner this is done the better only things must be instilled into them gently and by degrees It is a noted Saying of Aristotle That young Persons are not fit to hear Lectures of Moral Philosophy because at that Age Passion is so predominant and unruly By which I think he only means that the Minds of young Persons are least prepared to receive the Precepts of Morality and to submit to them but that he does not hereby intend that ther●fore no care ought to be used to form the Minds and Manners of Youth to Virtue and Goodness He certainly understood the nature and power of evil Habits too well to be of that mind and consequently must think that the Principles of Morality ought with great care and diligence to be instill'd into young persons betimes Because they of all other have the most need of this kind of Instruction and this Age is the most proper Season for it And the less their Minds are prepared for it so much the more pains ought to be taken with them that they may be taught to govern and subdue their Passions before ●hey grow too s●iff and headstrong So that if the Seeds of Religion and Virtue be not planted in our younger years what is to be expected in old Age according to that of the Son of Sirach Ecclus 25. 13. If thou hast g●thered nothing in thy Youth how canst thou expect to find any thing in thine Age Young years are tender and easily wrought upon apt to be moulded into any fashion they are udum molle lutum like moist and soft clay which is pliable to any form but soon grows hard and then nothing is to be made of it It is a very difficult thing to make impressions upon Age and to deface the Evil which hath been deeply imprinted upon young and tender minds When good instruction hath been neglected at first a conceited Ignorance doth commonly take posses●●on and obstruct all the passages through which Knowledge and Wisdom should enter into us Upon this Consideration the Work of Religion should be begun betimes because it is a mighty advantage to any thing to be planted in a ground that is newly broken up It is just the same ●hing for young persons to be enter'd into a Religious course and to have their Minds habituated to Virtue before vicious Customs have got place and strength in us For whoever shall attempt this afterwards will meet with infinite difficulty and opposition and must dispute his ground by inches It is good therefore to do that which must be done one time or other when it is easiest to be done when we may do it with the greatest advantage and are likely to meet with the least and weakest opposition We should anticipate Vice and prevent the Devil and the World by letting God into our hearts betimes and giving Religion the first seisine and possession of our Souls● This is the time of sowing our Seed which must by no means be neglected For the Soul will not lye fallow good or evil will come up If our minds be not cultivated by Religion Sin and Vice will get the possession of them But if our tender years be seasoned with the knowledge and fear of God this in all probability will have a good influence upon the following course of our Lives In a word this Age of our Lives is proper for Labour and Conflict because Youth is full of heat and vigor of courage and resolution to enterprize and effect difficult things This heat indeed renders young persons very unfit to advise and direct themselves and therefore they have need to be advised and directed by those who are wiser and more experienced But yet this heat makes them very fit for practice and action for though they are bad at counsel they are admirable at execution when their heat is well directed they have a great deal of vivacity and quickness of courage and constancy in the way wherein they are set Besides that Youth hath a great sense of Honour and Virtue of Praise and Commendation which are of great force to engage young persons to attempt worthy and excellent things For hope and confidence strength and courage with which sense of Honour and desire of Praise are apt to inspire them are admirable instruments of Victory and Mastery in any kind and these are proper and most peculiar to Youth I write unto you young men ●aith St. John because ye are strong and have overcome the evil One And besides the spirit and vigor of Youth young persons have several other qualities which make them very capable of learning any thing that is good They are apt to believe because they have not been often deceived and this is a very good quality in a Learner And they are full of hopes which will encourage them to attempt things even beyond their strength because Hope is always of the future and the Life of young persons is in a great measure before them and yet to come And which is a good Bridle to restrain them from that which is evil they are commonly very modest and bashful And which is also a singular advantage they are more apt to do that which is honest and commendable than that which is gainful and profitable being in a great measure free from the love of Money which Experience as well as the Apostle tells us is the root of all Evil. Children are very seldom covetous because they have seldom been bitten by want Fourthly This is

to manage it is a very pernicious thing And yet how many Parents are there who omit no Care and Industry to get an Estate that they may leave it to their Children but use no means to form their Minds and Manners for the right use and enjoyment of it without which it had been much happier for them to have been left in great Poverty and straits Dost thou love thy Child This is true love to any one to do the best for him we can Of all your toil and labour for your Children this may be all the fruit they may reap and all that they may live to enjoy the advantage of a good Education All other things are uncertain You may raise your Children to Honour and settle a Noble Estate upon them to support it You may leave them as you think to faithful Guardians and by kindness and obligation procure them many Friends And when you have done all this their Guardians may prove unfaithful and treacherous and in the Changes and Revolutions of the World their Honours may slip from under them and their Riches may take to themselves wings and fly away And when these are gone and they come to be nipp'd with the Frosts of Adversity their Friends will fall off like leaves in Autumn This is a sore evil which yet I have seen under the Sun But if the good Education of your Children hath made them wise and virtuous you have provided an Inheritance for them which is out of the reach of Fortune and cannot be taken from them Crates the Philosopher used to stand in the highest Places of the City and to cry out to the Inhabitants O ye People why do you toil to get Estates for your Children when you take no care of their Education This is as Diogenes said to take care of the Shooe but none of the foot that is to wear it to ●ake great pains for an Estate for your Children but none at all to teach them how to use it that is to take great care to undo them but none to make them happy Thirdly Consider that by a careful and Religious Education of your Children you provide for your own Comfort and Happiness However they happen to prove you will have the comfort of a good Conscience and of having done your Duty If they be good they are matter of great Comfort and Joy to their Parents A wise Son saith Solomon maketh a glad Father It is a great satisfaction to see that which we have planted to thrive and grow up to find the good effect of our care and industry and that the work of our hands doth prosper The Son of Sirach among several things for which he reckons a Man happy mentions this in the first place He that hath joy of his Children Ecclus. 25. 7. On the contrary in wicked Children the honour of a Family fails our Name withers and in the next Generation will quite be blotted out Whereas a hopeful Posterity is a prospect of a kind of Eternity We cannot leave a better and more lasting Monument of our selves than in wise and vir●uous Children Buildings and Books are but dead things in comparison of these living Memorials of our Selves By the good Education of your Children you provide for your Selves some of the best Comforts both for this World and the other For this World and that at such a Time when you most stand in need of Comfort I mean the Time of Sickn●ss and old Age. Wise men have been wont to lay up some praesidia S●n●ctutis something to support them in that gloomy and melancholy Time as Books and Friends or the like But there is no such external Comfort at such a Time as good and dutiful Children They will then be the light of our Eyes and the Cordial of our fainting Spirits and will recompence all our former care of th●m by their present care of us And when we are decaying and withering away we shall have the pleasure to see our Youth as it were renewed and our selves flourishing again in our Children The Son of Sirach speaking of the comfort which a good Father hath in a well educated Son Though he dye says he yet he ●s as if he were not dead for he hath left one behind him that is like himself While he lived he saw and rejoiced in him and when he died he was not sorrowful Ecclus 30. 4 5. Whereas on the contrary a foolish Son is as Solomon tells us a heaviness to his Mother the miscarriage of a Child being apt most tenderly to affect the Mother Such Parents as neglect their Children do as it were provide so many pains and Aches for themselves against they come to be Old And rebellious Children are to their infirm and aged Parents so many aggravations of an evil Day so many burthens of their Age They help to bow them down and to bring their gray hairs so much the sooner with sorrow to the grave They do usually repay their Parents all the neglects of their Education by their undutiful carriage towards them And good Children will likewise be an unspeakable Comfort to us in the Other World When we come to appear before God at the Day of Judgment to be able to say to Him 〈◊〉 here am I and the Children which thou hast given me How will this comfort our Hearts and make us lift up our Heads with joy in that Day Fourthly Consider that the surest Foundation of the publick welfare and happiness is laid in the good Education of Children Families are increased by Children and Cities and Nations are made up of Families And this is a matter of so great concernment both to Religion and the Civil happiness of a Nation that anciently the best constituted Commonwealths did commit this care to the Magistrate more than to Parents When Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty of their Children for Hostages they offer'd rather to deliver to Him twice as many Men so much did they value the loss of their Country's Education But now amongst us this Work lies chiefly upon Parents There are several ways of reforming Men by the Laws of the Civil Magistrate and by the publick Preaching of Ministers But the most likely and hopeful Reformation of the World must begin with Children Wholsome Laws and good Sermons are but slow and late ways The timely and the most compendious way is good Education This may be an effectual Prevention of evil whereas all after-ways are but Remedies which do always suppose some neglect and omission of timely care And because our Laws leave so much to Parents our Care should be so much the greater and we should remember that we bring up our Children for the Publick and that if they live to be M●n as they come out of our hands they will prove a publick Happiness or Mischief to the Age. So that we can no way better deserve of Mankind and be greater Benefactors to the World than by Peopling it with a Righteous