a scandal to them and may hinder them from loving and following truth make them to know that there is none but God alone to whom we owe an entire submission and without any condition that there are no persons no estates no dignity no profession in this life which we ought not to love with limitation and that thus they owe you neither Obedience nor Complacency in such things as would be contrary to the Law of God Repeat often and explicate unto them these words of our Lord If any one comes to me and hates not his Father and his Mother and his Wife and his Brothers and his Sisters and moreover even his own life he cannot be my Disciple Luk. 14.20 Whereupon St. S. Hilary upon the words of the 118. Psal Iniquos odio habui Hilary says these admirable words This discourse of Christ Jesus appears harsh and it seems to be a rude and insupportable precept to force and engage one to a kinde of impiety towards Fathers and Mothers as to the highest degree of Christian perfection yet God commands in this nothing that is harsh nothing that is not well beseeming his goodness nothing that is contrary to his other Commandements And Fathers and Mothers cannot be offended that he thus ordains us to hate them although we owe to them in that quality much tenderness and affection since it is also enjoyned us to hate our selves Christ Jesus knew that there are many Fathers and many Mothers who have such an inconsiderate love for their children that when they see them persevere in the glory of Martyrdom they conjure them to yeild to the times they entreat them to change their opinions and they employ to weaken them the motives of a Piety which is altogether irregular Thus the Hatred says this great Saint which Children then conceive against their Fathers and Mothers is honourable and it is just and advantagious to hate them who strive to divert us from the love of Christ Jesus Avoid therefore my Sister the fault which this Saint reprehends in Parents and from which they finde much difficulty to defend themselves unless they have a zeal altogether sincere and disinteressed for their Children Imitate those Parents of the first ages of the Church who never made shew of greater joy than when they saw their children ready to be sacrificed for the defence of Truth and for the cause of Christ Jesus Reade I pray you the Lives of Saints and the History of the Church and you will see a great number of these Examples of Constancy You shall there meet with a holy Mother nam'd Theodora who after she had encouraged her eldest Son to suffer constantly such miseries as they forced him to undergo for the Faith and had exhorted him with much ardour to consider that he should purchase by these soon-passing torments an eternal happiness she her self was thrown into the Fire with this her dear Son and two other of her Children You shall there see a holy Mother who having a son called Meliton among the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste Meliton one of the 40. Mart. who had been exposed stark-naked in a frozen Pond in the greatest rigour of Winter and in a Country where cold was in extremity and who beholding that although they had broken his Legs as they had done them of his companions who expired in that last torment he was nevertheless yet alive contented not her self to exhort him to perseverance but having observed how they hurried away upon Carts the Bodies of the other Martyrs to bring them to a prepared Wood-Pile where they were to be burnt to ashes and that they left her son behinde in hopes to induce him to adore the Idols and to make him renounce Christ Jesus she took him upon her shoulders to carry him her self all alive as he was to his companions But this blessed childe dying in his dear Mothers arms in the way thither she nevertheless marched on with her now dead burden till she came to the burning pile of wood into which she cast the Body of this Blessed Martyr that he might have the glory to be consumed by the fire for the interests of Christ Jesus as were the Bodies of the other Martyrs which had been before thrown into it You shall there see a Dame of qualitie named Dionysia whose example according to the relation of an Affrican Bishop called Victor who writ the History of the Martyrs of the Church of Affrick Victor Affric l. 3. c. 1. persecuted by the Wandales was the cause of the salvation of almost all her Countrey You shall there see that this generous Woman perceiving that her only Son by name Majoricus who was very delicate and very young began to tremble at the apprehension of the torments which she endured darted upon him such piercing looks and employed so forcibly her maternal authority to reprehend him that she rendred him even more valiant than her self insomuch as this young Champion fought Faiths battel with joy and remaining victorious over his torments and over death gathered the Palm of Martyrdom After he had breathed forth his blessed Soul the noble Mother having embraced him as a holy Sacrifice which she had offered to God and to which she ardently wished to be for evermore united carried him home caused him to be buried in her house and poured forth her Prayers almost continually over his Sepulchre How heroick Sister are these Actions and how pure and disinteressed was the charity which produced them What zeal courage and constancy appeared therein And how well did these Mothers know what love they should bestow on their children since they used not the authority they had over them but only to encourage them to confess Christ Jesus and not to be ashamed of the Gospel But because according to the observation of a holy Father the Discourses one makes use of to excite to Virtue S. Chry. ho. 20. super Ephes carry with them I know not what kinde of repulse for them to whom they are addressed and with whatever sweetness one seasons them they still cause a sadness and a dejection in their spirits therefore Sister you may make use of another means than that of Words to instruct them and you may handsomely gain that of them by Lecture which the fear of tiring them caused you to smother in silence and not to inculate unto them by Discourse The Second Means Lecture or Reading CAuse your children to reade the History of the holy Scripture the New Testament the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles St. Gregory of Nisse Brother of St. Basil the Great in a letter wherein he describes the Life of St. Macrina his Sister speaking of the manner how her Mother educated her says That she took extreme care to have her instructed not adds he as they ordinarily instruct them of that age by explicating unto them the Fables of Poets For she conceived that that was to act against the shamefacedness
THE Christian Education OF CHILDREN According To the Maxims of the Sacred Scripture and the Instructions of the Fathers of the Church Written and several times Printed in French and now Translated into English At Paris By John Baptist Coignard at the Golden Bible in S. James's-street 1678. With Approbation THE Authours Address TO HIS SISTER My Dearest Sister SInce God would so have it that I should partake with you of the goods of Nature and that our common Birth permits us not to have any thing of Particular in the advantages of the World I hope he will please to accept the desire I have to extend this right to the Goods of Grace and that he will approve-of my making you partaker of what I could gather in the Books of the Church whereby I have reserved nothing from a person whom he hath rendred so dear unto me Nor can I believe that the World it self notwithstanding that it is accustomed to disapprove the doings of them who have abandoned it can condemn this For if people take it not amiss that such as love one another by motives of Interest and for the Goods of this life should make use of these Goods to give pledges of their love to one another why should it be any wonder that they who are linked together by a friendship which is totally disengaged from the Senses should employ Spiritual things to testify reciprocally to each other their true affection Imagine not therefore my Sister that this Book is the effect barely of a natural Love which gives me entrance into all your Interests I am excited to write unto you by more holy and more powerful motives it is no longer lawful for me to act meerly by them of Nature And having drained all that this Work includes from the Well of the Sacred Scripture and from the Writings of the Fathers of the Church I may assure you that I have the least share therein You therefore are not to make any Reflection upon him who presents it unto you but apply it to your self singly for the enriching of your Soul with the Virtues which are here discovered unto you and which God demands of a Christian Mother Consider that you can give him no greater proofs of your Love and of your Fidelity than to bring up your Children according to the Laws of the Gospel and the Counsels of the Fathers of the Church and that you cannot offer to him a sacrifice which will better please him than to consecrate them to him by a holy Education since they are the better part of your self nor is there any thing which can more move him to pour forth upon you and upon them his blessings than the care you shall take to instruct them in his Fear and in his Love and to let all the World see by engaging them to imitate their Heavenly Father that you look upon them as his Children 'T is to help you in this laudable designe that I have begged of our Lord Jesus Christ so much light as was necessary for me to observe in the sacred Scriptures and in the Volumes of the Fathers of the Church those Maxims which ought to be followed in the Education of children that I have instantly besought him to inspire me with such choice Advices as he would have me draw from thence to propose them to you if he would please to make use of me altogether unworthy as I am to give you the knowledge of what your children stand in need of and of his designs upon you and upon them Consider then if you please this little Work as a Collection of what is most holy and most pure in the Doctrine of the Church touching the Subject it treats on I have done no more than joyn the passages to one another And if there are some Propositions the Authours whereof are not cited it is because they were included in the Principles which I have established upon the authorities of these great Saints Nothing now remains but to send up to God my Prayers that what I have done to discharge my Conscience may not make yours criminal but rather that he will effect by his Grace that by putting in practise these wholsome Maxims and Advices which I offer you you may happily experience that which St. Jerome avers That the health and happiness of Children turns to the Glory and to the Advantage of their Fathers and Mothers THE Authours Advice TO THE READER THis Treatise of the Christian Education of Children was Composed Eight or Nine Years since by a Church-man for one of his Sisters who was engaged in Marriage He only proposed to himself in composing it to assist that person in particular and to instruct her how she should worthily acquit her self in one of the principal Obligations of the estate to which God had called her which was to bring up her Children in the Fear and love of God But in process of time this Treatise having been seen by several of his Freinds who judged it very proper to be made publick the Respect and Submission he had to their Opinion obliged him to apply himself to render it fit for all Parents Hereupon he added several Advices and many Maxims which he conceived might be to them profitable and in general he endeavoured to accomodate to all sorts of conditions and to all manner of persons whatever is herein contained He hath moreover studied to present to all Fathers and to all Mothers certain Rules which they may observe in the several ages of their Children and it may be said That if they apply themselves as they ought to the Truths proposed to them in this Book they shall finde all that can contribute to render their Childrens Education conformable to the Rules of the Gospel They who are not yet engaged in Marriage may here also learn with what spirit they ought to undertake that State of life and how great difficult and sublime are the Obligations thereof They who have renounced the State of Marriage to embrace that of Religion may here finde great subjects to praise God in that he hath not permitted them to enter into a condition wherein it is so hard to acquit themselves of their duty Finally all they who are encharged with the Education of Children and who consequently do hold the Places of Fathers and of Mothers over them shall here sinde the lights and succours which are necessary to acquit themselves as they ought Some perhaps will judge that we have too much descended into particulars in some places but the Authour conceived that his designe being to prescribe Rules not of Speculation but of Practise he could not enter too far into the particulars and that he himself ought to make some application of the Maxims he proposes to the end they might more easily be reduced into Practise by such as have a minde to follow them in the conduct of their Family It is to be hoped that God will bestow his blessing upon this
him from God and to link him to the creature Seventhly because it is ridiculous to pretend that one may make good use thereof and to do it in reverence to God chap. 27. Eighthly because supposing there were some of them honest Christians ought always to consider them no otherwise then as empoysoned honey whereof they cannot taste without danger of death chap. 29. Finally because the state of a Christian in this life is to fly all sorts of pleasures and to cause all his joy to consist in the tears of repentance in the pardon of his sins in the knowledge of truth and in the contempt of pleasures even the most innocent and the most lawful What is there my Sister in all this which this great man alledges against the shews and spectacles of the ancient which may not be said of the Comedies of these days Are the Christians of these times less obliged than they of the time of Tertullian to quit the passions of the world and to mortify in themselves the desires which provoke them to seek for pleasures and divertisements Are they less bound then they of the first ages to labour for the attaining of the Evangelical Perfection to weaken and conquer the passions of the flesh and to shun the objects which excite them which entertain them and which strengthen them Are they less obliged than those of former ages to fly all that may wound the purity which God requires of them And their Eyes and Ears must they be less chaste than their Tongues which are not suffered to speak any vain and unbeseeming word as St. Paul expresly pronounces Moreover the Comedians of these times are they of more consideration in the world than those of former ages What a corruption is it says Tertullian Tertul. c. 22. to love them whom the publick laws condemn to approve of them whom they despise to extoll an art and an employment at the same time when they are branded with infamy who did addict themselves unto it What is there in Comedies which can be pleasing to Gods eyes Is it the pomp and the magnificence of the cloaths Is it the dexterity of the Actors to excite in themselves and in others criminal passions Is it the industry wherewith the musical Airs are accomodated to the subjects and rendred proper to strengthen the said passions Is it the skill wherewith the Poet hath disguised the truth by mixing Fabulous fictions and imaginary accidents the Authour of truth says Tertullian chap. 23. loves not lies and whatever is feigned passes before him for a spice of Adultery They who renounce the world and are truly touched with a desire to live to God do they not avoid Comedies as very dangerous rocks And is it not acknowledged that they have changed their life and that they are as may be said become Christians a second time in that they refuse to be found in those places which they too well know have been unfortunate unto them Will a Christian conserve in a Comedie the feelings he ought to have always in his heart and will he have his spirit raised towards God in an Assembly where says Tertullian chap. 25. there is nothing of God and at a time when all the senses are embusied to feed upon the vain pleasure which is there presented unto them and where the thoughts are applyed to the gestures to the Words and to the motions of the Actors That which Tertullian esteemed to be the greatest scandal which was found in the spectacles of Pagans is it not met withall in Comedies Men and Women young Gallants and young Girls meet they not there together and appear they not there with all the gaity and pleasingness possible Go they not thither as this great man says with this sole design and disposition to see there and to be there seen And the approbation they give with common voice to the Comedians and the joy they feel to meet together in the same opinions are they not as so many sparks which encrease the secret fire burning in their hearts Insomuch as one may say that each one of them after his manner acts there his part and that ofttimes the Actors do but represent what passes secretly among the persons who behold them Tertullian therefore says nothing against the spectacles of the Ancient which may not be applied with justice to the Comedies of our times And in this sort my Sister if I feared not to extend my self too far having not undertaken to write against Comedies but only to shew you the obligation you have to withdraw your Children from them I could make it manifest unto you that all which St. Cyprian or the Authour of that Treatise of Spectacles which is among his Works All that Salvian and all that the other Fathers of the Church have said against the shews and spectacles of the Ancient fall naturally upon the Comedies of our times I could make you see that they do at this day no less profane the sacred Mysteries in going to a Comedie upon the days in which they have communicated and in carrying thither as one may say the Eucharist yet persent in their bosome that they ought at this day no less fear to learn to practise what they are accustomed to see represented The Authour of the Treatise of Spectacles among the works of S. Cyprian and that if the Comedies of these times should contain nothing that is criminal yet they would not cease to carry along with them a vanity and an unprofitableness which is as incompatible with the duties of Christians of our times as with those of the Primitive Christians I well know that the Fathers insisted particularly upon that That there was then no spectacle which was not dedicated to some false Divinity and which had not in its origin or in its execution something of Idolatry But I also know that if according to St. Paul Gal. 5.2 the adhesion one hath to riches is a spice of Idolatry that which one hath to pleasure is by so much more dangerous by how much it engages the man to sacrifice himself to pleasure which is the most infamous of all the Idols I know that St. Augustin said Aug l. 1. Conf. c 17. upon his being exercised in his youth to recite the Fables of Poets That there are many different ways of sacrificing to the rebel-Angels and that if the Comedies of our times are not represented in the honour of a Mars of a Jupiter and of a Neptune they are nevertheless consecrated to profane Love to the pleasure of the beholders and to the avarice of those who represent them Thus they who would render the Comedie Christian by interweaving therein the actions of Saints have proceeded somewhat like to Pompey who as Tertullian relates seeing that the Roman Censours had frequently caused the Theatres to be pulled down Tertull c. 10. de Spect because they corrupted the manners of the people and desiring to hinder the
they design for the World For it is certain that Virtue hath this advantage to make it self esteemed by its own enemies and that if it hath not sufficient allurements and charms strong enough to gain all mens hearts yet it hath power and strength enough to draw their admiration See we not that sweetness and humility in Artists contents more than their adress and their industry If there is a Judge who will not be corrupted is he not desired by all sorts of persons to be the arbitratour of their life and fortune And they who have the least Ambition and the least love for Offices and Commands are they not says St. Chrysostom most welcom in the Courts of Soverain Kings and Princes Do not fear that the modesty of your Daughters in their dress that their reservedness in company that the little entercourse they have with young Gallants will render them less esteemed or less sought for in Marriage Their simplicity their meekness their affection for such things as concern the good government of a Family and their contempt of worldly ornaments will make them better known than strutting and vanity And if men for their diversion seek such as live according to the Maxims of the world they will not have for wives but such as follow the laws of the Gospel such as love retiredness and such as have no inclination to the Modes and Pomps of the World This fidelity to follow the Maxims of the Holy Fathers in the Education of those Children whom we designe for the World is it not advantagious to purchase them the love and esteem of all people but it is even more necessary for the salvation of their souls than for that of those Children whom they designe for Cloysters and for retrait The sole comparison which St. Chrysostom makes use of is sufficient to prove this Even as S Chry. ho. 21. in Ephes. says this Father he who stays always in the Haven stands not in so much need of a Pilot well experienced of so great a number of Mariners and of a Vessel so well equipped as he who is always at Sea and who must provide to resist the windes and the tempests so he who is designed for the solitude being to leade a quiet life and exempt from troubles and turmoils hath no need of such great strength and so many lights as he who is to sustain the most powerful shocks of the Flesh of the World and of the Devil Now if these irreconcilable enemies of mens salvation raise their strongest batteries against Children in their tenderest age they who introduce them into the World without having taught them in that tender age to contemn pleasures Riches and Honours do they not expose them naked and unarmed to the cruelty of the said Enemies We must therefore train them up to the combat from their Infancy discover to them the crafts and cunning of their enemies teach them the means to surprize and to defeat them make them know that it is almost impossible to conserve perfect health amidst the contagion and that living in the world they must always conquer or always be conquered How can they defend themselves from Ambition seeing all others greedy to make themselves great unless they are strongly perswaded of the small solidity which is found in the establishment proposed by the world Can they keep themselves to an indifference amidst the affected complacencies and the allurements of Women who will strive to gain their freindship in order to get possession of their persons and of their means unless they are perfectly convinced of the obligation they have to adhere to God alone and to prefer him before all things Or rather being not solidly setled in Piety and in the fear of God will they not suffer themselves to be carried a way by Example and by custom and losing by the Vicious habits so contracted their eternal salvation will they not make an unhappy experience of the truth of these words of St. Jerome That it is very easy to become like the wicked S. Jerom. ad Letam and to imitate in a short time the Vices of them to whose Virtue one cannot attain CHAP. XIII The means which facilitate the application of these Maxims and these Advices in the Christian Education of Children ALL these means Sister may be reduced to the care which parents ought to take to instruct their children themselves in their own persons But because we cannot receive Instruction but by the means of Speech Reading and actions and that he who plants and he who waters are nothing but that it is God who gives the encrease which he gives not ordinarily but to an humble Prayer it will be easy for you to bring up your children according to the Maxims of the Fathers of the Church if you entertain them with such things as you ought if you make them reade such Books as will profit them if you your self give them examples which they may imitate and if you take care to engage God by their Prayers and by your own to pour out his benediction upon your instructions upon their lectures and upon your Examples The first Means Speech Words or Discourse IT cannot be sufficiently deplored that Parents now adays study so little to render the Conversations which they have with their children and with their Domesticks truly Christian It seems they dare not discover to them the sentiments they have for God They hide themselves from them to say their Prayers and to acquit themselves of their least Christian duties And as if God had not placed them in their houses to give light to such as enter into it and dwell in it they rob them of their lights and contribute by a conduct so dimply shining to form the darkness which is spread over the whole World This unhappy proceeding is the cause that they ordinarily entertain themselves with nothing but trifles and things altogether unprofitable that to furnish matter for conversation they examine the actions of their neighbour they censure them and they discover their secret and unknown crimes that all their talk is but a concatenation of detraction of falshood of vanity and of pleasure and that that which should be as it were the sensible Communion of Saints in Christ Jesus and the image and expression of the communion and society which we have begun with God and with Christ Jesus by Baptism 1 Joan. 13. becomes a source of malice and is in effect nothing but a sequel of that miserable conversation which our first Parents had with the Devil Ephes 2.3 which caused the ruine of all their posterity and which rendred all their children the children of anger and indignation Shall we then wonder that the major part of the Children of Christians live in so great disorders that they are so perfectly knowing in what is necessary to frequent companies and to render themselves pleasing and that they know so little what is necessary to go to Heaven
and civility of Virgins and the means to empoison those well-born and yet tender souls by shewing to them in Tragedies of Women transported by love and in Comedies such shameful filthinesses as are unfit to be heard by persons of their Sex who are obliged not so much as to think of them But in lieu of these she caused her to learn such passages of the sacred Scripture as were most easy to be understood and most proper for her age Thus she began by the Wisdom of Solomon out of which she selected the sentences which were most convenient to regulate her life and all the motions of her spirit She was also very skilful in the Psalms and divided them into certain hours St. Jerome in the Letter he wrote to a certain holy Widow whereof I have already made frequent mention to teach her in what manner she was to train up her Daughter will have this little girl to apply her self timely to the reading of the holy Scripture to learn in the Proverbs of Solomon the Rules and the Maxims of good life to accustom her self by the Lecture of Ecclesiastes to despise the World and to trample under her feet all its grandures and all its vanities to furnish her self with examples of courage and of patience by reading the Book of Job that afterwards she should reade the Gospels and have them always in her hands that she should reade with fervour the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles and after she shall have filled her self with the riches she hath heaped up by these precious Lectures let her moreover reade the rest of the Books of sacred Scripture He will also have her reade the works of the holy Fathers take delight therein and seek there the nourishment and the establishment of her Faith St. Chrysostom acknowledges no other source of all the evils which are committed in the World S. Chry. ho. 9. Ep. ad Coloss but the ignorance of the holy Scriptures Listen says this Father all you who are engaged in the World and who have a Family and children to govern S. Chry. ho. 21. in ep ad Eph. c. 5. how St. Paul recommends particularly unto you the reading of the holy Scripture with great diligence Think not that the Lecture of holy Books is unprofitable to your son One of the first things he will there finde will be the obligation he hath to honour you and without doubt God hath so permitted it that you might not say 't is only for solitary and Religious persons to reade it Say not that you have no designe that your Son should be Religious and that therefore he needs not this reading since you ought at least to make him a good Christian and that those children who are designed to live in the World are they to whom the science of the sacred Scripture is principally necessary There is says the same Saint much weakness and a strong inclination to wickedness in children the weakness and this dangerous inclination encreases dayly by the impression they receive from such things as they learn What bad effects then may it not have in a young man to know that those Hero's of antiquity whom they admire were lovers of Wine and good cheer that they were slaves to their passions and that the motives they had in all their enterprises were Pride and Ambition Let them therefore seek for a Counter-poyson in the sacred Scripture and apply them from their tenderest Infancy to this holy reading I well see that I shall seem to dallie adds this Saint because I always say over the same thing yet I will never cease to do what is in me to render your children perfect Christians To this end teach them to sing the Psalms of David S. Chry. ho. 9. in ep ad Colos c. 3. those Spiritual Canticles being full of that Divine Phylosophy which Christ Jesus came to teach men instructing them by recreating them Psal 1. v. 1. and 14. They will learn there in the beginning to fly the company of the wicked and to seek that of the good And as there is scarcely any Mysteries and Verities in Christianism which are not contained in that sacred Poesie they will there see the small solidity that can be found in all creatures the sweetness and the advantage that is found in the practise of Virtues and finally they will there finde the knowledge of their duties towards God and towards their Neighbour 'T is thus that by accustoming them betimes to taste these things you will render them easily capable of higher truths And like as Fruits of Trees retain much of the quality of the earth where they are planted and of the waters which moysten them so the actions which your children shall do during their whole life time and which will be properly the fruits of their souls will always retain something of the sweetness and of the purity of those wholesome waters which they drew in their Infancy from the holy Scriptures I believe Sister that nothing needs to be added to these Words issuing out of so holy and so eloquent a mouth upon an occasion wherein the Holy Ghost communicated to him not only the lights which he bestows on all them who preach the Gospel but wherein according to the common opinion of Divines he assisted him more particularly than he did the other Doctours to give him entrance into the sentiments and feelings which he had inspired into St Paul and which this great Patriark explicated to his people Now if you desire to know more fully the importance of this second means I have proposed to you S. Aug. Conf. l. 1. take the pains to reade in that excellent Translation which is published of the Confessions of St. Augustin four or five of the last Chapters of the first Book You shall see how that great Saint examining there all the actions of his life by the help of the lights of that Grace which he had received in Baptism and which ever after he had strengthned makes it appear that the study of Poets and profane Authours is in regard of children who are engaged therein as a Sea full of Monsters and of rocks where the best provided suffer shipwrack and that the choicest and most eloquent Words of the Courtiers of Augustus are but Golden Vessells full of Poyson which are presented to us by drunken Doctours and by men who have lost their right reason and their good sense You will see how he there brands with Idolatry this manner of instructing children and that addressing himself to God as it were to complain to his Divine goodness of the Tyranny which is exercised upon their spirits by instilling Vice into them by these studies he exclaims and utters these admirable Words What then Lord was there no other means to exercise my spirit and my tongue Without doubt O Lord had I discovered your praises in your sacred Scriptures and had they made me reade them they had