Motive to induce every Relation to see after the Improvement of Children as it falls in their Way so it is a special Argument to Parents to attend more heedfully to the well educating of their Children because the Wellfare and the Prejudice of so many other People does in a great Measure depend thereon But supposing the Evil were single that neither Common-wealth nor Family nor Parent were endamaged as they all are by want of Education yet the Evils that befall the Children are so intolerably many and pernicious both to Soul and Body that those may well be said to hate them that do not when they might and should prevent them Can we see a Man that has wholly renounc'd to Truth and good Faith so entirely possess'd with the Spirit of Falsehood Lying and Deceit that one knows not how to believe a Word he sayes nor how to trust him with the least Concern Can we see a Man so ignorant of God and Goodness of Religion and his Duty and of all Things Spiritual that one would think he were newly born into the World and had not yet attained the Use of Reason nor indeed the Use of Speech and Language and another so exceeding skilful in those Matters and of so sharp a Wit and penetrating Judgment that he knows very well that there is no such thing as God and Soul or any thing but gross substantial Matter modify'd with great variety Can we hear another talk so loudly and so frequently of God that his Mouth is fill'd with nothing else and yet at last it should be all in his Dishonour and Defiance in wounding Oaths in raging Blasphemies and dreadful Imprecations without Temptation without Pleasure without Profit and at last without his Knowledge and Design Can we see another vers'd in all the Species of Intemperance practis'd in all the Arts of Luxury and Wantonness and devoted wholly to excess a perfect Slave to his voracious Appetite and whose heart and Soul is in his Dish Another so intoxicated with the Love of Drink that if 't were possible to drown himself he would devoting both the Day and Night to that excess having no other Business nor other Pleasure and Diversion than Intemperance neglecting all Concerns forgetting all his Duty both to God and Man a Reproach to Nature Scandal to Religion Useless to all the ends and purposes of living and not only so but by his bad Example and the cursed Consequences of those Courses ruinous to himself and Family and a most pernicious Creature to the Commonwealth And another so enfeebled by his Lusts so debilitated both in Soul and Body by his exorbitant Indulgence to those brutal Longings that he is scarce the Shadow of a Man dull of Apprehension weak in Imagination failing in Memory and moap'd in his Understanding In a word as impotent of Mind as Body and whose Soul is as loose about him as his Limbs Can one see I say these and a thousand other Evils and Disorders with all their ugly Consequences reign and rage about the World continually and know at the same time they are the natural Consequences of a loose and careless Education and might in a great measure have been prevented by Advice Restraint and punishing betimes can one see and know this and doubt at the same time whether our Parents hated us or no who should and could but would not save us from them What could our greatest Enemy have done besides He would have taken the same courses for one that he exercises as he did Job with Sorrows and Afflictions he ruines a thousand by Indulgences it is the End he aims at which is our destruction and 't is no matter by what means he comes about it If Eutrapelus's Presents are sure to prove as fatal to a weak Mind as a Dagger in a Man's Heart or a Glass of Poyson in his Bowels what signifie the shews of Love and the Pretence of Friendship which prove as deadly as the Assaults of open Enmity What signifies it that the Child is the Delight of its Parents Eyes and the Idol of their Hearts the perpetual Object of their Thoughts and the perpetual Theme of their Discourse that they discern new Beauties dayly in it secret Charms and Excellencies undiscoverable to all the World besides hear Musick in his Voice and Wit in every Word and Grace and Comeliness in every Action If Care be not taken to render him as excellent indeed and to himself and as amiable to others by Vertue Goodness Sweetness and Humanity as he is to them by an abused Fancy All other Demonstrations are but Demonstrations of their own Fondness to and Love of their own self and end in their own Complacence and Delight If you would convince another of your Love it is he that must feel the effects of it in and upon himself as well as you It is otherwise like the Charity of good Words the wishing of Alms and Food and Raiment with which a Man may be starv'd with Cold and Hunger The Love that terminates in Fondness and the little trifling if no worse effects of that can no more properly be called the Love of ones Children than the bidding the hungry be filled the thirsty be satisfied and the naked be cloathed without supplying those Necessities can be call'd relieving them But the Parallel will hold no farther for he that relieves not the distressed does them at least no harm or injury whereas the Parent that with all this dotage takes not care to educate his Children virtuously and well does them the greatest injury and mischief in the World mispends the only proper time and season of their Improvement deprives them of all the Advantages and Opportunities of becoming useful to the Publick a Support to the Family a comfortable Relation and happy People themselves and not only so but exposes them defenceless destitute and naked to abundance of Hazards and Temptations to a contagious Air in the most sensible and tender Age to a vicious World with vicious Inclinations to combate with those Foes with whom our Hearts do naturally conspire to meet those Dangers we rejoice to run into to vanquish those Temptations which we seek and hunt for to resist those evils we had rather should prevail than be subdu'd to be left in a word to our selves to the Naughtiness of our own Hearts and the Dictates of unruly heedless Nature to engage with so many Sins and so many Snares as are commonly a match sufficient for the greatest Care and greatest Watchfulness and greatest Prudence together with the ordinary Supplies of God's Grace is to be ruin'd and undone without peradventure And if these are not true effects of Hatred if these are not the Tokens of the greatest Ill-will and the most improv'd refin'd Malice we are yet to learn what those Words mean And this I hope is so evident from the sense of the Thing from the reason of the Words and from the experience of the World that there is
Religious Matters and I assure you I am otherwise Your Affectionate Humble Servant W. Fleetwood PROVERBS xiii 24. He that spareth the rod hateth his son but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes THE Education of Children is and hath always been accounted a thing of such Importance that all who have at any time discoursed or written of Government have found themselves obliged to dwell particularly on that Subject Aristotle thinks it a matter of such moment that he positively determines it ought not to be left to the Parents choice but that the Publick whose especially the Children are should be entrusted only with that Charge and Plato lays down such severe Rules that 't is a question whether they were ever practicable or only fitted to his fansied Commonwealth And indeed considering that they are the Seed of Empires Kingdoms Corporations and Families and that the Good and Wellfare of them all depends entirely on them there can't be too much care employed about their bringing up there are so many hazards from the sensible and tender dispositions of these nice Plants from noxious Airs inclement Seasons and their own natural Luxuriancy that it requires a great deal of skill to cultivate them as they should and as they well deserve And it is with this prospect and a larger one besides the World to come that the Spirit of God hath inserted so many positive Commands and so many wise Rules of training Children up into the Holy Scriptures For though One were enough when found there to make it our Duty yet there are Many to enforce it farther and though the Spirit of God inspir'd a-like the Herdsman's Son with Solomon the King's and made them a like infallible in what they should deliver to the World yet in compliance may be with our Weakness and the fond Conceits we have of human Reason and Understanding it is so contriv'd that there are more Precepts concerning Childrens Education found in Solomon alone than all the Scriptures else that they who take no notice of the Inspiration might yet be moved by the Authority of the greatest Wisdom and the best Experience and the thing however done I am to confine my self to that of my Text which is as comprehensive as any and will First Explain the Terms of it And Secondly Shew the Truth of the Propositions contain'd therein And Lastly Make what Application may be seasonable and useful And First of the Terms To spare the Rod in the first Clause being oppos'd to chastening in the second by the Rod must needs be meant not only that particular Instrument of Punishment but every thing besides that may prove the Means of our Correction and Amendment And so in Job 33. 19. He is chastened with pain upon his bed And so in Psal 69. 10. I wept and chastened my soul with fasting And so in Isa 53. 5. The chastisement of our peace was on him by which is meant the Miseries Afflictions Pains and Torments that our Lord endured both in Life and Death for our sakes and so in a great many other places So that by Chastisement is here intended every Instrument of Correction every Means of effecting what we intend by chastising And to spare the Rod is not to use those Means not to employ those Instruments for the correcting and amending what we see amiss in Children which are proper to their Age suited to their Dispositions and proportion'd to their Faults whether it be Reproof and sharp Admonition Restraint of Liberty Disappointment of their Wills or corporal Punishment to do in a word whatever is necessary convenient or becoming the Children and the Parents in their respective circumstances is to chasten and to neglect the doing it is to spare the Rod. Let us see in the next place what it is to love and hate one's Son which are the rest of the Terms By loving and by hating is not here meant the exerting actually those Passions in the Heart for then the Text would be untrue it is by no means likely that an indulgent Parent sparing of his Child should actually hate it in his Heart or that the punishing it should be the Effect or Sign of natural Love for the contrary to this is mostly true the Sparing it is the Fruits of natural Fondness and Affection and the Correcting it is not the choice of the Heart but the effects of a Necessity impos'd by Prudence and Consideration and Hopes and Fears of what may come to pass By loving and by hating therefore is to be understood the acting agreeably to the Reason and not the Blindness of those Passions the producing such effects as are in God's Accounts and wise Mens too and in our own when freed from partial Prejudices the Consequence and Fruits of Love and Hatred acting regularly such as are commonly esteemed the Effects of those two Causes whether they indeed proceed from them or no So that to love and hate ones Children is to behave ones self so towards them that they and others may be convinc'd we love or hate them by such Fruits as reasonably and ordinarily are the Products of those two Passions whether those Passions actually possess the Heart or no of which we can convince none but our selves From the Terms thus explain'd it will not be difficult to shew in the second Place the the Truth of the two Propositions how and in what Sense he may be said to hate his Son that spares the Chastisement of him and how he loves him who chastiseth him betimes For if we are to reckon of Love and Hatred by the Effects then it is easie to discern when Parents hate their Children namely when either through Neglect or Fondness they permit them to enter on at first or afterwards continue in such Courses as will bring them to inevitable Ruine when by their want of Care Instruction or Correction those Children fall into such Miseries as the utmost Hatred of their most profest inveterate Enemies could neither wish nor make them greater whatever Love there may be at the bottom What signifies the crowning of a Victim with a Garland when it is still drest up to Death That Mother is as much a Murtheress who stifles her Child in a Bed of Roses as she that does it with a Pillow-bear The End and Mischief is as great tho' the Means and Instrument be not the same And where two Causes will produce the same Effect with equal Certainty 't is no great Matter which of them it is nor whether you give it a hard or gentle Name It is all one as if a Parent truly hated his Child if through his Default he fall into those Evils which will naturally work his Mischief or Undoing that Fault has the same effect that downright Hatred would have had And then for the Will tho' he can't be said to will downright the Evil of his Children yet if he will the Means which have a natural tendency to produce that End he is understood in
inclination without fear and who would fear without Punishment according therefore to the Degrees of Impunity which Men can find or fansie will their Obedience to the Laws or Disobedience prove And so it is even in the smallest Matters that relate to Children they naturally incline the wrong Way and are kept strait by forcible Coercion the Dread of Punishment is the Restraint that lies most powerfully upon them 't is the Consideration of that that is their Motive to Obedience and the Discouragement that keeps them from offending and he that removes that Bar lays them expos'd and open to every Danger and Temptation But nothing does this more effectually than suffering them to sin at first without Reproof and Punishment this strangely lessens the Guilt and Horrour of their Faults within their own Minds gives them Degrees of Confidence in Wickedness and makes them think it no such hainous Matter and venture on it frequently and freely till it at last becomes habitual and is rooted firmly in them and then the Danger is a thousand times the greater and the Pains of remedying all these Mischiefs infinitely more So that allowing that they must some time or other root these Evils out free them from the Bondage and Captivity of their Lusts and Passions and rid them of all their bad and foolish Principles and set them in the Ways of Virtue and Sobriety again allowing I say that this must needs be done that they cannot possibly be Safe or Happy withont it nay that they must be miserable here and more than so hereafter Allowing of all this it is demonstrable that it is not only a Piece of the greatest Wisdom to set about it betimes but of the greatest Mercy and Compassion in the World even in the Judgment of the tenderest and most pittying Mother 'T is like putting one to Death to save a Hundred by the Terror of the Example which may be Justice to the Offender but is in truth a Kindness to the rest If one Reproof and Admonition will prevent the Occasion of twenty more each one as sharp and terrible it would be Cruelty to spare it If an early restraint of undue Liberty will prevent Licentiousness hereafter which must be restrain'd with Chains and Dungeons who would not think it a Mercy to be restrain'd betimes It is better sure to break us of our Wills betimes and to deny us our Satisfactions in small and trifling Things before we can have set our Hearts upon them than to let our Wills and Inclinations gather Strength and our Affection settle and grow firm 〈◊〉 and then begin to fall upon us the one is only as the bending the other as the breaking of an Arm. A little Pain and Trouble and Uneasiness will serve at first to set us right again when a Continuance in our Evil State and a contracted Habit will require a great deal of Patience and put us to a great deal of Torment A little Care and a little Strength will serve to keep a young and tender Graft in uprightness and order which if permitted to grow awry for some time must suffer violence and great distortion before it will be strait again The older we grow in evil Practices and evil Maximes the older they grow too and take the faster hold and root the deeper in us and consequently are remov'd with greater difficulty So that allowing that there is an absolute Necessity of their being removed at length it is plain and manifest beyond denyal that it is not only better both for Parent and for Child that it be done betimes but that it is a Piece of Cruelty both in the one and to the other to deferr it till the vicious Habit is contracted and consequently that the Truth of the Proposition in the Text does visibly appear that he that loveth his Son chastneth him betimes And having done with that I am now to make Application of what hath been said and it shall be to the Parties here concern'd First The Parent Secondly The Children and to both in short First To the Parent To shew you the necessity there is of bringing up your Children under an early and severe discipline the Spirit calls the doing of it Love which is a Term so fit and so expressive that Nature seems to have appropriated it to Parents in such manner that they are fond of the Name even when they have not the Thing they would be thought to love even when they don't it lookes so like their own and what they should do and the Neglect of this he calls hatred a Term from which all Parents naturally abhor But that you might not be deceived and make your Judgments from the Passions and Affections of your own Hearts he describes this Love and Hate by such Effects as are not usually the Products of those Passions in the Hearts of Parents but such as are so in God's Accounts and wise Mens and Childrens themselves when they grow up to Years of Understanding and therefore that you should not set the movings of your Hearts and your own fond Opinions and conceits of Kindness against the Reason Judgment and Experience of the whole World and oftentimes your own But freeing your selves as much as may be from the Partialities of Nature and your Pâ—arental Prejudices deal with your own as freely and as wisely as you would with the Children of a Forreigner and Stranger believing there is need of equal Care and equal Rigour in treating with your own as you can visibly discern there is in treating with anothers This is the only true and lasting Kindness you can do them all other Tokens of your Love but that of good Discipline will die with you or may be taken from them by sundry Chances and Misfortunes This is the only Treasure and Possession you can leave them of which they cannot be depriv'd by Thieves and Robbers out of the Power of Chance and above the Reach and Malice of the subtilest and most formidable Enemy This alone without any other Accession often proves the Foundation of a lasting Happiness but every thing besides without this signifie at least nothing but are most commonly the Instruments of greater Mischief and the Occasions of greater falling And though it can't be done without reluctancy and some uneasiness on both Parts yet it must needs be done however It is but like removing Knives and Instruments of Danger out of their Way for fear of hurting them notwithstanding all their cryings and impatience after them or like the administring severe Physick to prevent a growing Sickness notwithstanding all their loathings and resistance Your Fondness seldom hinders you from this and yet severe and early Discipline is but an equal crossing of their Wills an exercising of their Patience and applying as uneasie Remedies to Evils much more dangerous and to effect a Good much more considerable than that of Health it self It is not easie to determine how far Childrens Faults are chargeable upon their