towars them whilst they rob from their necessity the money which they play away is alone an evil great enough to perswade Christians to an aversion from Gaming But the love of Play stays not here It makes the persons who abandon themselves unto it to violate other Duties which are to them as we may say much more essentiall and much more indispensable The Women leave their houses and leave the care of their family to such domesticks who have oft-times only an appearing piety and fidelity and which dissipate under hand all their substance They neglect the Education of their children and commit them to the care of servants or of Women who corrupt their spirit and who frequently engage them in such disorders as stay with them all the rest of their life time The men on their side expose themselves oftentimes to lose the means without which they cannot make their Family to subsist as they are obliged nor acquit themselves of their Debts They render themselves useless to the publick there being neither Prince nor even particular person who will entrust his goods or his affairs in the hands of a man who loves Play and Gaming They expose their honours their offices and their dignities and there are but too many illustrious Families which have been ruined by Play or which yet resent the losses of their Parents Finally it is Gaming which causes Children so frequently to violate the respect they owe to their Parents which troubles the major part of Families which separates Husbands from their Wives and which dividing them whom God hath united by an indissoluble tye causes them oftentimes to fail in the fidelity which they owe to each other How many Wives are there who having not wherewithall to satisfy the love they bear to Play or because they have a Husband who leaves not to them the disposition of his money or because they have in effect already lost all and much incommodated all their family finde themselves easily disposed to satisfy the criminal passions of such as can furnish them wherewithall to Play Of what disorders is not a Woman capable who hath had a considerable loss at Play and who sees her self ready to incur the indignation and the fury of a Husband whom her Play hath already driven several times almost into despair And how many men are there who suffer themselves to be expresly overcome by the women with whom they play upon design to corrupt them and who thus make a shameful and infamous traffick of that divertisement And here it is my Sister that I entreat you to make reflexion upon the blindness of the major part of Fathers and of Mothers who suffer their Daughters to game with young men and to receive from them considerable presents yea some of them are so devoid of reason as to rejoice at their Daughters winnings in these occasions and to take therein a vain and sottish complacency not perceiving that the jmaginary victory they get in their play flattering their fancy renders them sensible of the liberality of those young Gallants and induces them to give them some signes of their acknowledgement which turns in the end to the shame and to the confusion of a whole Family In effect Gaming is one of the most dangerous snares which the Devil lays to entrap young people and which he ordinarily makes use of to make them fall into criminal freindships They play sometimes one to one or if they are many they combine one with another They take the game from her whom they will oblige they charge themselves with her loss and thus they insinuate themselves by little and little into her heart As they make profession in this age to play only for divertisement they affect in Play a certain frolickness and a kinde of liberty to speak any thing which although it passes not absolutely the bounds of honesty and exteriour seemliness yet fails not to leave malignant impressions They turn all the events of play into idle chatterings and they take occasion of all that presents it self and of the good humour into which gain puts her with whom they play to make declarations which would be worse received at another time when they are more serious They proceed with this disposition to walkings abroad and to collations where are made excessive expences There are not wanting indiscreet freinds knowing the intention which induces these young people to these foolish charges and knowing them for whose sake they are made engage the Mothers to come with their Daughters Play mixes it self again in this divertisement and begets a new engagement to a new match and to another treat And thus there is as it were a concatenation of gaming of walkings abroad of collations and of divertisements which do so link together the hearts of these young lovers that the Parents finde themselves obliged at last against their wills to cover with the veil of Marriage the engagements they have made to each other and to which Play which appeared at first innocent gave the entrance Behold Sister how the love of Play insensibly destroys youthfull persons and how this passion is no less prejudicial to Children then to their Parents making them fall into these horrible strayings which I have represented unto you You ought therefore to employ all your care to prevent your Children against so dangerous a passion and to apply your self timely to instill into them such Christian Maxims as may beat it down and destroy it You are to make them conceive what use they ought to make of their time and of their means when it is permitted them to take their divertisements and with what Plays they may laudably divert themselves You ought frequently to inclucate unto them that one of the most dangerous arts of the devil is to perswade people that the loss of time is innocent or at least not criminal that nevertheless time is lent us by God to make good use of it and to employ it faithfully in his service and for his glory to conquer our passions to expiate our sins to establish us in good customs to sanctify us and so to husband all the hours and all the moments thereof that we may acquire a happy Eternity and consequently that one cannot Rom. 2.4 without sleighting the riches of Gods bounty without contemning his tollerance and his long patience and without heaping up as St. Paul says a treasure of anger for the day in which God will render to every one according to his works employ the time which ought to be to us so precious in vain amusements and in barren and vicious occupations You ought to declare unto them that the Holy Fathers agree in this that men are only the Depositairs and Guardians of the goods which they enjoy that after they have taken what is needful for their subsistance the overplus appertains not to them but to the poor to whom they ought to distribute it and that when they know their necessity they
triall according to the Ordinance of the Church but to have a Maid rank her self under the Obedience of a Husband and take upon her the charge of a Family which requires almost the submission of a Religious person and the prudence of a Superiour they fancy that no time is too short they conclude these kinde of affairs in the space of a Month or Fifteen days without making reflection upon the dispositions and upon the qualities the persons have to acquit themselves of these Duties Yet when they are once engaged there is no more means left to give back They must keep on to the end of their earthly pilgrimage and satisfy the duties of their condition or renounce their salvation They may well repent themselves of the rashness of their engagement but they are no longer free to change it Wherefore they who finde themselves thus tyed up seeing that God forbids them to disengage themselves ought to believe that 't is his will they should remain in that State in whatever manner they entred into it and that they should sincerely apply themselves to know and to practice that which he demands and expects of them The knowledge of these Obligations which the light of God gives to some Souls which are thus engaged without having maturely considered of it is for them in some sort the beginning of their Vocation For if one cannot say that they were called to the State of Marriage yet one cannot doubt but that at least they were called in Marriage and that suffices to move them to remain therein in peace and repose according to the advice of St. Paul Let every one remain in the Vocation and in the State to which God hath called him 1 Cor. 7.20 All then they have to do is humbly to adore the designes of God upon them to content themselves with the measure of grace he gives them and by not hiding from themselves the difficulties and the obligations of their State to resolve to accomplish faithfully whatever God appoints them Now if the persons who have slieghtly engaged themselves in Marriage are obliged not to hide from themselves the Difficulties and the Obligations of that Estate they who as you my Sister have not embraced it but after many Prayers and serious Reflections may they neglect them without being unfaithful to the lights and to the graces by which God hath made them conceive the Hope of being sanctified therein by accomplishing the things which he exacts of them Wherefore to be in a condition to practice them yet more perfectly then you perchance have done hitherto you must quit all humane sentiments and feelings and raise up your self above all the low and carnal aspects which people have ordinarily of Marriage to the end you may enter into the sentiments of Christ Jesus and into the designes he had in exalting this humane alliance to so high a dignity CHAP. I. Of the Excellency of Christian Marriage ONe of the principal reasons which induced the Saviour of the world to place so great a dignity upon the humane alliance of Marriage was the will he had to sanctify by this means the generation of Children and to give to married persons the necessary graces to apply themselves holily to their Education For as St. Augustin observes August l. 1. de Nupt. c. 8. The will of faithful people not determinating it self in Marriage only to put Children into the world to dye but to the end that they being born again in Christ Jesus may receive eternal life how could they have acquitted themselves of this Duty with greater ease than in receiving when they contract this holy alliance the particular grace which our Lord hath annexed to it and which he hath merited for them by his Passion 'T is by this grace that Marriage hath been re-established in its first dignity from which it was fallen after sin in the law of Nature and in the law of Moses And as the holy Council of Trent says 'T is by it that the natural love which married persons bear to one another hath been perfected that the iudissoluble union of their hearts hath been strengthned and that all their actions have been sanctified The 2d Motive which induced Christ Jesus to raise the Marriage of Christians to the dignity of a Sacrament was that he might give us an exteriour and sensible signe of the infinite love he bears us and of the strict Union he hath contracted with the Church which is his Spouse so that the principal glory of them whom he unites by this sacred knot is the honour they have to represent perfectly unto us this Divine alliance This is that which St. Paul admirably expresses in his Epistle to the Ephesiaus in such terms as I could wish could be engraven in the bottom of your heart and which I conjure you to keep continually in your Memory Let the Wives says this Apostle be submitted to their Husbands as they are to God for the Husband is the Head of the Wife as Christ Jesus is the Head of the Church which is his Body and whereof he is the Saviour Wherefore as the Church is submitted to Christ Jesus so Women ought to be submitted in every thing to their Husbands And you Husbands love your Wives as Christ Jesus hath loved his Church and hath delivered himself to death for her to the end he might sanctify her after he had purified her by the Word in the Water of Baptism and that she might appear before him full of Glory having neither blemish nor wrinkle nor any such like thing but being holy and irreprehensible Thus Husbands ought to love their Wives as their own Bodies He who loves his Wife loves himself for no one hates his own Flesh but nourishes it and entertains it as Christ Jesus doth his Church because we are the Members of his Body making a part of his Flesh and of his Bones And 't is for this that it is sayd in the Scripture that a man shall abandon his Father and his Mother to live with his Wife and that of two which they were they should become one selfsame Flesh Thus let every one of you love his Wife as himself and let the Wife respect and honour her Husband Eph. 5.22 c. You see by this my Sister that St. Paul makes a continual Parallel of Jesus Christ and of his Church with the Christian Bridegroom and his Spouse that he concludes the Duties of the Wife towards her Husband and the Duties of the Husband towards his Wife of the Submission which the Church hath for Christ Jesus and of the Grace which Christ Jesus communicates to his Church and that he gives no other Idea or Form of the mutual Love or Fidelity which they owe to one another and of the indissoluble Union which ought to be between them than the Love which Christ Jesus hath for his Spouse than the Fidelity which this holy Spouse hath for Christ Jesus and than the Union
and who will abandon all these Freinds to joyn themselves to lewd persons and to seek out companions of their debauches and dissolution What comfort can he expect when he shall be seized on by the inconveniencies of old age And what help can he hope for in his Infirmities from them who have not obeyed him and who have sleighted him when he was yet in the vigour of his days and could have made himself feared But to make use of such only Reasons as Piety furnishes us withall what advantage can a Father draw from a Life all Innocent and Holy if he be condemned by God for having neglected the Education of his Children think not that I of my self do advance this astonishing proposition It proceeds from Saint Chrysostome who after he had made it most evidently appear That every one is no less obliged to procure to the utmost of his power the salvation of his Neighbour than his own and that the negligence of other mens sins is the greatest of all crimes concludes that they who shall have neglected the good Education of their Children ought with much more reason dread to be rigourously punished for that sole sin notwithstanding that otherwise they lead a virtuous and well regulated life He proves this Verity by a History of the Old Testament which is known to the whole world 't is that of the High Priest Heli who was of himself a very good man and who as it appeared in the Disasters which befell him had a great submission to the will of God and a most ardent zeal for Religion but for having contented himself to reprehend with meekness two very wicked Sons of his and to represent to them the heynousness of their crime without opposing himself with all the care and force as he was bound to do drew down the indignation of God upon himself and his whole Family His two Sons were slain on the same day The Wife of the elder of them lost her life in the pains of Childing before her time The Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Enemies And he himself unable to support such sad News fell backward out of his Chair brake his brain pan and there died So that forty years employed in the government of Gods people with all the justice and all the integrity imaginable could not hinder Heli from perishing in a miserable manner for having not laboured in the Education of his Children with that force and vigour which God demanded of him This Negligence defaced all his Virtucs and obscured all his brave actions And this sin as St. Gregory observes could not be expiated in the sequel of ages either by Oblations or by Sacrifices By this it may be seen that Fathers and Mothers who neglect to chastise their Children and to oblige them to serve God render themselves really their Parricides and Murtherers For although these of this High-Priest even now mentioned were killed by the Enemies yet it may be said that he was himself the prime cause of their Death since his negligence in chastising them diverted the succour of God from them and put them in the power of them who bereft them of their life 'T is thus says St. Chrysostome that we our selves treat our Children with more Inhumanity than Barbarians would do because all their cruelty can extend it self only upon the liberty of their bodies whereas we by our evil conduct reduce their Spirits into the servitude of Vices and suffering them to follow their passions render them bondslaves to the Devil himself Can it then be wondred at that God punishes with such severity the little care Parents have of the Education of their Children and can we be surprized to see so much rigour used towards them who are the cause of the crimes they commit because they did not correct them nor stifled their passions in their birth and furthermore because in the judgement of the same great Doctour although these Children should afterward come to acknowledg themselves and to get out of the way of Vice to walk in that of Virtue and that by a pure effect of Gods Mercy they should renounce the Maxims of the World to follow them of Christ Jesus their parents will not nevertheless escape a most rigorous chastisement if they neglected their Education because they shall be censured to have contributed as much as in them lay to their Childrens ruine and destruction Now if faults which Parents commit in this Education draw upon them such great evils if in the sentiment of all the holy Fathers and of all the Doctours all the Imperfections and all the crimes which Children shall contract by their negligence shall be imputed unto them and if their punishments are augmented proportionably as the same Imperfections and the same crimes shall be multiplied in them who descend from them what Glory think you is prepared to crown the labours of such Parents as had no other ambition than to have Christian Children nor other desires than to imprint deeply in their soul the fear of Gods Justice and the acknowledgement of his Mercy But how much soever Fathers are interested in the Education of their Children whether because of the just apprehension of the Punishments which are prepared for them if they neglect it or because of the comforts both temporal and eternal which they hope from them if they apply themselves with care to their Education yet 't is of greater consequence to Mothers and to say better it is to them of the highest necessity I insist not upon this that their Sex being less proper to command and that finding themselves subject to great Infirmities in old age they ought to have a greater care to instil into their Children even in their tender Infancy an acknowledgement and a respect for themselves I consider here only their spiritual interest and I say that the means which a Mother hath to sanctify her self are reduced in a great measure to the Christian Education of her Children 'T is St. Paul who teaches us this Truth when after he had spoken of the modesty which Christian Women ought to use in their cloaths and of the wariness they should observe in their Words particularly in Assemblies as to what concerns points of Doctrine and the Interpretation of the holy Scriptures he adds 1 Tim. 2.15 They shall be saved by the Children they shall bring into the World by procuring that they remain in Faith in Charity in Sanctity and in a well regulated life As if he should say to Christian Women according to the explication of St. Chrysostome My Sisters do not thrust in your selves to procure the glory of God and the salvation of your Neighbour by publick Instructions A woman medled once only with teaching and she ruined the whole World yet do not you afflict your selves for this mischief and let not your heart sink at this reproach God hath given you a means to repair this injury which you have all received in the