A20559:379
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A…
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandments gathered from the mouth of a faithful pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholar in Cambridge.The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandements gathered from the mouth of a faithfull pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholler in Cambridge.
London: printed by John Harison for Thomas Man, 1603London: printed by Iohn Harison for Thomas Man, 1603
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, let it be seasonable and done in time, pass it not over ⟨p. 8⟩to long, but begin early enough. So Solomon saith: He that loves him corrects him be time, and doth not omit it till it be to late, but takes the fittest opportunity, when he may with most ease and fewest stripes do most good. For indeed a small twig, and a few blows in time when he is yet a child, & not hardened in sin, will do more good, then many tods and abundance of stripes, afterwards if this season be let slip: for if the child be not mastered when he is young, he will master his parents when he grows elder. Therefore let them not get an head, for if they do, they will prove like an young colt that hath gotten an ill trick at the first, & he hath once cast his rider; he was marred in the beginning, and now you may sooner almost kill him, then break him, and bring him in any good order again.
First, let it be seasonable and done in time, passe it not ouer ⟨p. 8⟩to long, but begin early enough. So Salomon saith: Hee that loues him corrects him be time, and doth not omit it till it be to late, but takes the fittest opportunitie, when he may with most ease and fewest stripes doe most good. For indeed a small twig, and a fewe blowes in time when he is yet a child, & not hardened in sinne, will doe more good, then many tods and abundance of stripes, afterwards if this seaso be let slip: for if the child be not mastred when he is young, he will maister his parents when he growes elder. Therefore let them not get an head, for if they doe, they will prooue like an young colt that hath gotten an ill tricke at the first, & he hath once cast his rider; he was marred in the beginning, and now you may sooner almost kill him, then breake him, and bring him in any good order againe.
Secondly, it must be done with great compassion and mercy, not in bitterness to ease ones self with the pain of the child, which is too barbarous cruelty. For in truth commonly, there is good cause why the father should be as much grieved or rather more then the child, because for the most part he doth but correct his own sins in his son; for if the child be curst and froward, is it not because he hath seen the parents brawling and contentious? if he lye, hath not his father given him a pattern of dissembling, and if he swear being young, are not oaths too reef in the family among elder folks? if he rail and speak evil, was not his parents dealing a president to him? Lightly, there be but few ill humours in the child, which he did not draw from the parents, and that ill sap which doth appear in the bud came first from the root. Therefore in pity, as smiting at themselves and their own sins, they must give chastisements to their children.