A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolvedA Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved

1. They whom God hath set in any Place or Station of Superiority over others, either more public, or in Families, should be the most eminent Mourners for the Sins of those committed to their charge. Persons who have public Relations, must have public Affections. They have greater opportunities, and authority to advance Gods Glory, and benefit Souls, than their Inferiors have: To them much is given, and of them much shall be required. They are more responsible to God for public abuses, than the Common People. The Heads of Places and People are more concerned to reform than private members. If they lay not the Sins of Inferiors to their Hearts, they shall be laid to their charge. One great if not the greatest reason why England is so full of Ungodliness, is because it is so full of Gallio's,¹ who regard none of those things. Now they who resent no Sin, will reform no Sinners. All must give account for their idle words, and Governors, especially Magistrates and Ministers, for their idle Silence. Superiors will not reform those Sinners publicly, for whom they do not mourn privately. How abominable is it for base Bribery or Face-fearing to debtor Governors from reforming. 'Tis as cruel to spare all as to pare none. Solomons Throne was not held up by Apes, but by Lyons. Tenuisse silentia Clerum; 'tis the basest tenure in the World, for a Minister to hold his Living by holding of his Peace. Luther once said, That sinful silence in a Minister was Peccatum irremissibile, an unpardonable ⟨p. 114⟩fault: That blessed man^* Mr. Samuel Hieron mourned upon his Death-bed, for his defectiveness in the Duty of private Reproof, though (blessed Saint) he knew upon whom to lay that and his other Sins. I doubt not but God makes the World so bitter to us by sufferings,³ because we make their Sins no bitterer to them by Reproofs. A Minister and Magistrate in Love and Christian Condescension ought to be flexibiliores arundine, but in opposing of Sin duriores adamant; ⁴in the former as flexible as a reed, in the latter harder than an adamant.