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

7. Since Severity will not do the feat, see what sweetness, mildness, gentleness, holy tenderness, and indulgence will do: Peragit tranquilla potestas, quod violenta nequit. The pillow may help to break the flint, which the Hammer, and Anvil cannot. It prevailed with flinty Saul, 1 Sam. 24.16. The cordial may prevail, where the corrosive cannot. The sight of the pardon more commands the heart of the desperate Traitor, than that of the Axe, or Gibbet.

7. Since Severity will not do the feat, see what sweetness, mildness, gentleness, holy tenderness, and indulgence will do: Peragit tranquilla potestas, quod violenta nequit. The pillow may help to break the flint, which the Hammer, and Anvil cannot. It prevail'd with flinty Saul, 1 Sam. 24.16. The cordial may prevail, where the corrosive cannot. The sight of the pardon more commands the heart of the desperate Traytor, than that of the Ax, or Gibbet.

8. To All these add Scriptural admonition, fervent, Supplication, Patient waiting on, and humble Submission to the Will of God, Mic. 7.7, 8, 9.

8. To All these adde Scriptural admonition, fervent, Supplication, Patient waiting on, and humble Submission to the Will of God, Mic. 7.7, 8, 9.

Thus much concerning Sinful Severity, we proceed to the Second, and that is Sinful Indulgence. Our Apostle knowing right well, how apt Parents are to swerve from the golden mean of Parental discipline; and, whilst they Labour to avoid the Rock of Sinful Severity, how prone they are to plunge themselves into the gulf of Sinful Indulgence, doth, in the same Text, prescribe a Sovereign Antidote against that fatal pleurisy of fond Affection, in these words, but bring them up in the Nurture, and Admonition of the Lord. Whilst the severe Parent is breathing a vein in his distempered Child, he cautions him to take care, he doth not pierce an Artery: Fathers, provoke not your Children to wrath. But, on the other Hand, if the Child, labours under an imposthume, and needs the Lancet, our Apostle doth here command the discreet use of it, and ll by no means permit, that the sinking Child should be soothed, or stroked, and demulc'd into certain ruin. Children must be nurtured, though they may not be provoked. Parents must not be cruel Ostriches, and leave and expose their young ones, to harm and danger; nor yet must they be such fond Apes,