XXXIV. BY DEGREES.

WE read that the nails in the holy of holies, 2 Chron. iii. 8 and 9, were of fine gold. Hence ariseth a question, how such nails could be useful? pure gold being so flexible that a nail made thereof will bow, and not drive.

Now, I was present at the debate hereof, betwixt the best working-goldsmiths in London, where, among many other ingenious answers, 274this carried away the credit for the greatest probability thereof, viz. that they were screw-nails, which had holes prepared for their reception, arid so were wound in by degrees.

God’s work must not be done lazily, but leisurely: haste maketh waste in this kind. In reformations of great importance, the violent driving in of the nail will either break the head, or bow the point thereof, or rive and split that which should be fastened therewith.

That may insensibly be screwed which cannot suddenly be knocked into people. Fair and softly goeth for; but, alas! we have too many fiery spirits, who, with Jehu, drive on so furiously they will overturn all in church and state, if their fierceness be not seasonably retrenched.