Wicked Dispositions should be Check’d betimes; for when they come once
to Habits, they grow Incurable. More People go to the Gibbet for want of
Timely Instruction, Discipline, and Correction, then upon any Incurable
Pravity of Nature; And it is mightily the Fault of Parents, Guardians,
Tutors and Governours, that so many men Miscarry. They suffer ’em at
first to _Run-a-head_, and when Perverse Inclinations are Advanc’d once
into Habits, there’s No Dealing with ’em. It may seem somewhat a Hard
Case for the Greater Thieves to Punish the Less, and to see Publique
Purloyners and Oppressors sit in Triumph upon the Lives of the Little
Ones that go to the Gallows: For the Tye of Morality is the same upon
Both; and they Stand Both Accountable to the Same Master. But Time,
Power, and Corruption, give a Reputation to the Worst of Practices,
and it is no longer Oppression when it comes Gilded with the Name of
Authority. This Unequal and Unreasonable Judgment of Things, brings many
a Great Man to the Stool of Repentance; for when he has Swallow’d more
then he can Digest, it sticks upon his Conscience, and will neither Up,
nor Down. Now in the Sight of Heaven, the Greater the Temptation, the
Less is the Sin; and yet in the Vogue of the World, it passes for an
Exploit of Honour, for Kings and States to run away with Whole Countries
that they have no Colour, or Pretence to; when many a poor Devil stands
Condemn’d to a Halter, or a Whipping-Post, for the Pilfering of a
Silver-Spoon perhaps, or the Robbing of a Hen-Roost: Though the Former,
all this While, has No Better Title to what he takes then the Latter; and
yet to see what a deal of Fulsome Flattery, and Panegyrick we have upon
the Glorious Atchievements of the One; and only some _Smithfield Ballad_
perchance, or a _Sabbath-Breaking Speech_, or _Confession_, to Embalm the
Memory of the Other. To be Short and Plain; the Offence before God, is at
least as Great in a Prince, as in a Begger, and the Morality of a Careful
Education holds alike in both. ’Twas the _Mother’s_ sparing the Rod at
first, that brought the _Child_ at the Long Run to the Halter.