Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[Scroll down to the bold text for the bumper-sticker version.]

"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 thereof, betwixt the best working-goldsmiths in London, where, among many injenious answers, this carried away the credit for the greatest probability thereof, viz., that they were screw nails, which had holes prepared for their reception, and 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 far; 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."

-- Thomas Fuller (b. 1608, d. 1661-08-16), in Mixt Contemplations in Better Times (1660, "Printed by R.D. for Iohn Williams", London) [bold emphasis added --dglenn] It can be found online in a collection of some of Fuller's work, Good Thoughts in Bad Times and Other Papers, also visible in Google Books, Record of Christian Work, vol. 19 (I found it quoted in God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson.) There are minor differences in spelling in diferent collections/editions.

Happt birthday to fidhle, and to my brother John, neither of whom today's quotation is meant to have anything in particular to do with -- I just thought it sounded like a good quotation for a Friday.