such means as that he may seem not to pleasure them with the hurt and injury of his people as with Monopolies c I have often wondred with my self what should move governours to print justifications of themselves and assertions of their proceedings which I suppose never made an understanding man a convert nor met with a cordial reception in any unless the abuse of a few poor shallow believers be thought a triumph worth their pains I have sometimes thought they do by these papers please themselves in their abilities to delude and so gratifie their authority over the noblest part of man by denying the liberty of the thought and subduing the power of the soul to an implicit coherence with their own magisterial opinions But the Governour of the Turks that Politician we must force our pen towards by quoting the success of his undertakings besides the plausibleness and insinuating nature of the proposition it self hath the advantage of power to make us believe him or any other such like governour that contrives these designes Nor is this bait laid by him or any other I point not at contemptible many of parts and prudence yea and of Religion have been stagger'd by it some question whether he deserved the brand of Atheism considering the wild conceits they then had of their Gods or differed from the common Creed crying out O how the Gods favour Sacriledges When he had a merry gale after a sacrilegious attempt the like said Dionysius the best of the Greek Historians calls the victory the just Arbitress of the cause so did the Roman also So hard it is to perswade meer reason that virtue may be unfortunate and vice happy and some adore the fortunate and despise the conquered 13. A reconciled enemy is not safely to be trusted yet if any c. I answer You must never trust any friend or servant with any matter that may endanger your estate and of this you must take an especial care for else you will make your self a slave to him that you trust and leave your self alwayes to his mercy and be sure of this you shall never find a friend in your young years whose condition and qualities will please you after you come to more discretion and judgement and then all you give is lost and all wherein you shall teach such a one will be discovered such therefore as are inferious will follow you but to eat you out and when you leave to feed them they will hate you and such kind of men if you preserve your estate will alwayes be had and if your friends be of better quality then your self you may be sure of two things The first that they will be more carefull to keep your counsel because they have more to lose then you have The second they will esteem you for your self and not for that which you do possess but if you be subject to any great vanity or ill from which I hope God will bless you and all other then therein trust no man for every mans folly ought to be his greatest secret 14. Grant if ever a courtesie at first asking for c. I answer nothing does more become a wise man then to make choise of friends and advised in courtesies for by these you shall be judged what you are let them therefore be wise and virtuous and none of those that follow you for gain but make election rather of your betters then your inferiours shunning alwayes such as are poor and needy for if you grant twenty courtesies and give as many gifts and refuse to do the same but once all that you have done will be lost and such men will become your mortal enemies 15. Be not nice in assisting with the advantages of nature c. I answer you friendly where you do not abuse Ladies and Gentlewomen and in milde termes There is some of this leaven in the judgement of most notwithstanding those brighter discoveries in the Noon of Christianity we live under A Bible throughly observed would expound to us much of the riddle and dark passages of providence we are so short sighted that we cannot see beyond time without the Rules of Astrology We value men and things by their temporal prosperities transient glories whereas if we put eternity into the other scale it would much out-poise that worldly lustre that so much abuses our eyes and cozens our understandings I find it not in holy Writ that God hath inseparably annexed goodness and greatness justice and victory he hath secured his servants of the felicity of a better life but not of this Christs Kingdom is not here our happiness was not of this world not doth my Bible shew me any warrant for appeal to Heaven for the decision of this or that intricacy by bestowing success upon this party or that cause according to its righteousness and due merit there is a vast difference betwixt {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} even in Scripture construction The great Turk may justly exult and prune himself in discourses of this nature if they be once admitted and owned by Christians And I shall forbear any longer to think Mahomet an Impostor and must receive the Alcaron for Gospel if I shall be convinced that temporal happiness and triumph are a true Index of divine Favour Our Religion hath something more to invite our closure with it it proposes a conveniency on earth like Heydons book of The way to bliss but the Crowns and garlands are reserved for Heaven as bliss is The money-god in Plato pretends a command from Jupiter to distribute as great a largess to the wicked as to the good because if vertue should once impropriate riches that fair Goddess would be more wooed for her dowry then for native beauty So if Religion were attended with those outward allurements that most take the senses we should be apt to follow Christ for the loaves and overlook the spiritual charms and more noble ends of Christianity The Heathens could say happy privacy is a thing of unhappy presidency fortunate sins may prove dangerous temptations but to say that God doth signally attest the actions of such a person or the justice of such a cause by permitting it to prosper and taper up in the world is such a deceit as deserves our serious abhorrency 16. 'T is not dutiful nor safe c. I answer Princes must take care they be not made fools by flatterers for even the wisest men are abused by these know therefore that flatterers are the worst kind of Traitors for they will strengthen your imperfections encourage you in all evils correct you in nothing but so shadow and paint all your vices and follies as you shall never by their will know evil from good or vice from virtue And because all men are apt to flatter themselves to entertain the additions of other mens praises is most perillous do not therefore praise your self except
consider their designes which may be more Loving to your Portion then your Person All people having not the same Conceptions of beauty which is as hatefull to an Ethiopian as Black is to us not considering that Women uncloathed are all alike and the Conceptions about the harmony and measures of her Body differ not Yet I advise you not to follow the example of a Princess appearing in a Lawn smock to be veiwed by Embassadours as towards a Marriageâ— said she would put off that too if there were any necessity But custome hath made Cloaths decent The deeds of our Ancestors are not to be slighted for they left them for our example and used in their days abundance of cheaper Artificiall Ornaments from Shels Feathers and Stones Behold the Sun and Moon and all the Glorious Batalia of Heaven and they appear as the Great God and Nature made them to which God and Nature I am Servant and Secretary This will not produce such infinite provocations and incitements to lust as the Advice to a Son fondly conceives But I say not For I dare say that what by Painting what by the Looseness and Change of Garments what by these gaudy inventions of dressings that flexure and fracture of gate the deformity is hidden unless to a very nice eye there is much more fuell added then if all went with no more Mantles Scarfes Gowns and Hoods then Nature thrust them into the World with viz. Hair hanging loosely down or else carelesly gathered up in a Fillet and perhaps some little kind of Cover that might restrain the Virginall flower from being too much gazed at and blown upon Follow not Daughter their fashion that uncover the parts of their chiefest Beauty as their Face Neck Breasts and Hand as the Index to the more secret object which without a signe may be by the guide of humane Nature sound out So that Women do endeavour in part to break that restraint which bides the rest of their Glory and to set forth their delicate Dresses plaited and weaved with such variety their Ivory Necks their Harmonious Faces their Milkie Spherical Breasts and their Melting Hands my advice is to shew All or Nothing Daughter though some Crazy ignorant old welch Owens with powder dried bones fit to be burnt with diseases hath endeavoured to deceive you from the same Species with Men and one madder then they denie you Souls and so have many others yet when we shall oppose Holy Scripture which makes Man the Consummation of the Creation and you the Consummation of Man if I should but instance those particular indulgencies of Nature which John Heydon reckons unto you and those peculiar advantages of composition and understanding he ascribes to you or if I should mention that of Eugenius Theodidactus that friend to the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross and beleeved to be inspired and so thought a Rosie Crusian he I say calls you Fountains and perfections of Goodness Whom Daughter can we imagine to be so insensible as not to be presently touched with the delicate Composure and Symmetry of Womens Bodies The sweetness and killing Languors of their eyes The mestange and harmony of their Colours The happiness and spirituallity of their Countenance The Charms and allurements of their mind The Air and Command of their smiles Men are meerly rough cast bristly and made up of tough Materials and if they approach any thing near Beauty do so much degenerate from what they are How generall is the affection of old Men to Women some I have known of three score to Marry Girles of sixteen Soloman was no fool and it is well known how your sex tempted him that his power Commanded you to fulfill his desires And I only advise you to Wisdome and Vertue And if any Clumsy old doting Wittall blinded with Ignorance and by his own Wofull Experience shall protest against the Sufficiency of these or any thing else I have written or shall write for your better instructions that may perhaps hereafter be made publike He wilfully goes about to Councel his Master and adventures to make the Sun stand still and to run another race For your sake I set Pen to Paper to teach you how to live that to Die you need not fear The World is full of deceit trust not therefore the hot love of a Stranger for if you will expose your self to all you are Slighted and a Common Wife is hated Beauty affords Contentment Riches are meanes to cure a weak Estate Honour illustrates all comes nigh it If you Marry thus you are happy And then to find Worth Carriage Gesture and Grace in your choyce it perfects felicity These things in this Book are written for your instruction hopeing you will excuse my faults which through hast and other infirmity are Committed A more Leasure time may perfect what is here Charactered in Water Colours And you may easily perceive that I consulted not at all with advantaging my Name or wooing publike esteem by what I now write I know there was much of Naked Truth in it And is a Caution given to you from Your Loving Father c. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} March 26 1658. ADVIGE to a DAUGHTER In opposition to the ADVICE to a SONNE WHo is this that darkneth Councel by Words without Knowledge Come thou Embrio of a History thou Cadet of a Pamphleteer Gird up thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me But now I think upon it I will allow thee time to breath after thy late Bawling those fragments of a Prophane Atheistical old Pamphlet intituled Thy Advice to a Son and speak a few words to my Reader Reader I have met with a Thing it is not named It speaks like a Man and yet abuses Women It is the first Tincture and Rudiments of a VVriter dipped as yet in the preparative Blew like an Almanack well-wilier To call him an Historian is to Knight a Mandrake to say he is a Politician is view him throw a Perspective and by that gross Hyperbole to give the reputation of an Engineer to a maker of Mouse-traps He is such an one as Queen Mabbs Register One who by the same figure that a North Country Pedlar is a Marchant man you may stile an Author There goes his Affection which is the Heliotrope to the Sun of Honour and hath long since abjured his God Religion Conscience and all that shall interpose and skreen him from those Beams that may ripen his wishes and aims into injoyments And now have at his Advice to a Son Come thou Relique of a Politician that five times at least by I know not what Ignis fatuus hast adulterated the Presse And have you so much Policy in your Advice to your Son that the Readers mistake your Name and beleeve you to be the Tripple-headed Turn-key of Heaven Behold his Directions For your better Conduct through the various and most important Encounters of this Life under the
death then you must strive to subdue if you cut them not off you must yet restrain them 'T is no cruelty to deny a Traitor liberty you must have them be your Subjects not your Prince they must serve you and you must sway them If it cannot be without much striving you must be be content with a hard combat that you may have a happy reign 't is better you endure a short skirmish then a long siege having once won the field you must keep it 38. The like may be imagined of men c. I answer In all Nations two things are cause of a common prosperity good Government and good obedience a good Magistrate over a perverse people is a sound head on a surfeited body a good Common-wealth and a Ruler is a healthful body with a head-aching either are occasions of ruines both sound preservatives A good Governour is a skilful Ship-master that takes the shortest way and the safest course and continually so stears as the rocks and shelves which might shipwrack the State be avoided and the voyage ever made with the strongest speed best profit most ease but a wicked Magistrate is a wolfe made leader of the fold that both satiates his cruelty and betrays them to dangers to whom if you add but ignorance you may without Astrology prophesie or predict destruction The Iudges insufficiency is the Innocents calamity 'T is an huge advantage that man hath in a credulous world that can easily say and swear to any thing and yet withal so palliate his falsifications and perjuries as to hide them from the conusance of most The Ruler must be furnished with handsome refuges if he be wise and Tyrannous that may seemingly heal miscarriages this way he need not spend much time in inquiry after such helps these declining ages will abundantly furnish his invention but if the Common-wealth be obedient and the Ruler worthy how durable is their felicity and joy 39. Another error may happen c. I answer That City is safe whose Citizens are obedient to the Magistrates and the Magistrates to the Laws What made the Major Scipio so victorious but his wisdom in directing and his Souldiers willingness in obeying when he could shew his Troops and say You see not a man among all these but will if I command him from a Turret throw himself into the Sea As it is in the larger world so it is in the little world of man none if they serve the true Prince but have a Governour completely perfect criticism it self cannot find in God to cavil at he is both just and merciful in the concrete and the abstract he is both of them who can tax him with either cruelty or partiality Though your obedience cannot answer his perfection yet endeavour it If Christ be not your King to govern he will neither be your Prophet to forewarn nor your Priest to expiate if you cannot come near it in effect as being impossible you must in desire as being convenient so though less yet if sincere you know he will accept it not as meritorious but respecting his promise 40. Neither can the c. I answer Let Christ be your King Prophet and Priest and as for the world I know it too well to perswade you to dive into the practices thereof rather stand upon your own guard against all that tempt you thereunto or may practice upon you in your conscience your reputation or your purse resolve that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest Serve God let him be the Author of all your actions commend all your endeavours to him that must either wither or prosper them please him with prayer lest if he frown he confound all your fortunes and labours like drops of rain on the sandy ground let my experienced advice sink deep into your heart So God direct you in all his wayes and fill your heart with his grace Advice to a Daughter V. Religion 1. Read the Book of God with reverence and in things doubtful take fixtion from the Authority of the Church which cannot be arraigned of a damnable error without questioning that truth which hath proclaimed her proof against the gates of hell c. I Answer God hath left three books to the world in each of which he may easily be found the Book of the creatures the Book of conscience and his written Word The first shews his Omnipotency the second his justice the third his mercy and goodness so though there be none of them so barren of the rudiments of knowledge but is sufficient to leave all without excuse and apologies yet in them all you find all the good that ever either the heathen or the Christian hath published abroad in the first is all natural Philosophy in the second all moral Phylosophy in the third all true Divinity to those admirable pillars of all humane learning the Philosophers God shewed himself in his Omnipotency and justice but seemed as it were to conceal his mercy to Christians he shines in that which out-shines all his works his Mercy Oh how should we regratulate his favours for so immense a benefit wherein secluding himself from others he hath wholly imparted himself to us In the first of these Brightman was not out nor would I have you but to admire his works by a serious Meditation of the wonders in the Creatures In the second I would have you reverence his justice by the secret and in most checkes of the conscience in the third embrace his love by laying hold on those promises wherein he hath not onely left you means to know him but to love him rest in him and enjoy him forever 2. The prudent Consistory finding c. I answer Can a fly comprehend man upon the top of Monarchy no more can you comprehend God in the height of Omnipotency there are as well mysteries for faith as causes for reason this may guide you when you have to deal with man but in divine affairs reason must wait on faith and submit to her prerogatives The conscience is great but God is farre greater then it 3. He may be less prudent c. I do not think the greatest Clerks are nearest Heaven much of their knoledge is superfluous for Bellarmine makes four hundred questions of faith And Doctor Owen makes a gracious tale of a great many more and not ten of them which toucheth our salvation to understand 4. Despise not a profession of Holiness c. I answer Words are not the difference of good men and bad for every man speaks well therefore how noble a thing is virtue when no man dares profess any thing elss 5. Hypocrisie though looked upon c. I answer As I think there are many worse then they seem so I suppose there are some better then they shew and these are like the growing Chesnut that keeps a sweet and nutrimental kernel included in a rough and prickly husk the other as the Peach holds a rugged and