one of these coynesses of folly and despisers of vertue lying sick on her Death-bed past all hopes of recovery and do but observe how her Words and Looks are changed and indeed the whole Scene of her Life her Countenance being all shadow'd over with the pale and dismal Colours of Mortality instead of her gay Vermillion paint for all beauty and worldly delights vanish and leave you with your health being like a Sun-Dial only useful whilst the Sun shines on it then you shall find the but naming her rich Diamond Pendants and fine Pearl Necklace her Embroidered Gowns and Costly Points will prove troublesom to her and the sight or smell of her late beloved Dainties will then loath her Stomach nay a visit of her dear Gallant whom she was so fond of and delighted in will be odious to her sight as well as the thoughts of having too much lov'd him will be grievous to her mind Then her Bottles of White-washes or Cosmeticks will be thrown out and filled with showers of penitent Tears for having used them Then her Boxes of Peeter and Patches and all her Ornamental knacks and dresses she was wont every day to wast so much time about and to take so great pastime in to adorn and set out her beauty will only serve to disquiet her thoughts and the Praises of her beauty will only serve to disquiet her thoughts and the Praises of her beauty will be but so many disturbances in her Sickness and she will be then as much troubled to hear them as she was formerly delighted to receive them and proud in the vain thoughts of deserving them In short on her Death bed all her late dearly beloved Vanities will at that time appear her most afflicting Enemies and she will then loudly declare that nothing but a religious Life can produce a Comfortable death and will then tell you that if she were the sole Mistris of all the Riches of both the Indies she would give it all for the blessing of a good Conscience for that never leaves one in Sickness or in Adversity but is still the best of Friends in the worst of Times THE TWELFTH DISCOURSE Useful Advices in order to the vain modish Ladies well Regulating their Beauty and Lives I Humbly beg the vain Ladies pardon for beginning this Discourse so uncivilly as to tell them 't is the Opinion of most sober and observing Men that many of you make but a self-deceiving Calculation in the account of your Christian duties and holy performances by fancying your selves well secured and diligently active in the exercise of Gods Commands and in your obedience to him if you do but rise early enough on Sunday to go to Church in the Morning and can Dine so temperately as not to sleep at the Sermon in the Afternoon and do say a kind of siz'd Prayer like a short Grace of a few customary words rising and going to bed all the week after which perhaps may be said more out of long habit than true devotion How many Ladies are there and those of a good and sober sort as Women go now adays that fancy because they live Chast read the Bible now and then and miss going to Church but seldom who are Charitable to the Poor Loving to their Neighbours true to their Friends good will to all and in love with none unless may be a little with themselves think they perform all Christian duties perfectly and therefore deserve all Mens Praises truly and indeed they would not think amiss if they would be but near as just and exact to God in their daily account of their time to him as they are in creating daily fresh pastimes and pleasures to themselves and that they would measure out their time according to Gospel Precepts instead of imploying it in vain London follies and pastimes which among the modish Ladies are partly these So many hours for Dressing so many hours for receiving and returning Visits so many for the Play and the Park so many hours for Dining at this friends house Supping with that and playing late at Cards at t' others or being at a publick Ball or Dancing at anothers so many hours to sleep a Bed to satisfie Nature so many more to lie a Bed to continue their full Face and good Looks besides hours for going to Court to see new fashions and ransacking Shops to buy new-fashioned Silks and fineries besides other times of vain idleness and prodigality of excess and folly as such a great part of the Year for a pretended Disease or rather diversion at the Bath such a season for an infirmity or recreation at the Wells of Tunbridge or Epsom to raffle away it may be our time and money to be profuse and game at publick Lotteries or to charm or decoy some rich Heir or Gallant for next Winters service and now Ladies when all these mis-spent hours are abstracted out of the twenty four besides other parts of your lives accounted I am afraid you will find so great a consumption and ill management of your time as you do often too sensibly of your Estates and Money and so miserably condole those lost Minutes which you might have employed to better purposes in being soberly modest and pious to have performed the duties of Religion which is the only true pleasure and pastime of the soul And tho some of these divertisements I know are not barely in themselves sinful crimes yet sure they are no better than venial sins by their totally taking up and so intirely devouring of young Womens whole time 1. My first Advice therefore to the vain Ladies is to alter the mispending of their time as now they do to employ it as really as they ought to do which is in preparing to die well rather than striving to live high or look fair and not to fancy they spend their time well among such as they but lose it with for as Seneca says They are idle who might be better employed so such Ladies live in some kind ill that may live in many degrees better Therefore as prudent Men manage and regulate their Estates by dividing it into several proportions so much for House-keeping Servants wages Apparel private expences and the like and so suiting their Income to answer their several Charges according to their ability to perform as their occasions require which necessary Measures because many of the young Estated Men will not observe they steer without a Compass run they know not where spend they know not what and live they know not how extravagantly without ease or order Now Ladies to prevent such an extravagant manner of spending or rather wasting of your time I shall advise you in order to the well managing of it not only to divide it into several hours for that is already done to your hand by many good Clocks and Watches but you must subdivide the hours of the day into so many portions set out for devotion business and pastime according to
Pillars that without them Marriage content can never flourish much or last long for a good sufficient Estate of Land is as necessary to buy rich Clothes and maintain a handsom plentiful way of Living as the Foundation under the Ground is to support the fine Rooms above it Beauty is a fine Flower but it must soon fade and a young Womans Love fancy may often change but can never long hold but a good Estate may continue longer than you can love or live and last after you are dead to your Childrens Children to the worlds end but a meer naked Love match is at very most but a Tenant for Life and usually not near so long a good Estate can keep you in sickness and in health but a Love fastned on meer beauty or fancy never can for such a fancy-Love still fadeth away with the beauty that occasions it since assoon as the flower of beauty begins to wither at the top the admirers Love begins to die at the root Yet indeed I cannot think it very strange that young Maids should be deluded with the delightful thoughts of pleasing and satisfying their present beloved fancy of enjoying the Person of their inclinations since in most young Maids their fancy makes their Reason and not their Reason governs their Fancy and therefore 't is not to be wonder'd that they should esteem it reasonable that there is great happiness and that there will be long content in such meer and bare love Marriages because they never tried the sad experiment of such a rash hasty Marriage and therefore their want of experience may well serve for some kind of excuse to moderate their want of Consideration but after a dear bought Tryal too many of them find by woful experience that a Marriage Love built on bare beauty or meer fancy which are much alike can never stem the Tyde of the troubles of disappointments and inconveniences the usual Issue of want that commonly attend such hot and hasty Love-Marriages since they cannot fancy so well of it as they will find ill in it yet there 's so great a Charm in this thing call'd a Husband Maids representing the Man as they would have him without considering what he really is as poor silly Maids dance about him as merrily as they do a Maypole on a Summers day and one Sisters sad and unhappy Marriage will not serve the other for a Caution and Warning against it because she fancies her wit is quicker her humor better her beauty greater and her person more taking so easily young Maids believe what they desire and therefore doubts not but her Fate will be kinder and her Husband better than her Sisters but 't is more than an even Lay she will soon after her Marriage experimentally find she had more faith in believing her good fortune than she had reason for depending on it since she had on that account more danger to fear than happiness to hope for or at least to rely on Thus such Marriages are to most young Maids like the forbidden Tree in the midst of Paradise pleasant to the Amorous Eye and therefore they will be tasting of it tho they are almost sure to be ever after miserable by it by their abandoning and ever after losing their great Virgin prerogative the Apostle Paul ascribes them of being exempt from the troubles of pleasing their Husbands and being in subjection to them And sure none that 's Master of common reason can deny but a Virgins life is much happier because more innocent than any other and as 't is much nearer the blessed state of Innocency in this World so also 't is much more secure as to the felicity of the next especially in this one particular That 't is much easier for a Virgin to keep her self vertuously Chast than either a Married Woman or Widow because both natural reason and common experience teaches us this plain Philosophy that 't is much harder to abstain from a pleasure one has often tasted than 't is to live without a delight one has never enjoy'd it being such a certainty as none can deny that 't is less difficult to keep ripe Fruit that 's fair and sound and was never touch'd than 't is to keep any such after they have been so Therefore in a word you Virgins that are so much in the State of happy freedom as not to be yoak'd in such a sort of Marriage and to the pinching troubles of want for fancy can only feed the mind not the body and possibly to the sottish humors and impertinent follies of a jealous Husband for want is apt still to create jealousie I say if you Virgins truly desire to continue in your freedom and happy Life never allow Men to become your Masters by swearing they are your humble servants and by calling you their Queens make you their Subjects for by Marriage you make your Servant your Master and from being Mistris of your self you become little better than a Slave to your Husband Therefore as an Antidote against this misery I shall advise all young Virgins to carry still this Memorandum in their minds That tho beauty is still taking yet 't is never lasting sweet but frail and that all Husbands love Sovereignty much but few own beauty long especially in the domestick face of a Wife And because 't is great pity these sort of unhappy Marrying Maids should have no companions to solace them in their sad penitential state of Mourning give me leave to introduce some Married Women into their dismal Society for as many Maids make themselves miserable by Marrying for meer Love so many are also made unfortunate in Marrying meerly to please their Parents not at all to satisfie themselves for really most Parents make it more their concern to match Fortunes than Children or to suit inclinations or ages when 't is but a kind of Reversing Nature it self it being as feasible to unite two contraries and make Fire and Water agree and May and January meet as by the Magick of Matrimony to make a very old Man and a very young Woman to be but one flesh and temper for youthful beauty to the mind is as cold old Age to the body Heat penitrates the pores of the body easily because they expatiate themselves to receive it but when Cold approaches and attacks it presently it closes as being contrary and averse to it Yet many Parents think to deal with their Childrens Marriages as they do with their Fruit-Trees and think they can Graft humors and inclinations between Husband and Wife as they Graft different kinds of Fruits on one another and by their Grafting and binding them together they make their differing Natures to become but one by Marriage but upon serious Consideration which does not always attend Marriage they will soon find that the Minister can only joyn their hands but 't is the free-will offering of the heart that can only unite and Graft their affections together and this free-will
anticipate their fears to eat Therefore Ladies have a care of receiving Mens praises and flatteries and though you believe your own Vertue never so strong and yours Lovers Courtship never so innocent as possibly they may be at first received by you and design'd by him only as the effects of pure civility and not of any ill intention yet praises are so naturally agreeable to vain handsom Ladies as they often unperceiv'd insinuate and wind themselves so about their hearts as to kindle there by degrees Love likings though perhaps they do not feel so much as the least slight atome Love to creep on the superficies of their heart Love sometimes like a Tortoise makes its way though it does not seem to stir or like the hand of a Watch which though you cannot perceive to move yet you may plainly see its hourly advances Love often growing in young Womens minds as Diseases do in their bodies without ever giving the least Alarm or Advertisement of its approach till it breaks out into a dangerous fit of Sickness Solomon says a soft word breaks the Bone therefore no wonder if smooth praises and complements should charm a young Ladies tender heart for sure 't is no wonderful operation in our times for small freedoms like little Thieves to open the Doors to great Liberties and venial wantonness to turn to modish wickedness Therefore let me advise the vain Ladies not to deceive themselves in fancying that they are more invincible in their Love railleries in receiving praises from young Men than King Solomon was with dallying with strange Women which drew him into the Sin of Idolatry This example may serve as a Caution to young Ladies not to relie too much on their own strength for many Maids hearts like strong Fortresses have been lost by too great a dependency upon their own strength and too mean an undervaluing of others attempts against them I shall therefore advise all young Ladies especially Virgins by no means on any account to suffer their beauty to lie under the pressing temptations of young Mens high praises and constant Courtship which often enflames them beyond their own natural temper and strength for continual blowing is able to kindle in time a great Fire out of a little Spark And also young handsom Women ought to avoid giving or receiving any favourable attracting looks from young Men for the Eye is as well the Pulse of the Mind as the Door of the Heart and no Love flames can enter into the heart but it must first enter the Eye as we see the Sun it self still sends his light before he brings his heat Next Ladies remember that the Scripture couples with the lust of the Eye the pride of Life as a lesson to teach you that you ought as much to well order your looks as to regulate your lives which you may perform much the easier and better if you will but seriously reflect on the ways and means young Gallants use in making their approaches towards gaining their Mistrisses I do not here intend as to the making them Mistrisses in order to being Wives but Misses which is usually after this kind of manner first they present them with swarms of Praises and Complements thick garnished with great Oaths and repeated Vows of a never dying love and a never failing constancy and all attended with sad looks deep sighs and humble postures no matter though there be not one grain of reality among them all and if these Countersits can but work so powerful an Operation on their Mistrisses soft good nature as to make them receive the constant repeated Oaths of their highly adoring them with some kind of delight they are then in a sad yielding condition for such Womens hearts cannot pretend to be stronger than fortified Towns which when they once come to admit of frequent parlies seldom hold out after long Sieges but yeild to a Surrender Certainly if young Gallants can by their eager courting their Mistrisses but gain of them some returns of compassion and esteem next of course follows a favourable liking of them and then there 's no very great difficulty after such prosperous advances to create in them the beginnings of a Love fondness and fondness in a young Womans heart like a weighty body down a steep Hill it seldom stops till it runs to the very bottom and when a Gallant has work'd his Mistris into such a yielding temper as to credit his Oaths and be pleas'd with his Company as believing he truly loves her and highly admires her and so grows delighted with the Repetition of them esteeming all his Courtship real then surely they cannot on the account of good Nature and pure Civility forbear presenting their Gallants though to their own ruin this new Article of their Faith that they believe their Oathes and love their Persons and when once they declare that common experience may soon teach them this that 't is no great rarity in young Maids by liking of young Men to stray into vicious actings with them and thus by these kinds of degrees and steps Gallants commonly mount to their Mistrisses ruin for as the Poet says Long waiting Love doth still a passage find to the most unbelieving mind at least to the blasting her Reputation if not the utter undoing of her vertue fortune and freedom for when once a Gallant is become Master of his Mistrisses heart he commonly swells to a Monster and governs like a Tyrant and instead of treating you like an ador'd Mistris he uses you like a conquer'd Captive Now I have told the young Ladies some of the common ways their Gallants use to gain them by give me leave here in a word or two to tell you their usual manner of treating them after they have gain'd an entire Conquest over their hearts which is very bad and sinful in then to suffer Therefore let me advise you to carry still this Memorandum about you That all your Gallants dying expressions Love-Oaths Idolizing postures and often repeated Vows that their admiration and love for you shall be as lasting as their Lives which translated out of the Lovers Language into true plain English is no more but just as long as they shall fancy your Beauty for usually as fast as their Mistrisses beauty breaks so do their Oaths of Love and Constancy which they think they are bound to keep no longer than their Mistrisses keep their beauty as being but the meer effects of that cause and the cause being remou'd the effect must of course cease and besides there 's nothing more certain than that skin deep beauty seldom creates better than meer sensual love which never contains reality or long duration But Ladies if this were all it would not be so very bad or indeed this is only the least part of it and when your Gallant has enjoy'd you methinks you ought not to wonder that he honours you no longer as his Mistris when you dishonour your self by becoming his Miss
as 't is never to be altered or worn out but by death forgetting all the Changes they formerly made and by the same Rule of Inconstancy they may hereafter make according to the taking objects which new conversation may present and that 't is possible if not probable that their present passion of Love that is so newly kindled and fully lighted may in some farther time be swallow'd up and extinguished by a more inviting beauty that may present more charming and agreeable and 't is most certain that the Love which possesses and inflames a young Ladies heart last Eclipses all former fancies as the Suns appearance darkens all other Lights the Sun being to be seen by no other light but his own In short most Womens hearts and Love vows of Constancy are to be read but like strange Prophecies which are to be understood not by their Words but by their Events Indeed most of our airy Ladies are so volatile and fickle in their Amours as not only their Eyes hearts and inclinations but their whole nature is so addicted to change and variety as one might as easily fix Mercury or make brickle Glass malleable as to fix a young Womans humor and love-fancy so as not to break out into change and inconstancy they being more sickle and changable than the very Wind it self for there are Trade Winds that blow still certainly one way all the Year without ever altering from the same Point and Place but a vain Ladies Constancy is not certainly to be found at any time or in any place their Love-humors being like the Camelions Colours whose property is to have no certain one So that 't is no wonder to find a young Woman that is inconstant but a greater one to find one that is not the Earth being not more variable in all her Properties nor the Heaven in all its Influences than most of the vain great beauties are in their Love-fancies and sure if the Basis and ground-work of their whole Love-nature be sandy the more Men foundation on their Constancy I mean only in point of Love the more they expose themselves to their deceit and consequently to creating their misery Therefore I am clearly of opinion that as to Ladies Constancy when the greatest Criticks have made their most studious Observations and Essay'd their most subtil experiments on all the points of Loves Compass they must own their Ignorance touching the various ways and diversity of motions of Womens minds since Love often works upon their Imaginations and slies to their Hearts as Blushes do to their Faces which they can neither command their going or hinder their coming since they still go and come at their own rate therefore I am fully of opinion that the most able Artists Naturalists and Venus Philosophers with all their speculative Rules and Measures ought to strike Sail and yield to common practical experience as to the Choices of young Womens several fancies in their Love-likings and to grant that Mens best Logick will be to Argue in most young Womens way of Arguing 'T is so because 't is so Since then the discovery of the Ebbing and Flowing of young Womens hearts and minds are like that of the Sea a wonderful Motion exposed to the publick view of all but conceal'd from the true knowledge of any for one may as rationally hope to find the Philosophers Stone that turns all Metals into Gold as to find the Art of turning all young Ladies Love-fancies so as to meet in one Centre of Constancy which is as impossible as to be able to measure the Sea with your Span or what 's as feasible to fathom the depth of a young Womans inclinations with the Plummet of your reason their changable Love being as very far from true certainty as almost the drop of Ink that writes this is from the Ocean Therefore I shall end this Discourse with this serious Consideration and Resolution that since 't is not in the power of Man to find it out fairly to leave it as such and hereafter only to wonder at ones wondring at my not being able to discover the various humors and intricate windings of young Womens minds at all times when few of them know their own at any time THE FOURTH DISCOURSE Of Marriage and Wives who usurp a governing Power over their Husbands which is now so common as it 's become almost the general grievance of the Nation THere are of Wives as of most other things two sorts the good and the bad the good presents the Husband with much happiness and great Content and the bad creates as much misery and dissatisfaction The first is a kind of Heaven the second a sort of Hell upon Earth for there can be no Purgatory seated in the mid-way between them for out of Purgatory 't is possible to be redeem'd for Mony but from Marriage 't is impossible to be ransom'd but by death All I shall say of Purgatory is that if there 's such a Place which I cannot believe tho it may be much visited yet I fancy 't is little inhabited because such as have Mony may buy themselves out of it and those that have none are not worth keeping in it I shall here only name some of the main ingredients that go to make up the Composition of a real happy Marriage to compleat which there must be on both sides hearty love and true liking that so they may joyn their Hearts as well as the Minister does their Hands and as their Marriage Vow makes them tho two but one Flesh so it must make them both to be but of one Mind and one Concern which is to please one another and to this good Consort of Humors and Inclinations there must be added a like degree of Age and a suitable manner of breeding as well as an equality of Families and Fortunes and all these Flowers are to be bound up into a sweet and well made Nosegay by a fervent Zeal and a holy love to Piety and Vertue for without a mixture of these the Married Couple do but found their happiness on the Sand and build all their hopes of Content with untempered Mortar for tho 't is as true as common that meer beauties do often breed great fondness yet it can never create true Love for beauty is but the slight fading varnish of the Face which soon wears off but Vertue is the substantial lasting beauty of the Mind and makes a handsom fine Lady like the Kings Daughter all glorious within and preserves her Marriage Love in a sweet and perfect Harmony without which it can have no duration but must soon fade and ravel out into change and inconstancy And now I must tell you I know not certainly where to direct you to find the great rarity of such a happy well match'd Couple but this I know that where e'er they are to be found about this Kingdom 't is a thousand pities that death should ever take them out of it because they
themselves and so their great noble Estates would soon be wasted and moulder away into a foolish and shameful ruin which by their Wives wise and discreet management is prevented To which I answer that there 's no general Rule without an exception and besides I do not design this Discourse against such governing Wives as find their Husbands fools but against those Wives as make their Husbands such meerly by their governing them but if a Husband be so foolishly blind in his Judgment as he cannot see the right way to order his Person and Estate 't is a necessary duty and kindness of his Wife to govern him and his fortune and to lead him out of all the dangers and inconveniencies he might run both it and himself into and such a Wife deserves no more blame for governing such a Husband than a Servant does for leading about his Master and shewing him the way when he cannot see to find it being quite blind But yet this governing power a Wife must perform with great respect and civility to her Husband by lessening and sheltering his weakness to all persons as much as possibly she can that all may see the occasion of her Governing is not an Act of Pride but a Work of pure necessity not her delight but trouble In a word she must be very far from saying of her Husband what a ranting Widow did that had three Husbands and govern'd them all and for her fourth she chose a meer Fool and being ask'd her reason she answer'd she was grown Lazy and therefore Married a Fool to save her self the trouble of making him one THE FIFTH DISCOURSE Of the Inequality of Many Marriages and the Inconstancy of most Wives that Men Marry for meer Beauty or their parents Match for bare Mony with the sad end that usually attends such Matches IN my Opinion the great reason why disagreeing Marriages are now grown so Rife is because unequal Matches are now become so common most Parents making it more their business to Match well Portions and Estates than Sons and Daughters and so their Fortunes do but suit well no matter if their Age Humors and Inclinations agree ill many Parents making it more their concern to provide their Children plenty of Lively hood than contentedness of Living being much more taken with a great Gingling of Guinnies than with a sweet Consort of Vertues or a good Pedigree of Gentility which occasions some fine great Ladies to have rich Husbands and fair Estates and yet but bad Fortunes to be well Married and yet but ill Match'd because they do not fancy and so are not satisfied with one another Content and Happiness are Twins born out of the same Womb and spring out of the same Root and none can be content with what he does not like no more than discontented with what he does for if he likes he must be content else he does not like And 't is also the same where there 's no Content there can be no Love for if he Loves he must be content with what he Loves else he does not Love and where there 's no Content and liking there can hardly be any true Constancy for none affect a Constancy to that they do not like but their Mind is still in pursuit after that they do Most Parents in Marrying their Children are sure to remember Solomon's saying That Mony answers all things but forget his meaning that is purchasable with it for several young Ladies that are richly Married can tell by woful experience that much Mony cannot still buy true Content since many of them have little content in the midst of their much Mony. And farther common experience which is usually the effect of reason assures us that it cannot purchase many things as to give sight to the Blind or Youth to the Aged or what 's equally impossible as both to create Love against liking 'T is true indeed that Guinnies do often tye a fast Matrimonial Knot but of themselves can never tye a true Lovers one since no Medicine that has not a mixture of the Sympathetick Powder can operate kindly on young Womens minds for as nothing can force a Mans belief contrary to his own reason so nothing can compel a Womans Love against her own liking 'T is true one may be forced to obey at the rate of a Tyrants Will but 't is as true that none can believe or Love but proportionable to their own reason or fancy which made the great Tyrant Nero say that he had much rather be fear'd than lov'd because said he they that fear me fear me after my rate but those that love me love me after their own Indeed most of these Matches that are made up on the account of Interest and not Love their kindness is but like a Winters Sun faint and of no duration and tho it may now and then in some time of the Day shine bright and clear to the Eyes of Spectators yet it carries no true heat with it and therefore can never bring forth any ripe fruit of true content or satisfaction and indeed no wonder since such a Winter Sun's Love can produce none of the pleasant Fruit of Marriage delights when the Days civilities between them are very Faint and the Night Embraces very Cold for these Matches of meer Conveniency that are made up only for great sums of Mony or meer fanciful beauty no sooner that the Wives beauty is gone or the Husbands Mony spent they being the only Cement that fastned a common civility between them but the unbeautiful Wife appears disagreeable to her Husband And the Monyless Husband seems contemptible to the Wife and both Husband and Wife become not only unpleasing but despisable the one to the other There was an Italian that writ a great Book in praise of good Wives and concluded there was but one good Wife in all the world and said that was enough for all since every Husband that truly lov'd his Wife might fancy 't was her but by the Italians leave tho one good Wife that is trusted abroad is more by one than is in all Italy for no Husband in that Jealous Country will venture on the desperate Experiment of trusting his Wife abroad in Mens Company to try whether she be vertuous or not much of the Wives Chastity there depending on their Husbands strict watchfulness over them the Italians esteeming it a most excellent and Sovereign Antidote to hinder their Wives from becoming kind to Men is to prevent Mens being able to come to be kind to their Wives for every Italian carries still about him this old English Proverb That 't is the occasion makes the Thief nay and observes it with more reverence and punctuality than all the Proverbs of Solomon together But in England there are many vertuous Wives that go where they will and keep what Mens company they please but this great trust of free liberty is not convenient to be extended to all Women since sometimes
for youth will assoon come to the aged as beauty to the ugly but since beauty will not come to content you be you content without it and strive for that you may obtain which is the beauty of holiness which infinitely excels all others it being much better to live well than look so and to have a good soul than a fine face that being earthly and ever fading but a pure soul is heavenly and never decays being everlasting In short that Man who is so simple to Marry great Age for meer Mony when that 's spent and you know that Mony like Love cannot always last all the use of consolation I can think of is to send for a Minister to give him some spiritual advice of which he may perchance receive some to ease the trouble of his mind but as to the bodily distemper or plague of his broken infirmity I am sure there can be no remedy but that of death for indeed it may be fitly said of a young Mans Marrying an old ugly Woman what the Apostle said of a greater folly in another sense he that doth so offends against his own body and truly such a one hath in my opinion no other plea left him to excuse his folly than Adam had to excuse his first Sin The Woman beguiled me I say in Cases like this possibly S. Paul might have thought it equal for so indeed it is things rightly considered for such men to suffer or rather indeed conquer the disturbance of a lustful burning than endure the plague and continual misery of an ill old ugly Wife that can neither please the fancy nor satisfie the appetite and therefore coming to such a sad Marriage is like coming to the age of fourscore after which experience tells us there 's only Labour Infirmity and Sorrow young Husbands and old Wives being but meer names things of form not use only made to torment one another Living in one House but Lying in two Beds for the old Wife would have what the young Husband will not give and the old Wife cannot give what the young Husband would have in short a bad Wife at Land is like a Storm at Sea which because a Man is so unhappy to be engaged in and cannot be rid of it must be suffer'd out with patience And so I have done with old Wives for I am certain the Reader must be weary of them as well as I am sure the Writer is and therefore I will leave this extream of old Age and treat on that of young beauty and the folly of them that Marry meerly for it and here set you down in a few Lines the common degrees usual accesses and woful events of such hot rash hasty meer beauty Marriages as are now in fashion among many of our young Gallants who choose Wives as the silly Indians do our Merchants Tynsel and Bawbles who value their real worth only by their glittering show The first steps and degrees of a young Gallants growing love and fancy to his Mistris are generally these first he likes the Woman as we say in a Lump or by whole-sale then he admires her beauties apart courts her person loves her humor thinks all she says is witty and all she does is graceful and becoming and all her actions agreeable and excellent though possibly not one of them are so for you must know that beauty in Love is like Charity in Religion it covereth a multitude of faults Then he presents his heart and she becomes the sole Mistris of it and as his passion increases so he fancies her beauty does till at last he believes the scorching flames of her beauty to be more insupportable than a Midsummers Sun in its full meridian heat and strength and therefore resolves to follow S. Paul's advice 'T is better to Marry than Burn but then pray take this Caution with you that tho of two evils 't is best to choose the least yet that argues neither to be good as indeed it was not when S. Paul first spoke those words and in some sense may not be so now yet however our fierce Lovers heart being all a fire his mind thereby grows restless and as very much out of order as his reason if a Man in Love has any for to say a passionate Lover that has lost his heart and can yet keep his reason is the greatest of follies next to that of being so in Love. But since our Amorous Gallant is so furiously smitten rather than not quench the Amorous scorching flames of his lustful passion she resolving not to admit him to her Bed in any other shape than that of a Husband not confiding at all in his Vows of speedily Marrying her possibly because she had tried anothers word before and he broke it and deceiv'd her and therefore she resolv'd not to be cozened so a second time by a second Tryal our hot Politick Lover to enjoy the momentary delight of embracing her beauty does with much desperatness and little consideration cast himself down that dangerous Precipice of Matrimony and long liv'd trouble of a Wife tho he buy her at the dearest rate of Purchasing and it may be worse sort of fooling an ill Marriage a very sad bottom to Insure the content and happiness of a Mans life upon since he who only Trades to get the Merchandise of beauty may become a sad looser tho he gets his whole Adventure since such a sort of Matrimony does usually bring the Husband and often the Wife Springs of misery and inconveniencies but seldom so much as any drops of the Oyl of pure gladness and true satisfaction And indeed one of the great reasons why Men that Marry for mere beauty are commonly so unhappy in their Choice is That as their Mistrisses beauty is but a mixture of flashy and glaring colours so is in a manner their reason for not considering that beauty Love is but like Gunpowder which as it flames at the first Spark so it sets forth all its strength and fierceness at its first firing and then soon expires into meer smoak and air The first falling in Love of an amorous Man being just like the first surprize of Anger in a Cholerick Person it runs on so violently as it stays not to attend reason nor consult discretion or conveniency and so strips it self of true understanding and therefore assoon as such a Husband has cloy'd his sensual Appetite on that surfeiting Dish of a meer beauty Marriage his stomack being used to feast on sweet variety longs for other food and then first Love grows indifferent his passion soon cools his eager fiery fancy grows quickly dull and his mind suddenly changes so that he presently forms a new desire or passion of love and loaths his former beauty Companion as the most irksom deformity and she whom he was so lately fond of as the most pleasing Charm and Converse of his life who was a kind of Elixir salutis to his very heart and soul
living with his ugly cross Wife may thereby often meet occasions to exercise his patience which may prove a vertue in some kind but by keeping a Miss he can never by it exercise a vertue in any kind besides a Man by living with his Wife tho never so deform'd does but what he ought but a Man by keeping a Miss tho never so handsom does what he ought not since in so doing he offends his God. There are another sort of vicious young Sparks who you will easily believe have not attained to years of discretion by their pretending to Argue that 't is not a greater ill to keep a handsom Miss than for a Widow to Marry a bad Husband but in my opinion this admits of no comparison for sure no Widow can be so mad as to Marry a Man that she is sure beforehand will be a bad Husband But all Men that keep Misses know beforehand that by so doing they act a great sin A Widow by Marrying an ill Husband only commits a fault against her own content but he that keeps a Miss offends against his Makers command which must needs be very much worse since an ill Husband can only disturb the body but a scandalous sin may destroy the soul But yet tho a Widows Marrying an ill Husband cannot possibly be of so ill a nature as a Mans keeping a Miss yet it may probably be of a much more lasting trouble since an ill Husbands life is like to last much longer than a fair Misses beauty for we all know 't is very customary for Miss keepers love to end with their Misses beauty since their beauty only makes the love In a word I have known ill men that have made kind Husbands so that 't is possible a Widow may Marry an ill Man and not be miserable but 't is impossible a Man can keep a Miss and not be wicked 'T is a common Proverbial saying That a Wife is a necessary Evil which I fancy is not to be taken in the sense most do that Men cannot live without them but because Men are still bound to live with them for whilst they are Wives tho far from being good ones yet poor Husbands are oblig'd to serve out their time of bondage according to agreement for better for worse till death them do part But now for the new Mode of protempore Wives called Misses they are generally look'd upon by our Gallants and keepers of them as only Tenants at will to Mens Persons and Purses being tied to them in no other manner than we are to reading Romances on which we may begin when we will and leave off when we please for we are not oblig'd to read longer in them than they suit our humor and please our fancy Indeed Misses are now become in most great Towns especially London to Gentlemen as Books are in Stationers Shops to Scholars where they may pick and chuse Read sometimes this kind of Books another that sort all or any and hire them by the Day Month or Year and when they have read them over as oft as they please and have no longer delight in them or farther use of them they may return them and leave them where they found them and there 's no harm done they lying ready expos'd for the next Courteous comer Misses in Towns are like Free-booters at Sea no Purchase no Pay they are never out of their way except to Heaven so they can but meet a prize in it indeed our fine young Gallants are wise in this particular but pray do not ask me in what other lest you puzle me and this their wisdom consists only in chusing of two evils the least for they will keep Misses which is ill but they will not be bound to keep them longer than during pleasure which is less ill than a longer time that is they will be tied to Misses by no other Law than that dearly beloved one of sweet variety Misses being to be us'd but like slight summer Garments which are only useful in the youthful Spring or hot Summer Season of Mens Lives and may without much Ceremony or great difficulty be put on or cast off 'twere well if the sin of using them could be so too lightly worn and cheaply bought Misses being but a kind of Summer-Fruit for present eating not long keeping for their beauty will never hold out long after a hot Venus blast or burning clap of thunder and their Bodies are often withered and rotten before they are near ripe in substance and perfection as many of the Merchant Adventurers in that Trade can tell you by woful experience And therefore young Men do wisely in not binding themselves to them in Health and Sickness for then they are not only useless but chargeable not till death them do part but till their Misses beauties does decay or their Passion change for Miss-Love must still be Passionate because it ceaseth to be Love when it ceaseth to be Passionate having no other motive to cherish and maintain it and therefore usually such Mens Love expires assoon as their Misses beauty breaks or may be sooner if he be taken with a more agreeable object for his present fancy and conveniency for though most of our young Gallants Love constantly yet few are constant in their Amours for tho they are still Loving 't is Women more than a Woman for considering they are only Constant to Inconstancy they can only keep the name of Constant Lovers as Rivers still keep the same Name tho they are never two Minutes the same Water they still running into the Sea as Springs are still running into them Indeed if young Gallants were bound to keep their Misses during life such an obligation would come so near to matrimonial bondage as our young Gallant on those terms would as little love and like a handsom young Miss as an ugly old Wife all confinements to our Sparks of the times being odious O what a brave World and pleasant Age do we live in when new setts of Misses are now grown modish marks of Greatness as numbers of Wives and Concubines were signs of Magnificence in Solomon's days which is the only thing I know our young Gallants imitate him in and their only grand reason for doing it is meerly because Christs holy Gospel forbids them doing it Really the Drunkards in S. Paul's days were a kind of sober Men to the Libertins of our Age for they knowing their deeds were evil and scandalous had so great a sense of modesty and shame tho not of sin as to cast a vail of darkness over them to hide themselves and their Debauchery from the sight of others which is implied by S. Paul's saying Those that are Drunken are Drunken in the Night but the Debauchees of our times so glory in their own unshamefulness as they expose their Persons and Vices I might have said Sins to the open Sun-shine and publick Assemblies and are so far from casting a vail either to cover
your ability and conveniency always giving place to the duties of Religion the first and principal part in all your designs and actions still beginning the day with Prayer and praises to your Creator who made both it and you in order to your worshiping and serving him and by so dividing the day into so many several parts and Stages of hourly employments the changeable variety that 's in them will afford you variety of pleasure as well as business to entertain and direct you and prevent you Ladies from complaining as I have heard many of you O what shall we do to pass away this afternoon since you will see all the days business and divertisments marked out before you and really nothing more distracts and vitiates vain young Womens minds than emptiness of business and employment the want of which fills you up with the ill vapours of idleness that old Mother of wickedness whereas certain hourly employments fill and replenish your fancy with such diversity of change and business as is able to suppress and allay all fumes of vain idle thoughts from arising in your minds and save you the expensive trouble of imitating many of the fine gay modish Ladies who by chargeable means and studied Arts purchase ways vainly to pass away their time which by the course of nature without their help and beyond their power runs away but too fast of it self 2. My next Advice to the vain Ladies tho I am sure 't is very good yet I doubt 't will be little lik'd and less follow'd which is to shun the infectious temptations of a vain London life which often gets many young Ladies bad Reputations but seldom good Husbands London being become the very Center-point and Rendezvous where all the vices and vanites of the Kingdom meet yet these vices and vanities are among many of the fine Ladies so richly gilt finely painted and splendedly set out as they are so far from appearing deformed as they seem beautiful and taking to most I mean the inconsidering young Men of the Town Really the Air of London is so infected with Pride Vanity and Idleness that 't is hard for one of you young Ladies to appear in young Mens Company but you must have your Ears furr'd with Oaths and Profaneness or else your person Complemented with vain Romantick Courtship which is not exactly applied and fitted for any one Woman but for all handsom Women in general like false flattering Looking Glasses which Complements not only one but every one that looks on them not staying for a great beauty but still flattering the first comer But Piety and Vertue is still like a pure wholesom Air a comfort to all and an Infection to none and is so far from dislodging or overcasting the lightsomness of any lawful pleasures as it clears and dissipates any dark Clouds of fears that may hang over them for 't is most certain Piety and Beauty Recreation and Devotion may live peaceably together and yield a mutual aid and comfort to one another Indeed if you Ladies would but use to mix Piety with your pastimes you would soon come to make a pastime of Piety and then instead of dividing the hours for vain London pleasures you would make them so many Memorandums of the eflux of time to put you in mind of the duties of Mortality and of the hourly advances you make towards it which requires hourly preparations for it for the same hours serve as well to tell you of your approaches to Death as to divide your pleasures in Life as the same Figures in your Watch serve to tell the hours of the night as well as those of the day Then Ladies you will find that time laid out in Prayer and Devotion is not spending but gaining time and if you will but seriously reflect and heartily practise this great Truth you will soon find that Piety is as to advancing of worldly delights and pastimes but as Ballast to a Ship which does not hinder but only regulate its motion not slackning but steddying its Sayling A fine Lady whose mind is only fraighted with the Airy Cargo of pride and vanity can never steer steddy in her heavenly Course but is still tossed from one side of folly to another extremity of vanity for the want of the true blessed Ballast of godliness which will Calm and dispossess your mind of all modish vanities and irregularities and will allay all kinds of immoderate heats raised by the Feaverish distempers of Womanish Passions and will fix your affection on what is immovable and perpetual and will soon cause you to abandon the vain empty undurable pastimes of London for the true endless felicity of Heaven and this is a Heaven upon Earth To love God and keep his Commandments for then you will truly love Vertue and constantly practise Piety and only delight in the beauty of holiness which as it transcends much so it differs far from all Earthly love for that 's seldom or never enjoyed with true quietness long satisfaction or just and equal returns for the most passionate Love we can fancy as a Mistris to her Gallant or a Gallant to his Mistris is commonly of so fickle volatile and inconstant a nature as if a Woman thinks her Gallant loves any other Woman she grows Jealous and if he fancies his Mistris loves another Man as 't is ten to one she does he becomes inrag'd for as Solomon says Prov. 6.34 Jealousie is the rage of a Man here on Earth tho most are Lovers yet many are false ones but in Heaven all are Lovers and are true ones since in your Heavenly Love your act of loving is the certain fruition of your Love a Woman by loving Vertue it becomes hers but by loving a Gallant you become his for she that is under a Gallants command cannot truly say she is under her own In a word all the Riches and Pleasures imaginable that you abandon for the love of God you enjoy them all in loving God above them all And you may be certain Ladies if you can but thus love God as you ought you must despise the World as you should and then you will take more true delight in the title of a good Christian than you did ever before in the vain praise of a great beauty and slight this in comparison of that for a handsom Woman like the Sun is to be esteemed more for her Vertue than Splendor Beauty is but a fine outside Skin but true Godliness is all glorious within and will bestow on you more Celestial beauty in the other World than all your false Glasses and Gallants falser Tongues can flatter you with in this 3. My next advice to you vain Ladies is when you are putting on your fine rich Gowns which so many of you adorn your selves with every day with so great care high excess and vast expence as well of time as mony which makes many of you by being so over careful in setting out your
not hearken to the vain flatteries and praises of others but for one Year and 't will certainly cure them of that Devilish distemper of Pride for by one Twelve Months banishing it and conversing only with vertue and humility which are inseparable friends they will certainly make them so religiously prudent and happily vertuous as to hate and shun all proud desires and flatterers Praises and cause them to love only those that Court them in the holy Language of Truth to the Love of Godliness which is the very best way they can express their Love to you or you your Love to your selves and truly Ladies I cannot see the least reason why you should be against this holy change since it will not be a parting with nor so much as a Retrenching of your love delights but rather be a better means to enlarge and improve them by placing and fixing your mind on a much more noble object and a far finer entertainment by transplanting your affections into a far richer soil from Earth to Heaven from the fading vanities of this World to the never decaying felicities of the next and when once a young Ladies Inclinations are firmly rooted in a real desire and hearty endeavour for this blessed Change she will soon find that her Love will become so piously purified that instead of her fixing it on mortal Man she will only dedicate it to the service of the ever living God whose service is still true happiness and perfect freedom Then such a Lady will be happy above the low Region of all worldly flatterers and the more vain concerns of a fading beauty she 'll not value the rallying scoffs and contempts of those who deride her humble and strict deportment now so much out of fashion among the vain Ladies of our times for such a reformed Lady whose mind is truly sanctified will extract uses of vertue out of such extravagant Womens vanities like the Bee that sucks Hony out of all sorts of venomous Herbs and like Fire that turns all things within its compass to its self and such a Ladies holy course of Life will be steady and certain in its progress like the Sun in his daily motion nothing of Storms or changable weather can ever hasten or retard its regular course for a Lady that 's in the holy state of true Mortification her constant Piety will so purifie and draw off her inclinations from all vain pastimes and modish vanities and from those foul dregs of impurity that are the usual attendants of a vain idle London Life that by this Transfiguration of Mind and pious habit of Life her Conversation will be as the Apostle says fixed up in Heaven and we all know that the upper Region of the Air it self will admit of no Storms or Thunder for they are all formed below it And farther that Lady who is so blessed as to have her heart touch'd with this Magnetic vertue of true godliness her thoughts will be elevated to such a heavenly pitch of spiritual vertue and religion as she will despise all the young Gallants fine words deep sighs and languishing looks with all their high Praises and showers of Complements which will work no more on her sanctified Mind than showers of Hail on the tops of well covered Houses which fall off as soon as it falls on without ever touching any of the inward part And whereas our vain Ladies receive the extravagant encomiums and flatteries I might have almost said Adorations of their vain Gallants as the Lawful Issue of their own applauded Merit a truly pious Lady will only hearken to all the Airy Praises young Men ascribe to her beauty to be but the Bastard brood of their own abundant sin and folly and she will make such pious reflections on such young Mens overmuch praises grounded on a sense of her own unworthiness of them as she will not only despise their extravagant speeches but themselves for speaking of them which doubtless cannot but be very acceptable to God the searcher of all hearts who still giveth grace to the humble Therefore Ladies if you really desire true piety and humility I must advise you again and again never to hearken with delight or hear with belief or indeed suffer with patience but shun with diligence young Mens airy praises and Complements nor yet countenance their flatteries for multitude of Praises cannot but perplex young Ladies Minds as many Lights still confound the Sight and therefore when you hear young Men give their Tongues such loose liberties and over large ranges in magnifying your beauty remember such high Complemental expressions are to be trusted no more than the Christian Flag of a Turkish Pyrat which he only hangs out that you might esteem him your friend that thereby he may make you become his Slave Therefore Ladies keep still about you this preservative of your vertue that you look upon all the vain Gallants that Court you with high Complements and great praises to be but so many Judas's that come to betray you with a kiss and do not believe their Oaths either on the account of what they swear as to your great beauty or their own true Love for really flattery and vain praises are now grown such common Arts among fond Lovers as well as great States-men and Complemental Courtiers as we often meet the truth of their meaning in the contradiction of their words 7. My last concluding advise to the vain modish Ladies is when one of you is curiously beholding and admiring your fine Face in your Glass and find that the great beauty of it raises proud thoughts in your heart which is almost as common among handsom Ladies as 't is for them to look in their Glass which nothing can be more common humble your pride with these mortifying reflections that this very fine Face of yours that you like so much love so well and are so taken with and fond of must unavoidably in a little time become loathsom rottenness stink and corruption turn odious either to be seen or smelt which is as very certain as mortality it self and death you know is not only sure to meet you but you are exposed by a thousand accidents to meet it whilst you are travelling in this Earchly Pilgrimage for the spritely gaiety of your blossom youth can only let you know how long you may possibly live but can give no advance security how long you certainly will therefore young Ladies as well as old Men ought still to march under the safe Conduct of a vertuous Life and not to trust to the temptation of a long Life but to rely only on the blessed security of a good one I shall conclude this Discourse and Book with the good saying of an excellent religious person That the vainest beauty on Earth cannot justly deny this great Truth that beauty is not absolutely necessary to the good of this Life but that Piety is essentially necessary both to the good of this Life and the next too since one may live well without beauty but one can neither live or die well without Piety FINIS