find that the effects of Anger kill many more than the passion of Love Men being often Angry with many Men at once but never in Love with more than one Woman at a time and that one it self is too many by one But my design being not to Court the young Ladies with high Complements but to serve them with great reality I must assure them that these high praises the more they are trusted the more they 'll betray and the more you Ladies confide in their worth the more you 'll be deceiv'd in their value so that it follows by the plain Rule of common reason that so much as you deduct of Mens overpraises so much you lessen of your own self deceivings Indeed these poysoned Darts of praises have got such a predominant power over most young handsom Women and the most handsom are most subject to them that most of them are in danger of being wounded by them because the peril of flattery still mounts with the degrees of beauty as the Suns heat still increases proportionable as it rises Flattery and vain-glorious praises are both insinuating Devils two Twins begot by the father of Lies and these not only attempt all but possess most vain handsom Ladies and therefore they ought above all to be very strict and diligently active to shun such tempting discourse and avoid such dangerous Company or at least when with them to be sure still to carry about them S. James his good direction and antidote resist the Devil and he will flie from you Really if young Ladies would but take a steddy resolution to resist and slight all young Mens vain Courtships and place no such high estimation on their own beauty they would easily do the like on mens praises and by this means young Gallants would slacken in their Courtships proportionable to the young Ladies cooling in their receptions of it and so make Men despise Womens beauty suitable to their slighting Mens Love and thus Womens prudence would become Mens wisdom for in real truth 't is hope of gain makes love Merchants as well as others none watch Bees but for their Hony and few Court fair Ladies but for some hopes of a return and therefore you never hear of any of the young Sparks that plant their Love Batteries against Nunneries not because they think the young Women in them have too little beauty but because they believe they shall meet there with too great a resistance by the care they take and strictness they use to prevent Mens making any Addresses and near approaches to them for as Mr. Cowley says a well govern'd heart like rich China admits Men only to the Frontier part for a strict vertue sets certain bounds to young handsom Womens carriage and behaviour towards Men which they are not to exceed as the Almighty gave to the Sea so far you shall go and no farther And though I know there 's no such thing now adays in practice among our young Men as Angel Love which is the pure Commerce of the Souls yet I believe Venus Love does not rage so very much nor is its infection so very strong and rife as Censurers would fain have it making our Age much worse than 't is when God knows 't is but too bad at best as if the youth of both Sexes were now so corrupt as that a young Gentleman cannot visit a young Lady nor a young Lady receive visits from a young Gentleman without imputation of scandal or the censure of ill and vicious designs on both sides tho I verily believe some young Men I do not say all nor yet many love Womens company and Women Mens on no other account than for their great wit good humor and agreeable Conversation without any farther ends And now I am beginning to enter into that part of this Discourse which principally addresses it self to the handsom young Maiden Ladies and chiefly among them to such as are innocently and modestly bred for such sort of young Women often entertain discourses and make acquaintances with young Men without the least thought of love or design of ill many of them looking civilly and talking freely to them on no other account than to shew and exercise their wit and that may be more to please their own fancy than on design to take that of others but yet I must advise such young Women to consider that meer civil looks often tempt and refusals may be given after such a manner as may rather embolden one to ask more than to beg pardon for having asked too much for as one well observes of strict vertuous Women That Man comes too near to them that comes to be denied by them Indeed 't is not very rare now a days for civil looks in young Women to breed Adulterous thoughts in young Men for the Gospel tells us that there is an Adultery of the Eye and I am sure we ought all to remember with grief of mind that assoon as the Serpent had perswaded that the forbidden fruit was pleasant to the Eye it soon follow'd that it became delightful to the Tast if Mens Vows of Love and Oaths of Constancy can but once tempt young Maids appetites to taste 't will soon make them 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
friendly Caution that it might appear as publick as young Womens inconstancy or young Mens folly who pretend to a perfect knowledge and sole possession of a young beauties heart you that propound to your selves propriety in Love know Womens hearts like straws do move and that which you vainly think is Sympathy with you is really but Love to Jet in general Indeed the most experienc'd Venus Philosophers and enlightned Inspectors into the humors of most Womens hearts and affections are apt to make as gross oversights in their guesses and fancies of their making good Wives or true Lovers as the ablest Seamen do often commit mistakes in their sight at Sea sometimes taking Land for Clouds other times Clouds for Land Really the very best and most able Masters of Art and most Critical Enquirers with their greatest observations and pretences of knowledge as to the Motions of Ladies hearts can only make such imperfect guesses and speculations as Astronomers do of the Operation of the Stars which is but by the great they can give an account of the general order of Providence in their Stations and Motions but can give no certain Rule or true Measure to discern their Influences upon particular actions or bodies no more than they can give a reason other than Gods Will why constant success attends this Mans undertakings and a continued ill fortune waits on another Mans endeavors or why a wicked cursed Tyrant should live out his Natural Life prosperously among his abused Vassals and our highly excellent and truly pious Martyr King Charles the first of ever Blessed Memory should be barbarously Murder'd by his own free Subjects which is a most clear and plain Lesson of instruction not to Judg the true right of Causes by the false light of successes and therefore sober religious Men freely own their ignorance as to the certain Causes of the divers effects of Gods providence as to the event of things in this world there being such an infinity of Causes that depend on one another that good and wise Christians esteem it their best and safest way to live in a state of Neutrality as to a pretending knowledge of the effects of Gods providence in the Issues either of his Mercies or Judgments And truly if our young Gallants were as wise as they ought to be they would also live in a State of Neutrality as to their Judgment of the motions of young Ladies fancies and be satisfied with these general notions that their minds and inclinations are generally bent towards men who are young handsom rich witty high born well bred and the like but how to discern special Causes for particular Occurrences and to be able to tell the true reasons and give the just measures for Womens so often differing and varying in their Love fancies is I believe beyond the power of Man to Judge some Women esteeming the black before the fair others the fair before the black in which few agree or this handsom Man before t'other and sometimes an ugly Man before them both Womens likings to Men being like their mode of governing who tho the power be still the same and certain yet the manner of it is always changeable and inconstant I say in all these changes or rovings of fancy the most knowing and experienc'd Lovers can make at very best but imperfect Guesses almost as very uncertain as Womens Constancy or young Mens Love which indeed is much of the nature of common Hay and Stubble which a little spark lights and a small time consumes young Men being more inconstant in their addresses than very beauty in its duration most of our young Gallants Love being not able to keep up to the same degree of Elevation as the short space wherein their Mistrisses beauty does In a word I think the best Wit and most knowing Lover cannot say better of the nature of Womens Love than what S. Austin said of the nature of the Times I fancy I know it when no body bids me describe it but find I am ignorant of it when any does Truly few of our 〈◊〉 Lâ—â—â—es guide themselves in their Love choices by the clear Light and true Rule of Reason which occasions their being so often misled by the vain Love flashes of their present Airy fancy And indeed when a young Mans alluring beauty or what else you please to call it attracts a young Womans sight and thereby moves her fickle fancy and inconstant likings and so stamps a fierce but hasty impression of Love on her tender slippery heart which commonly makes the newest object the richest prize for indeed most of our modish Ladies Gallants are to them like the Fashions where usually the last Commer is best lik'd and most us'd And the Jest of it is that many of these changeable Ladies being so smitten are apt to believe that this their last Love is the only true one and that all their former Loves were but a kind of Mushrom Love which sprung up in a Night as Mushroms do without any Root but that this their present Love is built on good reason and true consideration and therefore shall be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians unalterable being so deeply engraven in their marble hearts 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 fickle 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
see her Love another Man and 't is ten to one she cannot indure to be without another Man to Love and this creates Anger and Revenge in her first Lover and perhaps provokes him to cast out Words that may highly reflect on her Honour so vile and ill-natur'd is our present Age as most Men are much readier to revenge a meer fancied Injury than to requite a real received Obligation And if a Wife that allows a Man the freedom of visiting her when she is alone in Bed at unusual visiting Hours will but truly own the secret Thoughts of her Heart I am confident she cannot deny but that one of the principal Motives that induced her to grant her Lover that imprudent Freedom was much occasion'd on this vain and foolish account That she hoped by her allowing extraordinary Liberty to him it would produce extraordinary Returns of Kindness to her Which is but a simple Fancy since that Woman that enlarges her Favours and Freedoms to a Man beyond the just Bounds and Limits of a prudent modest and a decent Carriage tho' that Man may in Heat of Blood seemingly embrace them with an eager Fondness and a passionate Delight yet if he be either a Lover of Vertue or a Master of Reason he cannot but in his own Judgment despise her for it and conclude by her granting such over-large Liberties to him it savors more of hot Love than true Friendship and he cannot but in reason judge That as her present fond Love makes her now grant to him more Freedom than is decent so she may in a little time as well shew more Kindness to another than is discreet For Beauty-love cannot be built upon any settl'd firm Foundation but on a Hill of Sand which looks high but stands weak nor is it rais'd and maintain'd by true Reason or pure Friendship but rather hangs by Geometry that is depends on a meer flashy airy amorous Fancy as little durable as Summers Rain or Winters Sun and therefore that Person she fancies most she will be sure to love best and be fondest of and kindest to during the present amorous Fit And for that Wife taking God the searcher of all Hearts to be her Witness That she never acted with that Man that accuses her any thing but what was truly Vertuous Indeed she does well to take the God of Heaven to be her Witness for she can have none on Earth except the Man that Witnesseth against her And therefore I shall desire her seriously to consider how is it possible to judge of a Woman 's inward Intentions but by her outward Actions and if they be indiscreet how can any justly say her inward intentions are not so since none can judge of the one but by the other For we are to believe according to what we see and not according to what we hear or the Woman vows she means which unless to God the Searcher of all Hearts can be only known to her self and consequently she can only be a credible Witness to her self and not others as to her own inward intentions Lastly for the excuse she alledges That it lies in the Power of any wicked Man to raise and cast scandals on the Reputation of the most Vertuous Woman on Earth as that she admitted such a Man to visit her when she was alone in her Chamber a Bed when perhaps she never saw him out of it much less he her in it having never possibly heard his Name much less knew his Person These kinds of Reports I grant lie in the power of every wicked Man to raise on any Vertuous Woman But I deny 't is in the Power of every wicked Man to make a Vertuous Woman say she admitted him to visit her alone in Bed when she never did and to own an indiscreet Act which she never committed Indeed I have known many wicked Men disown ill things that they have done but I never heard of a discreet Woman own an ill thing she never did so that I think it needless to write any more than That I look upon such groundless scandals so falsly rais'd and shot at Random at a good Woman's Reputation to be only able to shew a malicious Man's ill Nature not justly to brand a Vertuous Woman's good Name But I fear I have already not only writ too much but too sharp on this Nice Subject therefore I shall only give this good tho old Advice to all vertuous Wives which is still to use an Enemy as if he may become a Friend and a Friend especially in love matters as if he may become an Enemy that is a prudent Woman ought not to shew too much Kindness to the one nor declare too fierce a Hatred against the other but to manage with Discretion and Moderation her carriage to both and to admit Piety Vertue and due Consideration to regulate all her Actions and she that observes these good Measures will be sure never to admit any Person especially a Lover any private freedom which she cannot honourably own and publickly justify Farther a Vertuous Woman ought still to carry in her Mind That she is bound to satisfy all Persons as to her Vertue as well as her self others Tongues as well as her own Heart Nor ought a vertuous Maid or Wife to depend much upon her Lover's Vows or Oaths of a true and constant Love and a perfect unalterable Friendship since most of their Vows and Love Oaths being built upon fading Beauty which is but a Sandy Foundation their Friendship commonly moulders away with the Beauty that created it I shall therefore advise all handsom vertuous Women not to depend much on their Lovers fair Words but on their own good Actions strict prudent Carriage and pure Vertuous Life and she that observes these good Measures will be sure not to shew too much Love or Hatred to any Man nor ever expose her Reputation to her Lover's Humor since by so doing she 's no longer his Queen and Mistress but his Subject and Servant by trusting her Humour into his Power and what is worse to his Mercy And Solomon the wisest of Men gives Men this good advise Advoid Suretyship and you shall be sure And the like Caution and Prudence also leads Women not to be bound for nor to trust in any Beauty-Lover's Oaths for this good reason That if you never trust him he can never deceive you but if you do he may And as 't is natural for all Women to hope the best so 't is discreet in all Women to fear the worst and to arm themselves against others bad Tongues as well as against their own ill Acts. And as Discretion must ever be a great Vertue among Women so Indiscretion must ever be a great Vice for all it 's being a great Mode I esteem Indiscretion to be much alike to Wickedness as Covetousness is to Evil which is not only an evil Root but the Root of all Evil. So Indiscretion is not that sole Issue
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 Counterfits 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 for fancy what you please an enjoy'd Mistris is no better let her Quality be never so good and her beauty never so great and there 's no Woman ought to think it strange that her Gallant after enjoyment undervalues her when by it she shews him the way by fiirst undervaluing her self and so ought to expect little Love and less Courtship but rather much slighting if not aversion for this is most certain Ladies that though your Gallants use all flattering means and arts not sparing their Oaths or Money Soul or Purse to purchase your good Nature I should have said sinful folly to bless them as they call it with the enjoyment of you that is to curse your selves by admitting it which when your Gallants have obtain'd on any terms Swearing and forswearing not excepted they presently like greedy Hawks who assoon as they have fully gorg'd themselves on their Quarry slight and turn Tail to the very same Game which just before they flew so eagerly after and grow soon as weary of an enjoy'd Mistris as most eldest Sons are of their long long liv'd Fathers or their ugly monied Wives in a word our Amorous Age is so very wicked and unchast that really most of our young Mens fiery Love to the thing call'd a Mistris is by our present mode become of the same nature of Fire it self which all know cannot subsist long if not often recruited with fresh matter And I have yet Ladies something more to add which is of a much worse consequence than all before which is this that after your Gallants have enjoy'd you though never so much in private they will not be satisfied unless they may boast of it in Publick so vain are our young Sparks as to take more
for they will tell you That the pure state of Innocency was never but in one Woman which was the first of her Sex and will be the last of that Kind And as it begun soon so it lasted not long for it left her before she left the World Now it may be argued That if the Nature of the Mother of all Women-kind when she was in perfect Soundness and Strength would then yield to an Enemy in Paradise what may be now expected from her Daughters in this wicked World and vicious Age If a Woman could stumble then in a pure Light why should any wonder that many Women should fall now in this our Age of Sin and Darkness And if a Woman could not defend her self against one Tempter then why may not many Women yield to divers Tempters now that there are near as many young Men that are Seducers as there are young Women that are hansom Especially considering in what a superlative Degree Vice Vanity and Idleness possesses most of them and that our vain Ladies Love to their Gallants is now as very much in Use as great Beauty is in Esteem and strict Piety out of practice And if when there was but one Man and one Woman in all the World so that sweet Variety could not be then in fashion yet all know That one Woman could not then be true to that one Man but did deceive him meerly for deceiving-sake for she could not then leave one Man for another which is now grown a common Womanish Practice Therefore it may be argued That by the same Rule and Parity of Reason That as the Woman did deceive the one Man when she was in Paradise so may many Wives now deceive many Husbands whilst they are here out of it for as there are plenty of Eve's Daughters that still retain the Subtilty of their Mother so there will be ever plenty of Adam's Sons that will still retain the Folly of their Father and be beguiled by their Wives which is a Weakness and Distemper that 's now grown so common and infectious as 't is like the Plague that reign'd so universally in Egypt as it overspread the whole Land And all our most Learned Doctors are so very weak and ignorant in the means of prescribing a Remedy for this Distemper to others as they cannot so much as compose an Antidote against it for themselves tho' they shou'd all joyn in a Consultation And as the World is now more increased in Men and Women so 't is also in Sins and Vices Women having a thousand Arts Cheats and Allurements to decoy Men with which were not known then tho' commonly practised now Therefore all Women not only of the vain modish Brood but of the most vertuous and pious Kind are in Duty oblig'd to make it their constant Endeavours and hearty Prayers to the Almighty That he will please to repair the Defects of their Earthly Nature by the Supplies of his Heavenly Grace that the Strength of this latter may conquer the Weakness of the former and that as they are by Nature frail and inclin'd to do what 's ill so they may through Gods Mercy love to practise what 's Good and to shake off the wanton and vicious Inclinations of the Flesh to put on the heavenly Motions of the Holy Spirit which will certainly make a Woman love God and keep his Commandments which will give her a happy Content of Mind whilst she lives and a blessed Peace of Conscience when she comes to die And I am sure neither a vain Life nor a Fop of a Gallant can ever bring either It may be farther ask'd Where is the great Difference between a meer Beauty-Lover and a meer Gallant 's Friendship when 't is only the Womans Beauty that creates and maintains the Gallant 's Love and his false subtil Craft that nick-names his meer Venus-Love by miscalling it real Friendship And as many vertuous Wives deceive and flatter themselves in the Title of their Lovers by calling their Gallants their Friends so many Women are cozen'd in the Nature and Measures of their Love They 'll tell you and with reason too a thing not very common among Women That 't is immodest and scandalous for a Wife to admit a Man to make Love and publick Courtship to her But they 'll tell you at the same time That a Wife is not bound to take notice a Man makes Love to her till he tells her so which in my Opinion is a very senseless fancy since that makes the fault of a married Womans admitting a Mans making love to her not to consist in her receiving it from him but in his telling it to her not in her suffering him to do it but in his acquainting her that he do's it Sure that Woman's Judgment must be very dull and her Eye-sight very dim that can be so grosly mistaken as to fancy a Man's making love to her is not to be taken notice of by seeing it her self but by her hearing it from him when 't is most certain that the Eye is a much quicker and surer Witness than the Ear as may be observ'd in firing a Cannon the Flame of the Powder comes to the Eye before the Noise of the Gun do's to the Ear and that Woman must be strangely dull that cannot discern a man's amorous Looks and passionate Actions and Carriage towards her that he is in love or at least pretends it by acting as if he were without his downright telling her he is A Woman may possibly hear and yet not believe what she hears but 't is impossible she can plainly see and not believe what she plainly sees for seeing is believing and if we should deny Sight to be a sufficient credible Witness we must by it deny the Foundation of all Christian Religion for the Apostles seeing our Blessed Saviour's Miracles that he did in his Life-time and both seeing of him and conversing with him after he was risen from the dead is the great Security we have that he is so I grant 't is not in a Wive's Power to hinder a Man from liking loving and esteeming her but sure 't is in any Wive's Power to avoid receiving or at least countenancing a Man's private Visits and entertaining his publick Courtship And really it cannot possibly enter into my Belief how a Woman that 's certainly assur'd that such a Man loves her passionately well on the account of her Beauty and who confirms it in all his Words and Actions and by his high Concerns for her and abundant Courtship to her which she receives with great Kindness Freedom and Satisfaction seeming to be abundanly confirm'd of his great and passionate Love and that she cannot but be assur'd that he knows she knows so much and yet that I must believe at the very same time that she can be so very fierce and barbarously ill-natur'd as if that Man she knows so highly loves her should yet dare to tell her he do's so she should
inconstant and undurable being as very fading as the Complexion 't is much compos'd of and chiefly illustrated with I wish this sort of Lovers would take into their serious Consideration where 's the real Satisfaction a Gallant can any way propose to himself to take in gazing on his Mistresses Beautiful Face since at best it can be but a momentary Eye-pleasure a thing next to nothing and as little lasting as 't is little worth so slight and sandy a Foundation is meer Beauty built on it being indeed only a fine bright burnish'd Clay inamell'd with pure white and red which by many of our fine Ladies now a-days is oftner bought with Money than given them by Nature and do but unmask the Skin of one of their Faces whether her Beauty 's bought or given and 't will certainly at first sight prove loathsom to ones Eyes and in a very little time noisom to the Smell being only fit for nasty Worms not fine Gallants Next let us suppose that an amourous young Gallant should be so prosperous and fancically happy as by the Expence of much time many Oaths and the Trial of a Thousand costly Effays to gain not only her free leave to behold her beautiful Face but to enjoy her beautiful Person In the first place 't is most certain That a Beauty-chase after a handsom Face is but like a Fox hunting Recreation which tho' you follow never so eagerly yet the pleasure lies only in the pursuit not in the taking of the Game Next I shall desire the young Gallant to ballance with the Pleasures he enjoys the many Troubles he must suffer by the several Fears Doubts Jealousies and vexatious Disappointments he must rencounter in the keeping and securing his new Conquest and sure there needs no stronger an Argument to prove both the uncertainty and difficulty of keeping his Mistress constant to himself than the easiness he found in perswading her to prove inconstant to another for on the same score that she left another for him she may leave him for another Next I shall desire this Beauty-Lover but to look into common Experience and 't will tell him That as he will certainly be soon cloy'd with her Face so he will be soon weary of her Body since he loves the last but for the first and sure no Man can be so ignorant in our wife amorous and Romantick Age as not to know that sweet Variety is now all in fashion and that Love like Beauty cannot always last because great Beauty it self never did nor never can And tho' most of our fine modish Ladies are as to the Gallantry of having a Gallant very constant yet as to the person of one Gallant most of them are very inconstant and changeable because one suits not with sweet Variety which is now become the common Mode great Delight and usual Practice of most young Gallants and their Mistresses Now last of all and indeed what 's worse and most strange of all let us suppose that our young Gallant 's Mistress should chance to prove vertuous which indeed is a chance and is fully and unalterably resolv'd to continue still so then must our hot fierce fiery Lover's eager desire after the enjoying her render his enflamed Heart to be here on earth as Dives his Soul was in Hell tormented with a Thirst never to be quenched that is whilst her Beauty lives or till his Love dies and indeed the best of it is both are mortal and neither long-liv'd In a word If we seriously search into the true Nature and common Effects that meer Beauty-Love usually produces we shall find 't is ordinarily accompanied with great Fears constant Jealousies and daily vexatious Disappointments which this sort of Beauty-Love is usually attended on tormented with and commonly expires in And truly Reader 't is only this sort of noisom Venus-Love and meer Beauty Friendship that I exclaim against having as I said before no mixture of Marriage-design Family-Obligation well-grounded Friendship or so much of Kindred-pretence as that of a Welsh Cousin to shelter and countenance their long Visits and great Familiarity But many Women fancy that the vertuous Name of Friendship excuse the scandalous one of Gallant never reflecting on the vast difference there is in the Carriage between a true pure Platonick Lover and a meer Beauty-Gallant's Friendship towards the Woman they pretend a real kindness to and a concern for since he that 's a Woman's true Friend indeed must make it his main Business and great Care so to order all his Looks Words and Actions that any way relate to that Woman he pretends and vows a true and vertuous Friendship for as to avoid giving all Persons the least Occasion or Umbrage to suspect he has any Design to be esteem'd her Beauty-admirer or pretended Gallant which is a Title a real Friend on the account of his true Friendship ought as much to avoid as a truly vertuous VVoman on score of her good Reputation ought truly to detest since 't is an undeniable truth That no Man can heartily loves a Womans Person that does not truly love and heartily endeavour to preserve her good Name and make her Honour part of his own Nay I am farther of opinion that no Man does love a Woman as a real perfect Friend that does not love her Reputation as much as if she were his real Wife that is to be a true Partner and joint-sharer in her good and bad Fame Whereas on the contrary a meer amorous Gallant is a Friend to a Woman meerly because she 's handsom and only loves her because her Beauty likes him and so is a concern'd party only as to her good or bad look's not her bad and good actions therefore he uses all his Arts and employs all his skill and endeavours to accomplish his wicked ends on her he so eagerly Courts and if her Piety and Virtue is so great as she will not suffer him to enjoy her yet his wicked design is so vile as to strive to make all Men believe he does it In a word this is the great difference between a true Friend and a Fop Gallant the first makes it his real design and hearty concern to preserve her Reputation whereas the Amorous Gallant makes it his grand business and sole aim to destroy it But most Ladies are so vain I had almost said foolish as to fancy they can defend themselves against all scandalous reflections on their Reputation by the great Strength of their Wit but really the strength of such vain Wit springs often but from the Weakness of their Judgment therefore I shall Caution that Woman who depend so much on the greatness of her own Wit to beware of two things the first is Not to rely too much on her own Wit The second not to depend too much on her Gallants Oaths lest both fail her For indeed 't is very common for young Women to have a better opinion of their own Wit than they ought and
conclude That he has either spoke ill of her Reputation or has acted some rudeness to her Person already or that she hath reason to fear he will do it hereafter and therefore has for bid him her Company either upon the account of revenge for what 's past or by the way of prevention for the time to come therefore I am clear of opinion a Woman ought not to forbid an old Friend and Acquaintance visiting her except it be upon one of these two nam'd Accounts or else upon the score that she has reason to believe her Husband does not well rellish his coming so often to her and if that be the Business if this her Friend be what he really pretends to be and she seems to believe he is he cannot justly take it ill that she freely tells him That his visiting her so constantly tho' their Converse be never so Vertuous and Innocent yet she has some cause to fear it has or may if long continued raise her Husbands Dislike and the Worlds Censure therefore to prevent both and secure her own Quiet and good Reputation she friendly desires him for the future to make his Visits shorter and seldomer to stop all busy ill-natured Censurers Tongues and any Jealousies their malicious Twatlings might raise in her Husbands Mind And sure if this her dear esteemed Friend truly deserves that Title he must value her Honour as part of his own and make her Content his Satisfaction since she freely and heartily assures him 't is not at all upon the account of her lessening her true Esteem and Friendship for him but meerly to secure her Husbands Love and Kindness to her that she desires this of him Next I shall advise that Woman who stands so much on her inward Vertue as to slight her Friends Advice and the Worlds Censure for keeping her Friend so much company seriously to consider That 't is above the power of any Mortal to dive into a Womans inward Thoughts and that Men can only behold her outward Actions not inward Intentions For tho' Men can see her Lips move when she whispers yet they cannot tell what she speaks when she does so Much less are they able to dive into either of their Meanings for that 's so great a secret as one of them may deceive the other with for all their Vows and Oaths of an open Heart a true Love and an unalterable Friendship I could name a thousand Arts Slights and Deceits that many Gallants use to their Mistresses but I am sure I should sooner tire my Readers Patience with their great numbers than by their great numbers to confirm his belief of their great Truth except it be the Truth of their great Folly and vile Falsity for indeed most of the young Gallants of our present sober and Vertuous Age do commonly in their Courtship to their present Mistresses carry little Truth in their Heart but many more Romantick Lies on their Tongues than Teeth in their Mouth And now Reader pray give me leave to change a little the Scene of my Discourse of the great Beauty of the Mistresses to add a word of the great and wicked actings of some of their Gallants who having tried all arts and means they could invent to gain their Mistresses Heart I still except Marriage and after all their Essays find it so strongly fortified and fully Garrison'd with Vertue and Piety as they see it impregnable against all their Batteries and Assaults so as to cast themselves into an utter despair of ever gaining their wicked ends on them I say can any Man of common Sense not think it full time for him to found a Retreat as to following their Persons tho' he cannot leave admiring their Beauty Indeed I have ever observed that Importunity still breeds Trouble but I never heard it ever created Love in a Mistress Yet this sort of wicked foolish Gallants are so indefatigable in the folly of their endless Pursuit after their Mistress as they will not believe they hate them tho' their Words and Actions declare their scorn and aversion to them but they will tell you what 's three Kicks of denial to a Lover that has read the Patience of Job or the sober Temper of Seneca or has often experimented the Inconstancy and Fickleness of an ill humored Mistress which perhaps exceeds both And therefore by way of Revenge he quickly resolves rather than be publickly ridiculed for missing his aim losing his time and not gaining his Mistress since he cannot enjoy her fair Person he will endeavour blasting her good Name and make the World believe she 's kind to him tho' she 's only really so to her own Virtue and Reputation by despising him and all his Courtship and the better to accomplish his base and treacherous Design on her he alters his Course changes his Battery and comes and throws himself at his Virtuous Mistresses Feet with the greatest seeming Joy imaginable That God has so blessed him as he is now become an intire religious Convert who has abandoned all the vain Pleasures of this World to contemplate the pure and endless Felicities of Heaven and that now instead of being a Slave to the Beauty of her Body he is become a devout well-wisher to the good of her Soul And intends to be so vile an Hypocrite and wicked a Sinner that since he could not gain her Body by all earthly means he resolves to flie to Heaven it self for a religious disguise to ruin her Reputation and satisfy his Revenge since he could not his Love and therefore he now only pretends to pure Piety strict Virtue true Humility much Gravity and great Penitency in all his Discourses and Actions I mean before her only and seriously and devoutly protesteth to her for in this Disguise he dares not Swear that he highly rejoyceth that all the Courtship he made and Perswasions he used served only to try her Humour not tempt her Virtue which he now highly rejoyces to find proof against all Temptations Vowing to her he is now more delighted with the true Virtue of her Mind than ever he was formerly taken with the great Beauty of her Face for the first is pure and Heavenly the last meer sensual the first relisheth of Angel-Love the second may and often does savour of meer brutal Lust And thus whilst he makes up all his Discourses in praising and magnifying her great Virtue to her self he uses all base oblique and subtle Endeavours and underhand Arts of Defamation to brand and blemish her good Name to all others and thus hopes to obtain his base revengful Ends by a Holy and Heavenly means And in pursuit of this his base wicked and Treacherous Design he entertains her with how highly he is delighted that he has quite stript himself of the Fools-Coat of a vain amorous Lover to Cloath himself with the pious sober Dress of a holy Convert and a Devout Christian and that he now does and ever will make it
satisfaction in the thoughts that others believe they enjoy their Mistrisses than they themselves do in the actual enjoyment of them our young Men retaining still so much of the old Roman pride as to love the Triumph more than the Conquest and indeed I am of opinion that on the bragging account of enjoying Mistrisses now so much in fashion among the late Debauchees those Men that boast they do though they do it not are not so bad as those that boast of it in so vain-glorious a manner as to act a real Sin Then the young Gallant can tell their enjoy'd Mistrisses that meer love of beauty is but a meer amorous desire and that none but fools desire what they possess possession being the full end and accomplishment of all desire and consequently of all beauty Love and so laugh at the simplicity of those that will endure long the scorching flames of a violent Love passion fancying none but the foolish barbarous Persians can long adore that Sun which burns them And our young Gallants are now generally grown so very nice that they cannot feed on any thing but sweet variety which makes them rant in the Hectoring Language of the Times and say that 't is as unmodish to have but one Mistris as to have none at all and therefore Swear that Mistrisses enjoy'd though never so young and beautiful are but like Romances read and Plays once seen and indeed methinks enjoy'd Mistrisses ought not to wonder at their Gallants sickleness it being not at all strange that an unvertuous Love should make an inconstant Lover And now I must beg leave to glance my discourse a little on a Fault which some young Ladies commit without ever considering 't is one which is sometimes to exercise their wit shew their pride and vanity or gaity of humor or what else you please to call it to make themselves sport and entertainment spread abroad their fine silken nets of inticing arts and attracting allurements to incourage and invite some young Fop to become fond of one of their Company as his dearly beloved and highly admir'd Mistris only that they may have thereby the better means and occasion to railly and make pastime with him never considering that by making him thus to fall in love with one of them he is obliged by the general Rules and common practices of our Modern refin'd Lovers to magnify and extoll her beauty and never to be sparing of his Oaths and Lies in praising her perfections and his own overflowing passion and so cause him to sin in earnest though probably design'd by the Lady as a Jest but 't will be no sufficient excuse in this bad kind of raillery to say your intention was innocent since its effect is culpable for we are not to do ill that good may come of it and sure much less to do ill where no good can come of it and I am sure this is an undeniable truth That she who makes another do an ill thing does an ill thing her self by her making another to do it Therefore Ladies whether in Jest or Earnest if you are truly vertuous and desire really to continue so and that the world should esteem you such as designing to admit men only to admire your Persons but never to ruin your vertue the best way to effect it is never to let them Court your beauty for remember that the Fire of Love is like that of Anger a short but fierce madness for a Man that 's in Love during the raging fit of his enflam'd lustful passion talks light and idly for a Lovers heart rises and falls is happy and unhappy according as his Mistris is kind or unkind it being indeed but very suitable to the folly of being in Love that such a Lovers heart should never move according to the dictates of his own reason but the vain motions of his Mistrisses fickle fancy and therefore because such Men know not what the do their Mistrisses ought not to mind what they say nor admit their Addresses though they pretend them in jest or for meer pastime and not to kindle their hopes when they mean never to feed their desires but avoid conversing with them and entertaining of them for surely all persons ought to avoid mad Bedlam acquaintances and young Men during their distracted Love passion value not what Praises they present what Offers they make nor indeed what price they give to purchase the enjoyment of their dear Mistrisses though it be at the damnable rate of long continued Idolatry and often repeated Perjury O strange and wicked madness that these kind of Lovers cannot be content to give their Mistrisses their heart for a little time without giving their Souls to the Devil for ever and fancy he is as very obliging as they are foolish and inconstant and that the Devil will as easily forget the Oaths they made to him as they do theirs they made to their Mistrisses which were intended but as meer Courtiers Complements which are meant no longer than they are speaking and therefore ought to be thought on no longer than they are hearing but though such Lovers fancy they give their Souls to the Devil but in jest yet he will be careful to keep them in earnest for if they will commit the sin of making such Oaths let them have a care the Devil be not permitted to make them endure the Hellish Penance of keeping them God will not be mocked I have enlarged this Discourse on the folly of Mens overpraising and Courting Women with great Confidence because I fancy with much Experience though I am sure with little Prudence for I confess such experience was bought too dear yet I have this satisfaction that the fault of committing a vice do's not consist in the confession of it but in the yeilding to it and therefore I own I have served much more than a thrice seven years Prenticeship in the Trade of Love and its foolish appendant Train of Fopperies which was I confess a great fault against the well spending of my time which might have been much better employ'd in the duties of Religion than in the pastimes and vain company of modish Women but I have now serv'd out my Time in that foolish Trade and am become a perfect freeman as to that folly of Courting all modish Ladies not that I am at all grown a Woman hater or a precise Puritan or such a true Disciple of Job as to make a Covenant with mine Eyes not to behold a handsom Woman for I shall still own I look upon all beautiful Women to come nearest of all Creatures in brightness and splendor to the glorious Angels and am very much pleased when I can pass away an hour or two in an afternoon among such of them as are not irreligious but of a vertuous reputation and are good Wits free humor'd and of pleasant Converse for 't is not keeping company with but paying an adoration to Ladies beauty that makes the crime
she 'll tell you she has heard a story which if as true as strange is a rare one That the reason that Stags live so very long is that when they find themselves to decay they swallow a live Serpent and as it consumes in their body they revive in their strength and Spirits So possibly a young Woman will say That she did not Marry an old Man for being rich in Years but Mony and because she found her Fortune decaying and almost quite decayed therefore she swallowed a Marriage with an old Man as the Stag does a Serpent in hopes that as her Husband consumes and dies in her bosom so she may revive in her sprightly gay humor and please her self with the delightful thoughts of the wealth he will leave her and the ways she will Intrigue to spend it in the fanciful hopes she has of suddenly gaining a young Husband suitable both to her Youth and aiery Inclinations There is another sort of Women but indeed their number is very small who being not handsom in their own opinion and therefore may besafely concluded very ugly in that of all others who to supply the defects of nature and age give out they are very rich and that they hope will make amends for all Gold being always young handsom and taking to all sorts of Men and Ages for Mony answers all things and by these reports of their Wealth tho often false they decoy young Fops who have lost their Annuity at Play or spent it in Debauchery to Court them for their fame of having much Mony and too eagerly press the Marrying them for it Swearing that they Love their persons more than their Mony valuing them a thousand times before it and no wonder that they that swear so commonly for nothing should now lye for much Mony for in real truth they only put the Widow before the Mony as we do in common speaking the Box before the Jewels which though first is altogether inconsiderable to the latter as only containing that Riches which it self makes no part of And many of these old rich Widows are so doatingly senseless that because their Mony Courters swear they are handsom they verily believe they are so and credit others words before their own eyes tho their spectacles are on which renders some so sottishly impudent as to tell their Gallants that tho their beauty is in the fall of the Leaf yet Autumn can breed Lovers as well as the Spring does when in truth an old withered Autumn face does but Chill the blood and dispirit the vigour of the most active and resolute Courtier and therefore a Spring beauty can only enflame the heart and tho possibly a young Man may be sometimes foolishly taken with an old Womans great wit good humor or rather greater riches yet 't is I think impossible he can be really in Love with her deform'd face person or age which must quench the fire of any amorous flames in a youthful or vigorous heart Therefore I shall advise all such Women to be so prudent as to yield to the seasons of Age as they must to that of the Year and not hope to turn Winter into Summer or Autumn into Spring but instead of striving for what 's impossible yield to what 's reasonable and submit to these true Measures That Eighteen is the gay sprightly blossom age that a young Womans Life shines out in its brightest splendor and beauty That Thirty is the stale year of a Maid and the worst age of a Wife I mean that 's an ill one because a Wife at Thirty is old enough to be ugly and young enough to live long but a Woman that is so far advanced in years as the frigid Zone of Sixty ought in all reason to banish all vain Love thoughts as to the youthful pleasures of this world and to fix them on the other so as to live only in order to die imitating the good old Woman named in the Gospel Luke 2.37 Who kept in the Temple who fasted and prayed to God night and day Indeed it becomes old Women much better to frequent the Church with the good old Godly Matrons so renown'd for gravity and religion in former days than to visit the Park or the Play with their vain young Gallants lest their old Dress and Antick Faces should make Men say such a one is more fit to be a Spectacle than a Spectator wants good Mens Prayers rather than young Mens Praises and is more apt to create thoughts of Mortality than to raise motions of Love really I am of opinion that if 't were possible to turn beauty into the same nature of content that the little Kingdom of England would swarm now more with handsom Women than the Country of Palestine did ever with fighting Men of which Scripture makes mention of many hundred thousands for than every ugly Woman young or old as thought her self handsom as most do must be really handsom only for think it as well as all those that believe themselves Content must be Content or else they could not believe themselves so therefore all old and ugly Women that are not past all years of discretion tho they are of beauty should never strive for impossibilities 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 be 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 sooling 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 and the Center point where all the Lines of his happiness did meet She in whom he could find no discontent with or content without She whose presence made a Village as agreeable as London and her absence London as doleful as a Village In short this very She whose Company he esteem'd his Heaven upon Earth no sooner was the flower of her fair and youthful beauty worn off but his fickle passion assoon decays and grows languid and this late Soul of his soul and Joy of his heart turns to be the very clog and burden of his life and from all Mistris becomes all Wife that is she falls from the top of all admiration to the depth of meer misery and from an extraordinary charming delight to an ordinary necessary evil called a Wife And such Husbands commonly call such Wives and so do Wives such Husbands the Yoaks of Liberty and the Stocks of Love and all know that neither of them can be easie or pleasing in such a bondage being an enemy and destroyer of sweet variety so that the Husbands love being decay'd with his Wives beauty he grows weary of her she of him and both of one another And as to a young Mans Marrying an old ugly Wife meerly for her Mony all I shall need say of it is that often such young Men fancy such Mony Wives to be of the same Nature of Mony it self whose vertue consists not in keeping of it but in parting with it and so commonly use such Wives accordingly and thus this wild passionate Love or meer Mony Marriages like wild-fire soon devours and consumes it self in its own flame and Torrent like instead of refreshing it destroys and by over-pressing too violently the course and streams of its Waters soon
Ebbs and runs it self dry Therefore that Man that will sell his sweet Liberty and enslave himself into Matrimonial Chains meerly to enjoy a Womans beauty sure he does not know or at least does not consider that still the richer the Metal the heavier the Chain and therefore though his Mistris be never so much the admired object of his present fancy and that I should allow her golden Chains to weigh as long light on his mind as she continues beautiful to his sight yet to bind himself to herin a Matrimonial Vow only on the account of her beauty till death them depart on assurance that he shall feast on her beauty as long as he lives is just such a kind of folly as if a young Man that were a great Lover of Sweet meats should leave all his business imployments and pastimes to bind himself an Apprentice for seven Years to a Confectioner meerly on the account and assurance that during that time he should every day feast himself on them when very common Experience is able to inform him though his confidence be never so great his inclinations never so eager and his stomach never so good yet 't is natural for him to eat so fiercely at first falling on that like a greedy Howk he soon over-gorges himself with his own Prey and after having taken a full draught of that sensual delight seeing them continually exposed to his sight and prostrate to his will he comes to hate them as much after enjoyment as he courted them before for though the Fire of Love still burns for enjoyment yet enjoyment still quenches if not extinguishes the fire of Love and he grows in a little time so cloy'd as he wants not only appetite to eat them but almost patience to see them Then when t is too late he accuses the unreasonableness of his prefancied delight on which he built his confidence of a lasting pleasure and allows it to be not only a great folly but sin against reason in any Man to believe that his sensitive nature ought to be gratified when it proposes only a bare satisfaction to the Appetite and cannot secure any durable happiness or content to the reason and judgment of mankind And this is really the cause why so many of our young Gallants now adays make Marriage a kind of Paradox in Love for one of these to obtain the Woman he is in Love with turns his Mistris into a Wife and then t is two to one in a little time to get rid of his late beautiful Mistris being shrunk into the shape of a meer Domestick Wife he parts for ever with his late Mistris to get free from his present Wife and note that tho many Mistrisses turn to Wives yet no Wives ever turn to Mistrisses Wife and Mistris being of the same differing nature as Water and Wine 't is common to drink Wine with Water but of Water to make Wine to Drink was never done but once and that by the first Miracle of our Saviour so that in effect they did but see mingly agree really to fall out piece together to fall asunder and Married to get rid of one anothers Company And 't is some of these unfortunate disagreeing Husbands that says the Translator of S. Pauls Epistles hath left out the word well in one of them for where the Apostle says He that gives in Marriage does well it should have been He that gives well in Marriage does well for all know there are more bad Wives than good and sure all believe that S. Paul was too wise to write or think that any Man could do well in Marrying ill so that I am of opinion the sum of the Apostles meaning by saying He that Marries well does well but he that abstains from Marriage does better has some reference to that good plain English saying That next to no Wife a good Wife is best which occasions my pitying the many Husbands that have bad Wives and the many Wives that have ill Husbands and to wish those few that fancy they have good ones as truly content in their Marriages as I am in my Resolution of never Marrying and I am sure none can deny but that I have this advantage by the Bargain that 't is impossible for me to meet a bad Wife that does not Marry but 't is very possible and common for him that does THE EIGHTH DISCOURSE Against Maids Marrying for meer Love or only to please their Parents Inclinations tho' quite contrary to their own I Am against Maids Marrying for meer Love because they that Marry for meer Love Marry in a manner for meer fancy and so to feast their sensual appetite on what they then like they often starve the body of what it will hereafter need for tho' your fancy may tell you that beauty great store makes Love a feast yet truth can tell you 't is too slender a Diet to make a livelyhood on therefore in my poor opinion 't would be a much wiser course for Maids to make up their Marriages with a good share and large proportion of interest and conveniency to mix with their Love-liking and present fancy for the true and durable content of Marriages is so founded on these two great 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 fad 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 offering is to be led by Love not drawn by the Cords of Wedlock for the Will is a free faculty and consequently cannot be forcibly determined to any act but yet is capable of admitting perswasions and inducements and so may be by them inclin'd but without them cannot be forced And therefore tho Maids ought not to Marry without their Parents consent yet they ought not to be compell'd against their own 'T is true indeed that large Estates can produce a plenty of Livelyhood but 't is as true that Content only can produce happy Living for Content and Riches prove often to be no a kin to one another but Content and Happiness are Twins and ever inseparable friends and like Water and Ice one still makes the other Content is certainly the greatest worldly happiness for it makes the poor Rich with it and the Rich poor without it and very common experience tells us that many poor Men are made happy by their unrich Wives and many wealthy heiresses are made miserable and unfortunate by their rich Husbands for 't is not much but enough that satisfies and the Weekly Bills of Mortality inform us that more die with Surfeits than starve with Hunger the true Measures of Contentment not consisting in quantity but quality for many have much that have not enough and many have enough that have not much some young Women being composed of such distempered Hidropick feaverish humors as there 's no quenching the Thirst of their hot ambitious desires others are so temperately minded and healthfully wise as a moderate and indifferent kind of condition satisfies them and those are happy in such a moderation to a high degree Content being the Throne of happiness the very top of our ambition and the
Enemies and most distant Inhabitants of the World to agree in the bands of unity and friendship Praise is the greatest of all Levellers for it brings the highest and lowest degrees of Men to an equality for the greatest Monarch in the World and the meanest Subject in his Station are alike as to their desires of Praise tho they vastly differ in the manner and degrees of aspiring to it Praise is as a Sum writ in Figures 't is every Nations Language and is and will be every Countries ambition And 't is well worth observation that this thing called Praise is so light airy and volatile as tho few are such Fools to hope for a Livelihood solely from it yet many are so mad as to expose their Lives meerly for it Really the fine young Ladies need but open their Eyes and they cannot but behold their partiality in distributing of their Praises to others and in receiving others praises to themselves for if one of the Ladies is Mistris of any one quality that they know is truly esteemable they believe all the World looks on it but then oversees all their vices that are apparently faulty so very wicked many young Women are as to be more apt and ready to see and blame their own faults in others than to consider or mend them in themselves And the like measures they usually observe as to the beauties or defects of their bodies if they have any part that is very handsom they fancy all that look on them fix their eyes on it but if their Nose or Eyes be ugly they think none takes notice of them but I desire the Lady that pretends to praises after this rate to oblige me or rather themselves so much as seriously to consider this very plain question If you should see a fine young Gentleman of a fam'd vertuous Life and most excellently well bred and highly renown'd for his true humility and great Charity in a word that was a Person indued with all the excellencies both of body and mind that can render a Man compleatly perfect and admirable only that he wanted an Eye pray ask your self if you should not be more ready to observe and blame the blemish of that one Eye than to praise any of all his Excellencies I am confident you cannot deny but you should and sure such a blind kind of imputation in you is as bad as the want of an Eye in him for perhaps he lost his Eye by a fit of sickness as many do in the Small Pox which is now his great trouble but never was at all his own fault and therefore we ought rather to pity that misfortune than jeer at that defect Or suppose he met that loss in his Infancy and was in a manner born so might you not then as wisely and reasonably despise the two grand Seasons of the Year the Summer for being too hot and the Winter too cold when they are not too immoderate but you too foolish for esteeming them so There is no Womans beauty under the Sun that is so intirely perfect as to be without some Fault for then she must be more than Woman nay the very glorious Sun it self is not without its Eclipses yet sure none can be so very foolish as not to admire and praise its splendour and brightness though 't is sometimes obscured with a Cloud Nor can you propose to your self that 't is a think fitting or reasonable to despise and railly any man because he cannot work Miracles and perform impossibilities by raising the dead to life for 't would be as ridiculous in any one to hope to restore a lost Eye by wishing for it as you to change the Seasons of the Year by your blaming of them Therefore let me advise you instead of raillying at what cannot be help'd in others strive to mend those Faults which may be yet cured in your self which can never be well done till you still behold the defects of others with a sad troubled Eye which you cannot forbear doing if you observe as you ought Gods Command of loving your Neighbour as your self for his afflictions must be then yours as well as yours are now your own And his blemishes or faults would be but so many Memorandums of your own frail defects and so must render you more fit and better disposed to support those of others and rather make it your business to be concern'd for them than your pastime to jeer at them In a word the young Lady that enjoys that share of beauty which perhaps her Neighbour is troubled for the want of let it not render her proud that she is more celebrated than another but rather let her express her humility and make it the great motive of her praise to God that he has been so liberal to her in this perfection But to return to my design'd Subject Praises that are not stampt with true vertue and great merit are but meer Air all false Tongues can flatteringly give them but 't is only your own vertues that can justly merit them 'T is with Praises as with Faults they that charge you with those you are free from do you no real hurt and those that present you with praises you no way deserve do you no real good therefore to apply to your self the right use of both instead of being angry at others for accusing you of some vices you do not act be angry with your self for acting the many you do which is the true way of having Praises and deserving them too Praise is not only the dearly beloved Mistris of Christendom but also of Turky for 't was Praise that was the octasion of making the grand Vizier Mustapha lose so many Men before Vienna for his Story tells us that he did not attempt that Siege so much to serve his Master as to Court his Mistris more out of design to gain her than out of hopes to take it but Mustapha was as much mistaken in his measures of Conquering his Mistrisses heart as in those of taking Vienna for by destroying her Husbands life he totally destroyed her Love and so made his Mistris to revenge her Husbands death to beg the Grand Seignior to take away Mustapha's Life which he did and by it she shew'd her kindness to her Husband and the Grand Seignior his Justice to her 'T is desire of praise and ambition that makes the French King imploy such vast Sums of Mony and Armies of Soldiers to work about his Palace of Versaillies which is rather a Prodigy of Riches than a Miracle of Nature fitter to be wondred at for the vast expences laid out on it than to be praised for any agreableness about it except the Gardens and Water-works which indeed excel all either of Rome or Florence and consequently the whole World but for the House it self I could observe nothing in it extraordinary except the rich Gildings both within and without and therefore as to my own opinion of the Place I think there
's nothing so wonderful in all that glory as that any one should so much admire it having neither River Wood good Land or pleasant Prospect about it being all round about close besieg'd by great coarse and ragged Hills which cannot add much lustre and glory to the Situation of any place of such vast Expence and Magnificence so as to be Celebrated by some as one of the Wonders of the World We read in History that Alexander the Great expressed much trouble that he had no more Kingdoms left him to Conquer I am sure the French King needs no cause of trouble for want of more Hills to Conquer and site about his Palace of Versaillies as long as he lives tho he had more Men and Mony to employ about levelling them than now he has Indeed such a Royal Building of Magnificence well deserved a most pleasant and Stately Situation but it seems that King thought it more noble better becoming his greatness to make one by the expence of Art than to be beholden to one of Natures free bounty that the World might know he scorn'd so mean an offer whilst he has Armies that can level Mountains as plain as he pleases and Mony to mount Rivers as high as he desires And indeed if we range over not only France and Turky but all the whole World we shall find that Praise is the Butt all Shoot at tho few hit the Mark for if we but look narrowly into Praises and consider the Actions as well as the Persons they are commonly great Flatterers and the breath of such Praises is but like a Rain-bow which is no other than a meer seeming Collection of many bright Colours without any true substance or long duration one day discovering the folly of the other and a few days will shew you your own end and with it the vanity of them all Therefore if the young Ladies could but perswade themselves to think seriously of the little reality there is in the Praises Men present them and the vain pastimes the World deludes them with both Women and Men will find that most of their delights are vain and despicable for the possession of much beauty breeds great pride and high concern and the decay of it creates in such as much discontent and envy at what they then lose and afterwards see others enjoy And so 't is the same with many of Mens Worldly delights which soon become uneasie to the Mind and often destructive to the Body for a debauch of drinking makes most sick and out of order after it and the enjoyment of handsom ill Women causes usually foul Pocky Diseases such French punishment suiting well with such an English transgression for the fondness of an unvertuous Love placed on an unchast Womans beauty is like the Fire of a Candle which lasts no longer than it flames and Candle like assoon as its flame is consum'd it presently expires in a stinking snuff So such a debauch'd Love I should have said Lust commonly ends with the odious detesting thoughts of such a foul and lustful passion which makes him then loath the sinner as he ought still the sin and himself for having committed the folly And if any one of these Venus Courtiers falls in Love with a truly vertuous Beauty hopes to gain his base unchast desires of her by fierce Courtship great adoration large offers of Presents all these thick larded with the common false Oaths of the praises of her great beauty and his great and constant Love the Lingua franca of all Gallants which all still swear to observe but few ever design to perform and therefore handsom Ladies never ought to Credit for surely he that speaks what he does not believe none ought to believe what he speaks but is bound in Conscience and Honour to slight his Courtship and scorn his Offers or else she must do much worse slight her self and reputation too 'T is a Proverbial saying that Love is blind I am sure such a sort of Lover is for he will not see the unjust desires he makes to her but only minds the unkind returns she makes to him without ever considering that they spring from her Love to Vertue and a good Reputation but vainly fancies 't is her Love to some happy Lover that 's in her favour and keeps him out which disquiets and torments his Amorous mind with a fierce Jealousie which Solomon calls the Rage of Love and tho young Men are more naturally enflam'd with eager desires in the pursuit of beauty than old Men are for Age to Love is like Water to Wine the more quantity of Water the less strength in the Wine but t is most certain old Men are as able Courtiers and Lovers of Wealth as any young Men can possibly be Riches being like the Sun agreeable and comfortable to all and indeed nothing is more common than to see Covetousness to grow in most with their Age and the reason of it in my Opinion is that all other youthful sprightly delights but that of gaining Wealth decreases as Age increases but the pleasure of Mony all Men can keep as the Heathen do their Gods they adore under Lock and Key But yet this so adored beauty Riches carries its troubles as well as delights for there 's great labour in procuring Wealth trouble in defending and preserving it and also great Cares in the well spending it whilst one lives and well disposing of it when we die and so if we look over and search into most Worldly pleasures and vanities we shall find them as contrary to the true repose of this life as they are to the felicities of the next Certainly there is some great Charm in this thing called Praise that tickles the ear inflames the heart raises the spirits enlivens the resolution deludes the reason flatters the hopes and deceives the sight by giving a false gloss and making a counterfeit representation of things for the Bait of Praises for which both Men and Women so strive and eagerly pursue is still painted and set out in the brightest and most oriental charming Colours that are imaginable to allure our eyes inflame our hearts and enliven our ambition But the Hook that is hid in this Bait that is the great dangers hardships and thousands of vexatious disappointments that one must necessarily meet and run thorow in the pursuit of this Idol folly is so obscure artificially drawn as 't is not commonly seen but very ordinarily felt by many in some to their loss of Life and to others of their greatest satisfactions in it And now to put my last finishing Touch to this Picture of Praise the Mistris and Darling of the whole World methinks we ought not to wonder that this adored beauty is so Coy in her Carriage and so difficult to be gain'd if we do but reflect tho in a wholesail manner the sad oversights great mistakes and blind pursuits of its followers of whom I shall only
thoughts must both perish with you for it may be truly said of great beauties what the Psalmist said of great Princes Though you are stiled Gods yet you must die like Men so though you may be called Goddesses yet you must die like Women and though your beauty could make as great a Conquest of hearts as ever Alexander did of Kingdoms who had no more to subdue yet as death has certainly put a period to his success and life so he will certainly do the like to your beauty and days For indeed the greatest beauty is but like the finest Glass the more clear the more frail and easily broken for alas take beauty in its very highest Altitude and greatest vigour 't is a fabrick composed and made up of so many tender pieces of such brittle ware and delicate Contexture as the least spot or flaw in any one part spoils or at least blemishes the lustre of the whole and as the Poet says One that is all over Heart Every place proves a Mortal part Now Ladies if you resolve to be all over vertuous and discreet in Reputation so as to live Shot-free from all the wounding Darts of censure you must arm your selves with a clear and innocent complexion of vertue to procure which you must not only abstain from evil but the very appearance of it not only from doing bad Actions and keeping ill Company but even the hearing much less receiving vain praises and as you ought to shew a general civility to all so you ought not to give a particular freedom to any In a word you must manage all your actions with a strict prudence a perfect modesty a real humility a vertuous behaviour and a constant fear of God in all you say and do and these will gain you praises and make you well deserve to be admired for Solomon says Prov. 31.30 'T is the Woman that feareth God shall be praised and by such a blessed and holy kind of life you will secure your self against all the Censorious talk of envious bablers against the venom of those lying malicious Tongues who are not fit to be believed nor worthy to be feared Indeed Ladies the best way to make your earthly beauty continue good and lasting is to be humble in your own thoughts and not to pride or value your selves more than you ought since 't is so vain and uncertain in its most lovely colours and complexion for this will give Men a just admiration of your prudence and modesty and preserve the vertue of it Immortal beyond the duration of this fair and naked substance which some sudden accident or disease can soon blast and rob of all its blooming and youthful vigour strip it of all its gay attirement and you of that vain delight in your own self-admiration so then beauty is only less commendable in her who makes it her only pride and concern to set it off and such a Lady thus trigg'd up and furnished out by great art and invention by glittering apparel and proud ostentation is but like a fire of Straw it may blaze much but it cannot last long and whilst it lights others it consumes it self But a handsom Lady that 's free from affectation and pride and is blessed with great Piety and true Humility is like the Heavenly fire in Moses Bush which burnt and lighted others and yet never consum'd it self A handsom woman that is very proud does but enjoy her beauty as the Miser does his Wealth who does not so much possess it as it possesses him and therefore your truly pious Ladies do but use their worldly beauty as the Apostle says we are to use this World that is as if we used it not by a godly habit of mind consuming all the usual vanity affected by others in the pious reflection that there 's no true vertue or durable satisfaction in it We read in Genesis that good old Abraham made no other use of all his wealth than to purchase him a Grave O why should not all proud Women imitate him and though they be never so rich in beauty employ it all in Purchasing a Grave of Humility to bury the dust of their Pride in and by so doing they will certainly find a Resurrection of true Glory out of it which will raise to them Garlands of perpetual Praises of so Heavenly a nature and vast an extent as they will as much excel all the false vain glittering splendor of this World as the noon day brightness of a Summers Sun does the small glimmering light of a little Glow-worm which cannot be seen but by the help of darkness 6. I shall next advise the vain Ladies to resolve to new mould their Lives in this Spiritual frame of Reformation and to square out all their actions by the Golden Rules of Piety and Vertue I heard of a Gentleman that being dangerously ill of a Dropsie went to a famous Physician for his Advice who bid him abstain from all Drink for a Twelve Month and it would Cure him I am confident the like kind of Remedy would cure the fine Ladies let them but abstain from all vain thoughts on themselves and 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
strict examination satisfy her self that she 's able in this case to alledg more Reason and produce better Arguments to justify her Chastity than her Enemy can bring to accuse her Vertue before unconcern'd and unbyass'd Judges Let her therefore suppose the worst of her late dear Friend but now great Enemy that he should swear That he came often into her Chamber when she was alone in it in Bed and that she order'd and assign'd him that opportunity and conveniency that they might enjoy one another as they then did and to confirm the Truth of this Accusation he says she that was certainly so indiscreet as to allow the one might possibly be so unvertuous as to admit the other and alledges his being alone with her to back the Truth of what he now Swears and to publish the Folly of that she then did and farther adds That he can prove this her Indiscretion by her own act But she can never prove her Innocency when they were so alone by her own Words Therefore let her seriously reflect and consider how weak and slight her Defence must be against her Enemies sworn Accusation let her Wit be never so great and her Innocency never so clear since she cannot produce so much as one single Witness to confirm the Truth of what she says or to contradict the Truth of what he Swears having only her own bare Word and that in her own Cause and to defend her own Honour and Reputation which she has expos'd to Censure by the imprudent liberty she allow'd her then Friend either on the account of her too little Wit or too much Love or at least too great want of Discretion and Consideration I suppose she may make to his Accusation some kind of Defence of this nature That in the first place for his accusing her of suffering him to visit her at unusual visiting hours when she was alone in her Chamber in Bed that part she does not deny because she cannot well do it says 't was never but once and that once was meer accidental Secondly At the time he so visited her he swore he was and she verily believed him to be an honest Man and her real Friend as well as her long and intimate Acquaintance Thirdly She takes God The Searcher of all Hearts to be her Witness that she did not then or ever before or after act any thing with him in Thought Word or Deed that was not truly vertuous and purely innocent which his Heart knows to be a real Truth as well as he knows what he swears to the contrary to be an errant malicious Lie And Lastly she says That scandalous Reports against Women of Quality and Reputation ought only to be credited by sober and prudent Persons but according to what they see themselves and not according to what they hear from others because 't is in the power of any wicked Man to raise and cast scandalous Reports on the most vertuous Woman in the World All this I grant a Woman may alledge in her own Defence and Justification which I cannot esteem much because she could not well say less First as to his Accusation of her suffering him to visit her when she was alone in Bed at unusual visiting hours as to her Answer that 't was altogether undesignedly and accidentally and that 't was never but once and that she was fully resolv'd it should never be so a second time To this part of her Justification it may be answered That granting the Judges should take her own bare Word For she can give no more that what she says is a real Truth yet it may be objected That a Woman that will allow her self to do one act of Indiscretion in her carriage towards a Man it may be indeed a reasonable inducement to believe she may be perswaded to commit another But to draw an Argument that tho' she committed one act of Indiscretion yet we are to credit her bare word that she will never be brought to commit a second is but a weak and an irrational Conclusion for if a pure sense of Honour and true Love of Reputation regulates all a Woman's Actions and Carriage towards all Men as certainly it ought that Woman would never be so imprudent as to allow one freedom to her favorite Friend at any time which she could not honourably own and publickly justify at all times and in all Places and Companies in case her Friend should become her Enemy but indeed most Women are too apt to mistake the difference between the word Lover and the thing Friend for they will have them to be both one and the same thing when in deed they are very oft'n far from being so for tho' every true Friend must be a true Lover yet every pretending Lover is not a true Friend as many Ladies can Witness by woful Experience But if Venus Love had then the predominant Power over her Inclinations as it certainly has over many Women towards the favourite Man of her present fancy it may be better and much more rationally argued That the same amorous Inclination which at that time over-ruled her Discretion by admitting him one freedom more than she should might as well at another time over-power her Discretion by admitting him a second liberty more than she ought for she that commits one act of indiscretion shews by it a probability that she may be prevail'd with to act a second but no impossibility against her being perswaded to commit a third Next as to that part of her justification That the Man that did visit her when she was alone in her Chamber in Bed at an unusual visiting hour 't was never but once and that once was by one she verily believed to be her true faithful Friend as well as her long and old Acquaintance But to this it may well be answered That 't is very common for great Friends to prove great Enemies and often the greater Enemies for having been great Friends as the Weight of a Pendulum Clock falls the more backward for being shoved the more forward And this I am sure that there can be no Friendship in the whole World that is so loosely Tack'd on as that between a Man and a Woman on a meer Beauty Account which must of course be destroy'd by Death impair'd by Sickness and may be broken in pieces by a Thousand Accidents Witness that common one of a Man growing to like another Woman better than his Mistress or she to fancy another Man better than him a common Fate that attends most Beauty-Lovers and so they grow to dislike one another for great Beauty tho' it often creates great Fondness yet it seldom contains a long constant Love For as Beauty is pleasing so 't is Clogging and we know that the finest Sweet Meats make the foulest Surfeits For there we find it very usual among our young Gallants that tho' one of them has in a manner forsaken his Mistress yet that Man cannot indure to