Pillars that without them Marriage content can never flourish much or last long for a good sufficient Estate of Land is as necessary to buy rich Clothes and maintain a handsom plentiful way of Living as the Foundation under the Ground is to support the fine Rooms above it Beauty is a fine Flower but it must soon fade and a young Womans Love fancy may often change but can never long hold but a good Estate may continue longer than you can love or live and last after you are dead to your Childrens Children to the worlds end but a meer naked Love match is at very most but a Tenant for Life and usually not near so long a good Estate can keep you in sickness and in health but a Love fastned on meer beauty or fancy never can for such a fancy-Love still fadeth away with the beauty that occasions it since assoon as the flower of beauty begins to wither at the top the admirers Love begins to die at the root Yet indeed I cannot think it very strange that young Maids should be deluded with the delightful thoughts of pleasing and satisfying their present beloved fancy of enjoying the Person of their inclinations since in most young Maids their fancy makes their Reason and not their Reason governs their Fancy and therefore 't is not to be wonder'd that they should esteem it reasonable that there is great happiness and that there will be long content in such meer and bare love Marriages because they never tried the sad experiment of such a rash hasty Marriage and therefore their want of experience may well serve for some kind of excuse to moderate their want of Consideration but after a dear bought Tryal too many of them find by woful experience that a Marriage Love built on bare beauty or meer fancy which are much alike can never stem the Tyde of the troubles of disappointments and inconveniences the usual Issue of want that commonly attend such hot and hasty Love-Marriages since they cannot fancy so well of it as they will find ill in it yet there 's so great a Charm in this thing call'd a Husband Maids representing the Man as they would have him without considering what he really is as poor silly Maids dance about him as merrily as they do a Maypole on a Summers day and one Sisters sad and unhappy Marriage will not serve the other for a Caution and Warning against it because she fancies her wit is quicker her humor better her beauty greater and her person more taking so easily young Maids believe what they desire and therefore doubts not but her Fate will be kinder and her Husband better than her Sisters but 't is more than an even Lay she will soon after her Marriage experimentally find she had more faith in believing her good fortune than she had reason for depending on it since she had on that account more danger to fear than happiness to hope for or at least to rely on Thus such Marriages are to most young Maids like the forbidden Tree in the midst of Paradise pleasant to the Amorous Eye and therefore they will be tasting of it tho they are almost sure to be ever after miserable by it by their abandoning and ever after losing their great Virgin prerogative the Apostle Paul ascribes them of being exempt from the troubles of pleasing their Husbands and being in subjection to them And sure none that 's Master of common reason can deny but a Virgins life is much happier because more innocent than any other and as 't is much nearer the blessed state of Innocency in this World so also 't is much more secure as to the felicity of the next especially in this one particular That 't is much easier for a Virgin to keep her self vertuously Chast than either a Married Woman or Widow because both natural reason and common experience teaches us this plain Philosophy that 't is much harder to abstain from a pleasure one has often tasted than 't is to live without a delight one has never enjoy'd it being such a certainty as none can deny that 't is less difficult to keep ripe Fruit that 's fair and sound and was never touch'd than 't is to keep any such after they have been so Therefore in a word you Virgins that are so much in the State of happy freedom as not to be yoak'd in such a sort of Marriage and to the pinching troubles of want for fancy can only feed the mind not the body and possibly to the sottish humors and impertinent follies of a jealous Husband for want is apt still to create jealousie I say if you Virgins truly desire to continue in your freedom and happy Life never allow Men to become your Masters by swearing they are your humble servants and by calling you their Queens make you their Subjects for by Marriage you make your Servant your Master and from being Mistris of your self you become little better than a Slave to your Husband Therefore as an Antidote against this misery I shall advise all young Virgins to carry still this Memorandum in their minds That tho beauty is still taking yet 't is never lasting sweet but frail and that all Husbands love Sovereignty much but few own beauty long especially in the domestick face of a Wife And because 't is great pity these sort of unhappy Marrying Maids should have no companions to solace them in their sad penitential state of Mourning give me leave to introduce some Married Women into their dismal Society for as many Maids make themselves miserable by Marrying for meer Love so many are also made unfortunate in Marrying meerly to please their Parents not at all to satisfie themselves for really most Parents make it more their concern to match Fortunes than Children or to suit inclinations or ages when 't is but a kind of Reversing Nature it self it being as feasible to unite two contraries and make Fire and Water agree and May and January meet as by the Magick of Matrimony to make a very old Man and a very young Woman to be but one flesh and temper for youthful beauty to the mind is as cold old Age to the body Heat penitrates the pores of the body easily because they expatiate themselves to receive it but when Cold approaches and attacks it presently it closes as being contrary and averse to it Yet many Parents think to deal with their Childrens Marriages as they do with their Fruit-Trees and think they can Graft humors and inclinations between Husband and Wife as they Graft different kinds of Fruits on one another and by their Grafting and binding them together they make their differing Natures to become but one by Marriage but upon serious Consideration which does not always attend Marriage they will soon find that the Minister can only joyn their hands but 't is the free-will offering of the heart that can only unite and Graft their affections together and this free-will
anticipate their fears to eat Therefore Ladies have a care of receiving Mens praises and flatteries and though you believe your own Vertue never so strong and yours Lovers Courtship never so innocent as possibly they may be at first received by you and design'd by him only as the effects of pure civility and not of any ill intention yet praises are so naturally agreeable to vain handsom Ladies as they often unperceiv'd insinuate and wind themselves so about their hearts as to kindle there by degrees Love likings though perhaps they do not feel so much as the least slight atome Love to creep on the superficies of their heart Love sometimes like a Tortoise makes its way though it does not seem to stir or like the hand of a Watch which though you cannot perceive to move yet you may plainly see its hourly advances Love often growing in young Womens minds as Diseases do in their bodies without ever giving the least Alarm or Advertisement of its approach till it breaks out into a dangerous fit of Sickness Solomon says a soft word breaks the Bone therefore no wonder if smooth praises and complements should charm a young Ladies tender heart for sure 't is no wonderful operation in our times for small freedoms like little Thieves to open the Doors to great Liberties and venial wantonness to turn to modish wickedness Therefore let me advise the vain Ladies not to deceive themselves in fancying that they are more invincible in their Love railleries in receiving praises from young Men than King Solomon was with dallying with strange Women which drew him into the Sin of Idolatry This example may serve as a Caution to young Ladies not to relie too much on their own strength for many Maids hearts like strong Fortresses have been lost by too great a dependency upon their own strength and too mean an undervaluing of others attempts against them I shall therefore advise all young Ladies especially Virgins by no means on any account to suffer their beauty to lie under the pressing temptations of young Mens high praises and constant Courtship which often enflames them beyond their own natural temper and strength for continual blowing is able to kindle in time a great Fire out of a little Spark And also young handsom Women ought to avoid giving or receiving any favourable attracting looks from young Men for the Eye is as well the Pulse of the Mind as the Door of the Heart and no Love flames can enter into the heart but it must first enter the Eye as we see the Sun it self still sends his light before he brings his heat Next Ladies remember that the Scripture couples with the lust of the Eye the pride of Life as a lesson to teach you that you ought as much to well order your looks as to regulate your lives which you may perform much the easier and better if you will but seriously reflect on the ways and means young Gallants use in making their approaches towards gaining their Mistrisses I do not here intend as to the making them Mistrisses in order to being Wives but Misses which is usually after this kind of manner first they present them with swarms of Praises and Complements thick garnished with great Oaths and repeated Vows of a never dying love and a never failing constancy and all attended with sad looks deep sighs and humble postures no matter though there be not one grain of reality among them all and if these Countersits can but work so powerful an Operation on their Mistrisses soft good nature as to make them receive the constant repeated Oaths of their highly adoring them with some kind of delight they are then in a sad yielding condition for such Womens hearts cannot pretend to be stronger than fortified Towns which when they once come to admit of frequent parlies seldom hold out after long Sieges but yeild to a Surrender Certainly if young Gallants can by their eager courting their Mistrisses but gain of them some returns of compassion and esteem next of course follows a favourable liking of them and then there 's no very great difficulty after such prosperous advances to create in them the beginnings of a Love fondness and fondness in a young Womans heart like a weighty body down a steep Hill it seldom stops till it runs to the very bottom and when a Gallant has work'd his Mistris into such a yielding temper as to credit his Oaths and be pleas'd with his Company as believing he truly loves her and highly admires her and so grows delighted with the Repetition of them esteeming all his Courtship real then surely they cannot on the account of good Nature and pure Civility forbear presenting their Gallants though to their own ruin this new Article of their Faith that they believe their Oathes and love their Persons and when once they declare that common experience may soon teach them this that 't is no great rarity in young Maids by liking of young Men to stray into vicious actings with them and thus by these kinds of degrees and steps Gallants commonly mount to their Mistrisses ruin for as the Poet says Long waiting Love doth still a passage find to the most unbelieving mind at least to the blasting her Reputation if not the utter undoing of her vertue fortune and freedom for when once a Gallant is become Master of his Mistrisses heart he commonly swells to a Monster and governs like a Tyrant and instead of treating you like an ador'd Mistris he uses you like a conquer'd Captive Now I have told the young Ladies some of the common ways their Gallants use to gain them by give me leave here in a word or two to tell you their usual manner of treating them after they have gain'd an entire Conquest over their hearts which is very bad and sinful in then to suffer Therefore let me advise you to carry still this Memorandum about you That all your Gallants dying expressions Love-Oaths Idolizing postures and often repeated Vows that their admiration and love for you shall be as lasting as their Lives which translated out of the Lovers Language into true plain English is no more but just as long as they shall fancy your Beauty for usually as fast as their Mistrisses beauty breaks so do their Oaths of Love and Constancy which they think they are bound to keep no longer than their Mistrisses keep their beauty as being but the meer effects of that cause and the cause being remou'd the effect must of course cease and besides there 's nothing more certain than that skin deep beauty seldom creates better than meer sensual love which never contains reality or long duration But Ladies if this were all it would not be so very bad or indeed this is only the least part of it and when your Gallant has enjoy'd you methinks you ought not to wonder that he honours you no longer as his Mistris when you dishonour your self by becoming his Miss
perfect Antidote against horns for the time to come but a Remedy for what was past but one of his Neighbours being of a contrary belief call'd him Cuckold upon which he repaired to his learned Counsellor in the Law to know if his present Wife being honest though his former was not so whether he was still a Cuckold or not to which his learned Lawyer gravely answered him That tho he was not one in pure strictness of Law yet being once so the Custom of the Country was so civil as to give him the Title during his Life And now I have given you my opinion and told you the usual fate that attends old Mens Marrying young Women next comes that of young Womens Marrying old Men and tho they appear both alike foolish yet there 's great difference in their folly for as by this sort of Matches old Men glut themselves with much more of the Woman than their age wants so young Wives if vertuous stint themselves with much less of the Husband than their Youth needs and besides tho Marriage has the power tounite two Bodies into one Flesh yet it wants that of uniting the two Fleshes into one temper or Constitution for a young Wife that is in the Spring of her age is like the Sun in the Spring of the Year it not only gets the ascendant every day higher and higher but grows every day more strong and vigorous but an old Husband is like Autumn whose strength goes only downward Therefore I fancy an old Man Marrying a handsom young Lady has nothing to plead but Guilty but a young Lady for Marrying an old Man may have some colourable excuse to moderate the folly and lessen the shame of such an unequal Match for perhaps 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 aicry 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 be safely 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 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 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 fickleness 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
begin to relinquish the argument of this dangerous Subject having spent time enough in dabling my Pen on the brinks of it for I did not dare venture farther for fear I could not get out of it so strong and fierce is the stream of female power that like an unruly torrent it runs so violent that I am afraid instead of making it my business to diswade you against it I fancy my securest way to defend my self is by a retreat from it for I find I can only act on this Subject as good Pilots do in great Storms who tho they cannot shew their power to make the winds obey them yet they may shew their skill in making the best use to have them prosperous And so in Soldiership in extremity of danger a well made Retreat is as commendable as a great Victory obtain'd and deserves to be Crown'd with Laurel as well as with the Trophies of a great Conquest and that Soldier who has only Courage to make a bold Charge and wants skill to make a good Retreat has learn'd but half that belongs to the making of a great Captain We read that Homer the King of Poets praised Achilles for understanding the great Art of knowing how and when to run away conveniently Adversity hath her Vertues as well as Night has her Stars and a great General may shew his good Conduct in the midst of his bad fortune and ill success So I cannot but hope that this my attempt in writing for the moderating Womens over-ruling power was good tho my success in accomplishing is but bad and therefore I will give it over And as Ships of War fire Guns in their Retreat out of their Stern so shall I here in the end of this Discourse discharge in my Retreat this farther Consideration That Wives over-governing Power runs its Course quite contrary to the overflowing streams of the River Nilus for that by it produces great advantage where e'er it goes without letting any know from whence it comes but all Men and in a most especial manner the Married can tell by woful experience that Womens overflowing power in governing their Husbands must and does produce sad effects and shameful disorder where e're it goes And do but ask one of these mean-spirited Husbands from whence his Wives governing power comes and he cannot deny but it flows from the fame spring his mean effeminate humor does in allowing it usurpation and I am sure our father Adam for being rul'd by his Wife did justly receive as well as truly deserve Gods wrath and punishment for it and therefore surely all such mean tame pittiful govern'd Husbands well deserve all sober Mens contempt and scorn as the just demerit of so shamesul a condescension which argues either their want of wit or manhood And now the only hope of Reformation that appears to me on this particular is that Solomon tells us there 's a time for all things a time to mourn and a time to rejoyce so that there may be yet a time hereafter for Wives to obey as well as they have now to command and when they will submit as they ought to their Husbands Government then they will certainly deserve that praise and respect that is due to the honour of their Sex and receive the admiration of all Mens just courtship and esteem then may be presented on the Stage again the old-fashion Play so very long out of date as few Husbands remember it was ever Acted call'd Rule a Wife and have a Wife which indeed very few Husbands dare say they do I mean before their Wives and few would be believ'd if they really did so rare and strange a thing is this thing call'd Wife obedience as many believe 't is only to be found at John Tredeskins among his Collections of Antiquities So that I must be forc'd to yeild that this rare Woman temper of Wife obedience is a thing only to be hoped not expected and therefore I will not vainly strive as Xerxes did to level Mountains nor with Nero attempt to alter the Course of the Sea but instead of endeavouring such impossibilities I will now wisely resolve neither to trouble my self nor ruling Wives to disswade them to lessen their governing power which I am sure would be a Task as hard for me to obtain as that of Xerxes or Nero was to perform Womens governing power being so long and deep rooted an usurpation possessed by so many Wives and yielded to by so many Husbands as long Custom has made it a Disease in most Husbands minds incident like the infirmities of sickness or age to their bodies which commonly has such distempers that attend it that they are worthy of all Mens pity tho past all Mens cure Therefore I will imitate your good Physitians who esteem it unsafe to stir up those humors they cannot possibly purge away and upon this consideration I shall now muzle my Pen and sound a Retreat esteeming it more wise and safe to think much rather than write more on this extensive and dangerous Subject THE THIRD DISCOURSE Of the inconstancy of most young Ladies especially that are cry'd up beauties and the folly of any one that believes he is fully acquainted and solely possessed of a vain Ladies heart and can give good reasons for the various motions of her Love Changes I Cannot deny but that young Womens Company may be very advantageous as well as agreeable to young Men as being very useful to whet their wit to Civilize their behaviour and to Polish their Discourses but yet they ought still to remember that the Conversation of these vain young gay Ladies is to be us'd but like Sawce to Meat good to quicken the Stomack but bad to make a Meal on being to be taken like strong Cordials not too much nor too often and therefore to make their visits so moderate as not to keep longer in their Company than just to refresh and fit their minds for better employment and by these means young Men may relish young Ladies Conversation with great gusto and return to them with a no less vertuous than agreeable inclination But instead of observing these wise measures most of our young Gallants make Courting of handsom Women not only their pastime but their business so as to wast all their Time and use all their endeavors in the pursuit and attempts of gaining every new handsom face they see and if it be but new it must be handsom and taking if 't were only for being new on the modish account of sweet variety And truly most of our vain Ladies fall not at all short of them in the same act of Inconstancy but are as extravagantly foolish and as little real as they and therefore if 't were possible to perswade young Gallants and Ladies but to allow themselves time seriously to consider this matter I am apt to think first that Men would be asham'd of their folly to rely on the airy fickle and inconstant humors of
most of our vain modish Ladies especially that are the cried up beauties and these our fickle Ladies no less blush I mean if their Peeter would give them leave at their indiscretion in receiving those high praises and believing those great Complements and often repeated Oaths their young Gallants make them when in real Truth these Gallants are as much inconstant to their Mistrisses as their Mistrisses can be to them and their perjured Vows of constancy on both sides weigh as little in themselves as the breath that speaks them which immediatly vanishes into meer Air without ever making the least return their Tongues and Hearts being so great strangers as there 's seldom any correspondence between them so that 't is most certain that such Men may very rationally extract out of Womens fickleness this true Conclusion that the more they confide either on Chance Fortune or handsom Womens Constancy which are all three now a days much alike the more folly as well as falsehood they entertain in their relyance and depending on them Sir John Sucklin was a person of great Wit and Parts and not only highly esteem'd of by the applauded witty Men but by the handsom Ladies of his age and was one who had made many Philosophical Essays on the wavering nature and various windings of many of the Ladies humors and inclinations as far as an extraordinary Wit a plentiful Fortune a liberal Mind an open Purse and a Venus heart could carry him and after having employ'd all these with all the care and industry imaginable he found most young Womens hearts so volatile and inconstant and to come so far short of real Truth as nothing can be farther which occasion'd this noble Knight-Errant to leave behind him in Print this 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 Scamen 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 vain Ladies 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
Husbands by it shew more confidence in their Wives than discretion in themselves and as too much liberty spoils some Wives so a strict watchful Jealousie makes many Wives worse than they would be by believing them worse than they truly are for doubtless many Husbands make their Wives dishonest by mistrusting them for that breeds anger and hatred and they often create revenge which some hot Womanish spirits will act upon any account tho they themselves are the greatest sufferers by it I esteem Jealousie to be a most ridiculous folly not only because Jealous Men eagerly seek what they highly dread to find but if a Man had more Eyes than Argos yet as Argos was he may be deceiv'd by a simple Woman for if a Woman will but put on the wickedness of the Devil she will not fail being furnished with the subtilty of the Serpent And therefore it often happens that great and wise Statesmen in the Politicks of Marriage who trust in their Wives vertuous words great modesty and strict outward behaviour may be deceiv'd for unvertuous thoughts and designs are usually disguised and set out in finer expressions than plain honest dealing and those commonly promise most that mean to perform least because they intend to pay in no other Coin than bare words and false assurances and therefore none ought to wonder if great Politicians as well as others are now and then deceiv'd in their Wives vertue We read that Sampson with all his Strength tho he could not be out-witted by all the Philistines was over-reached by the subtilty of a Woman A strict seeming outward modesty is not still an infallible sign of a Wives true inward Vertue since 't is not extraordinary to see a Woman look like a Saint before Company and act like a Miss in private for many handsom Women that are of a good coming and melting nature assoon as you are a little advanced into their acquaintance and favour yet seem very coy and severe at first entrance into it imitating the Sea which tho never so quiet and calm in the main yet still casteth out rough waves near the shore And now whatsoever men may think of me I am sure my meaning is truly friendly in advising them that if they are in the happy state of freedom not to yoak their Liberty in Marriage for meer Beauty or bare Mony but chiefly for vertue and goodness for if you but consider seriously you will find certainly that the misery of an ill Wife is no new affliction but as very an old one as Marriage and almost Nature it self witness Adam who lived in a continued innocency and felicity whilst he remained in the Paradice of a single Life but he was no sooner Married to Eve but he was cast out of both And 't is most certain let your Love range over Court Town and Country nay ramble over the whole World you can never choose a Wife that is not her Daughter and common experience tells us that there are few Daughters that do not savour something of their Mothers humor as well as nature and therefore 't will be highly prudential in this sad and weighty affair to consider that Marrying a bad Wife as 't is more than an even Lay one does has something in it of the nature of that sin for which men can have no repentance or pardon no more than they can have any ease or relief for it while they live for one may as well pretend to free Deaths Prisoners from the Grave as unchain the Married during their Lives no Skill of the greatest Artist nor yet Argument of the most subtile Socinian can ever evade or loose a Wedding Knot it being of an extraordinary lasting Union quite differing from all others for Men can unbind all others whilst they live but a Marriage Vow can only be unbound by death it self And now I have given you this part of my Opinion as to meer Mony or beauty Marriages which many Husbands may truly call in the Apostles phrase tho spoke in another and more divine sense That Labor of Love. I hope 't will not appear an extraordinary fault in saying it S. Paul had foreseen the Romantic Gallantry and extravagant folly I think I might have said madness of many Marriages made now adays which some of our vain inconsiderate Ladies are drawn into by the common report that such a Man has a great Estate which suits well with her eager desire to keep a Coach and six Horses which she vainly fancies will not only carry her thorow all the miseries of Marriage but into the Towring pastime of the Park without the least concern of getting a good prudent sober religious Husband many of them not valuing or at least not considering other than the keeping a splendid Retinue and glittering train of Liveries than wearing rich Clothes adorn'd with Gold and costly Pearl when there are a hundred more weighty concerns that are more needful Appendencies to compleat a happy Marriage Really this is one of the chief Causes why such Marriage Love decays and wears out with their Wedding Coaches and is as often out of order as they 't were well if they still could be as easily mended which none ought to wonder at it being but natural for effects to follow their Causes Among all the great and extravagant follies that are used in the inequalities of Marriages in our days there 's none appears to me more irrational and unnatural than an old Mans Marrying a young Woman which in my Opinion seems a Match fitter to make sport for others than to raise joy to themselves for an old Man is to his young Wifes Bed but like juice of Orange to her Stomack it may create in her an Appetite but of it self can never satisfie it such an old Man being not only unsuitable undecent but unwholesom too being to her like a March Sun which all the great Physitians concur in opinion to be very unhealthful as having only strength to exhale Humors but wants force to dissolve them so that such a Match is so great a folly as I shall only here need name one shameful misery that commonly attends it and indeed I need name I think no other either to fortifie my opinion against it or to set out ones misery for doing it which is this That an old Man that Marries a handsom young Woman tho his Wife may be so vertuous as not to Cuckold him yet the world is so wicked in its reports to Censure him so as it will always which minds me of a story of a Gentleman whom both his Wife and Neighbours agreed to proclaim the truth of his being a Cuckold and she dying he Married an old ugly rigid Puritan that was so odiously deformed as he was satisfied she wanted Power and the world Charity enough to Cuckold him for 't was impossible there could be a spark of Love or liking in the Case and he did believe that this Wife would not only be a
for youth will assoon come to the aged as beauty to the ugly but since beauty will not come to content you be you content without it and strive for that you may obtain which is the beauty of holiness which infinitely excels all others it being much better to live well than look so and to have a good soul than a fine face that being earthly and ever fading but a pure soul is heavenly and never decays being everlasting In short that Man who is so simple to Marry great Age for meer Mony when that 's spent and you know that Mony like Love cannot always last all the use of consolation I can think of is to send for a Minister to give him some spiritual advice of which he may perchance receive some to ease the trouble of his mind but as to the bodily distemper or plague of his broken infirmity I am sure there can be no remedy but that of death for indeed it may be fitly said of a young Mans Marrying an old ugly Woman what the Apostle said of a greater folly in another sense he that doth so offends against his own body and truly such a one hath in my opinion no other plea left him to excuse his folly than Adam had to excuse his first Sin The Woman beguiled me I say in Cases like this possibly S. Paul might have thought it equal for so indeed it is things rightly considered for such men to suffer or rather indeed conquer the disturbance of a lustful burning than endure the plague and continual misery of an ill old ugly Wife that can neither please the fancy nor satisfie the appetite and therefore coming to such a sad Marriage is like coming to the age of fourscore after which experience tells us there 's only Labour Infirmity and Sorrow young Husbands and old Wives being but meer names things of form not use only made to torment one another Living in one House but Lying in two Beds for the old Wife would have what the young Husband will not give and the old Wife cannot give what the young Husband would have in short a bad Wife at Land is like a Storm at Sea which because a Man is so unhappy to be engaged in and cannot be rid of it must be suffer'd out with patience And so I have done with old Wives for I am certain the Reader must be weary of them as well as I am sure the Writer is and therefore I will leave this extream of old Age and treat on that of young beauty and the folly of them that Marry meerly for it and here set you down in a few Lines the common degrees usual accesses and woful events of such hot rash hasty meer beauty Marriages as are now in fashion among many of our young Gallants who choose Wives as the silly Indians do our Merchants Tynsel and Bawbles who value their real worth only by their glittering show The first steps and degrees of a young Gallants growing love and fancy to his Mistris are generally these first he likes the Woman as we say in a Lump or by whole-sale then he admires her beauties apart courts her person loves her humor thinks all she says is witty and all she does is graceful and becoming and all her actions agreeable and excellent though possibly not one of them are so for you must know that beauty in Love is like Charity in Religion it covereth a multitude of faults Then he presents his heart and she becomes the sole Mistris of it and as his passion increases so he fancies her beauty does till at last he believes the scorching flames of her beauty to be more insupportable than a Midsummers Sun in its full meridian heat and strength and therefore resolves to follow S. Paul's advice 'T is better to Marry than Burn but then pray take this Caution with you that tho of two evils 't is best to choose the least yet that argues neither to be good as indeed it was not when S. Paul first spoke those words and in some sense may not be so now yet however our fierce Lovers heart being all a fire his mind thereby grows restless and as very much out of order as his reason if a Man in Love has any for to say a passionate Lover that has lost his heart and can yet keep his reason is the greatest of follies next to that of being so in Love. But since our Amorous Gallant is so furiously smitten rather than not quench the Amorous scorching flames of his lustful passion she resolving not to admit him to her Bed in any other shape than that of a Husband not confiding at all in his Vows of speedily Marrying her possibly because she had tried anothers word before and he broke it and deceiv'd her and therefore she resolv'd not to be cozened so a second time by a second Tryal our hot Politick Lover to enjoy the momentary delight of embracing her beauty does with much desperatness and little consideration cast himself down that dangerous Precipice of Matrimony and long liv'd trouble of a Wife tho he buy her at the dearest rate of Purchasing and it may be worse sort of fooling an ill Marriage a very sad bottom to Insure the content and happiness of a Mans life upon since he who only Trades to get the Merchandise of beauty may become a sad looser tho he gets his whole Adventure since such a sort of Matrimony does usually bring the Husband and often the Wife Springs of misery and inconveniencies but seldom so much as any drops of the Oyl of pure gladness and true satisfaction And indeed one of the great reasons why Men that Marry for mere beauty are commonly so unhappy in their Choice is That as their Mistrisses beauty is but a mixture of flashy and glaring colours so is in a manner their reason for not considering that beauty Love is but like Gunpowder which as it flames at the first Spark so it sets forth all its strength and fierceness at its first firing and then soon expires into meer smoak and air The first falling in Love of an amorous Man being just like the first surprize of Anger in a Cholerick Person it runs on so violently as it stays not to attend reason nor consult discretion or conveniency and so strips it self of true understanding and therefore assoon as such a Husband has cloy'd his sensual Appetite on that surfeiting Dish of a meer beauty Marriage his stomack being used to feast on sweet variety longs for other food and then first Love grows indifferent his passion soon cools his eager fiery fancy grows quickly dull and his mind suddenly changes so that he presently forms a new desire or passion of love and loaths his former beauty Companion as the most irksom deformity and she whom he was so lately fond of as the most pleasing Charm and Converse of his life who was a kind of Elixir salutis to his very heart and soul
enjoy comfort of true devotion and felicity upon earth as an earnest of more blessed comforts and happiness they do expect in the other World. And who by leading such a constant religious and unmarried Life the world must plainly see that such Widows have no particular fondness for any Man in the world since their dear Husbands are out of it and that they do still shew a constant affection real esteem and memory of their Husbands vertues and reputation and by a particular kindness continued to all their Husbands Relations and Friends as much as if they had been now actually living and could be made sensible of the effects of their good or ill nature towards them I say such a vertuous and discreet carriage in Widows is a most clear demonstration that Loves do not expire with their Husbands Lives and certainly such an affection must be more real and less byassed as to all appearances than the love of any living Wife can possible be since that may only look counterfeit and be disguised by wearing a Mask of self-interest or design rather than of true affection or value and may be reckoned on the account of living in good esteem or reputation as to the world or be counterfeited for an outward seeming kindness to her Husband tho she has no real inward one in order to live at peace and quiet at home both for her Childrens good and for her own and families ease But a Widow that continues as I have said consonant kindness to her Husbands memory and Relations and lives in the state of a private and religious widowhood such a one can expect no return or hope for any praise or advantage but from the just commendation of her vertue while she lives or indeed the more certain comfort and assurance of her eternal happiness when she comes to die But mortifying Discourses of this nature I am sure must be far from making any agreeable musick to the fine young Widows but it may be sound harsh and unpleasant as well as useless and unliking many of the fine gay young Widows making the day of their Husbands death the joyful Birthday of their own freedom And there are few of these brisk witty sort of Widows that are not so great Philosophers in the Politicks of Marriage and so persectly read in all parts of Scripture tending to that point as to be wisely able to extract out of it the vertue of Patience and to possess it in so high a degree and great measure as to be able to raise to themselves satisfactory Arguments of all sizes degrees and qualities whatsoever to arm themselves against the loss of a Husband of any kind be he good or bad poor or rich so as to render his death at least easie if not pleasing by arguing and reasoning with themselves after this manner If my Husband was good and vertuous and made a holy end suitable to his religious life sure I ought not to mourn for it but rejoyce at it that he is gone to Heaven and that I have in a manner half my self there before hand and therefore it must argue want of Charity kindness and good nature to lament and mourn for his happiness in living and dying so well If my Husband was wicked lewd and prophane I have a double reason to rejoyce for his death first that the world is rid of so bad a Man and I of so ill a Husband and am no more oblig'd to lie every night with so much wickedness in my bosom and that we are now no more one flesh who were so far from being of one mind and humor and I have also this second means of extracting this heavenly advantage by it that having experimented the slavish misery of serving the Creature I am now or at least ought to be the more ready and willing to dedicate all my remnant of Life only to the service of my Creator whose service is still perfect freedom and everlasting felicity If my Husband was poor and needy I have reason to be glad he is intirely delivered from the great misery of want and that his poverty is dead and buried with him for none ever feels want in the Grave But if my Husband died Rich I have great reason to rejoyce that he has left me so and has given me by his death what he denied me all his life the incontroulable Treasure of his Wealth and that I have now the range of the whole Kingdom to ramble over and spend it after what kind of manner and with what sort of Company as I fancy most and love best and by being a Widow I am become the perfect Empress of my own Will instead of being confin'd at home a Subject to my Husbands and sure none can relish with more gusto the ease and liberty and the many pleasures of freedom than she that 's newly deliver'd from the bondage of a Marriage confinement and therefore what Seneca said of Vertue that there 's no Passion or Affliction in the World that Vertue has not a Remedy for The same may be said in reference to most young Widows love to their Husbands let their passionate kindness for them be seemingly never so great whilst they live yet they will be sure to find Remedies for their overmuch mourning for their death And therefore I shall advise Husbands never to Antidate their trouble by fearing that their death will produce a long sadness in their Wives at the common rate Marriage-Love now goes there 's no great fear of it since in most Wives their good Jointure-Rents outweigh their Love-sighs or at least Counterpoise all their formal Mourning for there is really so little pure Love in many of our Marriages now adays as Husband and Wifes Love is but of the same nature of that of great Sovereign Princes whose Love is but meer Interest and a Husbands death to many of our Wives is become as Repentance for Sin which cannot come so soon or late but it still brings Comfort with it And now lest you may take my speaking against Widows Marrying to be but a kind of raillying Discourse fit only to entertain but not to convince and that my reasons against Widows Marrying are but meer Romantick pleasant to be read but needless to be believ'd I will wave my own weak reasonings and quote you some Scripture ones that seem not to favour Widows Marrying but rather the contrary to continue as they are and for their encouragement to it propounds to them great advantages by it which are these The first is out of the Old Testament Lev. 22.13 If a Priests Daughter be Married she must not eat of the Offerings of holy Things but if the Priests Daughter be a Widow she may eat as in her Touth that is as if she had been never Married and was a Maid which was a priviledge Women had by living Widows under the Mosaick Law and which would not have it seems been granted had she been made unclean
living with his ugly cross Wife may thereby often meet occasions to exercise his patience which may prove a vertue in some kind but by keeping a Miss he can never by it exercise a vertue in any kind besides a Man by living with his Wife tho never so deform'd does but what he ought but a Man by keeping a Miss tho never so handsom does what he ought not since in so doing he offends his God. There are another sort of vicious young Sparks who you will easily believe have not attained to years of discretion by their pretending to Argue that 't is not a greater ill to keep a handsom Miss than for a Widow to Marry a bad Husband but in my opinion this admits of no comparison for sure no Widow can be so mad as to Marry a Man that she is sure beforehand will be a bad Husband But all Men that keep Misses know beforehand that by so doing they act a great sin A Widow by Marrying an ill Husband only commits a fault against her own content but he that keeps a Miss offends against his Makers command which must needs be very much worse since an ill Husband can only disturb the body but a scandalous sin may destroy the soul But yet tho a Widows Marrying an ill Husband cannot possibly be of so ill a nature as a Mans keeping a Miss yet it may probably be of a much more lasting trouble since an ill Husbands life is like to last much longer than a fair Misses beauty for we all know 't is very customary for Miss keepers love to end with their Misses beauty since their beauty only makes the love In a word I have known ill men that have made kind Husbands so that 't is possible a Widow may Marry an ill Man and not be miserable but 't is impossible a Man can keep a Miss and not be wicked 'T is a common Proverbial saying That a Wife is a necessary Evil which I fancy is not to be taken in the sense most do that Men cannot live without them but because Men are still bound to live with them for whilst they are Wives tho far from being good ones yet poor Husbands are oblig'd to serve out their time of bondage according to agreement for better for worse till death them do part But now for the new Mode of protempore Wives called Misses they are generally look'd upon by our Gallants and keepers of them as only Tenants at will to Mens Persons and Purses being tied to them in no other manner than we are to reading Romances on which we may begin when we will and leave off when we please for we are not oblig'd to read longer in them than they suit our humor and please our fancy Indeed Misses are now become in most great Towns especially London to Gentlemen as Books are in Stationers Shops to Scholars where they may pick and chuse Read sometimes this kind of Books another that sort all or any and hire them by the Day Month or Year and when they have read them over as oft as they please and have no longer delight in them or farther use of them they may return them and leave them where they found them and there 's no harm done they lying ready expos'd for the next Courteous comer Misses in Towns are like Free-booters at Sea no Purchase no Pay they are never out of their way except to Heaven so they can but meet a prize in it indeed our fine young Gallants are wise in this particular but pray do not ask me in what other lest you puzle me and this their wisdom consists only in chusing of two evils the least for they will keep Misses which is ill but they will not be bound to keep them longer than during pleasure which is less ill than a longer time that is they will be tied to Misses by no other Law than that dearly beloved one of sweet variety Misses being to be us'd but like slight summer Garments which are only useful in the youthful Spring or hot Summer Season of Mens Lives and may without much Ceremony or great difficulty be put on or cast off 'twere well if the sin of using them could be so too lightly worn and cheaply bought Misses being but a kind of Summer-Fruit for present eating not long keeping for their beauty will never hold out long after a hot Venus blast or burning clap of thunder and their Bodies are often withered and rotten before they are near ripe in substance and perfection as many of the Merchant Adventurers in that Trade can tell you by woful experience And therefore young Men do wisely in not binding themselves to them in Health and Sickness for then they are not only useless but chargeable not till death them do part but till their Misses beauties does decay or their Passion change for Miss-Love must still be Passionate because it ceaseth to be Love when it ceaseth to be Passionate having no other motive to cherish and maintain it and therefore usually such Mens Love expires assoon as their Misses beauty breaks or may be sooner if he be taken with a more agreeable object for his present fancy and conveniency for though most of our young Gallants Love constantly yet few are constant in their Amours for tho they are still Loving 't is Women more than a Woman for considering they are only Constant to Inconstancy they can only keep the name of Constant Lovers as Rivers still keep the same Name tho they are never two Minutes the same Water they still running into the Sea as Springs are still running into them Indeed if young Gallants were bound to keep their Misses during life such an obligation would come so near to matrimonial bondage as our young Gallant on those terms would as little love and like a handsom young Miss as an ugly old Wife all confinements to our Sparks of the times being odious O what a brave World and pleasant Age do we live in when new setts of Misses are now grown modish marks of Greatness as numbers of Wives and Concubines were signs of Magnificence in Solomon's days which is the only thing I know our young Gallants imitate him in and their only grand reason for doing it is meerly because Christs holy Gospel forbids them doing it Really the Drunkards in S. Paul's days were a kind of sober Men to the Libertins of our Age for they knowing their deeds were evil and scandalous had so great a sense of modesty and shame tho not of sin as to cast a vail of darkness over them to hide themselves and their Debauchery from the sight of others which is implied by S. Paul's saying Those that are Drunken are Drunken in the Night but the Debauchees of our times so glory in their own unshamefulness as they expose their Persons and Vices I might have said Sins to the open Sun-shine and publick Assemblies and are so far from casting a vail either to cover
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 occasion 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 Love 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
your ability and conveniency always giving place to the duties of Religion the first and principal part in all your designs and actions still beginning the day with Prayer and praises to your Creator who made both it and you in order to your worshiping and serving him and by so dividing the day into so many several parts and Stages of hourly employments the changeable variety that 's in them will afford you variety of pleasure as well as business to entertain and direct you and prevent you Ladies from complaining as I have heard many of you O what shall we do to pass away this afternoon since you will see all the days business and divertisments marked out before you and really nothing more distracts and vitiates vain young Womens minds than emptiness of business and employment the want of which fills you up with the ill vapours of idleness that old Mother of wickedness whereas certain hourly employments fill and replenish your fancy with such diversity of change and business as is able to suppress and allay all fumes of vain idle thoughts from arising in your minds and save you the expensive trouble of imitating many of the fine gay modish Ladies who by chargeable means and studied Arts purchase ways vainly to pass away their time which by the course of nature without their help and beyond their power runs away but too fast of it self 2. My next Advice to the vain Ladies tho I am sure 't is very good yet I doubt 't will be little lik'd and less follow'd which is to shun the infectious temptations of a vain London life which often gets many young Ladies bad Reputations but seldom good Husbands London being become the very Center-point and Rendezvous where all the vices and vanites of the Kingdom meet yet these vices and vanities are among many of the fine Ladies so richly gilt finely painted and splendedly set out as they are so far from appearing deformed as they seem beautiful and taking to most I mean the inconsidering young Men of the Town Really the Air of London is so infected with Pride Vanity and Idleness that 't is hard for one of you young Ladies to appear in young Mens Company but you must have your Ears furr'd with Oaths and Profaneness or else your person Complemented with vain Romantick Courtship which is not exactly applied and fitted for any one Woman but for all handsom Women in general like false flattering Looking Glasses which Complements not only one but every one that looks on them not staying for a great beauty but still flattering the first comer But Piety and Vertue is still like a pure wholesom Air a comfort to all and an Infection to none and is so far from dislodging or overcasting the lightsomness of any lawful pleasures as it clears and dissipates any dark Clouds of fears that may hang over them for 't is most certain Piety and Beauty Recreation and Devotion may live peaceably together and yield a mutual aid and comfort to one another Indeed if you Ladies would but use to mix Piety with your pastimes you would soon come to make a pastime of Piety and then instead of dividing the hours for vain London pleasures you would make them so many Memorandums of the eflux of time to put you in mind of the duties of Mortality and of the hourly advances you make towards it which requires hourly preparations for it for the same hours serve as well to tell you of your approaches to Death as to divide your pleasures in Life as the same Figures in your Watch serve to tell the hours of the night as well as those of the day Then Ladies you will find that time laid out in Prayer and Devotion is not spending but gaining time and if you will but seriously reflect and heartily practise this great Truth you will soon find that Piety is as to advancing of worldly delights and pastimes but as Ballast to a Ship which does not hinder but only regulate its motion not slackning but steddying its Sayling A fine Lady whose mind is only fraighted with the Airy Cargo of pride and vanity can never steer steddy in her heavenly Course but is still tossed from one side of folly to another extremity of vanity for the want of the true blessed Ballast of godliness which will Calm and dispossess your mind of all modish vanities and irregularities and will allay all kinds of immoderate heats raised by the Feaverish distempers of Womanish Passions and will fix your affection on what is immovable and perpetual and will soon cause you to abandon the vain empty undurable pastimes of London for the true endless felicity of Heaven and this is a Heaven upon Earth To love God and keep his Commandments for then you will truly love Vertue and constantly practise Piety and only delight in the beauty of holiness which as it transcends much so it differs far from all Earthly love for that 's seldom or never enjoyed with true quietness long satisfaction or just and equal returns for the most passionate Love we can fancy as a Mistris to her Gallant or a Gallant to his Mistris is commonly of so fickle volatile and inconstant a nature as if a Woman thinks her Gallant loves any other Woman she grows Jealous and if he fancies his Mistris loves another Man as 't is ten to one she does he becomes inrag'd for as Solomon says Prov. 6.34 Jealousie is the rage of a Man here on Earth tho most are Lovers yet many are false ones but in Heaven all are Lovers and are true ones since in your Heavenly Love your act of loving is the certain fruition of your Love a Woman by loving Vertue it becomes hers but by loving a Gallant you become his for she that is under a Gallants command cannot truly say she is under her own In a word all the Riches and Pleasures imaginable that you abandon for the love of God you enjoy them all in loving God above them all And you may be certain Ladies if you can but thus love God as you ought you must despise the World as you should and then you will take more true delight in the title of a good Christian than you did ever before in the vain praise of a great beauty and slight this in comparison of that for a handsom Woman like the Sun is to be esteemed more for her Vertue than Splendor Beauty is but a fine outside Skin but true Godliness is all glorious within and will bestow on you more Celestial beauty in the other World than all your false Glasses and Gallants falser Tongues can flatter you with in this 3. My next advice to you vain Ladies is when you are putting on your fine rich Gowns which so many of you adorn your selves with every day with so great care high excess and vast expence as well of time as mony which makes many of you by being so over careful in setting out your
not hearken to the vain flatteries and praises of others but for one Year and 't will certainly cure them of that Devilish distemper of Pride for by one Twelve Months banishing it and conversing only with vertue and humility which are inseparable friends they will certainly make them so religiously prudent and happily vertuous as to hate and shun all proud desires and flatterers Praises and cause them to love only those that Court them in the holy Language of Truth to the Love of Godliness which is the very best way they can express their Love to you or you your Love to your selves and truly Ladies I cannot see the least reason why you should be against this holy change since it will not be a parting with nor so much as a Retrenching of your love delights but rather be a better means to enlarge and improve them by placing and fixing your mind on a much more noble object and a far finer entertainment by transplanting your affections into a far richer soil from Earth to Heaven from the fading vanities of this World to the never decaying felicities of the next and when once a young Ladies Inclinations are firmly rooted in a real desire and hearty endeavour for this blessed Change she will soon find that her Love will become so piously purified that instead of her fixing it on mortal Man she will only dedicate it to the service of the ever living God whose service is still true happiness and perfect freedom Then such a Lady will be happy above the low Region of all worldly flatterers and the more vain concerns of a fading beauty she 'll not value the rallying scoffs and contempts of those who deride her humble and strict deportment now so much out of fashion among the vain Ladies of our times for such a reformed Lady whose mind is truly sanctified will extract uses of vertue out of such extravagant Womens vanities like the Bee that sucks Hony out of all sorts of venomous Herbs and like Fire that turns all things within its compass to its self and such a Ladies holy course of Life will be steady and certain in its progress like the Sun in his daily motion nothing of Storms or changable weather can ever hasten or retard its regular course for a Lady that 's in the holy state of true Mortification her constant Piety will so purifie and draw off her inclinations from all vain pastimes and modish vanities and from those foul dregs of impurity that are the usual attendants of a vain idle London Life that by this Transfiguration of Mind and pious habit of Life her Conversation will be as the Apostle says fixed up in Heaven and we all know that the upper Region of the Air it self will admit of no Storms or Thunder for they are all formed below it And farther that Lady who is so blessed as to have her heart touch'd with this Magnetic vertue of true godliness her thoughts will be elevated to such a heavenly pitch of spiritual vertue and religion as she will despise all the young Gallants fine words deep sighs and languishing looks with all their high Praises and showers of Complements which will work no more on her sanctified Mind than showers of Hail on the tops of well covered Houses which fall off as soon as it falls on without ever touching any of the inward part And whereas our vain Ladies receive the extravagant encomiums and flatteries I might have almost said Adorations of their vain Gallants as the Lawful Issue of their own applauded Merit a truly pious Lady will only hearken to all the Airy Praises young Men ascribe to her beauty to be but the Bastard brood of their own abundant sin and folly and she will make such pious reflections on such young Mens overmuch praises grounded on a sense of her own unworthiness of them as she will not only despise their extravagant speeches but themselves for speaking of them which doubtless cannot but be very acceptable to God the searcher of all hearts who still giveth grace to the humble Therefore Ladies if you really desire true piety and humility I must advise you again and again never to hearken with delight or hear with belief or indeed suffer with patience but shun with diligence young Mens airy praises and Complements nor yet countenance their flatteries for multitude of Praises cannot but perplex young Ladies Minds as many Lights still confound the Sight and therefore when you hear young Men give their Tongues such loose liberties and over large ranges in magnifying your beauty remember such high Complemental expressions are to be trusted no more than the Christian Flag of a Turkish Pyrat which he only hangs out that you might esteem him your friend that thereby he may make you become his Slave Therefore Ladies keep still about you this preservative of your vertue that you look upon all the vain Gallants that Court you with high Complements and great praises to be but so many Judas's that come to betray you with a kiss and do not believe their Oaths either on the account of what they swear as to your great beauty or their own true Love for really flattery and vain praises are now grown such common Arts among fond Lovers as well as great States-men and Complemental Courtiers as we often meet the truth of their meaning in the contradiction of their words 7. My last concluding advise to the vain modish Ladies is when one of you is curiously beholding and admiring your fine Face in your Glass and find that the great beauty of it raises proud thoughts in your heart which is almost as common among handsom Ladies as 't is for them to look in their Glass which nothing can be more common humble your pride with these mortifying reflections that this very fine Face of yours that you like so much love so well and are so taken with and fond of must unavoidably in a little time become loathsom rottenness stink and corruption turn odious either to be seen or smelt which is as very certain as mortality it self and death you know is not only sure to meet you but you are exposed by a thousand accidents to meet it whilst you are travelling in this Earchly Pilgrimage for the spritely gaiety of your blossom youth can only let you know how long you may possibly live but can give no advance security how long you certainly will therefore young Ladies as well as old Men ought still to march under the safe Conduct of a vertuous Life and not to trust to the temptation of a long Life but to rely only on the blessed security of a good one I shall conclude this Discourse and Book with the good saying of an excellent religious person That the vainest beauty on Earth cannot justly deny this great Truth that beauty is not absolutely necessary to the good of this Life but that Piety is essentially necessary both to the good of this Life and the next too since one may live well without beauty but one can neither live or die well without Piety FINIS
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 end and accomplishment of all our desires the sole want of which is like that of wanting health which is sufficient to unpleasure all our other enjoyments in a word Content is of such an obliging generous Nature and of so universal value as it furnisheth us with every thing that either our real necessity wants or our vain desires fancy And as Content is thus pleasing so discontent is little less unpleasing and therefore I cannot but highly blame and Censure such Tyranical ill natur'd Parents as because they like such a Mans fortune therefore they will make their Child Marry such a ones person tho 't is as odious to her sight as pleasing to her fathers Covetous humor and so to satisfie his will must force her inclinations to Marry him tho utterly against her own Indeed 't is such kind of forc'd Marriages that drives young Women into a double evil and that of the worst sort too being those of Perjury and Treachery for how can you make it less than Perjury in a young Woman to make a solemn Vow in the face of the Congregation to Love that Man her whole Life whom she knows she cannot Love a piece of a day nay not so much as that very time of her Life she is vowing to Love him till death them depart And surely there is no less Treachery in such a Marriage Vow that must be a kin to that black one of Judas who under pretence to kiss his Lord and Master brought a band of Soldiers to seize him so averse forced Marriages under pretence of long continuing friendship and kindness by shaking hands but not joyning hearts do often bring Bands of discontents and miseries to each others Lives and Liberties Therefore to conclude this Discourse my opinion is that Parents may choose their Daughters wealthy Husbands to live with but 't is only themselves that can chuse Husbands to be delighted in and therefore those Maids do well that Marry with their Parents liking and they do ill that Marry against their own THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE Against Widows Marrying WHen I consider truly and reflect seriously how many Widows have made themselves miserable by Marriage and how few make themselves happy by Marrying methinks it should be now as needless a Task to disswade such from Marrying as to advise them not to eat again of that Dish they came just from surfeiting on for sure she that makes her self unhappy by a second Marriage deserves as much her own misery and merits as little others pity as the Man that steals again after having been burnt in the hand does the Gallows for a repeated fault is a twofold Crime and deserves a double punishment I know I need not mind the Reader of the old and common fable of two Women that went assoon as they died to S. Peter to get admittance into Paradise the first assured him that her Husband was such a devilish wicked ill natured Man that he made her life a kind of Hell on Earth upon which account S. Peter thought it reasonable that since she had suffer'd a Hell in this World she should not endure another in the next and so admitted her into Paradise The other Woman observing this thought she had a double Key and Ticket for she was not only tormented with one but two bad wicked cross-grain'd Husbands which render'd her life most miserable but S. Peter answer'd her that since she was so very simple as not to think one bad Husband enough but she must have two he bid her be gone for Paradise was no place for fools indeed that Widow must be extravagantly foolish and unreasonable that did not think the misery of one base Husband sufficient but she must try the experiment of a second I confess I cannot at all agree in opinion with that Writer who says a Woman is but an imperfect Creature whilst she is without a Husband but had he said a Widow was not come to her full perfection of misery 'till she had one I fancy he had given a truer Character and taken a more just measure of most Widows lives that Marry since common experience may assure all Wives and Widows that there are generally ten bad Husbands for one good one and I believe there are few Widows in our age that are so perfect Disciples of Seneca's wisdom as to extract satisfaction out of misery it being an Apostolical vertue to be satisfied and contented in whatsoever condition it pleaseth God to place one to But I am rather of the belief that a young beautiful Widow that leads a strict vertuous unmarried life leads a kind of Miraculous one in as much as she being born a Subject to the Law of Nature and to the Lustful frailties of it having not only tasted but probably delighted in them and yet can contain her self so in the bounds of such a vertue and pious Mortification as to be so much Mistris of her self and of her own youthful temper and inclinations as to resist the pressing temptations of young handsom Men with an unmoveable vertuous constancy such young Widows do really live in this world as the Papists say the Nuns do in their Nunneries That they live in the flesh as if they had no