they would bee as fraile and as passionate as women And if Women were freed from the frailty of their sex they would bee as manly and as excellent as men And though Women have divers naturall infirmities both of body and mind yet a wise man will not love his wife a jot the worse because hee knowes they are naturall But few Women are Angels and hee that would have a Woman without passions must marry when the Signe is not in Coelo And for this scolding malady this is a good Remedy To bee silent and not regard her or else to laugh at her But let us see if the fault be not in our selves The reason why many Women are so bad is because they have ill Husbands if so let us mend Happie are wee if our Wives be an occasion of our being good though they be never so bad And sometimes a good man may chance to make a good wife of an ill one It is also fit that Men should use their Wives well and maintaine them in good fashion according to their meanes and to let them have such reasonable and convenient Liberty and authority as it is fit a wife who is a mans second selfe should have and enjoy For want of this many women being too straitly kept under and unkindly and Churlishly used are even forced to flye out beyond Reason and to become Froward Contentious Iealous discontented And some to turne Queanes by Compulsion Too much liberty and Authority on the other side is not fit to bee allowed them especially to such kind of women as love not their owne houses but by reason of much gadding abroad learne more tricks then bee good who are then onely pleasant and contented And at home nothing but brawle and are there commonly sullen froward peevish discontented and of idle lewd conditions Let therefore both men and women endeavour to avoyd all occasions of strife and discontent as much as they may And such as cannot bee avoided to Contemne or Dissemble and make the best thereof And to endeavour in all respects to live lovingly familiarly and pleasantly in such sort as becomes them Saint Paul and Saint Peter give excellent directions to this purpose So ought men to love their Wiues saith Saint Paul as their owne bodies for no man ever yet hated his owne flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord his Church Eph. 5.25 And againe yee men Love your wiues and bee not bitter to them Colossians 3.19 And to women he sayth Wiues submit your selves vnto your husbands as unto the Lord For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church Eph. 5.22 Saint Peter also giveth directions to this purpose in his 1. Epistle and 3 Chapter I will write them at large for they are most excellent Hee beginnes with Wiues and is longest about them they having as it seemes most need of instruction Yee wiues saith hee bee in subjection to your husbands that if any obey not the word they also may without the word bee wonne by the Conversation of their wiues while they behold their Chast conversation coupled with feare Whose adorning let it not bee that outward Adorning of playting the Haire or of wearing and putting on gorgious Apparell But let it bee of the Heart in that which is not Corruptible even the ornament of a meeke and quiet Spirit which is in the sight of GOD of great price For after this manner in the old time the holy Women also who trusted in GOD adorned themselves being in subjection unto their owne Husbands Even as Sara obeyed Abraham calling him Lord whose Daughters yee are as long as yee doe well and not being dismayed with feare Likewise Yee husbands sayth hee dwell with your Wives according to knowledge giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessell and as being heyres together of the grace of Life that your Prayers may not be hindred Finally bee yee of one minde having Compassion one of another being pittifull courteous Not rendring evill for evill or rayling for rayling but contrariwise blessing knowing that yee are thereunto called that yee may inherit a blessing Thus much sayth St. Peter 1 Ephes 3 Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and 10 verses So then let Men and their Wives in all respects Endeavour to live together as they ought according to such Divine direction Let them alwayes bee as Loving kinde pleasant and as familiar as may bee and mutually enjoy together all the blessings and benefits belonging to this Nuptiall Love and Societie And especially let them bee Pious and Religious Then though their Beauty and Bodies should decay and become infirme yet their very Soules may bee in Love with one another which is farre more excellent then bodily Love So while they view one another as divine and Celestiall creatures as the beloved of God himselfe their Loves may still kindle and increase untill both they and it ascend to that firmament of fire where Love all divine and heavenly flames beyond imagination and lasts for euer SECT XIIII A briefe perswasion to Marriage I Shall now endeavour briefly to perswade such as may conveniently though a single Life bee otherwise to bee preferr'd before it to this honourable and blessed estate of Marriage It hath alwayes bin confest by all reasonable men That a consonant Marriage such as when both parties be equally match'd in respect of Yeares Birth Constitution and Fortunes and of loving kinde wise constant and good Conditions is an earthly Paradise of happinesse And no man can justly blame such Marriages unto which All lawes both Divine and Humane exhort us Nature provoketh us Honesty draweth us All Nations approove thereof necessity of Continuing our kinde constraineth us and abundance of felicity inviteth us thereunto And St. Paul sayth It is the Doctrine of Devils to forbid Marriage The best and most learned Philosophers have praised and used the same As Socrates Plato Aristotle Seneca Plutarch and others And though a Contemplative divine Spirit can overcome Nature and contemne the greatest earthly pleasure in Comparison of heavenly delights and take great pleasure in such Contempt Yet all men have not this divine Grace of Continencie And looking downewards againe we may consider that we have Bodies as well as Soules which require due and convenient Recreations And though as St. Paul well observed Marriage hindereth a heavenly Contemplative life in respect of Care and other disturbances yet for all these fore-named considerations and many other It is good to marry though better to live single if wee burne not and if wee have divine Grace enough to bee Continent And this Nuptiall society being honourable blessed and ordained of God for avoyding of unlawfull lusts for the preservation of Mankind and for mutuall helpe comfort and pleasure in one another It cannot bee denyed but it is good to marry especially when such marry whose bodies minds doe Sympathize and both are of
of hinderances charges cares crosses and annoyances are incident to marryed people what wise men would marry Besides I might to this purpose tell how happily wee Batchellors live without wives How freely securely merrily pleasantly and without controle Saint Paul preferres a single life before marriage and I hope you will beleeve him Yea but saith the married man you had better marry and live honest To answere this Cavill It is observed that Batchellors are as honest as married men for many of them are seldome content with their owne wiues which is a greater shame and evill in them But to let that passe Batchellors can live honest without marrying Such as are of a very unruly temper may use a moderate spare coole and dry kind of dyet and other Physicall Remedies to allay the fire of Lust They can fast pray bee alwayes busy about some good occasions and thinking on good matters But the most excellent Remedy is Divine Contemplation for certainely those Spirits which are truely raysed to the knowledge of divine things and doe well know the Art of heavenly Contemplation are elevated above all the pleasures of the earth in as much as Eternity is above time and infinite felicities above vanities And not being able to find any thing on the Earth worthy of their desires They doe set out their pleasures and their felicities in the Empyrean heaven So as they doe in part tast before hand of the sweetnesse of those pleasures which they pretēd to receive at the end of their life which makes them very graciously to tread vnder foot all the pleasures of the Earth while their soules are in such contemplations directing their Aimes to heaven And while they are in these divine Extasies their Spirits are so strong as they doe overcome their bodies so heavenly as they doe then esteeme the chiefest pleasures of the body as this of carnall desire and love but as dung and drosse in comparison of those more heavenly pleasures which they enjoy in their soules And in such comparison they rejoyce more in Contemning these bodily pleasures and in being above them then in enioying them What need wee care for farthings who may have gold enough But as St. Paul signifies Marriage hinders this heavenly pleasure He that is marryed saith he careth for the things that are of the world how hee may please his wife And certainely there bee many married men in the world if they did but truely know the Excellency of such a contemplatiue heavenly life and and did seriously consider how freely and ioyfully wee Batchellors may life They would even runne through fire and water to bee so happy But now least marryed men should bee too much displeased let them know or thinke That wee Batchellors when wee speake against marryed men meane onely of vnfit and ill marriages Such as that of Spungius and Philtra They would sweare curse quarrell fight c. Let such bee alwayes scoft at and remaine miserable till they mend their manners And least Batchellors should bee too averse from marriage And such as loose their first Love should forbeare a second choice which alwayes drownes the Love of the former in oblivion and is the best remedy against Loves losse for heere they may find it againe in another Let us still say as Saint Paul saith That marriage is honourable in all men and that it is good to marry though for such as can containe themselves better to live single And that a Consonant Equall and fit maariage when both parties bee loving kind wise constant and of good conditions is a Terrestriall Paradise and from thence as hath bin dilated proceedeth a marvailous deale of happy and blessed effects SECT XI Remedies against an over-sottish and doting Love HAving formerly viewed and seeing the excellency of Lawfull Love and the many sweet and blessed effects springing from thence Let us take heed that wee doe not as many men in the world have done plunge our selves beyond the bound-markes of Reason and discretion into an over-sottish and doting affection Many other wise famous and wise men as Sampson David Solomon Hercules Socrates and many others Have not uniustly bin taxed of folly and indiscretion in this matter And the Poets faine that Iupiter himselfe was turned into a Golden showre A Bull A Swan A Satyre A Shepherd and cōmitted many grosse dotages for Love For Remedies whereof and to the intent that wee may bee contented if wee cannot enjoy our wishes And that if wee doe Enjoy our Love and desires the same may not hinder us from seeking and enjoying Divine beauty and pleasures which are infinitly better Let us also view the vanity and insufficiency of this Externall Lovelinesse and beauty which is the object of our Love in this kind It is altogether vaine and uncertaine Sicknesse care griefe The scratch of a Pin The Sunne or any thing may deface it It ofttimes prooves dangerous makes us forget God bereaves us of grace and of divine pleasures And is many times an occasion of unlawfull Lusts and the miseries thereof And many men by reason heereof in spight of friends parents credite and fortunes have bin wilfully and foolishly carried away to shame disgrace misery So that immoderate ouer-sottish Love is no more a vertuous habit but a vehement passion and perturbation of the mind A Monster of nature a destroyer of wit and Art This externall Lovelinesse and beauty sometimes bereaves us of all manlinesse of Spirit dejects our otherwise Nobler thoughts to vanities and toyes Insomuch that heereby wee are sometimes ready to become foolish doting weake brainsicke Inamoratoes and sometimes to fall in Love even with painted vanityes meere out-side Creatures Things Empty of vertue and grace And composed of Pride Vanity and wickednesse If wee Love such as have no other beauties but their bodies what doe wee but love as irrationall creatures doe Reason tell us wee love that which a Pin may alter That which is subject to above 300 severall diseases That which is all loathsome within And that which shall bee nothing heereafter but putrified and Rotten Corruption And yet many of us forsooth are no wiser then to fall in Love with such creatures of meere vanity and corruption quite depriving our selves of Reason comparing their eyes to Starres thinking them the onely wonders of the world and telling them they are like Angels divine creatures And what is most excellent and so even Idolatrize to these creatures of earth and vanity You Courtiers and others who thinke it a trimme peece of glory to get a Mistresse and a Ladyes favour forsooth you who esteeme and call your Minnions Goddesses and divine creatures And would like Adam give Paradise if you had it for an Apple and venture heaven to satisfie your base and vnlawfull Lusts you that adore these Victimes and think your selves most happy when you can tempt the Pudicity of these female creatures and overcome them to your Lusts what doe you but act the Devils
THE LOVER or A Discourse of NUPTIALL LOVE Written by Robert Crosts To please himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgil. Ecloga 10. Omnia Vincit amor nos cedamus amori Boetius metro 8. lib 2. Hic coniugij sacrum Castis nectit amoribê° Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit vtile dulci 〈…〉 W. Marshall sculp THE LOVER OR NVPTIALL LOVE WRITTEN by Robert Crofts To please himselfe LONDON Printed by B. Alsop and T.F. for Rich Meighen next to the middle Temple in Fleet-street 1638. TO THE READER COurteous Reader if you aske mee to what intent I publish this Treatise I may answer to please you A well resolved man cannot please himselfe but hee desires to please others also and endeavours in all good wayes so to doe And I am not out of hope but that this discourse wil profit some men also since I have made use of many and divers Authors in the composing thereof But I have endeavoured to digest the same into such a new manner method stile and forme as was most pleasing to my selfe adding therevnto such Inventions Raptures observations Poems Alterations experiments as met with my meditations so as the Treatise may seeme and bee even as pleasing as if it were all new Which to doe oft times requires wel nigh as much Art as wholly the Invention of new matters It is true I know the world is cloyd with bookes and many there bee perhaps more then needs of this subject but this is a breife and Compendious discourse and therefore I hope will neither cloy the world or the Reader It was written for Recreation amidst more serious occasions and so I desire it may be read I know there be many malicious envious male contented and maligne Spirits in the world who will pine greive and grudge at the prosperity and pleasures of True-lovers as they doe at all happinesse and that there bee many carping Readers who vsually read all especially pleasing bookes in a sneaking manner and endeavor to find nothing so much as faults and by their jugling and cunning art of detraction can make one or a few faults seeme to devoure a multitude of good Actions endeavouring nothing so much as to discourage and hinder all good pleasant and happy waies But for the censure of such men I shall endeavor not to regard or else to contemn them Yet truely I shall thinke my selfe much obliged to such as in good will shall tell me of my faults Errors Ignorances and negligences However knowing that all things in the world are imperfect it shall suffise to please my selfe that I have done as well as I could for the present time But I had not so easily nor so soone bin perswaded to be a foole in Print as the proverb goes and as the Carping and barking Reader is especially like to say if I had not had some enemies aswel as many frieÌ„ds who have provoked me rather to be ceÌ„sured by many then abused by a few But if I did not thinke and hope that this discourse would be pleasant profitable to some in reading as it hath bin to me in writing if that I had not bin greatly encouraged herein by many men I should still have bin content to have suffered the aspersion of a Pocket Author ashamed to shew himselfe abroad fearing to be a foole in Print Farewell The Contents THe first Section treateth of the Excellency of Nuptiall Love The II of the miseries of the losse and want of such Love Section III. of a good choyce in Love IV How to Enjoy our wishes please our Lovers and encrease Love V The Art of Love discourse VI An instance in this Art concerning Loves Excellency VII Shewing further the vse of this Art of discourse VIII Shewing breifely how to attaine the same IX Answeres to some obiections X Remedies against the losse of Love XI Remedies against an oversottish and doting Love XII Remedies against vnlawfull Lusts XIII Remedies against discontents after marriage XIIII A breife perswasion to marriage XV The good use of this Nuptiall Love and so concluding with a breife discourse of Divine Love THE LOVER OR A Compendious Discourse of Nuptiall Love SECTION 1. Of the Excellency thereof THe Difinition Divisions Pedigree kinds object causes symptomes and effects of this subject Nuptiall Love hath exercised the pen of many and divers Authors they are Common and well knowne I shall therefore begin with the excellency thereof The Excellency of this marriage Love may first appeare by the Author thereof which is God himselfe In the beginning of the World the Lord God said it is not good that man should bee alone I will make an helpe meet for him Gen. 2.18 Our Saviour saith from the beginning of the Creation God made them male and female for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh Mark 10.7 Mat. 19. And in his Sacred Word by St. Paul he saith Husbands love your wiues as Christ loved his Church so ought men to love their wives as their owne bodies for he that loveth his wife loveth himselfe Eph. 5.25.28 The excellency of this Nuptiall Love may further appeare in respect of the object which is Woman who is the image of God as well as man Gen. 1.27 An help meet for him 2.28 A part of himselfe 31. Wine is strong Kings are strong but a woman is stronger Women have Dominion over Kings saith Zorobabell Esdr 4. All men submit to Love When that Hermits boy who had alwayes bin brought vp in the wildernesse came first abroad in the world being asked what sight pleased him best therein readily reply'd Those things which you call Women A vertuous woman is a Crowne to her husband saith King Solomon Prov. 12.4 Loves excellency also appeares in respect of the parties affected The bravest the most noble generous and gallant spirits are commonly most and best taken and possest with this Love wherefore it is called Heroicall Love And the parts of man affected also are his most excelleÌ„t parts as the Heart liver bloud and braines and consequently the imagination and Reason I say Reason for want of Love commonly shewes want of reason either stupidity or peeuishnesse in a man It is most certaine that divine Love is infinitely more excellent and aboue humane Love And such men as are of a Divine temper may easily overcome the same But all of us have bodies aswell as soules wee are composed of humanity aswell as divinity and he that never felt the power of this love may be esteemed as some Eunuch or sot or else of a super-humane temper And on the other side excesse of love shewes weaknesse dotishnesse and folly and then these excellent parts of man are misaffected Such Love is without Reason but true love is most agreeable therevnto and therefore Excellent And further the excellency of this Nuptiall Love appeareth by the effects thereof which are very
young melancholly Lover of that pensiue humour fearing not to enjoy or please his Love Thus much concerning the Art of Discourse SECT IX Containing answeres to some objections ANd now me thinkes I cannot but imagine that some too severe Cato Churlish Timon or Carping Momus will esteeme this Love-discourse too light and wanton And I know there bee many in our times so Stoicall and Rigid as they will scarce allow moderate and lawfull Recreations for this discourse was chiefly written for meere recreation amidst more serious occasions and so I desire it may bee read And they esteeme honest and harmlesse Love sports pleasures and discourses though in the way of marriage prophanenesse But wee may know that it is good and commendable for such as doe or intend to live in that honourable and blessed estate of mariage to bee possest with conjugall Love and consequently such honest love discourses devices and pleasures as encrease the same are to bee esteemed good and commendable And I conceive that no well condition'd happy man none but envious malicious male-contented Spirits will hinder dislike or grudge True-lovers of such honest and harmelesse Love delights and pleasures And I am not so Cynicall but that I thinke a modest expression of such amorous conceits as suite with reason being free from obscaenity will yet very well become my yeeres in which not to have some feeling of Love were as great an Argument of much stupidity as an oversottish affection were of extreame folly But what need I excuse my selfe in this when 't is well knowne that many whole volumes have bin written of Love and that divers famous and worthy Philosophers Physitians Historians Poets and others have written as lightly and more wantonly then I have done of this subject But saith my Grandsire it seemes to mee that such vaine Love discourses are vnnecessary and of little perswasion Yet if wee thinke of the Parties to whom these things are spoken that is to female creatures and to Lovers Such things as are a great deale more youthfull vaine wanton and not of such a serious and solid substance as my Grandsire is wee shal know that such discourse are most apt and pleasing and much more perswasiue than other more graue and solid And wee know that these female Lovers esteeme every word of their Sweet-hearts discourse though peradventure but slight matter as if it were spoke like an Angell and if withall such Arteficiall discourses such pleasant Heart-striking Reasons bee mixed it is even sufficient to enchant and enflame a Saint with Love and Ioy. In so much I know that if there bee a reasonable simpathy betweene the Parties in Age degree fortunes Countenance Constitution and Conditions and a willing consent of Parents and friends at first though afterward great and strange opposition should happen in many respects it would bee a marvailous hard matter if not impossible to part and disunite their Love And that sometimes even such great opposition quickens and encreases such true Love and joy which often flames the more when it is blowne against and stirred up And then such Love and joy after crosses are past is most pleasant indeed If such discourses then bee of such strong effect and operation as to joyne hearts in true Love and encrease joy notwithstanding many crosses and great opposition much more is it when those are past when both parties and their friends are well pleased when all their thoughts are composed of kindnesse Love and Ioy. Medea's oyntment Helenaes bowle Circes cup Phaedras Ring or Venus girdle cannot so inchant a man so sweetly moue and please his mind as such discourses will a female Lover SECT X. Containing Remedies against the Losse of Love BVt now heere comes a question what is to be done if wee loose our beloved Indeed many Lovers for want of enjoying their wishes in this kind become extreame melancholy and sorrowfull and some betake themselves to ill courses as whooring and Taverne-haunting and sometimes spoyle themselves But indeed it is a madnesse for a man to grieve melancholize and runne into dissolute courses because hee cannot obtaine his desires in this kind perhaps some unworthy creature For if he have not placed his Love too high aboue his deserts or too unequally and unfitly and if hee have used good meanes to gaine her if this will not hee may iustly thinke that she is some light phantastick thing not worth his Heroicall and Noble thoughts A wise man will not Love a meere Corps or which is worse A body with an ill soule in it Some Remedies usually perscribed against this malady the losse of Love are To withstand beginnings to avoid all occasions as the company of the party beloved discourse with her sight of her place where she lives and the like Or to goe to some other Mistresse of better fortunes birth and degree if it may bee or if such cannot bee attained yet let us know That of all necessary evils such as men say wiues are any may serve for necessity and because they are Evils perhaps 't is better to have none at all Though wee Batchellors perhaps thinke wiues fine things yet such as haue tryed will tell us otherwise as that there are many Thornes amidst the Roses of marriage which hinder the pleasures thereof and cause much sorrow That married mens shooes wring them but wee know not where That many of there fore-heads are forked and wee are blind That the Love of the body is at the height and will fall when once it hath gotten admittance into those hidden and worst parts thereof And that so it is of the mind Though our Lovers shew us their best conditions forward yet when those hidden and worst parts of the soule which they dare not shew the world are bare and detected 'T is like wee shall find them much worse then wee expected So may wee observe by the carriage of most men after they are married They are commonly more sullen dull sad and pensive then before Many of them love not their wiues Nor perhaps have they any great occasion for asmuch as wee see many of them proove sluts Scolds idle infirme Proud Iealous Scornefull Arrogant and so imperious not to be endured light peevish froward sad lumpnish prodigall discontented And yet these men when they were Batchellors thought these peeces fine things and imagined a Paradise in gayning them and many husbands also t is true are as bad or worse then their wiues insomuch as many married people live a very miserable life scolding brawling grieving and alwayes discontented Wee may read in divers Philosophers and other Authors of many wise and witty speeches and opinions against marriage and they tell us many tales and stories to this purpose Some sad and some merry ones They are very common and for brevity I omit them Some men are Cornuted and father Children which are none of their owne Their Children proove vndutifull disobedient and prodigall servants stout and carelesse A multitude