no time wasted no good duty neglected no vice nourished no virtue depressed but onely a civill decency studied which was never denied to holy women in waies agreeable to nature there can be no enmity to grace nor compliance with sin BUt good Madame Suppose Artificiall beautifying of the face be not in it self absolutely unlawfull but may in some countries and some cases be used by some persons privately and soberly without the confidence of sinning against God Yet what shall we say to the scandall and offence it gives when known to many zealous preachers and professors here in England whose spirits are much grieved and offended if they do but suspect how much more if they palpably discerne any Lady or Gentlewoman professing godlinesse to use any paint or tincture to help their complexions Ought not I beseech you all worthy women therefore abstain wholy from it because it is a thing prone to grieve the spirits of good people Although they do not think it absolutely a sin Is it not better to want a little colour in the cheeks than to damp Gods spirit in any ones heart or to offend one of those little ones as Christ speaks by abating that good hope and joy they had in our graces The Apostles rule is even to those who were as he was fully perswaded of the lawfulnesse of many things as to their consciences that they were of free sinlesse use in themselves yet saith he if thy brother be grieved or stumbleth or is offended or made weak by the use and exercise of this thy freedome Charity here forbids thee to use this thy liberty least thou destroy by it those for whom Christ died Though things are pure and lawfull in their nature and in Gods generall permission yet they become then evill and unreformed when they give uncharitable scandals to others So that the point of scandal which is in this very great and ordinary seems barre sufficient to keep off all painting or artificiall tincture from the faces of pious and charitable women THe point of scandall which your LaP Ladyship now makes your refuge in this dispute either given or received hath like a Labarinth so many windings and turnings so may perplexed cautions and distinctions that it seems rather a maze to loose the mind in than any fair retreat where judgement and conscience may repose and secure themselves None is so simple a sophister in disputing about things of dubious and indifferent nature but when he is driven by reason and scripture from his strong holds of prejudices and confidences when he sees the thundering Canons of his censures and Anathemas dismounted or cloyed he then retreats to this of Scandal and earths himself in this burrough pleading that he is scandalized with what you do or if he but suspect you do it though he give you no reason against what you do nor can indeed prove that you do what it may be he suspects Thus ignorance superstition and suspicion will be ever overawing truth and Christian liberty both in private persons and in publicke Societies or Churches Imperiously injoyning others to forbear the use of thei liberty meerely because this or that poor soul saies they are offended though they give no reason why Thus the Pleaders of Scandall I ke Soldiers of Fortune are ingaging in every quarrell where they stake nothing against the liberty peace order and decency of others but onely their private fancy opinion and dislike Who yet are many times most prodigall in giving others great and publike scandals by using or disusing such things as others no lesse quarrell at oft denying obedience to publike and lawfull authority in those things of which they make any scruple imperiously challenging this liberty to themselves yea glorying in their scandalous refractories to publike order and constitutions yet they deny this liberty to others in the same or like cases about things dubious and indifferent concerning which there is no precise or expresse will of God declared but they are left to prudentiall freedomes as to private mens use till the consent and wisdome of the publike hath confined and determined them to one way for order sake and uniformity whereto private freedome still free as to the opinion of the nature of things ought yet humbly and charitably to conforme it self as to publike practise For the avoiding of publike scandall and dissention by reason of their deformity Between superstitious and insolent spirits who either dislike all that others do different from them or enjoyne others to tread in none but their steps and to dance after their pipe true Christian liberty as between two thieves is crucified Between the upper and the neither milstone of Scandall given or taken it is together with Christian Charity so ground to powder that a sober Christian hath litle left him to do say or injoy whereat some or other will not take offence Not onely bad things or doubtfull but even good things and the very best are sometimes to some persons scandalous So was the believing yet ceremonious Jew to the believing Gentile and the believing but inceremonious Gentile to the believing Jew Christ himself and the whole tenour of the Gospel was a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishnesse to the Gentile Papists are offended with many things which protestants hold and do and contrarily Protestants cry out of the scandals Papists give them So the most factions and schisines in the Church shelter their rents and dissentions under the sheild of Scandall by them taken lesse minding the scandals by themselves given to others by which as madmen with swords they lay about them and smite all that come neer them There is nothing so sober and modest so civill and decent so sacred and solemne at which ignorant or capricious or proud and imperious spirits will not take offence who like nothing in use and custome never so ancient and innocent unlesse they have first enacted or setled it they must be fathers or godfathers to it either begetting or confirming it else they will cry it down as scandalous spurious impious popish and antichristian Pretending they have more cause to be scared with other mens shadowes and ceremonies which they fancy to be shaped like Beares and Lions than others have to be offended with their pawes and jawes the sharp teeth and nailes of those reall beasts and birds of prey which they carry about them calling their own rapines religious and their very sacriledges sacred Yet highly offended if others do by word or deed vindicate their own liberties customes and constitutions never so decent and ingenuous against the rude novelties and riotous invasions of the others supercilious fiercenesse and injuriousnesse one is scandalised at my using my liberty though without any prescribing urging or injoyning upon them I am no lesse offended at their invading my liberty by needlesse stricknesses and uncharitable censures which though they wound not my conscience yet they seek to weaken
Religion That the Devils or wicked Mens usurpation is no prejudice to Gods dominion or donation nor to that right use and end of all things which he hath graunted to mankind throughout the whole latitude and empire of his visible works If all things are therefore vaine sinfull and unlawfull which vaine and wicked minds have or do abuse what I pray will there be left for sober and virtuous persons to use or injoy They must neither eat nor drink nor clothe nor dresse themselves to any decency sweetness costliness or delight Tamar an harlot will dress her self with a vaile of modesty as well as chast Rebekah The wanton and cunning woman whom Salomon describes so to the life decketh her self to all externe advantages applyeth with all amorous civilities perfumeth her bed and chamber pretendeth great love offereth her holy festivities and peace-offerings at last wipeth her mouth with great demurenesse and sobriety Yet may we not think all these actions are hereby made scandalous and unlawfull to sober women to chast and loving wifes We may as well forbid the use of a staffe and a signet to honest men because Judah in his blind and extravagant desires pawns them as pledges of his love to a woman whom he took and used as an harlot not common but incestuous Youth riches honor beauty strength policy and cloquence might be all arraigned and condemned before such unjust and unjudicious Judges who would cry down all use of things because of some abuses which flow not from the nature of the things abused which are good but from the malice of the persons or minds abusing that native good which God diffused to every creature Nabals churlish covetousnesse Absaloms beautifull rebellion Achitophels politick treachery Ioabs valiant cruelty Iehus zealous ambition Tertullus his eloquent malice are all carried upon the wings or wheels of Gods gifts and framing Who sees not that the corrupt hearts of men oft turn Gods streams to drive the devils mill What Truth so glorious which hath not been sometime sullied and eclipsed by the smoke of the bottomtess pit the prejudices or scandalous imputations of some black or foul mouthes On the other side what Error is so rotten and putrid which some Oratorious varnish hath not sought to colour over with shewes of Truth and Piety It is a great part of calme and sober wisdome to resolve all things into their rationall and pure principles of which this is one That what ever is in nature is good in its kind That the goodnesse of all things in nature is reducible to a good end in reason and religion That no person is abridged in a right and holy use of things by an others abuse of them That the just use of things may be restrained though the abuse cals for reformation and the excesse for moderation That since God doth not annihilate what he hath made as all good in nature because of mans abuse of things no more have we any cause to annull or deny our sober use of any thing for others petulancy and abuse What things vice or vanity are most prone to usurp as to the most sweet fair and inviting delights of life no doubt virtue and modesty may lawfully challenge and vindicate to their propriety We must not pull out our eyes because some mens and womens are as S. Peter says full of adultery not think sight and light unlawfull to be enjoyed because some imploy them onely to objects of sin and vanity But we must the more cautiously set holy bounds to all our thoughts desires and actions which may have their occasion and fewell from the ministry of the eyes but their kindling and flames are from the inward inordinacy of the Heart where sin is as our Saviour tells us first conceived and brought forth before it is nourished suckled or swadled in the gifts of God either naturall or artificiall Heal that root and fountain there is no doubt but the branches or streames flowing either from or to will soon be pure and healthfull What ever Gods indulgence offers us in art or nature ought to put us in mind to ask that grace of God the giver which may give us the right use of all his sensible gifts so as not to hinder us of his spirituall and eternall gifts Thus have I good Madam with all plainnesse freedome and integrity furthest from any thing of fallacy and sophistry answered as I could what you were pleased to urge from Scripture-instances which obviously mention painting or colouring the eyes among other customary ornaments of those times and places but with no token of Gods dislike as to that particular more then of other wonted adornings of the head face and the rest of the body whereof your La p makes no scruple as to any sin So that what ever frown may seem to be in the face of the words do fall only on the abuse of that as other things to sinfull excesses and inordinate satisfactions beyond the bounds of civility modesty and honesty But this doth not amount to the force of any positive command forbidding the use of that and other helps to handsomenesse Nor doth it import any dislike of outward comelinesse when joyned with humility and holinesse conforme to the divine mind or will which must be the onely touchstone of sin and test of Conscience wherein no great curiosity is necessary to discern Gods meaning as to things importing sin or duty § Which are I think alwayes set forth in the holy Scriptures not by dubious reflexions oblique and obscure intimations but by such clear direct precepts and autoritative sanctions in some place or other as becomes the majesty of the king of heaven and is most proportionate to the dimness and infirmity of humane understanding Who shall never be charged for that as a sin which he could not either by innate principles of morall light or by Scripture-prescripts evidently see to be such Nor is there almost any thing of grosse impiety which doth not discover to us its offensivenesse against God by that check regret and disgust which it oft gives to our selfes either before in or after the sin done which I beliefe this never did or doth to any modest and judicious users of it unlesse they be more scared and guided by the ignis fatuus of popular superstition than the clear and constant light of true religion which moves not by Fancie and Opinion as puppets do with gimmers but by Reason and divine revelation as the Body doth by its living Soule BUt Madam I have been informed by some Divines and other godly Christians that all painting the face or adding to our hand somenesse in point of Complexion is directly against the 7th Commandment which forbidding to commit adultery with others as the highest ascent or degree of sin in that kind doth also forbid all means and occasions either necessarily tending or studiously intending that evil End All leading others or exposing
our selves into Temptations of Amorous folly by adding to our comelinesse then when either God in our formation or age and infirmity have brought us as it were into the safer harbour or retreat or deformity either naturall or accidentall What folly is it to seek to rig up our crazy vessâ—ll or to expose our selves by art on new hazards by putting out again to that tempestuous and oft naufragous Sea wherein youth and handsomenesse are commonly tossed with no lesse hazard to the body and soule too then S. Pauls voyage was to the life 's of himself and his company What true hearted Israelite would have returned back to Egypt when God had brought them out into the wildernesse whose barrennesse was compensated with safety and Gods society as Egypts plenty was corrupted with Servility Luxury and Idolatry Deformities may be as great blessings to our Souls as bolts and barres are to our Houses which keep thieves not onely from rifling but from attempting those that are thus fortified with lesse inviting looks Besides if all Adultery and adulterating arts as injurious to others by the rule of equity and charity are forbidden to us how much more any such plots and practises as tend to a Self adulterating while we disguise and alter our faces not onely as to Gods and mans aspect but even as to our own so that we are not what we seem to be to our selves and being once altered by art from what is native we must look for another face before we can find or see our selves in that glasse which at once flatters upbraids and deceives us while it represents our looks other then God hath made them and us Whereas the wise Creator hath by nature impressed on every face of man and woman such Characters either of beauty or majesty or at least of distinction as he sees sufficient for his own honor our content and others sociall discerning or difference whereby to avoyd confusions or mistakes So as there shall not need any further additionals of art which put a kind of metamorphosis or fabulous change on Gods and natures work Whose wisdome and power yet purposely no doubt orders some to be lesse wellfavored that they may be as foyles to set off the beauty he bestowes on others as we see leaves are to the brighter flowers or clouds to the starres Thus he makes black night to commend the lightsome day the winters horror to double the summers welcome sweetnesse and serenity So that in that variety which God hath chosen to set forth his noblest Creatures which are after his own Image even mankind in a kind of checquer work of some handsome and others unhandsome some pallid and others ruddy every one I think ought to content themselves with that colour and complexion as well as feature which God hath given them not onely in order to their particular subsisting but as to the generall symmetry of his works In which he hath as skilfull painters do in their pictures set forth his more quick and lively colours which are in some faces by those deep and darker shadowes which are in others If the most accurate pencils were but blottings which presumed to mend Zeuxis or Apelles works who may presume to adde anything where God hath put to his last and compleating hand which is both able and wise to do what he sees best IMost willingly grant That the same pure and perfect God who hath forbidden all evill ends or sins of the ripest age and highest Stature hath also forbad all means desired by us to those ends as to the immorality and perversenesse of the agents mind and intent Whos 's first fancies and most infant conceptions of sin are sinfull if designed approved or delighted in notwithstanding he hath no power either to act nor yet any matter whereupon to work for the accomplishing or carrying on of his sin but onely from the power bounty and goodnesse of the Creator Who is good in all his works though we have evill hands or eyes Yet doth not God tempt us to evill by giving us those good things which we abuse to sin by the inordinatenesse of our minds more then the activity of our hands or outward enjoyment § It is indeed a great Truth your LaP Ladyship urges but very little to your purpose as I conceive yea it makes directly against you For if it be as it is confessed most unlawfull to abuse good things to evill ends or to gratify any desire in order to violate Gods expâ—esse Command So where the heart is upright without any sinfull warpings as to piety purity and charity it must follow that the use of any thing God hath made and given to mankind must needs be good and lawfull both in nature and in art Neither natures bounty nor the additions of modest and ingenuous art can be blamed or so much as questioned where the heart is sound and honest as in those loves or complacencies whose Chastity useth all kinds of ingenuous Elegancy If nothing can be materially evill either in nature or in art but only as related to the inordinacy of the mind will and intent of a voluntary and mor all agent it must necessarily follow that as to the use of colour and complexion to the face there can be no evill in it as against the 7th Commandment where no adulterous wanton or evill purpose is harbored in the soul of those that use it but it is as as all things ought to be kept within the bounds of piety to God purity to our selves and Charity to our neighbours Which holy limits must be precisely set as in the use of this so of all other ornaments and enjoyments afforded us by the Creators indulgence in nature which are as prone to be abused to Adulterous incentives as this yea farre more as being more inviting yet are they not forbidden to be used or enjoyed but onely confined to honest pure and holy ends not onely the last and highest of Gods glory but also those of the creatures life health delight and cheerfulnesse § That in many countreys and almost in all ages fomething which your LaP Ladyship would call painting or complexioning as washings anointings fomentations tinctures and frictions c. have been used by very sober chast and virtuous persons both maids wives and widowes I think your LaP Ladyship is not so uncharitable as not to grant Since even whole nations not onely the Jewes of old but Christians also have and do at this day by customary and civill fashions use it without any reproach scruple or scandall of sin any more then it is to wash their faces to comb their hair or to braid it to anoint their heads and faces to perfume their clothes c. which things do neither necessarily tend nor are studiously intended to any sinfull end The Greek Churches generally and most of the Latin Casuists as I have heard from Learned men and Travellers do allow even this complexionary art and
also by whole perukes like artificiall sculls fitted to their heads Some highly please themselves in those artificiall eyes bands leggs noses teeth and hair which make up those breaches of the body which age or sicknesse or other accidents have occasioned either to the inconveniency of motion or the deformity of their aspect How many both men and women who pretend to high piety and strictnesse do yet without any scruple by a thrumb'd stocking a bumbast or bolstered garment by iron bodies and high heeld shoes endeavour to redeem themselves from that may seem lesse handsome and vulgarly ridiculous or antick levelling hereby the inequality of crooked backs and crump shoulders setting up one foot parallel to the other filling out the leannesse of their duindled leggs and the like wherein Art studiously and speedily either encounters Natures enemies or fortifies its outworks against all assaults or repaires its breaches and every way kindly comes in as its Second and Auxiliary to assist it against all infirmities originall or accidentall § Yet this Quantitative Adultery which by such patching and piecing of the body makes far more grosse alterations substantiall changes of nature your LaP Ladyship and all persons of sound senses do allow in their daily use as much as the Romanes did Julius Cesars wearing of a Laurel Coronet to hide the baldnesse of his head without any reproach to any ones honor chastity or piety yea how many grave and godly matrons usually graffe or re-implant on their now more aged heads and browes the reliques combings or cuttings of their own or others more youthfull haire Whence the weaknesse and self-confuting invalidity of this flash or florish against all use of art to the face appears As if there were more adulterating in colours than in features in quality than in quantity in a little tincture than in solid composures Truly Madam a smile or silence were the best and justest confutation of such partiall allegations which allow the greater and yet scruple the lesser changes § Nor is there more solidity as to matter of sin or conscience in the other popular terror of adulterating Gods and Natures workmanship to his diminution and reproach For ingenuous Atifices honest applications civil alterations to the advantages of humanenature as single or sociall in things placed under our naturall power and left free as to our religious or morall power that is where no divine prohibition intervenes These are no more to be called or counted any adulterating of Gods works or reproach to his power and wisdom than it is to dy woollen linen or silk out of their native simplicity Or to wash that scurfe and filth off which riseth naturally from our bodies by sweating or evaporation Or than the polling of mens haires and trimming of their beards or paring their nayles which suffers not natures excrescencies to run out to that horror and uncomelinesse like Nebuchadnezzars when he had run long at grasse to which they would grow where art we see doth dayly turn according to the severall fancies and various fashions of times countreys those things which are but excrementall to be ornamentall to our bodies The same Sarcasme of Adulterating nature may be as justly used against all sweet smells or sents applyed to our hair clothes bodies or to our breath Not onely as a delight but as a remedy to the native ranknesse or offensivenesse which some persons are subject to both in their breath and constitutions which not to cure or alter by are is to condemn such persons otherways not ill company to solitudes by reason of those ill savours which make them fitter for cells than for society How impertinent and ungrate must that superstition be which out of a needlesse nicety of offending the God of nature by altering any Characters or Impressions he hath set on our bodies in colour favour or feature dreads to use even those helps and remedies which both God and Nature have prepared and liberally offered to our both civill and religious use of them not more to our own pleasure and innocent advantages besides others sociall content than to the glory of God So farre is the use of such helps from any detriment or diminution to the Creators glory or work Who oft suffers Nature in its ordinary road or tract to erre or fail of those proportions which are most perfect and agreeable purposely to incite and exercise those gifts of art and ingenuity which God hath superadded in reason to mankind above all those second causes effects which are moved by more blind instincts and confused impulses Nor is the wisdome power and goodnesse of God lesse manifested at the second hand by humane operation upon and alteration of some works of Nature than in the first productions of things yea that rationall empire liberty dispose use wherewith God hath invested mankind over all his works in the inventions of art and manufacture doth more magnify and set forth the munificence and indulgence of God than that substance and subject matter which he offereth to us as to other creatures in all those things whose grossenesse and confusions are onely to be polished distinguished improved and disposed of by the art and industry peculiar of man Wherein if children of the world and darknesse are so polite ingenious and industrious in order to obtain evill ends how much more may the children of God use their Fathers liberality in order to their own and others honest complacencies and compleatings Certainly true piety permits us to pay an honor love and reverence to our selves as well as to others and to our bodies as well as to our Souls Nor is the face more to be unconsidered or neglected than other parts of our bodyes which we generally either protect from injury and contempt or supply their wants or help in their infirmity by what ever art and means we can learn to be proper for their relief without any fear or suspicion of sin § As to the jealousy of baiting anew the devils hooks or leading our selves and others into fresh temptations when women seem to be in point of Beauty faded and almost out of date As to the fear of raysing up new stormes when the amorous tempest of youth is well allayed Truely these are as babies or children rather pretty than strong objections and are then easily answered and fully confuted when the heart meditating no mischief yet studies comelinesse The honestest beauty in its native simplicity may be as a baite though it must not purposely set the devils traps or snares Nay on the contrary the use of some pretty artificiall reliefs to nature may be a great means to keep as our selves from the temptations of envy and discountenance which is always attended with discontent so others too whom these honest frauds and pious guiles may hinder from those by ways and extravagancies to which more curious eyes and touchy tempers are prone to run if they be not happily deceived and so
confined to sober and holy affections So that I do not see but that in the ingenuous use of colour and complexion to the face there may be the wisdome of the serpent without the least of its poyson Where the Dove-like innocency of the users mind preserves not onely the native goodnesse which is from God in all things that can be used but also the civill and morall goodnesse of their use from all contagion of sin while the heart is kept within the confines of virtue and civility Though some vain and wanton minds may turn this as all things to a serpent yet others of modest tempers use it as a staffe and stay both to their own minds and others whom they most value and to whom thay indevour to give all ingenuous content even to the extent of their curiosity without being any way injurious to God themselves or others BUt good Madame laying aside the florishes of wit and colours of speech whereof I am not prone to be guilty in plain English ought not a Christian to rest humbly content and satisfied with * the will of God submitting thereto without any such contending in patching and painting ways which shew a mind so far unsanctified as it seems unsatisfied with what God hath ordered Can it be other than an insolence and impatience flowing from a refractary and rebellious spirit which seeks to cure remove or cover what God sees fit to inflict on us and expose to others sight Thereby as by the man born blind to set forth his glory in our deformity or defects which to remedy what can it be but flatly to resist and contradict his will to run counter to Gods providence which is his reall word and as it were an Eventuall Oracle which is sealed with the signet of his hand which is armed with power and guided by wisdome Which confiderations may seem sufficient in reason and religion to forbid all face-repairings to any alterations in any kind and in the least degree if there were no Scripture-testimonies flatly against those arts which our blessed Saviour intimates to be beyond the morall or lawfull power of any one since he tells us we cannot that is we may not make one haire of our head white or black if power of alteration be not granted us over hairs how much lesse over our cheeks or faces our skins and complexions Again he tells us that we cannot adde to our stature one cubit Intimating that we must rest content with that size to which God hath seen fit to confine us in shape stature and feature since God doth all things in number meight and measure IT is most true that a good Christian who remembers himself to be as clay in the hands of the potter ought to carry in all things either a thankfull contentation or an humble submission toward the will of God not only in their natures constitutions and beings but also in those externall contingencies or events which are as it were the voice and dictates of providence So farre as not to use any means forbidden by the written word of God whereby to remove or alter what God hath so inflicted upon them either in mind body or estate But yet dear Madam this patience or contentednesse of spirit which onely forbids us all unlawfull remedies or wicked endeavours for relief is no hinderance to pious and ingenuous industry by which we not only may but ought to use all those means spirituall naturall and civill as prayer good counsell physick and the like applications which are as holy as they may be wholesome to remove or remedy any pain sicknesse maime misfortune or inconvenience which happens to us in our health strength motion or estates and why not also in our looks or beauties and complexions wherein women do think themselves much concerned as in their riches health or almost life it felf So that many had as live dy as be much deformed and would as willingly part with their bodies as their beauty which is as the soul of the face and life of womens looks Certainly those honest endeavours which in fair wayes study to relieve or supply our wants in any kind are no rude contestings with Gods Providence nor are to be called crossings or opposings of his will but rather they are servings and obeyings of it in those dictates of reason prudence and discretion which God hath given to mankind as he hath the various motions and instincts to other creatures in order to preserve our selves from any evils either falling or resting upon us which voice of God within us sounding with both reason and religion is to be listned to and followed no lesse than those silent intimations or blinder characters we read in providential events which may admit of various interpretations or readings But never such as either crosse or put stop to those divine directions or permissions which are given us both in prudence and in piety for our ease and help Else we may not by a sacrilegious sobernesse seek to cure those whom God hath seen fit to afflict with the highest temporall misery which is frenzy or madnesse which deprives them of the noblest jewel and ornament of the soul Reason Nay we must not restrain them from any of those desperate extravagancies to which their distemper which is naturall and providentiall doth dispose them Which were indeed to be more mad than those poor creatures are while having reason beyond them we scruple to apply those means which are proper for their good and our own merely for fear lest we should contest against God and contrariate his providentiall will So by this paradox of superstitious submission a sick man mustly and languish under his sicknesse sending a bill of defiance to all Physitians Chirurgions and Apothecaries as so many bold Giants or Cyclopick monsters who dayly seek to fight against heaven by their rebellious druggs and doses prescribed in strange affected terms of art and ill scribled bills which seem to be as so many charms or spells and conjurations So lame men may not either use crutches to supply the weaknesse of their leggs or to shore up the tottering frame of their body Nor may they as the poor man in the Gospel covet to have the benefit of any suppling and healing Baths which would by this argument rather seem inchanted by some evill spirit or Demoniack Water-nymph than moved by the healing virtue of any good angell By this soft and senselesse fallacy of resting so satisfied with the events and signatures of providence as to use no lawfull means or industry that may seem to traverse the sentence or present decree we may not rise out of a ditch or pit when we are once faln into it nor so much as cry to Jupiter to help us We may not quench those fires which casually seise on our houses nor extinguish those flames which Incendiaries kindle of faction and sedition in Church or State We may not row
against all auxiliary beauty and helps of handsomenesse in women I observe That commonly what they want in force of arguments rationall or religious they make up in clamor and confidence As the Pope is said to have expressed in his Bull against the Knights Teutonick or Templars when he confiscated their estates Although of right and Justice we cannot yet out of our plenary power and will we do dissolve them So these many times in stead of convincing the judgements of sober persons like learned Divines and serious Christians fall to cavillings and menacings to bitter and scurrilous reprochings Imagining that what bumbast-stuffe or voluble ratling will serve to scare the superstitious and easy vulgar who have alwayes an envy and malignity against their betters will also serve to resolve more serious judicious soules of those persons who are blest with better breeding and exacter understanding § Such was that Sarcasme which your LaP Ladyship may remember was used by a witty and eloquent preacher whom we both heard at Oxford who speaking against not the absolute use but the wanton abuse of womens curiosities in dressing and adornings instanced in Jezebels being eaten up of doggs as shewing saith he that a woman so polished and painted was not fit to be mans meat Which expression had more of wit and jeast in it than of weight or earnest and might seem to represse either fondnesse or impudence abusing such ornaments but it was not valid as to the conviction of any sin in the use of them Which many boldly assert raysing strange terrors and most Tragick outcryes as if every touch of colouring added to the cheeks were a presage of hell fire every curled haire or brayded lock were an Embleme of the never dying worme Medusas head is not pictured more terrible with her snaky tresses than these men would represent every Lady never so modest and virtuous whose either haire or complexion or tiring is not natively their own Yea so angry or envious is the rusticity or simplicity of some against all that either soberly please themselves or civilly appear lesse unpleasing to others by the help of any artificiall beautifyings though with never so much discretion and modesty that when they have nothing to object against the intellectuals or moralls of women they vehemently quarrell with their artificialls their dressings clothes and fashions their looks and complexion if they list but to suspect them to have any thing adventitious to them liking them the worse because they look well and censuring them for evill hearts because they aime at having good faces as if the heart received sinfull infection by any colour or tincture put to the face more than it doth morall defilement by any thing that enters into the mouth Against which error our Saviour expressely teacheth us counting those but Pharisaic all fools and supercilious hypocrites who judge and teach men otherwise as we read Mark 7. 18. § Yet by a like magisteriall rigor do some men seek to confine all women to their pure and simple naturals As if Art and Nature were not sisters but jealous rivals and irreconcileable enemies against each other whereas indeed they are from the same wise God and indulgent Father from whom comes every good as well as every perfect gift as St James tells us Who hath given to mankinde as he did to Bezaleel Exod. 31. 3. the invention and use of many curious arts That man might know how with most discretion and advantage to dispose of and improve the great variety of Gods bounty which is first set forth in Natures either plainnesse or beauty so as to court and please every of our senses and to accommodate every of our occasions in those severall wayes and methods which mans industry likes best who although he cannot create the matter and inward essence of things but works onely upon Gods and Natures stock yet he is in some sense a superficiall Creator of severall outward forms and shapes of various use and applications of things farre beyond that rustick grossenesse primitive simplicity and confusion which either is in the first rudiments or in the effects of Nature before its materials are subdued softned and digested by Art which is as much the good gift of God and tends to his glory as Nature and which to deprive mankind of is to reduce them from the politure and improvement of after times and long experience to their first caves and cottages their primitive skins and acorns Nor may we think that the God of Art and Nature who gives us liberally without any envy or grudging all things to enjoy in a virtuous and sober way that is to good ends hath so curbed us up by religious severities as to forbid us the use and enjoyment of the fruits of his wisdome power and paternall bounty so as may best please our selves and others without displeasing him who is to be glorified even in that sensible glory of beauty feature colour and proportion which is but superficiall and must be done away when a more durable and eternall glory shall appeare of which it hath some embleme type and prefiguration as the Tabernacle had of Solomons Temple § All which superstitious rigor and precisenesse is not more contrary to Gods munificence and indulgence than to the very nature and fancy of mankind which is so set beyond all creatures that even grace and virtue themselves receive some varnish and glosse a kind of silent commendation by the cleanlinesse and comelinesse of our outsides yea we think to do an honor to Religion in its publick services by putting our selves even as to our vestures and gestures into those forms and fashions which we think are most civill reverentiall and comely As nothing is more humane than the delight in handsomenesse so it cannot be either irrationall or irreligious to hide those our deformities and defects which we think are prone to diminish us in the eyes and acceptance of those with whom we do converse either as to civill or religious society If a civility both to the living and the dead invites us to wash the bodies and faces of the dead as they did Tabithas to which custome of being baptized for dead the Apostle seems to referre 1 Cor. 15. 29. as forespeaking and hoping for an after resurrection of the body to an eternall purity and incorruption Also we close the eyes and compose the countenances of our dead friends so as may most remove them from that gastly and unpleasing aspect which is in the vale and shadow of Death What I pray hinders while we are living and among the living but that we may study to adorn our lookes so as may be most remote from a deathfulnesse and most agreeable by their livelinesse to those with whom we live § If it was piety of old to repaire the Temple of God and is still good husbandry to mend the decayes of those houses of clay in which our bodies dwell why should
it seem Sacriledge to relieve these Tabernacles of our bodies which are the Hosteries of our Soules and Temples of the holy Ghost so long as they may be in any decorum serviceable to them both Not that I am for those grosse Soloecismes of Art which by unseasonable and unsutable affectations as so many pitifull props and underpinnings strive in vain to skrew and set up lapsed and tottering age to the semblance and prospect of youthfull beauty and vigor when old women and men too with the great neglect of their Soules adorning and preparation for Heaven seek as it were by Medeas charmes to recoct their corps as she did Aesons from feeble deformities to spritely handsomenesse When gray haires are here and there it is fit the more to lay to heart our frayle estate but when the pillars of the house do fail when lowd summons of aged Infirmities call lowd upon poor mortals to make haste for heaven and eternity to prepare to meet their God and adorne their soules with aged and devout Anna for their spouse and Saviour Iesus Christ in all those gracious augmentations of piety and holy improvement of virtue which may make them beautifull and lovely in Gods sight There is then no place or season to be curiously patching and superfluously mending to be painting polishing and pruning beyond a matronly comelinesse or gravity which is alwaies lawfull while we are alive our Gibeonitish carkases those rotten posts which are mouldring themselves away T is impertinent to trim our cabin with cost and paines when we are upon shipwracking or poorely to furnish a room when the whole house is shortly to be puld down To be deploredly old and affectedly young is not only a great folly but a grosse deformity T is rediculous to spend much of a moments remnant in contending with the invincible wrinkles and irreparable ruins of old age which nothing but a vizard can quite hide or a miracle can wholly overcome It is fit for us humbly to yeeld to those decayes and oppressions of time to which sinfull mortality hath exposed us Many times we must be content to be first buried even in the rubbidge and ruines of our own vile bodies Whose sad decayes incurable diseases and irreparable deformities ought to serve rather as foyles the more to set off and lesse to hinder our meditations of eternall life health and glory Not impediments or bluntings but rather as Whetstones to set an edge on our desires after higher and more permanent beauty My plea Madam is onely so farre as Nature and years may both sutably and seasonably bear those discreet and ingenuous assistances of Art which may give a decency and conformity to our education and other proportions of civill life Where specially there may be some such decayes as are proecipitant as to years and exorbitant in one part beyond all the rest through naturall infirmity resting thereon or by some outward occasion that hath befallen us Who doubts but if by the num palsie one leg or arme be as it were mortified while the rest of the body is yet strong and vigorous we may by fomentations and other convenient means seek to revive and recover it Who scruples but that if one or two or more gray hairs grow up on a youthful head as is frequent in some colours and constitutions by an over early non-conformity to the rest of our haires that are round about who I say scruples but that they may lawfully be pluckt out I confesse I am prone civilly to gratify sober and virtuous minds as long as they live with those ornaments to their outsides which may keep them in all civil comelinesse and cleanlinesse which to preserve is not onely great discretion but even good conscience at least in wives who ought not to be either prodigall or negligent of themselves as to outward decency so farre as it may prudently be obtained and modestly maintained To these I humbly conceive that indulgence in point of artificiall handsomenesse may be allowed which was permitted by St Paul to Timothy as to drinking a little wine for his often infirmities yet am I herein as farre from indulging vanity pride and wantonnesse as the Apostle is there from encouraging riot excesse and drunkennesse Nor would I only vindicate the innocent use of auxiliary beauty from the unjust suspicions and rash censures of being absolutely in the very nature of the thing a sin which some assert beyond what I can yet see by my own eyes or the best spectacles they afford me but my design is to have it so used as may no more blemish a modest womans discretion then burthen her conscience That she may be not onely commendable for the innocent purity of her heart but unblamable for the elegancy and decency of her hand which useth these as all things not only lawfully but expediently piously and prudently conscienciously and becomingly onely to conceal or supply such defects as you confesse may in many other cases admit the help of art without any sin or shame As for the words of our Saviour which your LaP Ladyship cites when forbidding us to swear by our heads he signifies how little power we have of them since we cannot make one haire white or black His meaning is not either to shew the impotency or unlawfulnesse of all humane skill as if man could not or might not by any art change the outward colour of his haires which is daily and easily done but our blessed Lord truly urgeth that as to the inward temperament we cannot make one haire grow otherwaies than it doth either black or white All dyes and tinctures do but alter the outward forme or colour by hiding what is native from an internal and by us unchangeable principle which is out of the reach of Art So when our blessed Saviour tells us we cannot by our taking thought add to our reall stature one cubit he doth not hereby deny the possibility or lawfulnesse of setting our selves higher than naturally we are either by the heels of our shoes or by patens or seates and the like inventions which seek to give an advantage of procerity and comlinesse to our stature which if shrunk to a dwarfishnesse and epitomized to a Decimo-sexio makes the persons of men and women subject to be as little in the eyes and esteem of others as they are in their own inches or size Nothing is more obvious than for tall Goliah to despise little David But as to the augmenting of our seeming height and stature either by heels or high crownd hats or seates none are I think so silly as to be scrupulous Nor do I think it much to be doubted but if in our youth by sicknesse or fear in one night as I have read in Mr Howells Epistles befel a youthful man in the Lowcountreys upon the false terror he had of being the next day executed by the command of the Duke of Alva our hair should turn
all your neighbours poor that they may the more value set off and admire your riches There may be greater pride in the want of charity and in severe censuring of others for pride in that which they use as from God so in his fear and to his glory It is good to look to the became in our own eyes of rashnesse and censoriousnesse which is an high arrogating of Gods judiciall power and ascending up to his Throne or Tribunall before we quarrell too earnestly with the mote in an others eye § Why should any be judged of Pride for that wherein he ownes and venerates God praysing him for his bounty and keeping within his bounds Since Gods eye hath been good to poor mortals not onely in native gifts but in artificiall and adventitious supplyes why should any Christians eyes be evill Repining at or disdayning anothers benefit who want what God hath not denyed which is as if one should grudge them a plank to save themselves who have made shipwrack T is possible for Diogenes his Cynicall slovenlinesse to trample on Platoes splendid garments with more pride than Plato wore them Nor is it any strange effect of pride to deny others that which may make them any way our peers or rivalls in handsomenesse which is as strong a leaven to puffe the mind as any thing and no lesse fermentive when naturall than when artificiall And indeed artificiall helps of beauty carry with them their own antidote while they are monitors of our wants and infirmities which like the swallowing down the stone keep us from surfeiting of the cherries we eat We read no where in Scripture that the beauty and bravery of colours is either forbidden or reproved unlesse unseasonably worn when God calls for sackcloth and blacknesse of faces Lydia a seller of purple whose dy or finer tincture was of more worth than the substance or stuffe it self yet is not forbidden when she was converted to be a Christian either to dy or to sell any more of that rich and orient colour Since other diseases or distempers incident to our faces are industriously to be cured without any thought or blame of pride as flushings rednesse inflammations pimples freckles ruggednesse tanning and the like what hinders that palenesse sadnesse and deadnesse may not be remedied since God hath given to mankind not onely bread to strengthen and wine to cheer mans heart but also oyle and other things proper to make him a serene and cheerfull countenance And where oyle is not used other things may be according to that virtue and property is in them to such an end Against which honest liberty I see nothing wars so much as prejudice and a kind of wontednesse to think the contrary because they never knew how innocent as well as convenient the use of such helps is to sober minds and more pallid looks But good Madame although you may safely contend with my weaknesse of understanding and want of memory which are prone to betray the strength of a good cause Yet I beseech you beware how you dash against that great rock which I confesse gives me such terror as I dare not touch it any more than the people or beasts might Mount Sinai I mean the uniforme judgement and concurrent Testimony of very many learned and godly men both the holy Fathers of old and the most reformed Ministers of later times who as I am informed almost with one voice absolutely cry down and even damne to hell all painting or colouring the face in order to advance the beauty of it as a sin not small and disputable but of the first magnitude Which dreadfull censure my self have read not without some horror as in others of our English Divines so especially in Mr. Downams Christian warfare the first book and 14th Chapter where from the Fathers sense he calls painting of the face The Devils invention absolutely a sin not only in the abuse but the very use In the nature of the thing and not onely in the intention of the doer That it is utterly wicked and abominable against the law of God The light of nature Against self-shame and conviction A reproach of God a perverting of his works in nature A cheat of others a lure and bait to sin a fruit of pride and vanity poysonous to the body and pernicious to the soul That it is the proper practise of harlots and lewd women That it is inconsistent with a Christian profession and a good conscience He brings Tertullian arguing against it as the Devils counterfeiting and mocking of God by seeking to mend his works as if God needed his enemies help to compleat his creatures So he cites S. Cyprian telling the vailed virgins that the devil by these arts doth but distort and poyson what God hath made handsome and wholesome He might have added many more as I find other where in our English Authors who produce the authority of S. Ambrose S. Austin S. Chrysostome and S. Jerome against all additionall beauties Thus I perceive English Divines for the most part are as Boanerges sons of Thunder against these Complexionary Arts Nor do I find any almost that are Barnabasses or sons of comfort as to the use of it in any kind at any time or by any person that pretends to piety Which makes me wonder how your LaP Ladyship hath the courage and confidence to encounter such an host of Worthies men of renown or whence you are furnished with such Armes both offensive and defensive in this contest beyond what I have heard or read from any one in defence of Auxiliary beauty which must not seem to me any beauty since to so many pure eyes it appears deformity so that a painted Lady is to be looked upon rather as some Specter or Empusa than as an handsome woman THis black and ponderous cloud of witnesses which your LaP Ladyship produceth against all artificiall beauty from the suffrages of ancient and later Divines did I confesse a long time so scare me that I feared a Deluge of divine wrath in no case to be more unavoydably powred forth upon the soul than in this of giving any assistance to the face and complexion So terrible presages of stormes did the thunder and lightning give both from the presse and pulpits of grave and godly men No soul was more shaken than I was in the minority of my judgement when I had more of traditionall superstition than of judicious religion and valued more the number of mens names than the weight of their reasons § But at length finding by my greater experience in the world that many if not most women of more polished breeding every way virtuous and most commendable for all worthy qualities yet did use more or lesse privately and it may be lesse discernibly to vulgar eyes something of art to retard age and wrinckles to preserve or recover a good complexion to quicken that colour which is the life of the face and
more easy and frequent than antique and popular errors which either cry things up or down as some one or more persons of eminency first fancied and opined From whom wiâ—hout any further triall many receive for currant all that is stamped with their name Thence it growes so common and customary by the authority of time and multitude that even learned and sober men in following ages are content to swim down the common streame rather than trouble themselves to crosse or question such vulgar and therefore authentick errors Which I remember my Lord your brother in one of his many excellent discourses meriting a far better memory tongue than mine observed to be so frequent both in politick and pious affaires in things civill and Ecclesiasticall because very few examine the marrow and inside of things but take them upon the credit of customary opinings And what they hold even in capite and co de too is more by a superficiall tenour of credulity than any pregnant proofs and good evidences of Reason or Religion § Which easinesse if it be excusable to humane infirmity in lesser matters where there may be an adherence in perswasion or practise to either side without any sin or notorious error yet in things highly charged with sin even to a more facinorous and notorious degree as this of any painting and complexioning the face is by this worthy man and others grave and godly Divines should be very wary what they affirme or deny Least they be over righteous beyond what God imposes or severe beyond Gods smitings or uncharitably lay either heavier pressures on the consciences or harsher censures on the actions of others than God himself doth Men of never so eminent learning and piety may not either adde or detract from the word of God least they be found lyers as Salomon speaks Prov. 30. 6. Nor ought they to multiply sins by unreasonable and unseasonable severities beyond what God hath done For such passionate and precipitant wayes of censuring and condemning in case of sin where pregnant convictions in Reason or Scripture are wanting besides thatthey are most unworthy of a cautious and well advised Divine who being in Gods stead to people ought not to pretend Gods authority where he can produce none do not onely charge the consciences of Christians with needlesse burdens and binds them to unjust bondages but they very much also baffle the credit or honor of Religion highly diminishing the reverence due to the Ministeriall profession as to that binding and loosing power of the Keyes which is principally committed to them For nothing makes people lesse prone to observe or more ready to disbelieve their words as to the avoiding reall sins than when they find them so loose superficiall and but verbally imperious in feined and forced enormities which are not convinced to have in them if rightly tried and stated any iniquity against God or man being injurious to neither where the heart is upright as it easily may be and no doubt alwayes is in modest women who generally use in some degree or other as they best fancy some things that they think best set off their outside and handsomenesse to the world Furthermore from such magisteriall rigors infinite doubts and scruples are raised among weaker consciences who dare lesse trust to their own judgements while they doubtingly use or do those things which they are loth to want and against which they see nothing proved as evil yet are they scrupulous and afraid to use them because of so much prejudice and clamor against them So that hence growes their snare and sin too while they want that faith in using them which is necessary to justify not the nature of the thing done but the conscience of the doer as the Apostle requires Rom. 14. 23. Whereas in reference to the nature of the thing done The Apostle assures us that the Kingdome of God as to gracious power and peace consists not in any of these things of externall use as meat or drink and so clothes colours c Nor ought the conscience in these to be set upon the rack and tainter but rather acquainted with its liberty which being kept within the bounds of modesty sobriety and innocency needs not be scared with the scruple of sin § And indeed in this very case of Complexioning I have heard that many learned and wise men both at home and abroad who are more remote from vulgar easinesse and credulity do forbear to condemne as sin the use of those things that are ingenuously and innocently helpfull to the beauty of modest women but they rather examine the true state of things both in the nature of what is used which must needs be good as n the order of Gods creatures also as to the mind and intent of the doer or user of them accordingly they determine That all colourings added to the face are so farre sin or not sin in the conscience of he doer as their minds are morally and intentionally disposed either to modest and ingenuous decency which is commendable or to Leudnesse pride and lubricity which are blameable And as they find the things used to be in the cabanet or store-house of nature Also the use of them to be no where forbidden in Reason or Scripture as a relief to such defects or infirmities of beauty as may befall the face So they resolve that according to the qualities and aptitudes which are seen in those things for such ends they may lawfully be used with humility charity purity and thankfulnesse without any offence to any relations wherein we stand obliged to God our neighbours or our selves We see in many cases that time and calmer considerations together with different customes which like the tide or flood insensibly prevaile over both manners and minds of men do oft take off he edge and keenesse of mens spirits against those things whereof they sometimes were great abhorrers reconciling their mortall feuds and wearing off their popular prejudices Few mens judgements are so died in grain buâ— they will fade and discolour being most what onely dipt by vulgar easinesse in common opinions Nor do I see any thing unlikely but that upon second thoughts and more exact view a faire moderation and civill attonement may be mediated between Ladies Countenances and their Consciences by the intercession of judicious and religious persons both Ministers and others who dare to be wise beyond the vulgar and who have patience to consider better of this case than hath been wonted It will no doubt appear how little or no ground there hath been for so great reproaches or terrors of sin in a case no way more dangerous to the soule or body of a virtuous woman than all other civill and allowed Ornaments are Where by adding a little quickning and lustre to her lookes she is no way hindred from the Love of God or her neighbour in chast and charitable waies That where no cost is lavished