sinful as 't is not making Images to adorn Churches but building Churches to worship Images that makes the Idolatry And since Recreation for the mind is as well necessary as Exercise for the body I see no reason why it may not be lawful for me to recreate my self now and then in an afternoon in such good young Womens company and conversation to hear their opinions and discourses which the rude sort of Men call Twatlings on the Stories of the place and their several fancies and judgments on the divers Fashions then worn who are the Women most talk'd of for whom and what beauties are highest cried up and which of them loves most and carries on an Intrigue best lives highest wears the richest Clothes keeps the finest Equipage and has most Gallants and this Gentlewoman is to be Married to that Gentleman who in a little time will find her Debts much greater than her Beauty or Portion either and such a pretty Maid is to be Married by a Match of her Parents making to such a one in whom she will be very unhappy her heart being prepossessed by another and such an old Man is jealous of his young Wife without a Cause and such a young Man is not jealous of his handsom Wife with one and the like Subjects which I grant in severe strictness may be truly call'd an omission in not spending our time so well as we ought which I look upon to be more a venial vice than an unpardonable sin and therefore do not believe that the knowledge of my infirmity ought to be the despair of my Recovery but I am truly pleas'd that all unlawful designs and unchast desires as to Women are banished from my heart and that Vertue has made me quite leave them before Age has made them quite leave me But 't is more than time to finish this Discourse for I have dwelt longer on it than I intended but the trouble of it I hope the Ladies will the more easily pardon since 't is not only a fault but a habit that I have been much subject to and long infected with which is to be loth to part with young Womens Company when I am once got into it and therefore I will conclude this Discourse with this Complement to the Ladies that I heartily wish it may prove as satisfactory and advantagious to them as to make them all now as fond of piety as I was once of beauty and that they may continue to love it as many years as I did them and then I dare assure them this double blessing That they shall neither live ill nor die young THE FOURTH DISCOURSE Of the extraordinary governing Power that Womens Beauty now exercises over most Men. BLess me and deliver me What a strange Subject do I now fall on and into what a vast Sea am I now Imbarking The Bay of Biskay with all its proud swelling waves is but as a calm pond to it for that only tosses Ships into the Air and presently brings them down again but this Subject elevates my Pen above the Skie and there leaves it for Womens governing Power has no certain Top nor Bottom but Circle-like is without beginning or end How can it possibly be then describ'd it being a meer Maze of difficulties and a Labyrinth of Confusions in which it has made so many cross Paths of pride and folly vanity and power as I know not which to take or which to leave where to advance or how to retreat And yet I find in my self an earnest inclination to venture on it though I am sure to be lost in it for I must expect that this dull and short Discourse on the voluminous Subject of beauties mighty power can have no other fate than that of Rivers which still run with an eager haste though it be only to plunge themselves into the Sea in which they are presently lost Story tells us of some English Frigats that sail'd up to Constantinople and were there so generally admir'd that the great Turk himself went to see them and was very much taken with their beauty shape and strength and being told there were hundreds finer in England he commanded that the Map of the World should be presently brought him that he might see that brave Kingdom which produced such gallant effects the Map being come he laid his finger carelesly on it and ask'd whereabouts England was but the person that was to shew it him told him he could not do it till he took off his finger for it quite cover'd that Kingdom Thus one Inch of the Worlds Map serves to set out all Englands Confines but a hundred sheets of Paper cannot half describe the extraordinary bounds of Womens usurping power If I look up towards the height of it I am confounded at the sight of so bright and clear a Scene of meer sanciful Splendor and if I look downwards on it I meet in my Compass crowds of Adorers and Suitors thick prostrate at their feet some courting their great beauty others admiring their high power some begging their favour but most bribing their interest But though their beauty cannot at all dazle my sight yet this Subject do's indeed puzzle my Pen for really I am so far from knowing how to end this Discourse as I profess I know not yet where to begin it and indeed when I have writ all I can on it I fancy I can make no other than this whole sale judgment of it That beauties universal governing Power is of a miraculous nature like that of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea every body may daily see its strange effects but none can give a good reason for the true cause therefore I am sure my weakness ought not to attempt what the strength of wit and Philosophy could never perform So that I am resolv'd to venture on this Subject but as little Boys do on a great River not hazard far on it for fear of being lost in it but content themselves with wading a little on the Brink of it and there to dable and wash them out of the reach of its great depth and fierce stream And though I know that the cause of Mens so enslaving themselves to handsom Womens power cannot spring but from a mean slavish nature and so ought not to be look'd upon better by any considering Men than a kind of Kingdom in the Moon or Fairy Land only hatch'd by the fiery amorous Love of a high lustful and enflam'd distemper'd passion seated in the vain Aiery Region of meer foolish imagination being not grounded on any foundation of true reason or good consideration Yet I cannot imitate the Map makers who still leave a blank for their Terra Incognita but I must fill up my Paper and rather than not write more of it I will leave of scratching my head and breaking my brain any longer about it to find out how and where to begin this desperate Subject it being like a Coal all over red
appointed for Women to govern over Men next of course follows the manner how they Ruled and that we have an account of in few words in the 12 verse of that Chapter aforementioned by the Prophet O my people says the Lord Those that is the Women that lead ye cause you to err and destroy the ways of thy Paths Thus we find that error and destruction are the effects of Womens ruling power it being contrary to the ways of Truth for it causeth Error and the Laws of Nature of Reason I cannot say of common Practice and it was here appointed to Women not as a favour but for a punishment as an effect of Gods wrath against his People it being a Reverse of the Fundamental Law which was made by God almost as soon as the World I am sure as early as the first Man in it for Sacred writ tells that 't was laid as a load on the first Woman for her disobedience to her Maker that she should be subject to her Husband and though to be so now is but the practice of very few Wives of our Age yet that do's not hinder it from being the duty of all from the beginning of the World Therefore let all our high spirited governing Women who make their silly Husbands and foolish Gallants such slaves to their Power because admirers of their beauty remember what one very well observ'd That the day of the date of Womens Power over Man was the day of the date of her sin against God It being most clear and plain that from Adams time the Woman ought to be in subjection to the Man and therefore S. Paul said I will not have the Woman usurp an authority over the Man and seems to give the Reason for first Adam was made then Eve Seneca well observes in saying There is something of meanness in the most seeming gallant and inviting sin I am sure there is a great meaness of Spirit in Mens so subjecting themselves to Womens power since such must in effect declare that they have lost not only the Courage of Men but the very Nature of Gentlemen what did I say they have lost the Nature of Gentlemen nay I might have added the very natural right and reason of humanity and deserve to loose the great honour of being English Men for such Petty-Coat Men ought to be Transplanted into the Suburbs of England Wales where the Language of that Country fits exactly their effeminate humor who by a kind of Welch Paradox call the Man hur not he and indeed hur suits betten than he with such a sort of female Gentry who are composed of such unmasculine Spirits Really when I reflect on what Crowds there are of this pitiful rank of Men who take so great pride and delight in being constant adorers and humble servants to their Mistrisses beauty not in railery but in reality who are as very happy in their own conceit if their Mistrisses do oblige them with a kind word or favourable look as if the Day Star from above had come to visit them and to lead them into eternal light and that all the Aspects of the Stars had combin'd together to be propitious to them Yet after all 't is a very great pity that these sort of Mistrisses do not bestow on these kind of servants Lace to their Coats for sure they are fools enough to deserve it and I see no reason why such who are so ambitious of their service should refuse to wear their Liveries and be out of Countenance to be known Fools by their Coats when they are not asham'd to deserve that name by their actions Solomon says a slothful Man shall be covered with rags and so indeed ought such Men who are dull and drowsie in the exercise of their own power and over-active in their obedience to Womens for which they well deserve to wear the Colours of their Mistrisses Soveraignity and their slavery on the ragg'd Fools Coat of their own simplicity Sure all such Men as will debase themselves into such an effeminate servitude as to render it both easie and habitual to them cannot pretend in the least to possess a noble or generous spirit for that must be averse to it since it makes a Man not ony unfit to serve his King and Country the duty of every good Subject but even to be useful to himself and family Whereas if young Men studied noble Sciences instead of courting handsom Women who can only divert their Time probably corrupt their Lives whereas the practice of vertue and the study of Men and business with other useful Sciences will refine and strengthen their knowledge fortifie prudence in their actions kindle Magnanimity in their hearts raise glorious desires in their minds and so polish and regulate all the weighty actions of their lives so as to render them fit to serve their Country both in War and Peace and themselves and families to boot which advantage can never redound on either by courting and serving beauty never so long for meer beauty sake And I wonder your beauty Courtiers do not observe that great beauties seldom esteem the long attendance or great services of their Adorers as they ought because they value more their own beauty than they should which makes it common for such Women to ruin their Lovers liberty to proclaim their own Soveraignty over it and therefore sure it cannot appear very unreasonable that such Men as will make themselves Slaves to Womens beauty should pass for fools in sober Mens thoughts Indeed there 's one Law and but one Law I know which though a French one yet as great lovers as our English Ladies are of the French fashions they are so far from esteeming or allowing it as they will not endure so much as to hear it nam'd and that 's called the Salick Law which in France prohibits the female Sex from wearing the Breeches and Reigning which our high spirited governing Women in England so hate the Name of as there was a report they were about calling a Parliament of Women to vote it high Treason against the Power of their present Government to but name bringing that Law into England but as good fortune would have it they could not agree among themselves about chusing a Speaker for every one would be one and knowing where all will speak aloud none can be heard they were necessitated in Prudence to dissolve that Parliament design But truly in my opinion at the high rate of power Womens beauty now Governs the Ladies have no cause to be concern'd that the Breeches are not given to them by Act of Parliament since it is freely bestowed on them by the Custom of the Country and Custom you know makes Laws and those as binding as any she Act of Parliament since they are ratified and confirmed by the Major part of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as well as the Knights Burgesses and Commons who by many Signs and Tokens give great cause of fear that
's nothing so wonderful in all that glory as that any one should so much admire it having neither River Wood good Land or pleasant Prospect about it being all round about close besieg'd by great coarse and ragged Hills which cannot add much lustre and glory to the Situation of any place of such vast Expence and Magnificence so as to be Celebrated by some as one of the Wonders of the World We read in History that Alexander the Great expressed much trouble that he had no more Kingdoms left him to Conquer I am sure the French King needs no cause of trouble for want of more Hills to Conquer and site about his Palace of Versaillies as long as he lives tho he had more Men and Mony to employ about levelling them than now he has Indeed such a Royal Building of Magnificence well deserved a most pleasant and Stately Situation but it seems that King thought it more noble better becoming his greatness to make one by the expence of Art than to be beholden to one of Natures free bounty that the World might know he scorn'd so mean an offer whilst he has Armies that can level Mountains as plain as he pleases and Mony to mount Rivers as high as he desires And indeed if we range over not only France and Turky but all the whole World we shall find that Praise is the Butt all Shoot at tho few hit the Mark for if we but look narrowly into Praises and consider the Actions as well as the Persons they are commonly great Flatterers and the breath of such Praises is but like a Rain-bow which is no other than a meer seeming Collection of many bright Colours without any true substance or long duration one day discovering the folly of the other and a few days will shew you your own end and with it the vanity of them all Therefore if the young Ladies could but perswade themselves to think seriously of the little reality there is in the Praises Men present them and the vain pastimes the World deludes them with both Women and Men will find that most of their delights are vain and despicable for the possession of much beauty breeds great pride and high concern and the decay of it creates in such as much discontent and envy at what they then lose and afterwards see others enjoy And so 't is the same with many of Mens Worldly delights which soon become uneasie to the Mind and often destructive to the Body for a debauch of drinking makes most sick and out of order after it and the enjoyment of handsom ill Women causes usually foul Pocky Diseases such French punishment suiting well with such an English transgression for the fondness of an unvertuous Love placed on an unchast Womans beauty is like the Fire of a Candle which lasts no longer than it flames and Candle like assoon as its flame is consum'd it presently expires in a stinking snuff So such a debauch'd Love I should have said Lust commonly ends with the odious detesting thoughts of such a foul and lustful passion which makes him then loath the sinner as he ought still the sin and himself for having committed the folly And if any one of these Venus Courtiers falls in Love with a truly vertuous Beauty hopes to gain his base unchast desires of her by fierce Courtship great adoration large offers of Presents all these thick larded with the common false Oaths of the praises of her great beauty and his great and constant Love the Lingua franca of all Gallants which all still swear to observe but few ever design to perform and therefore handsom Ladies never ought to Credit for surely he that speaks what he does not believe none ought to believe what he speaks but is bound in Conscience and Honour to slight his Courtship and scorn his Offers or else she must do much worse slight her self and reputation too 'T is a Proverbial saying that Love is blind I am sure such a sort of Lover is for he will not see the unjust desires he makes to her but only minds the unkind returns she makes to him without ever considering that they spring from her Love to Vertue and a good Reputation but vainly fancies 't is her Love to some happy Lover that 's in her favour and keeps him out which disquiets and torments his Amorous mind with a fierce Jealousie which Solomon calls the Rage of Love and tho young Men are more naturally enflam'd with eager desires in the pursuit of beauty than old Men are for Age to Love is like Water to Wine the more quantity of Water the less strength in the Wine but t is most certain old Men are as able Courtiers and Lovers of Wealth as any young Men can possibly be Riches being like the Sun agreeable and comfortable to all and indeed nothing is more common than to see Covetousness to grow in most with their Age and the reason of it in my Opinion is that all other youthful sprightly delights but that of gaining Wealth decreases as Age increases but the pleasure of Mony all Men can keep as the Heathen do their Gods they adore under Lock and Key But yet this so adored beauty Riches carries its troubles as well as delights for there 's great labour in procuring Wealth trouble in defending and preserving it and also great Cares in the well spending it whilst one lives and well disposing of it when we die and so if we look over and search into most Worldly pleasures and vanities we shall find them as contrary to the true repose of this life as they are to the felicities of the next Certainly there is some great Charm in this thing called Praise that tickles the ear inflames the heart raises the spirits enlivens the resolution deludes the reason flatters the hopes and deceives the sight by giving a false gloss and making a counterfeit representation of things for the Bait of Praises for which both Men and Women so strive and eagerly pursue is still painted and set out in the brightest and most oriental charming Colours that are imaginable to allure our eyes inflame our hearts and enliven our ambition But the Hook that is hid in this Bait that is the great dangers hardships and thousands of vexatious disappointments that one must necessarily meet and run thorow in the pursuit of this Idol folly is so obscure artificially drawn as 't is not commonly seen but very ordinarily felt by many in some to their loss of Life and to others of their greatest satisfactions in it And now to put my last finishing Touch to this Picture of Praise the Mistris and Darling of the whole World methinks we ought not to wonder that this adored beauty is so Coy in her Carriage and so difficult to be gain'd if we do but reflect tho in a wholesail manner the sad oversights great mistakes and blind pursuits of its followers of whom I shall only
strict examination satisfy her self that she 's able in this case to alledg more Reason and produce better Arguments to justify her Chastity than her Enemy can bring to accuse her Vertue before unconcern'd and unbyass'd Judges Let her therefore suppose the worst of her late dear Friend but now great Enemy that he should swear That he came often into her Chamber when she was alone in it in Bed and that she order'd and assign'd him that opportunity and conveniency that they might enjoy one another as they then did and to confirm the Truth of this Accusation he says she that was certainly so indiscreet as to allow the one might possibly be so unvertuous as to admit the other and alledges his being alone with her to back the Truth of what he now Swears and to publish the Folly of that she then did and farther adds That he can prove this her Indiscretion by her own act But she can never prove her Innocency when they were so alone by her own Words Therefore let her seriously reflect and consider how weak and slight her Defence must be against her Enemies sworn Accusation let her Wit be never so great and her Innocency never so clear since she cannot produce so much as one single Witness to confirm the Truth of what she says or to contradict the Truth of what he Swears having only her own bare Word and that in her own Cause and to defend her own Honour and Reputation which she has expos'd to Censure by the imprudent liberty she allow'd her then Friend either on the account of her too little Wit or too much Love or at least too great want of Discretion and Consideration I suppose she may make to his Accusation some kind of Defence of this nature That in the first place for his accusing her of suffering him to visit her at unusual visiting hours when she was alone in her Chamber in Bed that part she does not deny because she cannot well do it says 't was never but once and that once was meer accidental Secondly At the time he so visited her he swore he was and she verily believed him to be an honest Man and her real Friend as well as her long and intimate Acquaintance Thirdly She takes God The Searcher of all Hearts to be her Witness that she did not then or ever before or after act any thing with him in Thought Word or Deed that was not truly vertuous and purely innocent which his Heart knows to be a real Truth as well as he knows what he swears to the contrary to be an errant malicious Lie And Lastly she says That scandalous Reports against Women of Quality and Reputation ought only to be credited by sober and prudent Persons but according to what they see themselves and not according to what they hear from others because 't is in the power of any wicked Man to raise and cast scandalous Reports on the most vertuous Woman in the World All this I grant a Woman may alledge in her own Defence and Justification which I cannot esteem much because she could not well say less First as to his Accusation of her suffering him to visit her when she was alone in Bed at unusual visiting hours as to her Answer that 't was altogether undesignedly and accidentally and that 't was never but once and that she was fully resolv'd it should never be so a second time To this part of her Justification it may be answered That granting the Judges should take her own bare Word For she can give no more that what she says is a real Truth yet it may be objected That a Woman that will allow her self to do one act of Indiscretion in her carriage towards a Man it may be indeed a reasonable inducement to believe she may be perswaded to commit another But to draw an Argument that tho' she committed one act of Indiscretion yet we are to credit her bare word that she will never be brought to commit a second is but a weak and an irrational Conclusion for if a pure sense of Honour and true Love of Reputation regulates all a Woman's Actions and Carriage towards all Men as certainly it ought that Woman would never be so imprudent as to allow one freedom to her favorite Friend at any time which she could not honourably own and publickly justify at all times and in all Places and Companies in case her Friend should become her Enemy but indeed most Women are too apt to mistake the difference between the word Lover and the thing Friend for they will have them to be both one and the same thing when in deed they are very oft'n far from being so for tho' every true Friend must be a true Lover yet every pretending Lover is not a true Friend as many Ladies can Witness by woful Experience But if Venus Love had then the predominant Power over her Inclinations as it certainly has over many Women towards the favourite Man of her present fancy it may be better and much more rationally argued That the same amorous Inclination which at that time over-ruled her Discretion by admitting him one freedom more than she should might as well at another time over-power her Discretion by admitting him a second liberty more than she ought for she that commits one act of indiscretion shews by it a probability that she may be prevail'd with to act a second but no impossibility against her being perswaded to commit a third Next as to that part of her justification That the Man that did visit her when she was alone in her Chamber in Bed at an unusual visiting hour 't was never but once and that once was by one she verily believed to be her true faithful Friend as well as her long and old Acquaintance But to this it may well be answered That 't is very common for great Friends to prove great Enemies and often the greater Enemies for having been great Friends as the Weight of a Pendulum Clock falls the more backward for being shoved the more forward And this I am sure that there can be no Friendship in the whole World that is so loosely Tack'd on as that between a Man and a Woman on a meer Beauty Account which must of course be destroy'd by Death impair'd by Sickness and may be broken in pieces by a Thousand Accidents Witness that common one of a Man growing to like another Woman better than his Mistress or she to fancy another Man better than him a common Fate that attends most Beauty-Lovers and so they grow to dislike one another for great Beauty tho' it often creates great Fondness yet it seldom contains a long constant Love For as Beauty is pleasing so 't is Clogging and we know that the finest Sweet Meats make the foulest Surfeits For there we find it very usual among our young Gallants that tho' one of them has in a manner forsaken his Mistress yet that Man cannot indure to
of one Vice but the fruitful Parent of many if not most Now remember this That tho' 't is possible that a Woman may be vertuous and not discreet in some Cases yet 't is impossible in any Case that a Woman can be indiscreet by being Vertuous since Discretion is a part of Vertue I shall not here give it as a general Rule without any Exception That a Vertuous Woman must still make a fond Wife for Vertue is still the Gift of God but a Husband is often the gift of a Father and sometimes forced by him and not chosen by her And I will appeal to all Men and Women-kind if this be not a great and real Truth That a Wife 's liking and loving a Husband must depend solely upon her own free Choice and not upon her Father's Will She may indeed obey what pleases him but she cannot love but what pleaseth her self Love is to be led not drawn Vertue may make her a good Wife but Love can only make her a fond one and Content a happy one Now tho' 't is certain That natural Heat still works strong in all young Women's Temper yet 't is far from being certain That Women's Love to their Husbands does still work strong in all young Wives Minds for tho' a brisk Heat still waits on a Woman's Constitution whilst she is a young Woman yet a brisk Love to a Husband does not still attend a Woman's Inclinations whilst she 's a young Wife And the reason of this is plain because often a Woman's Love and liking in the choice of a Husband only springs from and is but the bare Issue of her then first Fancy which perhaps had not the least mixture of good Reason or true Consideration in its composure but was meerly to gratify her passionate amorous Inclinations and such a kind of Love or rather Frenzy is usually but like a Fire of Straw which tho' it lights quick and burns fierce yet it consumes soon and this causes her Love-flame to last no longer than her Love-fancy which is usually but of a short duration as well of a fickle composition But the natural Temper of a young healthful Womans Constitution its Operation may be of long Continuance and must last as long as her youthful Health does Whereas the fickle Love to the Husband of her meer Fancy may possibly not last so long as her Youth or Health either This is the Cause that many of the hot fiery Venus-Brood of young Wives love their Husbands more for the Mans sake than the Man for the Husbands sake for the Man's part oft'n creates Pleasure but the Husbands part oft'n occasions Trouble which makes many of the young Mettle sort of Wives to like well enough coupling with their Husbands by Night who cannot with Gusto relish their single Company by day for they can then entertain themselves with sweet Variety which plainly demonstrates what kind of Divertisement such sort of Wives Love to their Husbands aims at and is delighted in I shall not here venture to lanch my Discourse into the vast Ocean of Reasons and Pretences that there happens in Husbands loving or hating their Wives nor shall I here pretend in the least to mark out the just bounds and true Measures that Husbands ought to use in the Trusting or Mistrusting their Wives Carriage in the Management of their Chastity only thus much I may safely write That there must be great Care taken in raising or falling this Spring that must turn this Engine for over-Liberty or over-Watchfulness and Restraint of Husbands to Wives are of such dangerous Consequences that a Failure of the exact Proportions and just Measures of either side may prove of fatal Consequence Therefore I shall only say That a wise Husband ought to observe a moderate Care between both these Extremities which is the most discreet and secure way and doubtless a politick Husband ought so warily and prudently to steer his Course and soberly and carefully to manage his Carriage towards his Wife as to avoid shewing too great a Jealousie of her or granting too great a Liberty to her lest the first may make her what she should not be and the second cause her to make him what he would not be But 't is more than time to beg your Pardon for having led your Thoughts as far as Italy the Garden of the World only to shew and entertain you with the worst Weed in it which is the Husbands of that Countrey 's jealous and barbarous Usage of their Wives I shall now conclude this Branch of my Discourse by only adding That many Vertuous Wives cause many ill Discourses and sharp reflecting Censures on their Reputation and good Name by their being so vain proud and foolishly indiscreet as not to follow the Fashions of their Betters for doubtless there are Rules and Measures in the Manners of Dresses as well as other Things which Women by the Rules of Discretion and Decency and the Orders of Civil Society ought to observe and follow according to the general Practice that such of their own Quality wear and the Country they live in use and the best and most vertuous Persons they are Neighbours to those to be Followers of and to make a strict Friendship with for men commonly judge of Womens Inclinations by the Company they make choice of and are delighted in There are another sort of Vertuous Wives which is the last Sort I shall speak of who for all their great Vertue will yet make a hard shift but they will be ill talk'd of These are a nice delicate squeamish sort of Virtuous Wives who are or at least would have all think they be great Criticks and strict Followers of all the Punctilio's that belong to and are useful for the maintaining a pure and clear Reputation in this World so as to deserve and preserve a high and vertuous Esteem of all Persons fancying they justly merit all Mens Praises and no ones Censures having such nice and curious Palates in point of good Reputation as they cannot indure the Scandal of allowing a Gallant but yet can at the same time suffer the publick Censure of Entertaining a He-Friend as a dear intimate and constant Companion and hope the good Name of Friend will smother the bad one of Gallant Indeed the Name of Friend may serve as a Blind against a Wives own Fears but it cannot still prove a Defence against others Tongues So vile and censorious is our present Age as most of our young Mens Discourses of hansom Women are so very Satyrical as they generally interpret young Men and Womens entertaining one another to be but Courtship that savors more of pure Venus-Love than true Platonick Friendship and I can too truly say before hansom Women can make all young Mens Courtship to pass for true Friendship they must weed out of this Country all the busie sharp ill-natur'd Censures in it who snatch up any Pretensions to worry and devour a Womans Reputation
friendly Caution that it might appear as publick as young Womens inconstancy or young Mens folly who pretend to a perfect knowledge and sole possession of a young beauties heart you that propound to your selves propriety in Love know Womens hearts like straws do move and that which you vainly think is Sympathy with you is really but Love to Jet in general Indeed the most experienc'd Venus Philosophers and enlightned Inspectors into the humors of most Womens hearts and affections are apt to make as gross oversights in their guesses and fancies of their making good Wives or true Lovers as the ablest Seamen do often commit mistakes in their sight at Sea sometimes taking Land for Clouds other times Clouds for Land Really the very best and most able Masters of Art and most Critical Enquirers with their greatest observations and pretences of knowledge as to the Motions of Ladies hearts can only make such imperfect guesses and speculations as Astronomers do of the Operation of the Stars which is but by the great they can give an account of the general order of Providence in their Stations and Motions but can give no certain Rule or true Measure to discern their Influences upon particular actions or bodies no more than they can give a reason other than Gods Will why constant success attends this Mans undertakings and a continued ill fortune waits on another Mans endeavors or why a wicked cursed Tyrant should live out his Natural Life prosperously among his abused Vassals and our highly excellent and truly pious Martyr King Charles the first of ever Blessed Memory should be barbarously Murder'd by his own free Subjects which is a most clear and plain Lesson of instruction not to Judg the true right of Causes by the false light of successes and therefore sober religious Men freely own their ignorance as to the certain Causes of the divers effects of Gods providence as to the event of things in this world there being such an infinity of Causes that depend on one another that good and wise Christians esteem it their best and safest way to live in a state of Neutrality as to a pretending knowledge of the effects of Gods providence in the Issues either of his Mercies or Judgments And truly if our young Gallants were as wise as they ought to be they would also live in a State of Neutrality as to their Judgment of the motions of young Ladies fancies and be satisfied with these general notions that their minds and inclinations are generally bent towards men who are young handsom rich witty high born well bred and the like but how to discern special Causes for particular Occurrences and to be able to tell the true reasons and give the just measures for Womens so often differing and varying in their Love fancies is I believe beyond the power of Man to Judge some Women esteeming the black before the fair others the fair before the black in which few agree or this handsom Man before t'other and sometimes an ugly Man before them both Womens likings to Men being like their mode of governing who tho the power be still the same and certain yet the manner of it is always changeable and inconstant I say in all these changes or rovings of fancy the most knowing and experienc'd Lovers can make at very best but imperfect Guesses almost as very uncertain as Womens Constancy or young Mens Love which indeed is much of the nature of common Hay and Stubble which a little spark lights and a small time consumes young Men being more inconstant in their addresses than very beauty in its duration most of our young Gallants Love being not able to keep up to the same degree of Elevation as the short space wherein their Mistrisses beauty does In a word I think the best Wit and most knowing Lover cannot say better of the nature of Womens Love than what S. Austin said of the nature of the Times I fancy I know it when no body bids me describe it but find I am ignorant of it when any does Truly few of our 〈◊〉 Lâ—â—â—es guide themselves in their Love choices by the clear Light and true Rule of Reason which occasions their being so often misled by the vain Love flashes of their present Airy fancy And indeed when a young Mans alluring beauty or what else you please to call it attracts a young Womans sight and thereby moves her fickle fancy and inconstant likings and so stamps a fierce but hasty impression of Love on her tender slippery heart which commonly makes the newest object the richest prize for indeed most of our modish Ladies Gallants are to them like the Fashions where usually the last Commer is best lik'd and most us'd And the Jest of it is that many of these changeable Ladies being so smitten are apt to believe that this their last Love is the only true one and that all their former Loves were but a kind of Mushrom Love which sprung up in a Night as Mushroms do without any Root but that this their present Love is built on good reason and true consideration and therefore shall be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians unalterable being so deeply engraven in their marble hearts as 't is never to be altered or worn out but by death forgetting all the Changes they formerly made and by the same Rule of Inconstancy they may hereafter make according to the taking objects which new conversation may present and that 't is possible if not probable that their present passion of Love that is so newly kindled and fully lighted may in some farther time be swallow'd up and extinguished by a more inviting beauty that may present more charming and agreeable and 't is most certain that the Love which possesses and inflames a young Ladies heart last Eclipses all former fancies as the Suns appearance darkens all other Lights the Sun being to be seen by no other light but his own In short most Womens hearts and Love vows of Constancy are to be read but like strange Prophecies which are to be understood not by their Words but by their Events Indeed most of our airy Ladies are so volatile and fickle in their Amours as not only their Eyes hearts and inclinations but their whole nature is so addicted to change and variety as one might as easily fix Mercury or make brickle Glass malleable as to fix a young Womans humor and love-fancy so as not to break out into change and inconstancy they being more fickle and changable than the very Wind it self for there are Trade Winds that blow still certainly one way all the Year without ever altering from the same Point and Place but a vain Ladies Constancy is not certainly to be found at any time or in any place their Love-humors being like the Camelions Colours whose property is to have no certain one So that 't is no wonder to find a young Woman that is inconstant but a greater one to find one
Ebbs and runs it self dry Therefore that Man that will sell his sweet Liberty and enslave himself into Matrimonial Chains meerly to enjoy a Womans beauty sure he does not know or at least does not consider that still the richer the Metal the heavier the Chain and therefore though his Mistris be never so much the admired object of his present fancy and that I should allow her golden Chains to weigh as long light on his mind as she continues beautiful to his sight yet to bind himself to herin a Matrimonial Vow only on the account of her beauty till death them depart on assurance that he shall feast on her beauty as long as he lives is just such a kind of folly as if a young Man that were a great Lover of Sweet meats should leave all his business imployments and pastimes to bind himself an Apprentice for seven Years to a Confectioner meerly on the account and assurance that during that time he should every day feast himself on them when very common Experience is able to inform him though his confidence be never so great his inclinations never so eager and his stomach never so good yet 't is natural for him to eat so fiercely at first falling on that like a greedy Howk he soon over-gorges himself with his own Prey and after having taken a full draught of that sensual delight seeing them continually exposed to his sight and prostrate to his will he comes to hate them as much after enjoyment as he courted them before for though the Fire of Love still burns for enjoyment yet enjoyment still quenches if not extinguishes the fire of Love and he grows in a little time so cloy'd as he wants not only appetite to eat them but almost patience to see them Then when t is too late he accuses the unreasonableness of his prefancied delight on which he built his confidence of a lasting pleasure and allows it to be not only a great folly but sin against reason in any Man to believe that his sensitive nature ought to be gratified when it proposes only a bare satisfaction to the Appetite and cannot secure any durable happiness or content to the reason and judgment of mankind And this is really the cause why so many of our young Gallants now adays make Marriage a kind of Paradox in Love for one of these to obtain the Woman he is in Love with turns his Mistris into a Wife and then t is two to one in a little time to get rid of his late beautiful Mistris being shrunk into the shape of a meer Domestick Wife he parts for ever with his late Mistris to get free from his present Wife and note that tho many Mistrisses turn to Wives yet no Wives ever turn to Mistrisses Wife and Mistris being of the same differing nature as Water and Wine 't is common to drink Wine with Water but of Water to make Wine to Drink was never done but once and that by the first Miracle of our Saviour so that in effect they did but see mingly agree really to fall out piece together to fall asunder and Married to get rid of one anothers Company And 't is some of these unfortunate disagreeing Husbands that says the Translator of S. Pauls Epistles hath left out the word well in one of them for where the Apostle says He that gives in Marriage does well it should have been He that gives well in Marriage does well for all know there are more bad Wives than good and sure all believe that S. Paul was too wise to write or think that any Man could do well in Marrying ill so that I am of opinion the sum of the Apostles meaning by saying He that Marries well does well but he that abstains from Marriage does better has some reference to that good plain English saying That next to no Wife a good Wife is best which occasions my pitying the many Husbands that have bad Wives and the many Wives that have ill Husbands and to wish those few that fancy they have good ones as truly content in their Marriages as I am in my Resolution of never Marrying and I am sure none can deny but that I have this advantage by the Bargain that 't is impossible for me to meet a bad Wife that does not Marry but 't is very possible and common for him that does THE EIGHTH DISCOURSE Against Maids Marrying for meer Love or only to please their Parents Inclinations tho' quite contrary to their own I Am against Maids Marrying for meer Love because they that Marry for meer Love Marry in a manner for meer fancy and so to feast their sensual appetite on what they then like they often starve the body of what it will hereafter need for tho' your fancy may tell you that beauty great store makes Love a feast yet truth can tell you 't is too slender a Diet to make a livelyhood on therefore in my poor opinion 't would be a much wiser course for Maids to make up their Marriages with a good share and large proportion of interest and conveniency to mix with their Love-liking and present fancy for the true and durable content of Marriages is so founded on these two great Pillars that without them Marriage-content can never flourish much or last long for a good sufficient Estate of Land is as necessary to buy rich Clothes and maintain a handsom plentiful way of Living as the Foundation under the Ground is to support the fine Rooms above it Beauty is a fine Flower but it must soon fade and a young Womans Love fancy may often change but can never long hold but a good Estate may continue longer than you can love or live and last after you are dead to your Childrens Children to the worlds end but a meer naked Love-match is at very most but a Tenant for Life and usually not near so long a good Estate can keep you in sickness and in health but a Love fastned on meer beauty or fancy never can for such a fancy-Love still fadeth away with the beauty that occasions it since assoon as the flower of beauty begins to wither at the top the admirers Love begins to die at the root Yet indeed I cannot think it very strange that young Maids should be deluded with the delightful thoughts of pleasing and satisfying their present beloved fancy of enjoying the Person of their inclinations since in most young Maids their fancy makes their Reason and not their Reason governs their Fancy and therefore 't is not to be wonder'd that they should esteem it reasonable that there is great happiness and that there will be long content in such meer and bare love Marriages because they never tried the sad experiment of such a rash hasty Marriage and therefore their want of experience may well serve for some kind of excuse to moderate their want of Consideration but after a dear bought Tryal too many of them find by woful
say in general that some are so eager in gazing at it others so over earnest in their seeking it as really most oversee the right way to it which is by true Piety constant Charity and a daily practice of Vertue and Godliness in all their actions And no wonder that such as will not take these blessed Guides should miserably miss their way to it and be sadly defeated in their hopes of it And now having done with my Discourse of Praise give me leave to change the Scene and to pass by the uncertainty of your meeting it tho to reflect on the certainty of deaths meeting you and the terrors that then appear at the end of a vain wicked life and to beg the vain young Ladies Company for a little time that I might lead their thoughts into the sad and dismal Regions of Mortality that they may now consider it to prevent it hereafter from surprizing them and that they may carry their thoughts to the Grave before their friends carry their Bodies The Seasons of our Lives resemble exactly those of the Year the Summer of our Life swallows up the Spring of our Youth and the Autumn of our Age makes us to decline as the Sun does daily of its vigorous heat and influence till all the fair days and various productions of natures beauty at last yeild to old Age Winter as their Grave for as the Apostle says 'T is appointed for every Man once to die and one day is still the death of the other and tho many things may keep back the thoughts of deaths coming yet nothing can retard the time of his approach And now I must humbly beg our vain modish Ladies pardon if I here a little mind them of the sad concluding Scene of their Life and in how miserable a condition some of them must necessarily be in when they come to die and have wasted all their Life in Vanity and Sin little considering Reputation and less fearing Scandal little valuing Conscience and less esteeming Eternity It has often come into my mind that the sad end of such vain Womens Lives is like the last Scene of their Loves to their Gallants which is just as an Ague turned upside down the cold fit after the hot for when the fiery passions of youthful Love are changed through their Inconstancy or worn out by Age or wasted by Sickness for you know that Loves-vanity is but of a short date it either vanishes in the act and is nipped in its gay and vigorous blossom like the tender-leav'd Plants by a cold Northern-wind or else grows wrinkled and impotent like crooked and deform'd shrubs for want of fap and moisture and so grows loathsom and deformed as the grim Jaws of Death that will too at last come with a dreadful stroak to level all our fair Cedars to the ground and make your beauty Ladies to consume away like a Moth fretting a Garment every Woman is therefore but vanity and when you are thus brought to your Death-beds of pain and languishing O then Consider what a sad condition you must needs be in when you will find all your fond beauty and vanity going off the Stage when your life is just expiring when the scorching thoughts of your past vain life come to inflame your mind more fiercely than the burning Feaver can your body and that the remembrance of your past extravagant pride and vanity will torment your troubled Conscience more than ever before they pleased your sensual appetite and that the shivering fit of guilt not only seizes your heart but pierceth your very soul with sad and sober thoughts of your past sins and the strict account that you must soon give of them and of the terrible punishments that you must justly suffer for them when perhaps you cannot comfort your afflicted Conscience with the assurance of having so much as performed in your whole life one pious act or charitable deed when you had both time and means to have performed thousands and so as too many of you do lose the blessings of the other World meerly for slighting Gods mercies in this And farther 't will be well worth the consideration of our vain Ladies that when they lie a dying the sins of their life will flie about their troubled minds as naturally as sparks do about fire and will lighten them to a clear sight of their pride and vanity and their greatest trouble when they are leaving this World is what will become of them when they are out of it and truly it will not be without great cause since their Consciences will then assure them that their Bodily pain in this Life will be but the Prologue or first step to their Souls eternal misery in the next Whereas a pious young Lady who with holy David makes a covenant with her Eyes that they should not behold vanity but observe Gods commandments as her chief study and delight by truly living in his fear she will certainly die in his favour and will find at her death that her good Conscience will be her real friend and true comforter and furnish her with a chearful readiness to submit her will to Gods which will never fail to protect her against all those spiritual conflicts and temptations of Conscience which still rack and torture ill Womens minds when they come to die for tho God casts her on her Bed of sickness and pain yet he will be sure to lift her up with the arms of mercy and bless her with the assurance of a perfect state of Bliss after her painful life is ended for tho Death be the wages of Sin yet a Pious death is but the passage to a Heavenly Life And a Religious vertuous Woman at her death will as certainly enter into a state of eternal Felicity as an impious vain and wicked one will into that of deserved misery Solomon says That the fear of God is not only the beginning of wisdom but the end of it for it teacheth you to regulate your desires and purifie your actions as it will make you live well in order to die so So that indeed our good actions concur in their influence towards the happiness of our souls as the Sun does in motion to the Dial the Dial is not the true cause of the Suns motion to it yet by the Suns shining on the Dial you may truly Judge of the true motion of the Sun But leaving aside that dispute whether good works can only merit Heaven or not as the Papists teach I am sure living a pious vertuous life in the faith of the holy Jesus will certainly carry you there this all Ladies know but few will practise or so much as think of I mean as you ought for you usually defer all thoughts of the other World till you are just parting out of this when alas the time present is only yours for that past is no more and that to come is not yet so that you do but live between them both
they have submitted in a perfect obedience to beauties Soveraign power and Wives Government over their Husbands Indeed for the Protestant Clergy they must be concern'd parties and fellow sufferers in the general Calamity of having Governing Wives but for the Roman Clergy they are quite free from that misery and servitude because they must never Marry so that they can be no concern'd parties as to their own Wives and therefore may be aiding and assisting in promoting and confirming Wives in their Universal Monarchy over their poor Husbands which they are briskly sayling towards with a too prosperous Gail But I hope the Fates will protect poor Husbands from such an unnatural shameful and Tyrannical kind of Government for if ever all Wives should attain to that Supremacy of Power which but too many have already Wives would then make such a total destruction of all Husbands authority over them as the Wives Monarchy would be then as absolute in England as that of the French King is now in France and would make then their Husbands as great Fools as that King do's now his ordinary Subjects Slaves In short I really fancy English Wives would be then as very resolute in maintaining their new Franchises over all their Husbands in England as the Pope is now steady in destroying the old Franchises of all Ambassadors in Rome Then we must conclude that Diogenes his Prophecy is fullfill'd who order'd himself to be buried with his Face downward saying The World will turn upside down and then he shall lie in his right place Then we shall reckon as the old Germans and Gauls did by Nights not Days Then we shall look on all Government as we read Hebrew that 's backward Then that Verse shall be razed out of the Bible that says the Woman is the weaker Vessel Nor shall S. Pauls instruction to Titus when he left him in Crete pass for good practical Doctrin 1 Tim. 12. That young Women are to be sober discreet and obedient to their Husbands the Apostle thereby plainly implying That a Wives obedience is a Wives discretion Then shall the old Men see Visions and the young Men especially the married dream Dreams And now I would gladly hear what sort of answer and interpretation the Governing-spirit Ladies will make to the Question of our blessed Saviour Can the Servant be greater than his Lord For surely Wives assuming power cannot render them so over senseless as to fancy he ask'd it as a Question of doubt but spoke it as a thing of impossibility that a Servant can be greater than his Lord any more than a Son elder than his Father And now Women are about impossibilities and vain dreams methinks they ought to endeavour getting the Philosophers stone for that would be very convenient to carry about in their Breeches Pockets so that as they have now got the powerful knack to change Men into Women and their poor Husbands Rentals into Shop-books so they may then by the vertue of the same Elixir and the more powerful Charms of their own killing beauty turn all Metal into Gold as well as too many Wives now a days turn their silly Husbands Lands and Woods into rich Gownes and fine Coaches 'T was the saying of a great Roman who I fancy Married a kind of an English humor'd Wife that the Womens rich Gowns destroy'd more Men than all the Enemies Arrows And now Reader I am sure you must be tir'd as well as I am of this Subject of Womens Power tho many Men are not of their subjection to it and therefore I will now take leave of these great beauty adorers for I cannot as they do Dream with my Eyes open nor can I spare them so much of my patience as to wait for the Chimera issues of their Dreams my design being only to write of not to dwell on this Subject and perhaps I have already not only writ more on it than I should but sharper of it than I ought for considering how generally as well as powerfully Women now wear the Breeches 't is dangerous provoking them especially having now in my mind the saying of a great Philosopher Those that consider little as most Women do are apt to be angry soon And sure if wise Solomon in his days when certainly the Women did not then pretend to half the power they now usurp could prefer dwelling in a Wilderness before living with an angry Woman how cautious nay fearful ought the writers of this subject to be in offending them when their Anger is as fierce as their power is great and in some Women their passionate revengeful humor suitable to both Therefore if the Apostle thought he had good reason to pray to be deliver'd from unreasonable Men sure Men may also pray to be deliver'd from unreasonable Women And doubtless as it suits well with all the measures of true Reason and good Policy that those who Command ought to be wiser than they who are to obey And therefore Women ought not to use a Soveraignty over Mens Actions whilst they are Subjects to their own Passions and sure none can deny this Truth that she who cannot Rule her self is very unfit to Govern another But 't is full time for me to 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