Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	end_n	faith_n	unfeigned_a	1,201	5	10.8215	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85852	A discourse of auxiliary beauty. Or artificiall hansomenesse. In point of conscience between two ladies.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667,; Walker, Obadiah, 1616-1699,	1656 (1656)	Wing G355; Thomason E1594_1; ESTC R202122	94,239	212

use of adorning by some light tincture the lookes of women eminent for virtue modesty piety and charity when they are not recluse or votaries And yet even these are not denyed as I suppose those things which may innocently please themselves even in their retirements Where every one is yet a Theater and society to themselves and cannot willingly live at any odds with their looks or dislike of themselves Some use these helpes who are rarely seen of anymen others of none but their husbands in reference to whose honest satisfactions they use these customable adornings of the Country as a testimony of their love and respect besides as an attractive or conservative of their affections which never receive greater Checks then when they meet with any object that represents either sordidness negligence or undervaluing Your LaP Ladyship cannot think it unlawfull for wives to please and gratify their husbands no lesse by quickning their complexion then by hiding any other defect and deformity or using such wayes of sweetnesse neatnesse and decency which are potent Decoyes to love as may best keep their husbands from any loathing or indifferency also from any extravagancy To which end I have heard that S. Austins civility allowed those feminine ornaments and elegancies of fine clothes sweets dresses and anointings to wives or such as would be wives as farre as the limits of chast and conjugall love extended All which S. Jeroms rigor who they say more loved than favoured our sex would lesse approve Sure i lewd and and wanton women find the use of such adornings to be advantageous to vicious ends which make all things so applyed unlawfull I see no cause why sober and modest women should despair or be denyed to turn them to a better use and honester account since they are as apt for the one as the other and fall as much under the power of good as evill minds to have them If that oracle hold true as it must because Divine in all things of free and indifferent natures and use that is upon which no restraint of God speciall command is laid as none is upon the Churches Christian in outward things That to the pure all things are pure That nothing is unclean that is morally and sinfully in it self as the blessed Apostle was perswaded by the Lord Jesus These will include in their large circumference what ever is used to advance the complexion or hide the defects of the face as well as any other parts of the body both as to the nature of the things used and the Conscience of those who purely use them Since we see that the highest abuse of Gods creatures to Idolatrous services and sacrifices which was the most provoking sin did no way prejudge or hinder the liberty of a believer to eat or drink of those things to farre different ends As there was no Idolatry in eating things offered by others to Idols if there was no regard to the Idol whose it properly was not but to God whose rightly it was So nor can I see any Adultery in the use of those helps to handsomnesse where there is no adulterous intent or evill thought in the heart whose prime moter or spring as to its end and purpose being set true to the measure of Gods will the outward wheeles motions and indications cannot go amisse Since the end of the command in that as in all things is a pure heart faith unfaigned and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1. 5. § What your LaP Ladyship objects That the use of any artificiall beauty may be an occasion to anothers sin a snare and temptation to them Truly so may all outward adornings which have something in them of a complaisance and takingnesse yea and the most innocent native beauty may be made a baite to the devils hooks yet do I not think your LaP Ladyship will therefore either deforme your beauty or not both own esteem and improve it to your civill advantages Else in vain had handsomnesse been given by God as a favour to so many sober women who were as conspicuous for their beauty as their vertue being every way compleately lovely like apples of gold set in pictures of silver Such were Sarah Rebekah Esther Jobs daughters c. Thus I have I hope answered the weight of your LaP Ladyship argument drawn from the 7th Commandment which forbids onely the abuse of things by depraved and adulterous minds not the use of them to sober and civill ends § As to the wit of it which makes all mending the complexion or lookes of our faces to be a kind of Self-adultery A metamorphosis of Gods work A confuting of his distinctions set upon his creatures A rekindling the fire which God hath quenched and adventuring again into the storme whence one is happily escaped c. § My first Answer is That it is hard to extract one drop of spirits or quintessence of reason and right argumentation as to point of sin and stating the conscience from many handfuls and heaps of Rhetorical flowers and parabolicall allusions which are but light skirmishings and not serious contendings in matters of Religion Such sparks and flashes of Oratory which are the main stock and strength of most opposers in this case are rather like the hedge-creeping light of gloe-wormes than that celestiall vigor of divine Truth whose beams have a star-like sublimity and constancy of shining As to the change and Alteration which is odiously called a Self-adulterating T is true there is some little change of the complexion from a greater degree of pallor to a lesse possibly to some little quickning of rednesse yet not so as to make any greater change on the face or cheeks than is frequently made by the blushings of those that are of most modest looks and tenderest foreheads This makes no more a new face or person so as to run any hazard of confusion or mistake than usually befalls women in their sicknesses and ordinary distempers incident both to single and maried persons Who sometimes appear pallidly sad as if they were going to their graves other whiles with such a rosy cheerfulnesse as if they had begun their resurrection so that this artificial change is but a fixation of natures inconstancy both imitating its frequent essayes and helping its variating infirmities Nor doth all this so terrible a change amount to more than a little quicknesse of colour upon the skin It alters not the substance fashion feature proportions temper or constitutions of nature which is oft done or at least endeavoured by severall applications both inward as to physicall receipts of all kinds Also outward by more gross and mechanick arts which strive by many wayes to conceal cover and supply natures grosser deformities and defects even as to the very substance of parts no lesse than to the additions of borrowed ornaments Thus the baldnesse thinnesse and as both men and women think the deformity of their haire is usually supplyed by borders and combings

verdit of things as good or evill till they have duly considered the nature of them apart from vulgar prejudices and surmises or obloquies and reproaches with whom crucifige is as obvious as Hosanna The rabble as we read gave a better report of Barrabas than of Jesus The way of Christian Religion was at first every where spoken against as a novel and pestilent heresie The Apostle Paul heard no very good report of himself from some people who cryed away with him he is not fit to live The later ages reformation of Religion in these western Churches had from the most of people no very good report at first though never so just and orderly and discreet but followed the fate of all things and persons that indeavour to rectifie or reforme vulgar errors which is to be evill spoken of when they offer the greatest good Christians and Christianity was to be martyred in their names as well as in their persons and lives Christ denounceth a woe when all men speak well of them and a blessing when all men speak evill of them falsely If evill report as from the vulgar who are very superficiall judges of things like cork alwaies swimming on the top never sinking to the bottome of things is to be much regarded for what monsters should the primitive Christians have been looked upon capable to scare all modest and sober persons from coming nigh their doctrine sacraments and manners When they were reported to kill and eat children to worship an asses head to have earely and incestuous mixtures in the dark All which were as false as they were abominable If the Eccho of Common report be so oft false in the greater matters of Religion where it concernes men to be most accurately informed what they believe or report How little heed I pray may be taken to the common speech and perswasion of people in lesser matters and in this one particular which is but a toy or mote in comparison take it in any naturall civill or morall notions onely the clamor and severe censures of some men have made it so considerable because they urge it so highly upon the consciences of women both as sin and shame That truly it now merits exacter scanning than it may be it ever had either by the vulgar or those who are their most plausible teachers and instructers And I believe Madame that upon review of the evidences of reason or religion whereupon the verdict or report of wise and conscientious Christians should be built you will find that the plebeian report and ordinary sense of all artificiall beauty differs from that of the more grave and better advised sort of the world yea and from the sense of the more serious and better educated part of the people in this Church or nation As I have been informed of those learned Divines Scholemen and casuists beyond sea so I am perswaded the ablest Churchmen in England in their most deliberate sentence dare passe no other censure upon those customes which are so frequent among persons of more elegant culture and fashion for the advance of their beauty than according to the true measures of morality and honesty which are the mind and end of the doer Nor will righteous judges passe any other report on those ingenuous artifices which are auxilary to the faces adorning more than they do upon those that adorn the head hands feet shoulders or other parts of the body according to their severall infirmities necessities or conveniences Namely that they are then good when done to good ends and evill when to evill intents According to these morall and internal principles of good or evill the censure judgement and report of things in their nature and use ought to be given without any regard in point of conscience to what the vulgar easinesse and prejudice or wontednesse either opines or declares Nor is the report and judgement of all wise and every good man alwaies to be taken as authentick by their Oratorious heats and popular transports when possibly they would deny or discountenance an abuse which is most unnecessary in those things that at best are not very necessary but onely tollerable and convenient but by their calme and sedentary determinations not as standing before the tribunals of humane opinion and applause but as appealing to Gods judgement séat which is to be set up in every ones Conscience So that the Apostles direction to attend what report or fame things have is to be understood cautiously and strictly not loosely and vulgarly People like unskilfull Apothecarys and Mountebanks oft put the titles of Antidotes on poysons and poysonous inscriptions on wholesome Antidotes Neither this nor the like places in Scripture which concern good manners are to be swallowed without chewing we must not devour Scripture kernels with the husk or letter unbroken and intire For by such a fallacy I might find hard by your place alledged against them a like place in favour of these feminine artifices because the Apostle commands Christians to follow all things that are lovely or comely Among which rank and number many esteem these helps to their complexion else certainly they would never use them But this were rather to play with Scripture than to apply it seriously and to make those holy directions rather as Tennisbals tossed too and fro in idle disputes than as nailes fastned by the masters of Assemblies BUt your LaP Ladyship endeavours to give an account why these complexioning arts justly fall under such evill report or so generall an infamy among the meaner sort of people As being esteemed a cheat and cosenage a making and acting a ly a self Idolatry a Christian personated with a Comicall face fitter for a stage than a Church That from a self shame and secret guilt it affects secrecy that as a dead fly it corrupts the greatest commendations and perfections of any woman THese are still but sparks of odium and scorn which fly from the vulgar anvils and hammers which commonly both over heat and over labour what they undertake to forge or reforme First then as to the deception which you call a cheat Truely it is not so much in this of helping the palenesse or adding a quicknesse of complexion to the face as it is in other things of lamenesse and crookednesse c. where the substance as it were and figures here the colour onely is a little altered yet these are used without any such odious clamors and imputations yea they are allowed and commended as indulgences of humane pitty and charity to cover conceal or supply any defect or deformity in the outward man Which even Mr. Perkins himself allowes who yet as to the point of complexioning which he cals painting cries it down after the wonted rode in few words and fewer arguments as against the Laws of Nature and Scripture but of which he produceth nothing but that circumstance of Jezebels story which I have answered

virtuous women contentedly want while they are capable of them those things that may render them most acceptable to their own and others eyes being loth to draw the curtains of obscurity or uncomelinesse quite over them till it be dark night when they must hide their faces in the dust in hope to recover that perfect beauty which shall admit no decayes and needs no repaires What your LaP Ladyship intimates in the last place that it is safest in a case disputed or dubious rather to abstain than use what many deny though many allow since there is no necessity of using it at all I answer there are many things which are not absolutely necessary which yet we would be loth to part with or be disputed out of under the pretence of superfluity and sinfull since God allowes us not with niggardly restraints but with liberality worthy of divine benignity all things richly to enjoy even to delight conveniency elegancy and majesty Nor are we in cases of conscience or scruples of sin to tell noses or mete by the pole how many but value upon what grounds men affirme or deny things to be lawfull or unlawfull Errors and Idols have many times more eyes and hands lifted up to them than truth or the true God One Athanasius is recorded to have sustained the truth of Christs Divinity against the sea and moles of all the world pressing against him as great waters upon a firme sluce Truth is not lesse it self because in solitudes and error ceases not to be error amidst crouds and multitudes if any be so weak as to be swaied and divided more by numbers and Oratorious fervors than by clear and potent reasons The penance they must do for their want of judgement is to be deprived of those things they doubt off yet would willingly use and do desire if they thought them lawfull But those who are by a clear light of Reason and Religion redeemed from these scrupulosities so as to see and injoy the freedome God hath given them as in the nature and fitnesse of his creatures so in the indulgence and silence of the Scriptures which have set us under the Gospell onely morall and internall bounds of holinesse by which the hart circumscribes and limits the outward man in the use of all things not as to their nature but their ends these I say may as freely use their affirmative freedome of using and enjoying according to their conscience as the other do the negative who therefore forbeare to use them because they either doubt or conclude against their unlawfulnesse For as no mans dissenting may hinder the stating of my iudgement according as truth appears to me so more may their different practise hinder me from doing and enjoying agreeable to my iudgement THus have I endeavoured to give your La p as full and as good an account of my thoughts in this dispute or case touching artificiall helps of beauty such as humane invention have many wayes found out whereto as your LaP Ladyship hath given the occasion so I wish I were so happy as to afford you any satisfaction which if a weak woman may in any degree be able to do in so disputed a point how much more may you hope for from learned and able men if they have but courage to declare their judgements in it As for your La ps particular however you shall not need to think yet of borrowing any helps from art either to preserve or repaire your beauty being blest with a great and lasting stock of handsomenesse for which you have cause humbly to thank God yet possibly by what I have answered to your severall objections not wholy void I hope of Reason and Religion your LaP Ladyship and others by your candor will be more favourable in their censures of those whose infirmity may invite them soberly to use what they do not find God hath denied them who yet had rather chuse the most sad and sordid deformities as Job on a dunghill putrifying in his own sores with a good conscience than the greatest pomp and beauty of Queen Esther or Berenice with the sting and plague of an evil conscience Nor do I doubt but many worthy women who discreetly use these little private helps to their lookes are very far from that ungratefull impudence which dares to displease God by any thing his indulgence allowes them to please themselves with all in sober and ingenuous waies To the favorablenesse of your La ps future censure of those who with modesty and discretion use these helps to complexion by which neither themselves nor other are hurt be pleased to add the favour of your pardon to the length of my answers which conscious to their weaknesse I have sought as we do with lesser threads to wind them the oftner about that their length may make some amends for the want of that strength in which they come short of stronger twisted cords if I may obtain the one or both of these requests I shall not think any time or your La ps patience wholy lost though I am not so vain as to bost of any victory or peremptorily to decide the controversie on my side which I leave to your La ps and others better judgement MAdame I must not onely grant you your so well merited requests which you shall find have with me the power of commands being so just and ingenuous But I must add those most harty thanks which I owe you for the generous freedome of your discourse which hath the courage and ability to bring to the review of reason and true Religion a case of Conscience which few dare touch or try contrary to the common vote and credulity which for ought I see may in this as in other things it oft doth prove a common error wherein you deserve the more applause because in this I do not think you are any way partiall to your self or so much pleading your own cause as civilly affording a charitable relief and protection to others whose infirmity may require or use such helps For my self as I wish I may never need any such aides so truely I should not scruple to use Gods and Natures indulgence with those cautions of modesty and discretion which are necessary to accompany all our actions naturall civill and religious which falling under the Empire of our will and choise are subject to the Judicature of God and of our own Consciences Mean time your LaP Ladyship hath by the clearenesse and force of your reason redeemed me from that captivity wherein by a plebeian kind of censoriousnesse and popular severity I sometime delighted to disparage and lessen those who are reported or suspected to use any auxiliary beauty notwithstanding I saw in all things else their worth and virtue every way commendable immutable and sometime admirabl So much have you made me a chearfull conformists to your judgement and charity which I find followes not easie and vulgar reports but searcheth the exacter rules