Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	heart_n	pure_a	unfeigned_a	1,824	5	10.8138	5	true

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

to dispell the death of an excessive palenesse notwithstanding what was with so great zeal and terror urged by some against all such practises which are not the lesse evill because lesse discovered I began seriously to examine the grounds of their opinions who were such enemies against it and what dispensations in private those virtuous and modest women had who more or lesse used some art without which their beauty and good complexion would be much abated if not quite destroyed And now out of that nonage and minority which kept me in the wardship and awe of mens names and numbers I considered that these alone signify no more to make up any reason or to prove any thing a sin in point of conscience than so many cyphers can make up a summe which have no figure before them In matter of godlinesse as to intellectuall light and darknesse or morall good and evill it is not to be regarded who or how or when men affirme or deny any thing but why This made me at once curious and serious to examine what strong reasons were alledged by them And on what grounds a thing so small easy cheap safe and for the most part both inoffensive to and undiscerned by others should merit so bitter and odious invectives so as to be banished from all Christian society which yet admits so many curiosities elegancies superfluities ornaments and delicacies of life in clothing and dressing in building and Cookery in gardening and all adornings by hangings pictures carvings guildings and tincturings § And truly Madam after the best search and examining I could make of all that was written preached or privately discoursed of by any men against Artificiall beauty as now by your LaP Ladyship it seems very strange to me how if the case were so clear as to a notorious sin and so flagitious a crime which not like the sly fox crops the grapes but like a wild bore roots up the very plants of all piety and virtue How neither your LaP Ladyship from them nor any of them from one another in a continued track do ever produce such valid Scripture reasons or grounds of Morality as to piety equity charity or purity as may make up one solid and pregnant demonstration rather then multiply long and specious yet dubious declamations which are like ropes drawn out to a length but not bound or girt about things having much in shew and extention nothing in the binding or convincing power And such I must freely tell your LaP Ladyship and all the world are all those sharp Satyricall and popular invectives which hitherto I have met withall any where To which your LaP Ladyship hath given as much or more edge and smartnesse as ever I found from any For other where one shall find that those good men without any new strength of arguments commonly use the same borrowed phrases those wonted flowers of Oratory one after another as so many corresponding Echoes by which they make loud and fierce Declamations against all artificiall helps to beauty rather in a sequacious and credulous easinesse than after the rate of any perswasive strictnesse either from principles of right Reason or from Scripture-precept and authority with which your LaP Ladyship began discourse upon this subject between us where I think your LaP Ladyship found no such penetrating and confounding thunderbolts as were vulgarly imagined to be cast in the faces of all women that any way helped the defect of their beauty by ingenuous and modest arts So soft and good natured for the most part are good men as to be easily led away by the authority and reputation of other mens names and opinions which under favour is but a credulous kind of superstition and presumption The sap not the heart of Religion whose grounds as to matters of conscience binding or loosing the soule from sin or to judgement are not the fancies conjectures or oratories of men but the mind will and oracles of God whose rule is To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them if they speak not contrary to these there is no sin or darknesse in them I do humbly acknowledge it becomes not the weaknesse of my sex to contend or argue with those holy Fathers of old men of incomparable learning and sanctity whom I wish I could as well study and read in their own writings as I do highly venerate their names for that great authority which they have justly obtained in the Church of Christ by their zealous and industrious paines to deliver to us the great things of God and those weighty matters of Religion which are necessary to salvation Yet I know they were so holy and humble men as not to think themselves infallible nor to obtrude their opinions as dictates or their commentaries for sacred texts and their writings for indisputable oracles upon the Church of God or any believers conscience Who is there in these days of so observant a respect to the Fathers as to forbear as sin all they forbad or to performe as duty all they then required I have heard and read that every one of them had their errors greater or lesser even in points of greater concern then this of Ladies beauties That most of them were Antagonists in some point or other against some other of like piety and learning with themselves Good and great men are not set beyond mistakes Nor is it seldome that passion or prejudice or custome biasseth their judgements wide of truth Like Eli a grave and venerable person mistaking that for drunkennesse in Hannah which was devotion St Peter was dissemblingly divided between scandall and conscience from off the Jews and his judgement in point of eating meats and conversing with the Gentiles till God better informed him The primitive Christians were dubious and abstaining from many things under the notion of sin till they were better informed of Christian liberty T is as easie for the conscience to shrink to an over-nice and rigid strictnesse as Touch not tast not handle not as to be dilated to an over-stretched loosenesse But saving the merited honor and respect I bear to those holy men what wise man now urgeth all the primitive rigors of Discipline yea or all the tenets of Doctrine which the Fathers sometime imposed on Christians as their severall judgements No doubt the Fathers of the Church after the severity of those times when Christian Religion was most-what in or very neer to the furnace of persecution did worthily study the extern honor and gravity of it so as to decry all those costlinesses delicacies and softnesses bestowed on clothes or houses or bodies or heads and faces which must daily prepare to mary with the flames and fagots as superfluous and lesse seasonable and so no way sutable to that Christian simplicity mortifiednesse modesty and humility which those times required which gave daily summons to mortification

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