not hearken to the vain flatteries and praises of others but for one Year and 't will certainly cure them of that Devilish distemper of Pride for by one Twelve Months banishing it and conversing only with vertue and humility which are inseparable friends they will certainly make them so religiously prudent and happily vertuous as to hate and shun all proud desires and flatterers Praises and cause them to love only those that Court them in the holy Language of Truth to the Love of Godliness which is the very best way they can express their Love to you or you your Love to your selves and truly Ladies I cannot see the least reason why you should be against this holy change since it will not be a parting with nor so much as a Retrenching of your love delights but rather be a better means to enlarge and improve them by placing and fixing your mind on a much more noble object and a far finer entertainment by transplanting your affections into a far richer soil from Earth to Heaven from the fading vanities of this World to the never decaying felicities of the next and when once a young Ladies Inclinations are firmly rooted in a real desire and hearty endeavour for this blessed Change she will soon find that her Love will become so piously purified that instead of her fixing it on mortal Man she will only dedicate it to the service of the ever living God whose service is still true happiness and perfect freedom Then such a Lady will be happy above the low Region of all worldly flatterers and the more vain concerns of a fading beauty she 'll not value the rallying scoffs and contempts of those who deride her humble and strict deportment now so much out of fashion among the vain Ladies of our times for such a reformed Lady whose mind is truly sanctified will extract uses of vertue out of such extravagant Womens vanities like the Bee that sucks Hony out of all sorts of venomous Herbs and like Fire that turns all things within its compass to its self and such a Ladies holy course of Life will be steady and certain in its progress like the Sun in his daily motion nothing of Storms or changable weather can ever hasten or retard its regular course for a Lady that 's in the holy state of true Mortification her constant Piety will so purifie and draw off her inclinations from all vain pastimes and modish vanities and from those foul dregs of impurity that are the usual attendants of a vain idle London Life that by this Transfiguration of Mind and pious habit of Life her Conversation will be as the Apostle says fixed up in Heaven and we all know that the upper Region of the Air it self will admit of no Storms or Thunder for they are all formed below it And farther that Lady who is so blessed as to have her heart touch'd with this Magnetic vertue of true godliness her thoughts will be elevated to such a heavenly pitch of spiritual vertue and religion as she will despise all the young Gallants fine words deep sighs and languishing looks with all their high Praises and showers of Complements which will work no more on her sanctified Mind than showers of Hail on the tops of well covered Houses which fall off as soon as it falls on without ever touching any of the inward part And whereas our vain Ladies receive the extravagant encomiums and flatteries I might have almost said Adorations of their vain Gallants as the Lawful Issue of their own applauded Merit a truly pious Lady will only hearken to all the Airy Praises young Men ascribe to her beauty to be but the Bastard brood of their own abundant sin and folly and she will make such pious reflections on such young Mens overmuch praises grounded on a sense of her own unworthiness of them as she will not only despise their extravagant speeches but themselves for speaking of them which doubtless cannot but be very acceptable to God the searcher of all hearts who still giveth grace to the humble Therefore Ladies if you really desire true piety and humility I must advise you again and again never to hearken with delight or hear with belief or indeed suffer with patience but shun with diligence young Mens airy praises and Complements nor yet countenance their flatteries for multitude of Praises cannot but perplex young Ladies Minds as many Lights still confound the Sight and therefore when you hear young Men give their Tongues such loose liberties and over large ranges in magnifying your beauty remember such high Complemental expressions are to be trusted no more than the Christian Flag of a Turkish Pyrat which he only hangs out that you might esteem him your friend that thereby he may make you become his Slave Therefore Ladies keep still about you this preservative of your vertue that you look upon all the vain Gallants that Court you with high Complements and great praises to be but so many Judas's that come to betray you with a kiss and do not believe their Oaths either on the account of what they swear as to your great beauty or their own true Love for really flattery and vain praises are now grown such common Arts among fond Lovers as well as great States-men and Complemental Courtiers as we often meet the truth of their meaning in the contradiction of their words 7. My last concluding advise to the vain modish Ladies is when one of you is curiously beholding and admiring your fine Face in your Glass and find that the great beauty of it raises proud thoughts in your heart which is almost as common among handsom Ladies as 't is for them to look in their Glass which nothing can be more common humble your pride with these mortifying reflections that this very fine Face of yours that you like so much love so well and are so taken with and fond of must unavoidably in a little time become loathsom rottenness stink and corruption turn odious either to be seen or smelt which is as very certain as mortality it self and death you know is not only sure to meet you but you are exposed by a thousand accidents to meet it whilst you are travelling in this Earchly Pilgrimage for the spritely gaiety of your blossom youth can only let you know how long you may possibly live but can give no advance security how long you certainly will therefore young Ladies as well as old Men ought still to march under the safe Conduct of a vertuous Life and not to trust to the temptation of a long Life but to rely only on the blessed security of a good one I shall conclude this Discourse and Book with the good saying of an excellent religious person That the vainest beauty on Earth cannot justly deny this great Truth that beauty is not absolutely necessary to the good of this Life but that Piety is essentially necessary both to the good of this Life and the next too since one may live well without beauty but one can neither live or die well without Piety FINIS
most of her Sex with less Wisdom than they need to have Really if handsom Ladies had but that share of Prudence which they ought to have as good Christians and to use in the practical part of Christianity to which all Women are called though few strive to be chosen they would never endure much less countenance such young Men to Court and magnifie them at such an extravagant rate as to present them with that Composition of Praises meerly for vain pastime or what 's worse evil ends which ought to be attributed to divine Worship only nor can there be a more clear and plainer Argument to prove Womens want of wisdom then that many of them will receive such profane Praises not as the vain effects of young Mens wicked folly but as the deserved Trophies of their own conquering beauty and merit All I shall say is that such courtly Incense suits well with such a vain false Deity and that such young Women are as foolishly guilty in receiving such vain Attributes as such young Men are highly profane in offering them Thus Men by the deceitful reflexes of high praises divert young Women from remembring their Creator in the days of their Youth and possibly all the time of their Life by Charming them with their own Charms and disguising themselves to themselves and by telling them so often what they are not makes them forget what they really are and by these means they advance their minds so far above any dismal thoughts of their own mortality that truly few of our young cry'd up beauties now adays scarce hears any thing of Death but what they are Romanticly told their own killing beauty does occasion though in truth if we read the Weekly Bills of Mortality we shall find that the effects of Anger kill many more than the passion of Love Men being often Angry with many Men at once but never in Love with more than one Woman at a time and that one it self is too many by one But my design being not to Court the young Ladies with high Complements but to serve them with great reality I must assure them that these high praises the more they are trusted the more they 'll betray and the more you Ladies confide in their worth the more you 'll be deceiv'd in their value so that it follows by the plain Rule of common reason that so much as you deduct of Mens overpraises so much you lessen of your own self deceivings Indeed these poysoned Darts of praises have got such a predominant power over most young handsom Women and the most handsom are most subject to them that most of them are in danger of being wounded by them because the peril of flattery still mounts with the degrees of beauty as the Suns heat still increases proportionable as it rises Flattery and vain-glorious praises are both insinuating Devils two Twins begot by the father of Lies and these not only attempt all but possess most vain handsom Ladies and therefore they ought above all to be very strict and diligently active to shun such tempting discourse and avoid such dangerous Company or at least when with them to be sure still to carry about them S. James his good direction and antidote resist the Devil and he will flie from you Really if young Ladies would but take a steddy resolution to resist and slight all young Mens vain Courtships and place no such high estimation on their own beauty they would easily do the like on mens praises and by this means young Gallants would slacken in their Courtships proportionable to the young Ladies cooling in their receptions of it and so make Men despise Womens beauty suitable to their slighting Mens Love and thus Womens prudence would become Mens wisdom for in real truth 't is hope of gain makes love Merchants as well as others none watch Bees but for their Hony and few Court fair Ladies but for some hopes of a return and therefore you never hear of any of the young Sparks that plant their Love Batteries against Nunneries not because they think the young Women in them have too little beauty but because they believe they shall meet there with too great a resistance by the care they take and strictness they use to prevent Mens making any Addresses and near approaches to them for as Mr. Cowley says a well govern'd heart like rich China admits Men only to the Frontier part for a strict vertue sets certain bounds to young handsom Womens carriage and behaviour towards Men which they are not to exceed as the Almighty gave to the Sea so far you shall go and no farther And though I know there 's no such thing now adays in practice among our young Men as Angel Love which is the pure Commerce of the Souls yet I believe Venus Love does not rage so very much nor is its infection so very strong and rife as Censurers would fain have it making our Age much worse than 't is when God know 't is but too bad at best as if the youth of both Sexes were now so corrupt as that a young Gentleman cannot visit a young Lady nor a young Lady receive visits from a young Gentleman without imputation of scandal or the censure of ill and vicious designs on both sides tho I verily believe some young Men I do not say all nor yet many love Womens company and Women Mens on no other account than for their great wit good humor and agreeable Conversation without any farther ends And now I am beginning to enter into that part of this Discourse which principally addresses it self to the handsom young Maiden Ladies and chiefly among them to such as are innocently and modestly bred for such sort of young Women often entertain discourses and make acquaintances with young Men without the least thought of love or design of ill many of them looking civilly and talking freely to them on no other account than to shew and exercise their wit and that may be more to please their own fancy than on design to take that of others but yet I must advise such young Women to consider that meer civil looks often tempt and refusals may be given after such a manner as may rather embolden one to ask more than to beg pardon for having asked too much for as one well observes of strict vertuous Women That Man comes too near to them that comes to be denied by them Indeed 't is not very rare now a days for civil looks in young Women to breed Adulterous thoughts in young Men for the Gospel tells us that there is an Adultery of the Eye and I am sure we ought all to remember with grief of mind that assoon as the Serpent had perswaded that the forbidden fruit was pleasant to the Eye it soon follow'd that it became delightful to the Tast if Mens Vows of Love and Oaths of Constancy can but once tempt young Maids appetites to taste 't will soon make them
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 the present being the only time you can properly call yours for God well knowing what great Prodigals you are of it is so providently merciful as to trust you only with a Minute at a Time for as he gives you one so he still takes away the other as a Lesson of instruction not to rely on any time but the present and to perform all your Christian duties in it as the only time appointed you by God for it And Ladies if you will but employ this present time as you ought you will certainly find time enough in it to enjoy both the delights of this World and to secure you the felicities of the next By this all our vain Ladies may easily know and joyfully conclude that there needs no great difficulty in obtaining Heaven since it only requires as I have told you a strict pious and vertuous life to compass it which may easily be done if you will but spend half so much time in serving your God as you daily wast in looking on your Glass in praying for your Soul as in setting out your Face which must certainly nay perhaps suddenly stink rot and be eaten up by nasty Worms And really supposing there was no such place of Bliss as Heaven for the Godly nor yet of Torment as Hell for the wicked yet a pious vertuous life cannot but be more healthful for the body and more satisfactory to the mind than excess pride and vanity can be to either Next 't is worth your consideration to think how little true content most of you can find in this World and how little time 't is you can enjoy that little you do desire for such considerations cannot but render you somewhat sensible of your great and extravagant folly in all your ludicrous sports and pastimes unskilfully gaming away your souls so as in a manner to set Eternity against a Moment I mean the Momentary pleasures of this life which cannot last before the joys of Heaven which are everlasting and sure there can be nothing more foolish than to rely on the duration of your abode on Earth as any solid and lasting possession there being nothing more frail and tottering than the Basis your life stands on for tho you are never so healthful yet you cannot but find in your self some marks and symptoms of Mortality which may serve as Advertisements of the instability of this your earthly being which is subject to a thousand Diseases and a torrent of Accidents especially in you fine young Ladies whose bodies are so tenderly built and nicely composed as the leaving off a Hood or wanting of a Skarf the least crum of Bread that sticks in your Throats or the smallest stop in the course of your Blood I had almost said or motion of your Tongues puts the whole Oeconomy of your body in disorder if not utter ruin witness as an instance of this accidental mortality Pope Adrian who as story says was choaked with a Flie nay your very food the support and maintainer of your life ought to be a Memorandum of your Mortality since you cannot live without it and if sleep be the Image of death you are by the very necessities of your nature to die every night during the few days you live But whether you live long or die early you must certainly Die and you are in this as well as in all things else to submit your will to Gods and to bend your greatest endeavors and fix your strongest resolutions in an intire obedince to it which if you truly and heartily do you must learn the great vertue and Christian perfection of self-denial and despise all those worldly flatteries and enjoyments mortifie all your excess of vanity and extravagant pleasures that you may become truly amiable pure and holy in the sight of God when you live in compliance to his holy Laws and submit in all things to his good will and pleasure who is all love and beauty itself in the highest measure and perfection and therefore the least spot or impurity in your lives is a direct violence and contradiction to the most excellent nature and being of an infinitely pure and holy God. And now before I quite finish this Discourse let me beg one of you Ladies to suppose your ' self to be in the actual possession of all the worldly pleasures you can fancy that you enjoy as great honours as your ambition can aspire unto and as much Beauty and Riches as your vain and Covetous humor can thirst after and as many rarities as your appetite can wish for and that your Gallant was as kind handsom and constant as you could wish In a word that you thought him as beautiful as you think your self pray do but now consider what all these will amount to at the hour of death and in order to it reflect a little seriously what a weak Basis your life stands on for according to the common Law of the Land a Life is valued but at seven Years purchase and many times by the course of Nature a Life does not last half so long Next if you will but condescend so far to mortifie your self as to go and visit one of these Lovers of vanity and railliers of Religion
your ability and conveniency always giving place to the duties of Religion the first and principal part in all your designs and actions still beginning the day with Prayer and praises to your Creator who made both it and you in order to your worshiping and serving him and by so dividing the day into so many several parts and Stages of hourly employments the changeable variety that 's in them will afford you variety of pleasure as well as business to entertain and direct you and prevent you Ladies from complaining as I have heard many of you O what shall we do to pass away this afternoon since you will see all the days business and divertisments marked out before you and really nothing more distracts and vitiates vain young Womens minds than emptiness of business and employment the want of which fills you up with the ill vapours of idleness that old Mother of wickedness whereas certain hourly employments fill and replenish your fancy with such diversity of change and business as is able to suppress and allay all fumes of vain idle thoughts from arising in your minds and save you the expensive trouble of imitating many of the fine gay modish Ladies who by chargeable means and studied Arts purchase ways vainly to pass away their time which by the course of nature without their help and beyond their power runs away but too fast of it self 2. My next Advice to the vain Ladies tho I am sure 't is very good yet I doubt 't will be little lik'd and less follow'd which is to shun the infectious temptations of a vain London life which often gets many young Ladies bad Reputations but seldom good Husbands London being become the very Center-point and Rendezvous where all the vices and vanites of the Kingdom meet yet these vices and vanities are among many of the fine Ladies so richly gilt finely painted and splendedly set out as they are so far from appearing deformed as they seem beautiful and taking to most I mean the inconsidering young Men of the Town Really the Air of London is so infected with Pride Vanity and Idleness that 't is hard for one of you young Ladies to appear in young Mens Company but you must have your Ears furr'd with Oaths and Profaneness or else your person Complemented with vain Romantick Courtship which is not exactly applied and fitted for any one Woman but for all handsom Women in general like false flattering Looking Glasses which Complements not only one but every one that looks on them not staying for a great beauty but still flattering the first comer But Piety and Vertue is still like a pure wholesom Air a comfort to all and an Infection to none and is so far from dislodging or overcasting the lightsomness of any lawful pleasures as it clears and dissipates any dark Clouds of fears that may hang over them for 't is most certain Piety and Beauty Recreation and Devotion may live peaceably together and yield a mutual aid and comfort to one another Indeed if you Ladies would but use to mix Piety with your pastimes you would soon come to make a pastime of Piety and then instead of dividing the hours for vain London pleasures you would make them so many Memorandums of the eflux of time to put you in mind of the duties of Mortality and of the hourly advances you make towards it which requires hourly preparations for it for the same hours serve as well to tell you of your approaches to Death as to divide your pleasures in Life as the same Figures in your Watch serve to tell the hours of the night as well as those of the day Then Ladies you will find that time laid out in Prayer and Devotion is not spending but gaining time and if you will but seriously reflect and heartily practise this great Truth you will soon find that Piety is as to advancing of worldly delights and pastimes but as Ballast to a Ship which does not hinder but only regulate its motion not slackning but steddying its Sayling A fine Lady whose mind is only fraighted with the Airy Cargo of pride and vanity can never steer steddy in her heavenly Course but is still tossed from one side of folly to another extremity of vanity for the want of the true blessed Ballast of godliness which will Calm and dispossess your mind of all modish vanities and irregularities and will allay all kinds of immoderate heats raised by the Feaverish distempers of Womanish Passions and will fix your affection on what is immovable and perpetual and will soon cause you to abandon the vain empty undurable pastimes of London for the true endless felicity of Heaven and this is a Heaven upon Earth To love God and keep his Commandments for then you will truly love Vertue and constantly practise Piety and only delight in the beauty of holiness which as it transcends much so it differs far from all Earthly love for that 's seldom or never enjoyed with true quietness long satisfaction or just and equal returns for the most passionate Love we can fancy as a Mistris to her Gallant or a Gallant to his Mistris is commonly of so fickle volatile and inconstant a nature as if a Woman thinks her Gallant loves any other Woman she grows Jealous and if he fancies his Mistris loves another Man as 't is ten to one she does he becomes inrag'd for as Solomon says Prov. 6.34 Jealousie is the rage of a Man here on Earth tho most are Lovers yet many are false ones but in Heaven all are Lovers and are true ones since in your Heavenly Love your act of loving is the certain fruition of your Love a Woman by loving Vertue it becomes hers but by loving a Gallant you become his for she that is under a Gallants command cannot truly say she is under her own In a word all the Riches and Pleasures imaginable that you abandon for the love of God you enjoy them all in loving God above them all And you may be certain Ladies if you can but thus love God as you ought you must despise the World as you should and then you will take more true delight in the title of a good Christian than you did ever before in the vain praise of a great beauty and slight this in comparison of that for a handsom Woman like the Sun is to be esteemed more for her Vertue than Splendor Beauty is but a fine outside Skin but true Godliness is all glorious within and will bestow on you more Celestial beauty in the other World than all your false Glasses and Gallants falser Tongues can flatter you with in this 3. My next advice to you vain Ladies is when you are putting on your fine rich Gowns which so many of you adorn your selves with every day with so great care high excess and vast expence as well of time as mony which makes many of you by being so over careful in setting out your