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A42480
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A discourse of artificial beauty, in point of conscience between two ladies with some satyrical censures on the vulgar errors of these times.
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Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing G353; ESTC R8975
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93,452
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274
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are studiously intended to any sinful end The Greek Churches generally and most of the Latin Casuists as I have heard from Learned men and Travellers do allow even this complexionary art and use of adorning by some light tincture the looks of women eminent for vertue modesty piety and charity when they are not recluse or votaries And yet even these are not denied as I suppose those things which may innocently please themselves even in their retirements where every one is yet a Theatre and society to themselves and cannot willingly live at any odds with their looks or dislike of themselves Some use these helps who are rarely seen of any men 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 Ladiship cannot think it unlawful for wives to please and gratify their husbands no less by quickning their complexion then by hiding any other defect and deformity or using such ways of sweetness neatness 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. Austin's 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 conjugal love extended All which S. Jerom's rigor who they say more loved then favoured our sex would less approve Sure if lewd and wanton women find the use of such adornings to be advantageous to vicious ends which make all things so applied unlawful I see no cause why sober and modest women should despair or be denied 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 evil 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's special command is laid as none is upon the Churches Christian in outward things That to the pure all things are pure and 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 whatever 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 God's 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 handsomness where there is no adulterous intent or evil thought in the heart whose prime motor or spring as to its end and purpose being set true to the measure of God's will the outward wheels motions and indications cannot goe amiss since the end of the command in that as in all things is a pure heart faith unfeigned and a good Conscience What your Ladiship objects That the use of any artificial 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 takingness yea and the most innocent native beauty may be made a bait to the devils hooks Yet do I not think your Ladiship will therefore either deform your beauty or not both own esteem and improve it to your civil advantages else in vain had handsomness 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 compleatly lovely like apples of gold set in pictures of silver Such were Job's daughters c. Thus I have I hope answered the Weight of your Ladiships 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 civil ends As to the Wit of it which makes all mending the complexion or looks of our faces to be a kind of Self-adultery a metamorphosis of God's work a confuting of his distinctions set upon his creatures a re-kindling the fire which God hath quenched and adventuring again into the storm 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 parabolical 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 glo-worms then that celestial 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 less possibly to some little quickning of redness yet not so as to make any greater change on the face or cheeks then 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 then usually befals women in their sicknesses and ordinary distempers incident both to single and married persons who sometimes appear pallidly sad as if they were going to their graves otherwhiles with such a rosy chearfulness as if they had begun their resurrection so that this artificial change is but a fixation of natures inconstancy both imitating its frequent essays helping its variating infirmities Nor doth all this so terrible a change amount to more then a little quickness 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 several applications both inward as to physical receipts of all kinds and outward by more gross and mechanick arts which strive by many ways to conceal cover and supply natures grosser deformities and defects even as to the very substance of parts no less then to the additions of borrowed ornaments Thus the baldness
obscurity or uncomeliness 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 decaies and needs no repairs What your Ladiship intimates in the last place that it is safest in a case disputed or dubious rather to abstain then 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 sinful since God allows 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 affirm or deny things to be lawful or unlawful Errors and Idols have many times more eyes and hands lifted up to them then 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 firm sluce Truth is not less it self because in solitudes and Error ceases not to be Error amidst crouds and multitudes If any be so weak as to be swayed and divided more by numbers and Oratorious fervors then by clear and potent reasons the penance they must doe for their want of judgement is to be deprived of those things they doubt of yet would willingly use and do desire if they thought them lawful But those who are by a clear light of Reason and Religion redeemed from these scrupulosities so as to see and enjoy the freedome God hath given them as in the nature and fitness of his creatures so in the indulgence and silence of the Scriptures which have set us under the Gospel only moral and internal bounds of holiness by which the heart 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 forbear to use them because they either doubt or conclude against their unlawfulness For as no mans dissenting may hinder the stating of my judgement according as truth appears to me so no more may their different practice hinder me from doing and enjoying agreeable to my judgement The moderate and charitable Conclusion of the Dispute THus have I endeavoured to give your Ladiship a full and good account of my thoughts in this dispute or case touching artificial helps of beauty such as humane invention hath many waies found out whereto as your Ladiship 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 doe 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 Ladiships particular however you shall not need to think yet of borrowing any helps from art either to preserve or repair your beauty being blest with a great and lasting stock of handsomness for which you have cause humbly to thank God yet possibly by what I have answered to your several Objections not wholly void I hope of Reason and Religion your Ladiship 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 dunghil putrifying in his own sores with a good conscience then 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 looks are very farre from that ungrateful impudence which dares to displease God by any thing his indulgence allows them to please themselves withall in sober and ingenuous waies To the favourableness of your Ladiships future censure of those who with modesty and discretion use these helps to complexion by which neither themselves nor others are hurt be pleased to adde the favour of your pardon to the length of my Answers which conscious to their weakness I have sought as we doe 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 my time or your Ladiships patience wholly lost though I am not so vain as to boast of any victory or peremptorily to decide the controversie on my side which I leave to your Ladiships 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 adde those most hearty 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 partial 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 aids so truly I should not scruple to use God's and Natures indulgence with those cautions of modesty and discretion which are necessary to accompany all our actions natural civil and religious which falling under the Empire of our will and choice are subject to the Judicature of God and of our own Consciences Mean time your Ladiship hath by the clearness and force of your Reason redeemed me from that captivity wherein by a plebeian kind of censoriousness 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 vertue every way commendable imitable and sometime admirable So much have you made me a chearful Conformist to your judgement and charity which I find follows not easie and vulgar reports but searcheth the exacter rules of Reason and Religion which lights as they now shine in the Church of God I do not think have left mankind in the dark as to any thing morally and eminently either good or evil In the discerning of which so as to follow the one and flie the other I pray God ever guide us by his truth and grace Tit. 1. 15. To the pure all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelievers nothing is pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled The End Prov. 18. 13. Luke 9. 54. 1 Kings 21. 23. Prov. 21. 4. Prov. 28. 9. 1 Pet. 2. 11. Luke 16. 19. Matth. 14. Acts 12. 22. Gen. 30. 15. 1 Kings 21. 9. 2 Sam. 15. Joh. 18. 3. Jer. 41. 6. Ezek. 23. 40. Jer. 4. 30. Luke 16. 8. Gen. 27. Rom. 3. 8. Levit. 19. Levit. 11. Acts 10. 15. Lev. 19. 27. Deu. 14. 21. 20. 19. 22. 6. 23. 13. Est. 2. 12. Gen. 24. 30. Psa. 45. 9. Luke 21. 34. Rom. 13. 13. Gen. 26. 8. Prov. 5. 18. John 2. Isa. 22. 13. V. 14. Isa. 58. 3 4 5. Mal. 2. 14. Ezek. 16. 9 10 11 12. Hos. 2. 9. Gen. 38. 14. Prov. 7. Gen. 38. 2 Pet. 2. 14. Mar. 7. 21. Acts 27. Tit. 1. 15. Rom. 14. 14. 1 Cor. 10. 25 27. 1 Tim. 1. 5. James 4. 7. John 9. 3. Mat. 5. 36. Mat. 6. 27. John 5. 3. Prov. 6. 6. Mat. 10. 29. Gen. 32. 24. Exod. 32. 10. Isaiah 38. 1 Sam. 16. 7. Acts 22. 25. 1 Sam. 14. 29. Mark 7. 18. James 1. 17. Exo. 31. 3. 1 Tim. 6. 17. Acts 9. 37. 1 Cor. 15. 29. Hos. 7. 9. Eccl. 12. Luke 2. 1 Tim. 5. 23. Mat. 5. 36. Mat. 6. 27. 1 Tim. 2. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 3. 1 Pet. 1. 18. 1 Thes. 5. 22. 2 Cor. 4. 16. Mat. 6. 17. Isa. 58. 5. 2 Sam. 14. 2. Ruth 3. 3. Acts 25. 23. Rom. 14. 14. Mat. 15. 11 17 18. Mat. 11. 8. Psa. 68. 13. 1 Cor. 14. 40. Ps. 45. 14. Eccl. 1. 2. Mat. 23. 9. Mat. 6. 25. Joh. 6. 27. 2 Cor. 11. 14. Mat. 5. 16. Isa. 5. 20. Mat. 23. Ch. 6. Isa. 5. 3. Hos. 2. 5. Acts 16. 14. Ps. 104. 15. Downam's Christian Warfare c. 14. Isa. 8. 20. 1 Sam. 1. 14. Gal. 2. 11. Acts 10. Acts 15. 20. Col. 2. 21. Jer. 7. 4. Peter Martyr Comment on the Kings Gen. 6. 4. Zach. 5. 8. Eccl 7. 16. Mat. 18. 18. Rom. 14. 23. Rom. 14. 17. Mat. 18. 6. Rom. 14. 15. Gal. 2. 1 Cor. 1. 23. Psa. 119. 9. 1 Cor. 10. Acts 10. 15. Rom. 14. 5 6. 1 Cor. 10. 25. 1 Tim. 3. 9. Phil. 4. 8. Prov. 22. 1. Eccl. 10. 1. Rev. 22. 15. Zeph. 1. 8. 1 Cor. 11. 14. Levit. 13. 2 Cor. 6. 8. Exo. 32. 4. Eccl. 11. 4. Numb 22. 28. Acts 19. 34. Acts 14. 11 19. Joh. 18. 40. Acts 21. 36. 22. 22. Luk. 6. 26. Matt. 5. 11. Phil. 4. 8. Perkins Cases of conscience 1 Cor. 12. 23. Psal. 114. Gen. 29. 25. Mar. 12. 1. Judg. 10. Judges 9. 53. 2 Sam. 20. 16 c. Acts 17. 10. Eccl. 7. 16. Eccl. 12. 13. Mat. 15. 3. 1 Tim. 6. 17. Isa. 55. 8. 1 Cor. 1. 1 Kings 10. 22. Gen. 27. 14. Prov. 26. 2. Gen. 2. 25. 1 Cor. 15. 50. Gal. 1. 10. 1 Cor. 9. 22. 1 Cor. 5. 8. Deut. 22. 5. 1 Cor. 6. 20. 1 Cor. 6. 15. Isa. 5. 20.