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
so not to be followed p. 194. Object 12. Painting the Face unlawful because doubtful at best and not of faith p. 228. Object 13. Of Peter Martyr against Painting the Face from many Scripture instances p. 247. The moderate and charitable Conclusion of the Dispute p. 258. Eccles. 9. 8. Let thy garments alwayes be white and let thy head lack no oyntment Prov. 31. 30. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised A DISCOURSE OF Artificial Handsomness In point of CONSCIENCE between two Ladies OBJECTION I. Against all Painting the Face as unlawful MADAM I Am not more pleased to see you look so well beyond what you were wont then I am jealous to be free with you lest a person so esteemed as you are for modesty and piety should use some colour or tincture to advance your Complexion which indeed I take to be no better then that odious and infamous way of Painting every where in all ages so much and so justly spoken against both by God and good men being a most ungodly practice though generally as they say now used in England more or less by persons of quality who not content with Natures stock of Beauty do not by a fine but filthy art adde something to the advantage as they think of their Complexions but I fear to the deforming of their Souls and defiling of their Consciences ANSWER I Do not onely approve your Ladiships friendly freedome but I take it as some degree of special favour that you speak your thoughts to my face and not after the secret censurings or back-biting whispers of some who less able to confute what they blame then to justifie what they suspect arraign before the rash Tribunal of their judgements every face whose handsomness they either envy if natural or grievously reproach if they think it hath any thing artificial beyond what themselves are wonted to or acquainted with who yet in other things do as much contend against the defects deformities and decaies of nature and age as may be by washings anointings and plasterings by many secret medicaments and close receits which may either fill and plump their skins if flat and wrinkled or smooth and polish them if rugged and chapt or clear and brighten them if tann'd and freckled onely in the point of colour or tinctures added in the least kind or degree they are not more scrupulous then censorious as if every one that used these had forsaken Christ's banner and now fought under the Devil's colours Your Nobleness Madam is more just and civil in giving me opportunity to answer for my self that either I may confess and forsake what you suspect if you convince me of the evil of it or continue with a good conscience to doe what you are jealous of if I can assert it to be lawful and good First then if I should deny what your Ladiship suspects it would be very hard to prove it since what you fancy as additional is not beyond the ordinary proportion of what is natural to my age and complexion Besides the looks you know of our Sex as to paleness or redness admit as many changes as the Moon by natural variations which are many times in women not more sudden then much to their injury or advantage So impertinent must they needs be whose eyes are over-curious to find fault at Art there where they have no cause but to commend Nature unless they were made womens Confessors which I believe few are in this case so that they must needs blame most-what rashly and oft unjustly because they onely guess uncertainly But because I perceive your Ladiship hath a great zeal in this particular which I must interpret a commendable and Christian tenderness against any thing suspected for Sin which cannot be small to a gainsaying conscience whose eye will not endure the least mote any more then the heart can the least wound I will deal so liberally with your Ladiship as to grant you this supposal whereupon to fix any discourse which may as you think batter down with a mighty Engine all auxiliary Beauty or additional Handsomness And truly it is not my fear but my request to you of whose pious abilities the world hath a great and just account that your Ladiship would let me see by rational and clear arguings what you have against it beyond those vulgar flashes and easie flourishes of some great sticklers and declaimers against all such female arts to which I have been much wonted who with shame and folly as Solomon sayes even sometimes in the Pulpit as well as in the Press resolve of matters of sin and cases of Conscience before they consider or understand them calling for fire from Heaven upon all they dislike as the Disciples did without ever advising with Christ which confidence hath made many well-meaning people very much startle at and condemn all such complexionary adornings as if they impudently outfaced God and man as if they fought with an high hand and brazen forehead against Reason and Religion Nature and Grace Humanity and Christianity After this rate of bold Oratory many women have been more scared then convinced more distracted with scruples and terrours then satisfied with truth as to the nature of many things pretended to be sins and violations of Conscience which must be measured not by the bulk but weight not the noise but force of mens words 'T is not the cry but the fleece which sober persons regard But I will in this rather suspect at present my own incapacity then any want of solidity or charity in the Sermons and censures of so many as bitterly inveigh against all Artificial Beauty hoping to learn from your Ladiship what may upon just grounds make me subscribe to their and your severities in this point Though I confess after some diligent search into other books and chiefly the holy Scriptures I am as yet so remiss and charitable in my censure of those little artifices used by many sober persons that as I will not undertake to justifie all those that use them so nor dare I condemn all who may use and doe the same things with farre different minds and to very distant ends OBjECTION II. Jezebel's sad fate urged against all Painting the Face TRuly Madam I absolutely think without any mincing or distinction all colour or complexion added to our skins or faces beyond what is purely natural to be a sin as being flatly against the Word of God which I suppose you grant to be the indispensable and unchangeable Rule of all moral Holiness from which we may not warp in the least degree upon any pretensions to advance our Honors Estates Healths or Beauties First then if your Ladiship look into 2 Kings 9. 30. you shall see wicked Jezebel though a Queen yet not tolerated or excused but foully branded and heavily punished for painting her eyes or face for which she was afterward by a most deformed
our bodies dwell why should it seem Sacriledge to relieve these Tabernacles of our bodies which are the Hosteries of our Souls and Temples of the holy Ghost so long as they may be in any decorum serviceable to them both Not that I am for those gross Soloecisms of Art which by unseasonable and unsutable affectations as so many pitiful props and underpinnings strive in vain to skrew and set up lapsed and tottering age to the semblance and prospect of youthful beauty and vigor when old women and men too with the great neglect of their Souls adorning and preparation for Heaven seek as it were by Medea's charms to recoct their corps as she did Aeson's from feeble deformities to spritely handsomeness When gray hairs are here and there it is fit the more to lay to heart our frail estate but when the pillars of the house do fail when loud summons of aged Infirmities call loud upon poor mortals to make haste for heaven and eternity to prepare to meet their God and adorn their souls with aged and devout Anna for their spouse and Saviour Jesus Christ in all those gracious augmentations of piety and holy improvement of vertue which may make them beautiful and lovely in God's sight there is then no place or season to be curiously patching and superfluously mending to be painting polishing and pruning beyond a matronly comeliness or gravity which is always lawful while we are alive our Gibeonitish carkases those rotten posts which are mouldring themselves away 'T is impertinent to trim our cabin with cost and pains when we are upon shipwrecking or poorly to furnish a room when the whole house is shortly to be pull'd down To be deploredly old and affectedly young is not only a great folly but a gross deformity 'T is ridiculous to spend much of a moments remnant in contending with the invincible wrinkles and irreparable ruines of old age which nothing but a vizard can quite hide or a miracle can wholly overcome It is fit for us humbly to yield to those decaies and oppressions of time to which sinful mortality hath exposed us Many times we must be content to be first buried even in the rubbish and ruines of our own vile bodies whose sad decaies incurable diseases and irreparable deformities ought to serve rather as foils the more to set off and less to hinder our meditations of eternal life health and glory not impediments or bluntings but rather as Whetstones to set an edge on our desires after higher and more permanent beauty My plea Madam is only so farre as Nature and years may both sutably and seasonably bear those discreet and ingenuous assistances of Art which may give a decency and conformity to our education and other proportions of civil life where specially there may be some such decaies as are precipitant as to years and exorbitant in one part beyond all the rest through natural infirmity resting thereon or by some outward occasion that hath befallen us Who doubts but if by the numme palsie one legge or arm be as it were mortified while the rest of the body is yet strong and vigorous we may by fomentations and other convenient means seek to revive and recover it Who scruples but that if one or two or more gray hairs grow up on a youthful head as is frequent in some colours and constitutions by an over-early non-conformity to the rest of our hairs that are round about who I say scruples but that they may lawfully be pluckt out I confess I am prone civilly to gratify sober and vertuous minds as long as they live with those ornaments to their out-sides which may keep them in all civil comeliness and cleanliness which to preserve is not onely great discretion but even good conscience at least in Wives who ought not to be either prodigal or negligent of themselves as to outward decency so farre as it may prudently be obtained and modestly maintained To these I humbly conceive that indulgence in point of artificial handsomeness may be allowed which was permitted by S. Paul to Timothy as to drinking a little wine for his often infirmities yet am I herein as farre from indulging vanity pride and wantonness as the Apostle is there from encouraging riot excess and drunkenness Nor would I only vindicate the innocent use of auxiliary beauty from the unjust suspicions and rash censures of being absolutely and in the very nature of the thing a sin which some assert beyond what I can yet see by my own eyes or the best spectacles they afford me but my design is to have it so used as may no more blemish a modest womans discretion then burthen her conscience that she may be not onely commendable for the innocent purity of her heart but unblamable for the elegancy and decency of her hand which useth these as all things not only lawfully but expediently piously and prudently conscienciously and becomingly onely to conceal or supply such defects as you confess may in many other cases admit the help of art without any sin or shame As for the words of our Saviour which your Ladiship cites when forbidding us to swear by our heads he signifies how little power we have of them since we cannot make one hair white or black his meaning is not either to shew the impotency or unlawfulness of all humane skill as if man could not or might not by any art change the outward colour of his hairs which is daily and easily done but our blessed Lord truly urgeth that as to the inward temperament we cannot make one hair grow otherwaies then it doth either black or white All dyes and tinctures do but alter the outward form or colour by hiding what is native from an internal and by us unchangeable principle which is out of the reach of Art So when our blessed Saviour tells us we cannot by our taking thought adde to our real stature one cubit he doth not hereby deny the possibility or lawfulness of setting our selves higher then naturally we are either by the heels of our shoes or by patens or seats and the like inventions which seek to give an advantage of procerity and comeliness to our stature which if shrunk to a dwarfishness and epitomized to a Decimo-sexto makes the persons of men and women subject to be as little in the eyes and esteem of others as they are in their own inches or size Nothing is more obvious then for tall Goliah to despise little David But as to the augmenting of our seeming height and stature either by heels or high-crown'd hats or seats none are I think so silly as to be scrupulous Nor do I think it much to be doubted but if in our youth by sickness or fear in one night as I have read in Master Howell's Epistles befel a youthful man in the Low-Countreys upon the false terror he had of being the next day executed by the command of the Duke of Alva our
such tinctures as did colour or paint the face and body was usual among all Nations civil and barbarous Greek and Romane Southern and Northern East and West Indians insomuch that the Picts here in Britannie had their Names from their being painted not onely as a terror to their enemies in Warre but as an ornament in peace though I say this fashion be almost epidemical and connate or at least customary to all Nations to which the Grecian and Romane Luxury added no doubt whatever wit and art could devise in order to the setting off of their beauties and handsomeness according as each Country fancied yet we never read either the great Doctor of the Jews or Gentiles any where giving any dash of their Pens against these customes which were so frequent no not there where regulations are set to feminine coverings and adornings Nor do we find that in the great pomp or Princely parada used by Queen Berenice and her train of women among whom no doubt all the Romane and Asiatick fashions of improved beauty did appear as S. Luke intimates we find not the blessed Apostle either at all taken or scandalized with that exquisiteness and glory of which he wisely takes no notice so farre is he from finding fault or expressing any dislike thinking it more becoming the Apostolick gravity to preach those great points of Christian graces and duties in righteousness temperance and judgement to come then by impertinent and unseasonable severity to declaim against such civil and venial vanities as women use which are such not absolutely in the nature and use of them but in the mind and intention of the user of them Agreeable to which methods of Apostolical prudence I think the heats of some Preachers in their Sermons and writings were farre better spent in urging the great things of the Law and Gospel which have moral and clear foundations in Scripture and so make both easy potent convictions in Consciences then with a looser zeal and blinder boldness to inveigh most impetuously against those things of extern mode fashion which will either cease to be doubted of and used when once they appear to a gracious heart any way evil or else they will cease to be suspected for evil when once they are found to fall under the lawful use and management of an heart that is truly good in its holy ends and gracious habits doing all things as in the fear of God so farre as it sees God allows so also to the glory of God as giving him thanks for all things in Nature and Art which are afforded to our necessity or delight and ornament securing it self in the use of all these things by those two great assertors of a Christians liberty in use of outward things the one of the Apostle Paul who assures us that nothing is of itself unclean as to any moral defilement the other of our blessed Saviour who tells us that no extern applications to our bodies defile us but the inward fedities of the heart onely whose emanations if poisonous poison all things through which they pass but if pure they purify all things that come within their streams As to that dash your Ladiship gives to this quickning of complexion as if it were an infallible token of a vain mind by this vain conversation it will then be best taken off when we both understand what the Apostle means by vain conversation For either you must interpret it for flatly vicious and wicked or so impertinent and extravagant as is not to be reduced to any rules or bounds of reason and religion no not under any intentional piety and habitual or dispositive holiness to which a gracious heart can and will referre all things even of superfluity civility and decency which are still within the general order and proportions of Reason and no less within the skirts and suburbs of Religion being then kept from the blemish or brand of any such vain conversation as is vicious when they are short of sinful intentions and hold within the compass of ingenuous recreations and pleasures On the other side if your Ladiship opposeth vanity to mere necessity or fancy that by that expression of being redeemed from vain conversation we are forbidden all things of cost or comeliness of bravery and elegancy of pleasure and recreation beyond what the mere necessities or rigidest conveniencies of humane nature and life require if this be your sense truly I think under favour the spirit of the Gospel is not so Cynical God treats his children with more indulgence Besides your Ladiships own conversation makes me believe this is not the meaning of vain for then you are apparently guilty of as many forbidden vanities as you have superfluities of cost and care of dressing and lacing of curling and pleating you must abate much in your own person and your childrens in your clothes and furniture in your buildings gardens c. But truly I think piety hath so much candor in it especially out of cels and cloisters not onely in Kings courts but in meaner persons houses as to admit of costly and gorgeous apparel of fine linen and other things at that rate and proportion as to the beauty ornament and elegancies of life Which things even of a light and lesser nature though they be not of the immediate substance of Religion or solider parts of piety and vertue yet they are as the fringe and accessaries to them like the feathers and colours of the Dove which adde indeed nothing to its internal innocency but something to its outward decency from which Religion is so farre from being an enemy in civil conversation that the Apostle exacts order and decency even in religious duties and devotion True Piety is not pleased with sordidness or sluttery nor is God's Spirit grieved with modest care and sober study of outward handsomeness in all kinds So that it seems to me no better then a streight-laced superstition which thus pinches God's bounty and a Christians liberty which makes Christianity such a captive to unnecessary rigors and pedling severities as if it were never in a due posture and habit till its nails be pared to the quick and its hair shaven to the skull Many things certainly are allowed to those that are godly in this life not as they are God's children so much as they are the children of men that is in a condition of frailty a kind of infancy and minority in which God as Jacob clothes his Josephs and his spouse too not onely with garments of necessity but of beauty variegated and embroidered And this he doth as to the honour of his bounty so with no blemish to his love nor diminution to his childrens holiness of which outward ornaments or sordidness are a very false measure though some silly souls are prone to place much piety in their mawkingly plainness and in their censoriousness of others who use more comely and costly curiosities 'T is
so in civil uses every one seeking to advance his own side and way by depressing all others with reproachfull censures Thus have I given your Ladiship the best answer that at present and thus on the sudden I am able to every particular touch or stroke of your last Objection which was twisted or combined of many smaller cords or threads which I have by unraveling so weakned I hope that they will no more hamper or bind a judicious conscience then the Philistin's withes or cords could do Sampson while his strength continued Keep but the heart from sinful intentions that purity and integrity as Sampson's locks may be preserved unclipt or unshorn by any sinister and sordid lust I do not see how using such sober modest and discreet helps to womens beauty and complexion needs more fear the terrors of some mens censures then that holy Giant needed be troubled at the alarms given The Philistines are upon thee Sampson who rowsing himself up in his mighty and miraculous strength defied or scattered them all OBJECTION XII Painting the Face unlawful because doubtful at best and not of faith I Must confess Madame your Ladiship saies more in vindication of these Artificial helps of handsomness and better avoids all those odious objections made against them by my weakness then ever yet I heard or read nor can I but agree with your Ladiships just sense and expressions how partial unjust judges of things how petulant and passionate censurers of persons and actions common people are and those masters of them who have most of a plebeian stroke in their temper and education or who affect a vulgar empire by vulgar easiness and compliances 'T is true they frequently save or damn as they are swayed not with judgement and charity but with prepossession or fury being content to opine not with the wisest but the most glorying more in the number of their abetters then in the strength and weight of their reasons But yet in this case so much controverted and so oft concluded against your sense by learned and godly men I know your Ladiship is so humble and modest as to consider that your thoughts are but the thoughts of a woman who is the weaker vessel of greater frailties and less capacity therefore not to be laid in the least balance of contradiction against those many worthy and famous men who very probably had more strong reasons and Scripture-instances for what they thus eagerly and bitterly decryed then either they have expressed by writing or we can now comprehend nor is your Ladiship in any sort to measure the validity of their Arguments against it by the infirmity of later allegations either by others or now by my self who like Ruth have not so much as the gleanings of those Boazes large fields and plentiful harvests And yet in the general prospect of the whole matter doth it not seem very strange and improbable to your Ladiship that so many holy men should have been without due cause so severe and so cross against our Sex in those ornaments and reliefs of beauty the concessions of which though with all those sober and moral restraints which are justly imposed in all other enjoyments had been a very great indulgence and ingratiating to women of greatest quality and best breeding who might the easier have been wone to greater rigors of Religion if in this they might have been allowed with the credit of Christianity and peace of their Conscience what they generally so covet for the advantages of their looks and countenances I have observed in my dayes that many Preachers otherwaies very commendable are less acceptable to Ladies of quality and Gentlewomen of the noblest and fairest editions because of their severe and damning rigors frequently uttered against all auxiliaries of beauty or set-offs to handsomeness so scandalized at Ladies powdering curling and gumming their hair so jealous of their using any quickning to their complexion though neither they nor any other know of it so impatient of any black patch though it be but a plaister to a pimple that they degrade those from all degrees of grace and vertue modesty and chastity whom they find or suspect guilty of these in the least kind I am sure some of them thunder against all these and other like ornaments of women with the ancient terror though as your Ladiship thinks they do not shine with the potent convictions and lightnings of the Fathers but make their Auditors more afraid then hurt yet ought we not by an implicite credulity ascribe that honour to the Fathers and their followers as not to doubt or contradict their judgements though we see not their grounds or reasons And will it not at best seem too great an arrogance for your Ladiship or any of our Sex to contend in a case of Conscience with so many of our own later Reformed Divines who have one from another taken this point to be so clear and granted as a gross sin that few or none of them ever went about seriously to discuss it or solidly to prove it to be any sin at all However Madam in the last place since it is a disputable point and so dubious as to conscience and practice is it not wisdome to follow the safest part which is not at all to use any such toyes and tinctures In which negative of abstaining there can be no danger which may be great on the other side of using if either it should be a sin in it self or at least goe under such scruples and uncertainties as can hardly be cleared or avoided as to the conscience of the doer Where the opinions of so many eminent persons make as you see such potent batteries against it what shield of perswasion can be sufficient to defend us from great shakings and some impressions of terrour ANSWER MAdam what validity your Ladiship is pleased to impute to my answers is not from any strength or merit of my particular opinion or expression but from the force and pregnancy of those truths which are it may be a little retired from the superficies of vulgar fancies and conceptions possibly some neither search nor discern them others that find them yet are hindred most-what and even so over-awed by popular fears and prejudices that they dare not own or express them as loth to seem wiser then their fore fathers or themselves in former times when for want of better matter they sometimes wast their glass and fill up their hour with bitter invectives against Ladies painting patching curling powdering perfuming and complexioning which may have less evil in them then some Authors they study and not so much vanity attending them as doth the long hair the loose cuffs the large bandstrings and other fine things with which some of these so rigid yet very spruce and Lady-like Preachers think fit to gratifie as their own persons so their kind hearers and spectators somewhat wide of those pristine severities which I have been told were required of the
Clergy who by the Canons of the Church and customes of ancient times were denied to wear any silk or softer garments not because they were sinful in themselves but less sutable to the strictness of that discipline which in those times holy men saw fit to exact especially of Ecclesiasticks as most exemplary for the restraining of those prodigalities and luxuries which in both Clergy and Laicks would soon exhaust that charity which was then most what expended in relieving the poor in building and adorning Churches in redeeming captives and the like I do not less willingly own my weakness then my Sex being farre from any such Amazonian boldness as affects to contend with so many learned and godly men who have and daily do express in this a contrary sense to mine yet I think it very venial for me to assert if I can both the ornaments and liberties of my Sex as to their persons and consciences by answering specious fallacies and producing stronger arguments to which I doubt not but all serious and impartial Christians not captives to custome prejudice and popularity will at last subscribe not as to the sense of a weak woman but of omnipotent verity and victorious truth which though late yet may at last be redeemed by the help of a woman from that long captivity wherein both it self and many worthy persons consciences were unjustly detained God oft discovers as female softnesses in some mens hearts heads and hands so masculine and heroick strength in some womens We read of two women famous the one for her conduct of the warre the other for her consummating it by destroying Sisera the chief leader of a great army Another woman dashes out the brains of King Abimelech another saves by her loyal prudence the city Abel from the miseries of a long siege and those punishments which justly prosecute as the heads so the abettors of Sedition against Lawful Sovereigns I know God hath given both Reason and Scripture to women as well as men nor have we less liberty granted to traffick in all truths both humane and divine though our talents and treasure may be farre less then the mass of many mens readings yet they may be as refined and digested our two mites may not be despised which we offer to God's Temple if they have God's Image and superscription on them coined and stamped in the mint of all religious Reason the word of God whence all things that concern Faith or Manners as to Salvation and Damnation receive their authoritative stamp and value It is time for us at length to get beyond that servility and sequaciousness of Conscience which is but the Pupillage Minority and Wardship of Religion inquiring and heeding not what saith the Lord but what saith such a Father such a godly man such a Preacher or Writer It is the priviledge and honour of Christian Religion for which the Bereans are commended to search the Scriptures and examine by them even the Apostolical doctrines Nor doth our Reformed Religion where it most merits that name unjustly glory in that freedome by which as to matters of truth or error of sin or no sin it is redeemed from the slavery of mans private Traditions and confined to the oracles of God to whose general rule sense and Analogy all Catholick and unwritten Traditions as to the practice discipline and order of Religion do agree without any enterfearing with the holy Scriptures to which in matters of internal holiness we are confined though in things of extern decency the wisdome custome of the Church is a safe and wholesome rule to which as we are by Scripture commanded obediently and unanimously to conform in things honest and by general precepts allowed so in matters of saving faith and holy life we must neither believe nor act by an implicite faith and twilight credulity but from a well-informed and rightly-convinced conscience that forbids us to be either profane or superstitious either over-righteous or over-wicked Solomon tells us that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his Commandements Christ tells us it is but a Pharisaick pride and vanity to teach or urge humane traditions or opinions for God's Commands And truly after all that your Ladiship hath smartly urged in this case I cannot but wonder that neither Solomon in his various sentences of the Proverbs nor in his holy Satyr against humane Vanities in Ecclesiastes no nor yet he that was greater then Solomon either by himself or his Disciples should ever particularly instance against all or any painting or complexioning of the face no nor God by Moses where so many lesser precepts are expresly given surely they would not all have omitted this so wholly if it had been what some pretend such a flat and downright sin considering how obvious in all eyes and nations the use of it was and is Sure learned and godly men ought not in wisdome justice and charity to extend the cords or curtains of duty and conscience beyond the stakes and pillars of Religion which are fixed by the word of God whose service and glory needs not the fancies fallacies or flatteries of mans inventions more then a royal robe needs a beggers patch It is not for sober men to enlarge the Phylacteries of their own Opinions beyond God's precepts nor to comment by false and specious glosses either against or beside his holy will in the Word which must needs be a farre greater sin then any light applying of some quickning wash or colour to the face inasmuch as it is more dangerous to injure the Conscience then to alter the skin Ministers ought not to be as hard-hearted and rude-handed Surgeons who make their Probe a Poniard and will rather make a wound where they search for one then lose their labour or seem to want either skill or Patients As to that practical faith or assurance of the lawfulness and liberty granted by God both as to the thing done and the doer I presume my grounds are safe and good since I find that God hath given us as men and Christians all things richly to enjoy that no creature is forbidden under the Gospel to the pure of heart that there is neither moral light nor Scriptural precept against the ingenuous and modest use of this more then of otherhelps of any bodily infirmity or deformity since it may as well as any thing be used soberly thankfully and harmlesly without any impediment to grace and well-doing also without any advantage or intentional occasion to sin So that I cannot but vehemently suspect I leave it to wiser persons peremptorily to conclude that the dreadful rigors of some Ministers and others have in this case of Artificial handsomeness been too magisterial Their Divinity relishes too much of inhumanity and their Piety carries with it too little Charity while they state a case of Conscience more by the wils fancies and passions of men then by the word of God
to a constant antipathy and mutual displeasings of each other else they cannot please God What can be more absurd in Reason or ridiculous in Religion When the meaning of the Apostle is if by any waies displeasing to God I seek to please men or if I so seek to please men as I neglect God I cannot be God's servant But in all such lawfull wayes as were neither against piety nor truth nor charity no man was more a pleaser of all men to whom he became all honest things that he might gain some So again he brings that Christians must keep the Passeover which is the feast of Christian conversation in which we partake of Christ with sincerity and truth therefore we may make no simulations or shews of any thing that is not really true and such as we make shew of which not onely debarres us of all helps of art against paleness but of whatever may remedy baldness blindness lameness crookedness and the like which are at once both helps and hidings of our infirmities Which gloss is farre wide of the Apostles sense who tells us what leaven must be purged out not of all art and ingenuity of decency and civility but of malice and wickedness of hypocrisie and uncharitableness which may very much embitter and abase the spirits of Christians even there where their looks words and gestures are composed to most cynical clouds and Pharisaick frowns Where the heart is pure as to all maliciousness against God and man there all outward things are pure and lawful He addes since God in the old Law forbad to disguise the sex by clothes he consequently forbids to disguise our persons by any change of our faces or complexions 'T is true the God of order forbids the first so farre as it breeds those confusions and reproaches in humane life and constant converse which are attended with very foul and wicked consequences But in cases either of declared mirth or necessary safety which draw no injury indignity or disorder of life after them but are onely occasional and innocent I do not think that Text ought to be urged To make such a change of our faces as we cannot be known to be the same persons which yet is oft done by sickness or distempers as I think it not lawful in ordinary conversation so no wise woman doth ever aim at it so as not to be known to be her self but rather to be known as her self with some advantages onely for complexion which alter not the feature but onely quicken the colour But in case of life and escape I believe this good man would not deny an innocent person leave so to disguise his looks by visard or colour as might best deceive his guard or keepers which yet he might not once doe though to save his life if it were an absolute and gross sin in it self as some pretend He further instances that every one ought to glorifie God in their bodies which saith he no woman can doe that useth art to her complexion This is easily said but never proved against those modest and sober women who glorifie God in a thankful humble chast and vertuous life as well when they use this as when they use any other helps or ornaments to their outward aspect and comeliness not abusing these by doting on them or resting in them as the highest beauty and ultimate glory of a Christian but using and referring all to a higher end and glory Lastly he very gravely and sadly tells us as we may not make any members of our bodies which are Christs the members of an harlot so nor may we make our faces the faces of harlots whose property he saith it is to paint their faces if they think they need such helps The answer is that it is no prejudice against honest womens use of things that dishonest use them that helping the complexion and setting forth the looks to the best advantages by ingenuous arts and adornings is not the property of harlots but the study and care of vertuous women though accompanied with and inferiour to that care they have of their Souls adorning I believe this good man whatever he boldly guesses at knew fewer dissolute then sober women who used such helps farre enough from his scandal or perception Nor can he say it is the property of lewd women unless he knew none other used it or could by better arguments then by begging the question prove it to be so by God forbidden as no gracious woman can lawfully or modestly use it which he neither doth nor endeavours to prove either by apposite Scriptures or pregnant reasons from the nature of the thing used or the necessary pravity of the mind using such artificial beauty one of which at least if not all should have been proved which neither he nor any man else that ever I saw or heard hath yet done contenting themselves with strong presumptions weak probations Which poverty tenuity of argumentation in a matter pretended to be a gross notorious sin is no way becoming learned grave Divines who ought not to play with cases of Conscience nor adventure to create sins calling light darkness or darkness light evil good or good evil How much more worthy of their holy calling were it for Ministers to meddle less with Ladies faces more with their hearts rather incouraging them to study all the holy ornaments of grace and vertue also confining them to the undoubted limits of Sanctity Modesty Chastity and Humility which none is so impudent as to dispute against or question rather I say then by little Oratorious circles and sophistries to seek to insnare their Consciences and discourage their spirits by endless and needless severities against these petty ornaments which may no doubt be as easily kept in all sober civil and harmless bounds as any other things by which Art assists Nature and addes by clothes colours jewels and many curiosities to the advantage of humane honour beauty and majesty The mischief is not so much that many women are denied by these rigors the use of such things as would please and become them in an innocent chearfulness but all that ever was said against these helps of beauty seems to many wise women so weak and sinnewless that being not convinced of any sin in the use of them they venture to use them privately yet not wholly without some doubt and scruple arising from the confidence and clamours of some godly men against them hence they are uncomfortably divided and perplexed even in their greatest purity of mind and holiness of life while on the one side they are shaken and terrified by what such men forbid them on the other side they see not but God and Nature allow it to them Nor do even vertuous 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