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
other things which they do not condemn or disuse As to the end and intent of the user I presume your Ladiship and others too have so much charity as not to censure or condemn all those for wicked and wanton who use any help to their complexions nor can you justly blot out or forget all the piety charity modesty and gravity of those who otherwise constant conspicuous for those graces vertues have yet either undiscernibly as some or suspectedly as others or declaredly as many according to the general custom of countreys used such additaments to their faces as they thought most advanced the beauty or comeliness of their looks And however it be true that a tender conscience is prone to a commendable jealousie in the point of sinning against God whereof a good Christian cannot be too cautious yet it is as true that in the Church of God there is so clear a light and constant a rule to discern good and evil sin and no sin by that there is not any thing really a sin but it is easily demonstrated to be such by such pregnant and constant testimonies of moral light or divine truth as our own consciences must needs consent unto them Nor is it easie to elude the pregnant convictions of immorality which appear in all gross sins either as injurious to God or our neighbours or our own souls Against none of whom as farre as I can yet find this use of any relief or additament to our colours and complexions can or doth offend more then other things of which no doubt is made so long as the heart is holy and the mind pure which yet are either ingenuous reparations of Natures defects or concealments of what we think deformed Nor can I see any cause why we should think God less allows us any advantages for our looks or faces then for other parts of our bodies since the greatest sweetness honour and agreeableness as to humane society are as waters in the Sea or light in the Sun gathered together by Nature and bestowed on the face of mankind where to appear lovely or comely is no appearance of evil in nature nor more in art which keeps the decorum and ends of God and Nature which I am sure are always good Nor would God have made any faces beautiful if there had been evil in beauty which yet evil minds may abuse as other good things that are the fruits of God's bounty and indulgence in Nature and Art Which is all I have to reply as to these cautious scruples of vanity and evil which your Ladiship makes against all Artificial beauty or helps of handsomness by way of colour or tincture rather I suppose from vulgar or common jealousies then your own convictions For sure if it had been so gross and palpable a sin as some suspect and report it would not have been hard for so many learned wise and holy men and women to have proved it to be such by undeniable arguments whereas your Ladiship shall easily perceive if you look near to their discourses upon this thing that generally those who vehemently fight against Ladies faces crying down all auxiliary or artificial beauty doe it more by their Rhetorick then their Logick they rather strike them upon the cheeks with their palms then under the eyes with their fists they make them blush but not black and blew by specious more then ponderous arguments shewing themselves in this point for the most part rather pretty Orators then profound Divines using not the sharp two-edged sword of God's word but the blunt foils of humane fallacies and declaimings All which amounts to no more then a kind of verbal painting or oral colouring which may be more dangerous to truth and conscience then that which they inveigh against can be to the faces or complexions of sober and modest women while they slide from the abuse of things to decry the use of them drawing conclusions from suspicions of evil jealous of the honesty of all minds because of the pravity of some denying all ingenuous liberties because of some persons licentiousness which is a vile and weak way of searching or discovering sin especially when it is I think a most infallible Truth That whatever may be abused may also be well used what is good in nature may be so in art since all things are in their kind they may be so in their various applications which is their end and best serve by the aptitudes which are in them for such ends and uses OBJECTION VIII Painting the Face a mark of Pride Arrogancy and Hypocrisie BUT good Madam though you may avoid other strokes made against all artificial beauty as to the nature of the things so used yet as to the mind of the user it is not to be denied but all adding of colour and complexion to the face comes from Pride though it do not tend to wantonness having its rise and temptation from that height of mind which thinks we deserve more handsomeness then God hath thought fit to give us glorying inordinately in that which is indeed below the greatness of a Christians spirit and ambition If it be allowed us to take any humble and modest complacency in those outward gifts and ornaments which God hath bestowed on our persons to which we have a good title of divine donation as natively and properly ours yet sure it cannot avoid the brand of arrogancy as well as hypocrisie to challenge and ostentate that beauty or handsomness of complexion as ours which indeed is none of ours by any genuine right and property but onely by an adventitious stealth a furtive simulation and a bastardly kind of adoption So that if painting be not rank poison yet as mushromes it seems to be of a very dubious and dangerous nature and to be sure it cannot be very savoury wholsome or nutritive to a good Christian If it be not in the pit of hell it may be on the brink if it be not the house it may be the threshold of death if it be not of an intoxicating nature yet it seems to be as a bush or red latice which gives neither honour nor ornament to any beyond the degree of a Tap-house or a Tavern If nothing else could be said against it this is enough that it is an Emblem or token of Pride and Self-conceit which is barre sufficient to all grace and overdrops all true vertue ANSWER 'T Is true nothing less becomes Christians then pride since they profess to follow the example of an humble Saviour who was content for our sakes to have the beauty of his face marred and to appear without form or comeliness to expiate the spiritual deformities which sin hath brought on our souls and bodies too Yet since Christ came to repair nature and not to destroy it since his main design is to reform our inward decayes without any wast or reproach to our outward comeliness since to be godly it is not necessary to be
prove so it may be there was no such thing onely in this as other cases fame oft over-balances the truth of things and our credit depends not on what we doe but on what others list to think of us or impute to us which should make all wise women the more cautious how they occasion any sinister reports of themselves which like evil spirits are easier raised then allayed one spark oft-times kindles that fire which many tuns of water cannot quench ANSWER MAdam I find your Ladiship as a wary combatant reserves your main forces to the last that so you may with the greater ease and advantage overcome your now-tired and least-suspecting adversary who might hope your strength had by this time been well-nigh quite spent and exhausted Truly your Ladiship seems to have laid more in this last Objection then in any one you at all urged before both as to the weight and acuteness of what you alledge against all acquired or artificial beauty Yet since it is now brought up to so great a case and dispute of Conscience whether a sin or no sin it is fit seriously to examine whether the strength of your Ladiships arguments do answer the shew and pomp of them Many things are more specious then solid having like vermine a pretty kind of nimbleness which comes farre short of that real strength or useful activity which is in more noble and solemn creatures I read there were many seeming spots and appearings of leprosie which upon the Priests due examination were not found to be any Leprosie of uncleanness or infection As I am well pleased to hear the freedome and force of your Ladiships Objections who omits nothing I think that can with any reason be objected so I shall be more pleased to find my self in a capacity of giving your Ladiship those sober and solid Answers which may give you most satisfaction since nothing is more uncomfortable in cases of Conscience then to leave the mind tottering and unresolved First your Ladiship urgeth against it the evil report it generally hath among people which I confess may be so farre true as you onely listen to what is reported and censured here in your own country among the mean and inferiour sort of people for the most part or those that are either leaders or followers of the popular genius who are commonly Giants in talk and Pygmies in judgement One wise and serious man overweighs thousands of them not in bulk but in value as one good Diamond doth many loads of pebbles Vulgar minds will easily cry up to heaven or down to hell any thing either as they have been accustomed to practise or as they take it upon trust from those Masters who oft symbolize and comply with the vulgar humour and opinion in lesser matters that they may have them their disciples and abetters in greater interests and concernments A little matter will lure or scare the common people into civil and religious fashions if they have easy leaders and bold dictators I have formerly told your Ladiship as to Starch and Tobacco so to black Hoods and all forein fashions what potent and popular declamations were used by some persons against them So in religious forms what ebbings and flowings have been and daily are as to the vulgar opinion report and practice of things sometimes seditiously destroying otherwhile pertinaciously retaining Images in Churches So about Caps and Hoods Vestures and Gestures Musick and Organs Crosses and Weathercocks Steeple-houses and Churches what fierce conflicts and Counterscuffles have been among people of various minds one side giving a good report the other imputing evil report to the same things Yea the use of publick Liturgies or solemn form of Common prayers singing of Psalms the recitation of the Creed and concluding with the Lord's prayer these are fallen under various reports There are that cast so evil report on them as they are not pleased scarce patient to hear them used by others If one had as many ears as Argus is said to have had eyes they would not suffice to hear the various reports which at several times in several Countreys are given about the same things yea the same men and women alter their minds and reports with their age humours interests company and adherents according as the wind blows either for or against any thing of civil or religious use What an ill report do some give of Episcopacy others no better of Presbytery and some worst of all of Independency when yet each of these hath some great sticklers for them and applauders of them Many men yea most are as prone to speak evil of what they understand not as doggs are to bark at what they see not onely because they hear others of their kind doe so Therefore the Apostle who knew well how to pass through good report and evil doth in that place not onely bid us follow what things are of good report but also what things are just and true for as a false report though good and favourable cannot justifie that which is truly evil no more can an evil report justly blast that which is in it self true and good more then the shout and suffrage of the Jews could make the golden calf a God when they unanimously cried These are thy Gods ô Israel So little heed is to be taken to the vulgar opinion or report of things as to the motions of the winds and clouds which he that will sow Solomon tells us must not regard Popular lungs are seldome sound or their breath sweet Their tongues may sometime hit on the right as Balaam's ass once spake reason when it met with an Angel but commonly the herd brays rudely and ill-favouredly with as little reason order or civility I need not say piety as those Ephesians cried up their great Diana as if mere plebeian noise dust clamour credulity and confidence were enough to make a Goddess or sufficient either to consecrate or execrate any thing as divine or devilish So that the wise and holy Apostles direction to steer a Christians conversation by good report is not to set up any popular vote or vulgar suffrage for a Christians card and compass which he had found to be vertiginous heady inconstant and for the most part erroneous one while crying him up for a God and presently stoning him for a malefactor in both extremes injurious and false But his meaning is that in things of less pregnant demonstration or rule for their morality and piety Christians should follow in point of credit and reputation of Religion the test or suffrage of wise and good men though never so few and possibly over-born by the number of others who are weak and wilful opiners but not just arbitrators of good or evil report which must be reduced to the standard of learned judicious and unpassionate mens suffrages who give not their verdict of things as good or evil till they have duly considered the nature of them
apart from vulgar prejudices and surmises or obloquies and reproaches with whom Crucifige is as obvious as Hosanna The rabble as we read gave a better report of Barabbas then of Jesus The way of Christian Religion was at first every where spoken against as a novel and pestilent heresy The Apostle Paul heard no very good report of himself from some people who cried Away with him he is not fit to live The later ages reformation of Religion in these Western Churches had from the most people no very good report at first though never so just and orderly and discreet but followed the fate of all things and persons that endeavour to rectifie or reform vulgar errors which is to be evil spoken of when they offer the greatest good Christians and Christianity were to be martyred in their names as well as in their persons and lives Christ denounceth a woe when all men speak well of them and a blessing when all men speak evil of them falsly If evil report as from the vulgar who are very superficial judges of things like cork always swimming on the top never sinking to the bottome of things is to be much regarded for what monsters should the primitive Christians have been looked upon capable to scare all modest and sober persons from coming nigh their doctrine sacraments and manners when they were reported to kill and eat children to worship an Asses head to have early and incestuous mixtures in the dark All which were as false as they were abominable If the Echo of common report be so oft false in the greater matters of Religion where it concerns men to be most accurately informed what they believe or report how little heed I pray may be taken to the common speech and perswasion of people in lesser matters and in this one particular which is but a toy or mote in comparison take it in any natural civil or moral notions onely the clamor and severe censures of some men have made it so considerable because they urge it so highly upon the consciences of women both as sin and shame that truly it now merits exacter scanning then it may be it ever had either by the vulgar or those who are their most plausible teachers and instructers And I believe Madam that upon review of the evidences of Reason or Religion whereupon the verdict or report of wise and conscientious Christians should be built you will find that the plebeian report and ordinary sense of all artificial beauty differs from that of the more grave and better advised sort of the world yea and from the sense of the more serious and better educated part of the people in this Church or Nation As I have been informed of those learned Divines Schoolmen and Casuists beyond Sea so I am perswaded the ablest Church-men in England in their most deliberate sentence dare pass no other censure upon those customes which are so frequent among persons of more elegant culture and fashion for the advance of their beauty then according to the true measures of morality and honesty which are the mind and end of the doer Nor will righteous judges pass any other report on those ingenuous artifices which are auxiliary to the faces adorning more then they do upon those that adorn the head hands feet shoulders or other parts of the body according to their several infirmities necessities or conveniences namely that they are then good when done to good ends and evil when to evil intents According to these moral and internal principles of good or evil the censure judgement and report of things in their nature and use ought to be given without any regard in point of conscience to what the vulgar easiness and prejudice or wontedness either opines or declares Nor is the report and judgement of all wise and every good man alwayes to be taken as authentick by their Oratorious heats and popular transports when possibly they would deny or discountenance an abuse which is most unnecessary in those things that at best are not very necessary but onely tolerable and convenient but by their calm and sedentary determinations not as standing before the tribunals of humane opinion and applause but as appealing to God's judgement-seat which is to be set up in every ones Conscience So that the Apostles direction to attend what report or same things have is to be understood cautiously and strictly not loosely and vulgarly People like unskilful Apothecaries and Mountebanks oft put the titles of Antidotes on poisons and poisonous inscriptions on wholesome Antidotes Neither this nor the like places in Scripture which concern good manners are to be swallowed without chewing we must not devour Scripture kernels with the husk or letter unbroken and intire for by such a fallacy I might find hard by your place alledged against them a like place in favour of these feminine artifices because the Apostle commands Christians to follow all things that are lovely or comely among which rank and number many esteem these helps to their complexion else certainly they would never use them But this were rather to play with Scripture then to apply it seriously and to make those holy directions rather as Tennis-bals tossed to and fro in idle disputes then as nails fastned by the masters of Assemblies But your Ladiship endeavours to give an account why these complexioning arts justly fall under such evil report or so general an infamy among the meaner sort of people as being esteemed a cheat and cosenage a making and acting a lie a self-Idolatry a Christian personated with a Comical face fitter for a stage then a Church that from a self-shame and secret guilt it affects secrecy that as a dead fly it corrupts the greatest commendations and perfections of any woman These are still but sparks of odium and scorn which fly from the vulgar anvils and hammers which commonly both over-heat and over-labour what they undertake to forge or reform First then as to the Deception which you call a Cheat truly it is not so much in this of helping the paleness or adding a quickness of complexion to the face as it is in other things of lameness and crookedness c. there the substance as it were and figures here the colour onely is a little altered yet these are used without any such odious clamors and imputations yea they are allowed and commended as indulgences of humane pity and charity to cover conceal or supply any defect or deformity in the outward man Which even Mr. Perkins himself allows who yet as to the point of complexioning which he calls painting cries it down after the wonted rode in few words and fewer arguments as against the Laws of Nature and Scripture but of which he produceth nothing but that circumstance of Jezebel's story which I have answered And indeed that worthy man seems in this as in some other Cases of Conscience rather to pass them over with a popular
Commandment which forbidding to commit adultery with others as the highest ascent or degree of sin in that kind doth also forbid all Means and occasions either necessarily tending to or studiously intending that evil End all leading others or exposing our selves into Temptations of Amorous solly by adding to our comeliness then when either God in our formation or age and infirmity have brought us as it were into the safer harbour or retreat of deformity either natural or accidental What folly is it to seek to rig up our crazy vessel or to expose our selves by art on new hazards by putting out again to that tempestuous and oft naufragous Sea wherein youth and handsomness are commonly tossed with no less hazard to the body and Soul too then S. Paul's voyage was to the lives of himself and his company What true-hearted Israelite would have returned back to Egypt when God had brought them out into the wilderness whose barrenness was compensated with Safety and God's society as Egypt's plenty was corrupted with Servility Luxury and Idolatry Deformities may be as great blessings to our Souls as bolts and barres are to our Houses which keep thieves not onely from rifling but from attempting those that are thus fortified with lessinviting looks Besides if all Adultery and adulterating arts as injurious to others by the rule of equity and charity are forbidden to us how much more any such plots and practices as tend to a Self-adulterating while we disguise and alter our faces not onely as to God's and mans aspect but even as to our own so that we are not what we seem to be to our selves and being once altered by Art from what is native we must look for another face before we can find or see our selves in that glass which at once flatters upbraids and deceives us while it represents our looks other then God hath made them and us whereas the wise Creator hath by nature impressed on every face of man woman such characters either of beauty or majesty or at least of distinction as he sees sufficient for his own honour our content and others social discerning or difference whereby to avoid confusions or mistakes so as there shall not need any further additionals of Art which put a kind of metamorphosis or fabulous change on God's and Natures work whose wisdome and power yet purposely no doubt orders some to be less well-favoured that they may be as foiles to set off the beauty he bestows on others as we see leaves are to the brighter flowers or clouds to the Starres Thus he makes black Night to commend the lightsome Day the Winters horror to double the Summers welcome sweetness and serenity So that in that variety which God hath chosen to set forth his noblest Creatures in which are after his own Image even mankind in a kind of checquer-work of some handsome and others unhandsome some pallid and others ruddy every one I think ought to content themselves with that colour and complexion as well as feature which God hath given them not onely in order to their particular subsisting but as to the general symmetry of his works in which he hath as skilful Painters do in their pictures set forth his more quick and lively colours which are in some faces by those deep and darker shadows which are in others If the most accurate pencils were but blottings which presumed to mend Zeuxis or Apelles works who may presume to adde any thing where God hath put to his last and compleating hand which is both able and wise to doe what he sees best ANSWER I Most willingly grant that the same pure and perfect God who hath forbidden all evil ends or sins of the ripest age and highest stature hath also forbad all means desired by us to those ends as to the immorality and perverseness of the agents mind and intent whose first fancies and most infant conceptions of sin are sinful if designed approved or delighted in notwithstanding he hath no power either to act nor yet any matter whereupon to work for the accomplishing or carrying on of his sin but onely from the power bounty and goodness of the Creator who is good in all his works though we have evil hands or eyes yet doth not God tempt us to evil by giving us those good things which we abuse to sin by the inordinateness of our minds more then the activity of our hands or outward enjoyment It is indeed a great Truth your Ladiship urges but very little to your purpose as I conceive yea it makes directly against you For if it be as it is confessed most unlawful to abuse good things to evil ends or to gratifie any desire in order to violate God's express Command then where the heart is upright without any sinful warpings as to piety purity and charity it must follow that the use of any thing God hath made and given to mankind must needs be good and lawful both in nature and in art Neither natures bounty nor the additions of modest and ingenuous art can be blamed or so much as questioned where the heart is sound and honest as in those loves or complacencies whose Chastity useth all kinds of ingenuous Elegancy If nothing can be materially evil either in nature or in art but onely as related to the inordinacy of the mind will and intent of a voluntary and moral agent it must necessarily follow that as to the use of colour and complexion to the face there can be no evil in it as against the 7th Commandment where no adulterous wanton or evil purpose is harboured in the Soul of those that use it but it is as all things ought to be kept within the bounds of Piety to God Purity to our selves and Charity to our neighbours Which holy limits must be precisely set as in the use of this so of all other ornaments and enjoyments afforded us by the Creator's indulgence in nature which are as prone to be abused to Adulterous incentives as this yea farre more as being more inviting yet are they not forbidden to be used or enjoyed but onely confined to honest pure and holy ends not onely the last and highest of God's glory but also those of the creatures life health delight and chearfulness That in many Countreys and almost in all ages something which your Ladiship would call painting or complexioning as washings anointings fomentations tinctures and frictions c. have been used by very sober chast and vertuous persons both maids wives and widows I think your Ladiship is not so uncharitable as not to grant since even whole nations not only the Jews of old but Christians also have and do at this day by customary and civil fashions use it without any reproach scruple or scandal of sin any more then it is to wash their faces to comb their hair or to braid it to anoint their heads and faces to perfume their clothes c. which things do neither necessarily tend nor
fires which casually seise on our houses nor extinguish those flames which Incendiaries kindle of Faction and Sedition in Church or State we may not row against any stream nor ascend by any ladder upward when our native tendency is downward we must not repair our decayed houses nor mend our torn garments or honestly seek to recruit our decayed estates but content our selves with our ruined and illustrious houses we must wrap our selves as we can in our lazy ragges with the sluggard turning upon the hinges of holy idleness as those that are providentially condemned to eternal and irreparable poverty After these methods of holy ill husbandry we must let our fields and gardens lie oppressed under the usurpations of brambles and the tyranny of all evil weeds which are the products of providence as well as the best herbs and flowers yea Nature seems rather a stepmother and dry nurse to these then to the other nay you may not by the inventions of artificial day supply the Sun's absence with Candle or Torch-light nor dispel the horror of that darkness which providence brings over the face of the Earth in the night you may not seek to obtain your liberty if once cast into prison which cannot be without a providence since a sparrow falls not without it upon the ground as Christ tells us So many absurd and indeed ridiculous consequences do follow the fondness of this argument that we may not seek to mend what God hath made nor alter what he hath ordered that it is best confuted by continued sickness lameness beggery baldness and deformity under which not to have any sense or having a quick sense not to desire and endeavour any remedy and redress were such a super Stoical piece of Philosophy as is not at all of kin to Christianity whose complexion is of a farre more soft and tender skin then that of the Stoick Cynick or Epicurean nor doth Religion require stupor but onely a patience so farre as is not transported beyond the holy and allowed bounds granted to humane and Christian industry to relieve it self by God's permission and blessing The Providence of God however it declare at present his will and pleasure to us by those events which are naturally less welcome and pleasing to us yet it doth not so confine and determine either it self or us as not to admit us to use lawful means of honest variations and happy changes which your Ladiship sees are not more frequently applied by us then prospered by God with desired successes So farre is it that we should by any sad events be confined onely to a silent and passive submission which is necessary and just indeed when our afflictions exceed the help of second causes that we are rather obliged both in Reason and Religion to use those means which may obtain blessed recoveries without violation of good Consciences which are not injured but there where God is disobeyed Nor is the divine Goodness less to be seen venerated and praised in those emendations which follow to our ease and comfort the lawful applications of art and ingenuity then his Power and Justice or possibly his special displeasure may sometimes appear in those unpleasing events which some would fain set up beyond God's intent as Idols to such an unmovable fixation as if it were impious to endeavour to remove them because Providence hath once permitted them to take place amidst the changes and contingencies incident to this mortal mutable state There may be holy contradictions and humble contraventions as to God's silent providence so to his declared will either discovered by effects or by his express word Thus Jacob wrestled with the Angel and would not let him go when he desired till he had by a pious importunity and holy insolence extorted a blessing from him So Moses prayes with extraordinary fervency when God had bid him Let him alone Hezekiah though under the declared doom of his instant and approaching death yet is not more bold then welcome when by prayers and teares he seeks to repeal or at least reprieve the sentence already passed upon his life by the Prophet Religion is no friend to Laziness and stupidity or to supine and sottish despondencies of mind under the pretence of compliances with Providence as afraid to remove the crosses or burdens incumbent upon us wherein the sluggard might have some plea for his sloth For these befall us many times as indeed all necessities of life do not more to exercise our patience then to excite our inventions and industry Nor doth the infirm life of man require less active then passive graces the one to remedy what we may the other to bear what we cannot cure But Madam in vain do I listen to your words when I see your contrary actions by which you give your self the fullest answer and save me the labour Who I beseech you is more speedily curiously and earnestly solicitous to encounter the afflictions and cross events of providence then your love and care is when any thing threatens or urgeth upon the health strength sight hearing shape or straightness of your children and nearest relations yea how auxiliary are you to your servants and neighbours how importunely do you pray for remedy how are you as Martha incumbred with receits plaisters and medicines of all sorts which you think most potent and soverain to remove any pressure or danger Yea as to those helps which are most mechanick artificial having nothing of native virtue but merely such a formal application as makes but a shew of help to natures defect whom did your Ladiship ever blame if in other things unblameable for using a glass Eye which is but an honest mocking of the world while it pretends to the place and office of a natural one which God saw fit to take away as to our own sight and use But he did not withall take away either our wits our hands or our freedome to make and use if we list a Crystal painted eye both to hide our own defect and deformity also to remove from others the less pleasing prospect of our blemish When was your Ladiship scandalized with any grave and sober matron because she laid out the combings or cuttings of her own or others more youthful hair when her own now more withered and autumnal seemed less becoming her How many both mens and womens warmer heats in Religion do now admit not onely borders of forein hair but full and fair Perukes on their heads without sindging one hair by their disputative and scrupulous Zeal which in these things of fashion is now grown much out of fashion Your Ladiships Charity doth not reprove but pity those poor Vulcanists who balance the inequality of their heels or badger Leggs by the art and help of the shoemaker nor are those short-legg'd Ladies thought less godly who flie to Chopines and by enlarging the phylacteries of their coats conceal at once both their great defects in
to mortification by the sad and frequent alarms of others sufferings and their own being exposed to like hazards of death or persecution So this of auxiliary beauty among other things they might possibly then decry and deny with some vehemency to Christian women not as absolutely evil and in it self unlawful at all times but as inexpedient and needless at those times when as precise virgins they had more need prepare the lamps of their heart for Christ then the beauty of their looks and faces for their suitors or husbands Things may be less wholesome to some tempers and constitutions which yet are not in themselves poisonous or pernicious How zealous were some of them for vowed and perpetual Virginity even so farre as sometime to speak less honorably of Marriage yea to some bitterness against second marriages How do they exclaim as against false hair or Perukes so against braiding or laying forth and powdering or colouring their hair some against cutting or shaving close the beard against cost splendor and curiosity of clothes and diet c. Not that they thought these things evil in themselves but they observed many Christians made an evil that is a scandalous and unseasonable use of them the abuse of which was not so easily regulated as the use was utterly decried Nor do they as farre as ever I could perceive by what is urged out of the Fathers by our English Writers oppose things of this nature argumentatively so much as oratoriously not denying the nature and use of them to some persons in some cases and at some times but onely that usual pride levity or impudicity which they observed or suspected in many who as they represent it used then such gross and dangerous dawbings of black red and white as wholly changed the very natural looks and difference of the person Nor did it seem to them onely vain and superfluous in most also irreligious in many but very fulsome and even uncomely in all that used so loathsome fashions Besides the greatest strictness of those holy Fathers seems to have been to Votaries or resolved Virgins in whom they thought it a kind of Apostasie to return to those secular toyes and curiosities of extern ornaments and study of worldly beauty when they made a profession to abandon them and to live farre above them as studious not to please men but God Nor is it strange if those men who generally chose celibacy or single life were more tetrical or less indulgent in such things to women whom they most feared because they less loved or used their company yea whose conversation they sought wholly to avoid casting what damps they could on their own inclinations by their distances from them and Declamations not onely against all feminine arts and ornaments but even against the very Sex Yet in their more calm temper there is no question but they made great difference as to times and persons in the use of the same things As the several censures and opinions of the Fathers must give way to the Scriptures authority out of which nothing of validity is produceable against Auxiliary beauty so they may without injury be looked upon as farre inferiour to the joynt suffrages or resolves of Councills without whose concurrence with the Fathers sense I can hardly think any thing a sin or violation of that modesty required by Ecclesiastical Canons and the Discipline of the ancient Churches from whom I find nothing ever cited by any Writer against the use of these feminine helps of complexion as by a joynt suffrage and determination of the Church against them either looking upon such toyes as below the animadversion of so venerable Assemblies or leaving them to the freedome of every one whose vertuous or vicious minds best resolved the lawfulness or unlawfulness of them in particular cases and consciences whose nature and use in general was as all outward things indifferent I find no woman otherwise unblameable either censured or excommunicated for her colouring and dressing nor did the ancient Confessors or Casuists any more then at this day either examine or condemn the use of tincture and complexion to the face as any sin in it self but onely in reference to the mind and end of the use Private mens opinions may not charge the Soul with sin in things of outward use and fashion where Scriptures and Councils are silent Nothing is more usual then for single persons otherwise very learned and godly to be strangely wedded and vehemently addicted to their own wonted modes their customary opinions and fashions of which they at length begin to make some conscience as if they ought ever to approve and never to recant what they have long liked or disliked esteeming those things next to sin which are new and unwonted to them Which temper I think was not only observable in many of those holy Fathers whose venerable ashes I leave to their rest hoping to find them more friends and suffragans to the vertues and modesty of sober women then enemies to their beauty or condemners of those things they sometime innocently use to conceal the defects or help the infirmities of their faces in point of beauty but I am sure nothing hath been more frequent then such high and affected severities taken up by some of the later and lesser edition of Divines who would be counted great Reformers of the times because they were vehement censurers and condemners of whatever they listed to dislike or not to fancy Thus many of them have not only followed the tract of some of the ancients in their strictnesses urged upon women as to their dresses fashions clothes and adornings but they have horribly inveighed at first against many other things of new yet civil and convenient use as against starch especially if yellow as if there were sin in that colour more then in white or blew to which at length they were so reconciled that they affected to use nothing more in their ruffs and linen How earnest were some Preachers against careless ruffs yea and against set ruffs too Both which they at length came to wear rather then pickadilloes which they thought had too much of the Courtier or little plain bands which they liked not because the Jesuites wore such How was Tobacco mistaken by many great Masters of the Pulpit peoples ears before they generally fell to taking of it themselves fancying at last that they never had more devout meditations or sharp inventions then those which were begotten or at least brought forth by the midwifery of a pipe of good Tobacco which at last perfumed their clothes their books their studies and their Sermons What enemies were some Ministers to Perukes to high-crown'd or broad-brimmed Hats to long Clokes and Canonical Coats and now to long Cassocks since the Scotch Jump is looked upon as the more military fashion and a badge of a Northern and cold Reformation How have some cried down all Dancing which most sober persons now use Many are
some one or more persons of eminency first fancied and opined from whom without any further trial many receive for currant all that is stamped with their name Thence it grows so common and customary by the authority of time and multitude that even learned and sober men in following ages are content to swim down the common stream rather then trouble themselves to cross or question such vulgar and therefore authentick Errors Which I remember my Lord your Brother in one of his many excellent discourses meriting a farre better memory and tongue then mine observed to be so frequent both in politick and pious affairs in things Civil and Ecclesiastical because very few examine the marrow and inside of things but take them upon the credit of customary opinings and what they hold even in capite and corde too is more by a superficial tenure of credulity then any pregnant proofs and good evidences of Reason or Religion Which easiness if it be excusable to humane infirmity in lesser matters where there may be an adherence in perswasion or practice to either side without any sin or notorious error yet in things highly charged with sin even to a more facinorous and notorious degree as this of any painting and complexioning the face is by this worthy man and others grave and godly Divines should be very wary what they affirm or deny lest they be over-righteous beyond what God imposes or severe beyond God's smitings or uncharitably lay either heavier pressures on the consciences or harsher censures on the actions of others then God himself doth Men of never so eminent learning and piety may not either adde or detract from the word of God lest they be found lyers as Solomon speaks Prov. 30. 6. Nor ought they to multiply sins by unreasonable and unseasonable severities beyond what God hath done For such passionate and precipitant wayes of censuring and condemning in case of sin where pregnant convictions in Reason or Scripture are wanting besides that they are most unworthy of a cautious and well-advised Divine who being in God's stead to people ought not to pretend God's authority where he can produce none do not onely charge the consciences of Christians with needless burdens and bind them to unjust bondages but they very much also baffle the credit or honor of Religion highly diminishing the reverence due to the Ministerial profession as to that binding and loosing power of the Keyes which is principally committed to them For nothing makes people less prone to observe or more ready to disbelieve their words as to the avoiding real sins then when they find them so loose superficial and but verbally imperious in feigned and forced enormiries which are not convinced to have in them if rightly tried and stated any iniquity against God or man being injurious to neither where the heart is upright as it easily may be and no doubt alwayes is in modest women who generally use in some degree or other as they best fancy some things that they think best set off their outside and handsomeness to the world Furthermore from such magisterial rigors infinite doubts and scruples are raised among weaker consciences who dare less trust to their own judgements while they doubtingly use or doe those things which they are loth to want and against which they see nothing proved as evil yet are they scrupulous and afraid to use them because of so much prejudice and clamor against them So that hence grows their snare and sin too while they want that faith in using them which is necessary to justify not the nature of the thing done but the conscience of the doer as the Apostle requires Rom. 14. 23. Whereas in reference to the nature of the thing done the Apostle assures us that the Kingdome of God as to gracious power and peace consists not in any of these things of external use as meat or drink and so clothes colours c. nor ought the conscience in these to be set upon the rack and tainter but rather acquainted with its liberty which being kept within the bounds of modesty sobriety and innocency needs not be scared with the scruple of sin And indeed in this very case of Complexioning I have heard that many learned and wise men both at home and abroad who are more remote from vulgar easiness and credulity do forbear to condemn as sin the use of those things that are ingenuously and innocently helpful to the beauty of modest women but they rather examine the true state of things both in the nature of what is used which must needs be good as in the order of God's creatures also as to the mind and intent of the doer or user of them accordingly they determine That all colourings added to the face are so farre sin or not sin in the conscience of the doer as their minds are morally and intentionally disposed either to modest and ingenuous decency which is commendable or to lewdness pride and lubricity which are blameable And as they find the things used to be in the cabinet or store-house of nature also the use of them to be no where forbidden in Reason or Scripture as a relief to such defects or infirmities of beauty as may befal the face so they resolve that according to the qualities and aptitudes which are seen in those things for such ends they may lawfully be used with humility charity purity and thankfulness without any offence to any relations wherein we stand obliged to God our neighbours or our selves We see in many cases that time and calmer considerations together with different customes which like the tide or flood insensibly prevail over both manners and minds of men do oft take off the edge and keenness of mens spirits against those things whereof they sometimes were great abhâ—â—â—ers reconciling their mortal feuds and wearing off their popular prejudices Few mens judgements are so died in grain but they will fade and discolour being most-what onely dipt by vulgar easiness in common opinions Nor do I see any thing unlikely but that upon second thoughts and more exact view a fair moderation and civil atonement may be mediated between Ladies Countenances and their Consciences by the intercession of judicious and religious persons both Ministers and others who dare to be wise beyond the vulgar and who have patience to consider better of this case then hath been wonted It will no doubt appear how little or no ground there hath been for so great reproaches or terrors of sin in a case no way more dangerous to the Soul or body of a vertuous woman then all other civil and allowed Ornaments are where by adding a little quickning and lustre to her looks she is no way hindred from the Love of God or her neighbour in chast and charitable wayes That where no cost is lavished no time-wasted no good duty neglected no vice nourished no Vertue depressed but onely a civil decency studied which was never denied