use of adorning by some light tincture the lookes of women eminent for virtue modesty piety and charity when they are not recluse or votaries And yet even these are not denyed as I suppose those things which may innocently please themselves even in their retirements Where every one is yet a Theater and society to themselves and cannot willingly live at any odds with their looks or dislike of themselves Some use these helpes who are rarely seen of anymen others of none but their husbands in reference to whose honest satisfactions they use these customable adornings of the Country as a testimony of their love and respect besides as an attractive or conservative of their affections which never receive greater Checks then when they meet with any object that represents either sordidness negligence or undervaluing Your LaP Ladyship cannot think it unlawfull for wives to please and gratify their husbands no lesse by quickning their complexion then by hiding any other defect and deformity or using such wayes of sweetnesse neatnesse and decency which are potent Decoyes to love as may best keep their husbands from any loathing or indifferency also from any extravagancy To which end I have heard that S. Austins civility allowed those feminine ornaments and elegancies of fine clothes sweets dresses and anointings to wives or such as would be wives as farre as the limits of chast and conjugall love extended All which S. Jeroms rigor who they say more loved than favoured our sex would lesse approve Sure i lewd and and wanton women find the use of such adornings to be advantageous to vicious ends which make all things so applyed unlawfull I see no cause why sober and modest women should despair or be denyed to turn them to a better use and honester account since they are as apt for the one as the other and fall as much under the power of good as evill minds to have them If that oracle hold true as it must because Divine in all things of free and indifferent natures and use that is upon which no restraint of God speciall command is laid as none is upon the Churches Christian in outward things That to the pure all things are pure That nothing is unclean that is morally and sinfully in it self as the blessed Apostle was perswaded by the Lord Jesus These will include in their large circumference what ever is used to advance the complexion or hide the defects of the face as well as any other parts of the body both as to the nature of the things used and the Conscience of those who purely use them Since we see that the highest abuse of Gods creatures to Idolatrous services and sacrifices which was the most provoking sin did no way prejudge or hinder the liberty of a believer to eat or drink of those things to farre different ends As there was no Idolatry in eating things offered by others to Idols if there was no regard to the Idol whose it properly was not but to God whose rightly it was So nor can I see any Adultery in the use of those helps to handsomnesse where there is no adulterous intent or evill thought in the heart whose prime moter or spring as to its end and purpose being set true to the measure of Gods will the outward wheeles motions and indications cannot go amisse Since the end of the command in that as in all things is a pure heart faith unfaigned and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1. 5. § What your LaP Ladyship objects That the use of any artificiall beauty may be an occasion to anothers sin a snare and temptation to them Truly so may all outward adornings which have something in them of a complaisance and takingnesse yea and the most innocent native beauty may be made a baite to the devils hooks yet do I not think your LaP Ladyship will therefore either deforme your beauty or not both own esteem and improve it to your civill advantages Else in vain had handsomnesse been given by God as a favour to so many sober women who were as conspicuous for their beauty as their vertue being every way compleately lovely like apples of gold set in pictures of silver Such were Sarah Rebekah Esther Jobs daughters c. Thus I have I hope answered the weight of your LaP Ladyship argument drawn from the 7th Commandment which forbids onely the abuse of things by depraved and adulterous minds not the use of them to sober and civill ends § As to the wit of it which makes all mending the complexion or lookes of our faces to be a kind of Self-adultery A metamorphosis of Gods work A confuting of his distinctions set upon his creatures A rekindling the fire which God hath quenched and adventuring again into the storme whence one is happily escaped c. § My first Answer is That it is hard to extract one drop of spirits or quintessence of reason and right argumentation as to point of sin and stating the conscience from many handfuls and heaps of Rhetorical flowers and parabolicall allusions which are but light skirmishings and not serious contendings in matters of Religion Such sparks and flashes of Oratory which are the main stock and strength of most opposers in this case are rather like the hedge-creeping light of gloe-wormes than that celestiall vigor of divine Truth whose beams have a star-like sublimity and constancy of shining As to the change and Alteration which is odiously called a Self-adulterating T is true there is some little change of the complexion from a greater degree of pallor to a lesse possibly to some little quickning of rednesse yet not so as to make any greater change on the face or cheeks than is frequently made by the blushings of those that are of most modest looks and tenderest foreheads This makes no more a new face or person so as to run any hazard of confusion or mistake than usually befalls women in their sicknesses and ordinary distempers incident both to single and maried persons Who sometimes appear pallidly sad as if they were going to their graves other whiles with such a rosy cheerfulnesse as if they had begun their resurrection so that this artificial change is but a fixation of natures inconstancy both imitating its frequent essayes and helping its variating infirmities Nor doth all this so terrible a change amount to more than a little quicknesse of colour upon the skin It alters not the substance fashion feature proportions temper or constitutions of nature which is oft done or at least endeavoured by severall applications both inward as to physicall receipts of all kinds Also outward by more gross and mechanick arts which strive by many wayes to conceal cover and supply natures grosser deformities and defects even as to the very substance of parts no lesse than to the additions of borrowed ornaments Thus the baldnesse thinnesse and as both men and women think the deformity of their haire is usually supplyed by borders and combings
which they do not condemne or disuse As to the end and intent of the user I presume your LaP Ladyship and others too have so much charity as not to censure or condemne 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 and conspicuous for those graces and virtues have yet either undiscernibly as some or suspectedly as others or declaredly as many according to the generall custome of countreys used such additaments to their faces as they thought most advanced the beauty or comelinesse of their lookes 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 evill 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 mor all 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 grosse 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 than 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 lesse allowes us any advantages for our looks or faces than for other parts of our bodies Since the greatest sweetnesse honour and agreeablenesse 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 evill in nature nor more in art which keeps the decorum and ends of God and Nature which I am sure are alwaies good Nor would God have made any faces beautifull if there had been evill in beauty which yet evill minds may abuse as other good things that are the fruits of Gods bounty and indulgence in Nature and Art Which is all I have to reply as to these cautions scruples of vanity and evill which your LaP Ladyship makes against all Artificiall beauty or helps of handsomnesse by way of colour or tincture rather I suppose from vulgar or common jealousies than your own convictions For sure if it had been so grosse 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 LaP Ladyship shall easily perceive if you look neer to their discourses upon this thing that generally those who vehemently fight against Ladies faces crying down all auxiliary or artificiall beauty do it more by their Rhetorick than their Logick they rather strike them upon the cheeks with their palmes then under the eyes with their fists They make them blush but not black and blew by specious more than ponderous arguments shewing themselves in this point for the most part rather pretty Orators than profound Divines using not the sharp two-edged sword of Gods word but the blunt foyles of humane fallacies and declaymings § All which amounts to no more than a kind of verball painting or orall colouring which may be more dangerous to truth and conscience than 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 evill jealous of the honesty of all minds because of the pravity of some Denying all ingenuous liberties because of some persons licenciousnesse which is a vild and weak way of searching or discovering sin Especially when it is I think a most infallible Truth That what ever 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 BUt good Madame though you may avoid other strokes made against all artificiall beauty as to the nature of the things so used yet as to the mind of the user it is not to be denyed but all adding of colour and complexion to the face comes from pride though it do not tend to wantonnesse Having its rise and temptation from that height of mind which thinks we deserve more handsomenesse than God hath thought fit to give us Glorying inordinately in that which is indeed below the greatnesse 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 handsomenesse 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 poyson yet as mushroomes it seems to be of a very dubious and dangerous nature and to be sure it cannot be very savory 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 Taverne 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 virtue T Is true nothing lesse becomes Christians than pride since they professe 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 forme or comelinesse to expiate the spirituall 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 reforme our inward decayes without any wast or reproach to our outward comlinesse since to be godly it is not necessary to be ugly nor doth deformity adde any thing
by the sad and frequent alarums 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 evill and in it self unlawfull at all times but as inexpedient and needlesse at those times when as precise virgins they had more need prepare the lamps of their heart for Christ than the beauty of their looks and faces for their suitors or husbands Things may be lesse wholesome to some tempers and constitutions which yet are not in themselves poysonous or pernicious How zealous were some of them for vowed and perpetuall Virginity even so farre as sometime to speak lesse honorably of Mariage yea to some bitternesse against second mariages How do they exclaime against false hasire or peruques so against braiding or laying forth and powdering or colouring their haire Some against cutting or shaving close the beard against cost splendor and curiosity of clothes and diet c. Not that they thought these things evill in themselves but they observed many Christians made an evill that is a scandalous and unseasonable use of them the abuse of which was not so easily regulated as the use was utterly decryed Nor do they as far 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 usuall pride levity or impudicity which they observed or suspected in many who as they represent it used then such grosse and dangerous dawbings of black red and white as wholly changed the very naturall 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 strictnesses 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 externe 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 tetricall or lesse indulgent in such things to women whom they most feared because they lesse 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 calme temper there is no question but they made great difference as to times and persons in the use of the same things As the severall 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 far inferior to the joint suffrages or resolves of Councells without whose concurrence with the Fathers sense I can hardly think any thing a sin or violation of that modesty required by Ecclesiasticall 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 below the animadversion of so venerable Assemblies or leaving them to the freedome of every one whose vertuous or vicious minds best resolved the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse of them in particular cases and consciences Whose nature and use in generall 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 than at this day either examine or condemne 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 Councels are silent § Nothing is more usuall than 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 suffragants to the virtues and modesty of sober women than 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 than 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 what ever 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 civill and convenient use as against starch especially if yellow as if there were sin in that colour more than in white or blew to which at length they were so reconciled that they affected to use nothing more in their ruffes and linen How earnest were some preachers against carelesse ruffes yea and against set ruffes too Both which they at length came to wear rather than 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 and 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 lest 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 Minsters to peruques to high crown'd or broad brimmed hats to long clokes and Canonicall coates 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 cryed down all dancing which most sober persons now use Many
verdit of things as good or evill 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 Barrabas than of Jesus The way of Christian Religion was at first every where spoken against as a novel and pestilent heresie The Apostle Paul heard no very good report of himself from some people who cryed away with him he is not fit to live The later ages reformation of Religion in these western Churches had from the most of 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 indeavour to rectifie or reforme vulgar errors which is to be evill spoken of when they offer the greatest good Christians and Christianity was 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 evill of them falsely If evill report as from the vulgar who are very superficiall judges of things like cork alwaies 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 earely and incestuous mixtures in the dark All which were as false as they were abominable If the Eccho of Common report be so oft false in the greater matters of Religion where it concernes 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 naturall civill or morall 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 than it may be it ever had either by the vulgar or those who are their most plausible teachers and instructers And I believe Madame 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 artificiall 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 Scholemen and casuists beyond sea so I am perswaded the ablest Churchmen in England in their most deliberate sentence dare passe no other censure upon those customes which are so frequent among persons of more elegant culture and fashion for the advance of their beauty than according to the true measures of morality and honesty which are the mind and end of the doer Nor will righteous judges passe any other report on those ingenuous artifices which are auxilary to the faces adorning more than they do upon those that adorn the head hands feet shoulders or other parts of the body according to their severall infirmities necessities or conveniences Namely that they are then good when done to good ends and evill when to evill intents According to these morall and internal principles of good or evill 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 easinesse and prejudice or wontednesse either opines or declares Nor is the report and judgement of all wise and every good man alwaies 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 tollerable and convenient but by their calme and sedentary determinations not as standing before the tribunals of humane opinion and applause but as appealing to Gods judgement séat which is to be set up in every ones Conscience So that the Apostles direction to attend what report or fame things have is to be understood cautiously and strictly not loosely and vulgarly People like unskilfull Apothecarys and Mountebanks oft put the titles of Antidotes on poysons and poysonous 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 than to apply it seriously and to make those holy directions rather as Tennisbals tossed too and fro in idle disputes than as nailes fastned by the masters of Assemblies BUt your LaP Ladyship endeavours to give an account why these complexioning arts justly fall under such evill report or so generall an infamy among the meaner sort of people As being esteemed a cheat and cosenage a making and acting a ly a self Idolatry a Christian personated with a Comicall face fitter for a stage than 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 reforme First then as to the deception which you call a cheat Truely it is not so much in this of helping the palenesse or adding a quicknesse of complexion to the face as it is in other things of lamenesse and crookednesse c. where 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 pitty and charity to cover conceal or supply any defect or deformity in the outward man Which even Mr. Perkins himself allowes who yet as to the point of complexioning which he cals 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 Jezebels story which I have answered
our selves into Temptations of Amorous folly by adding to our comelinesse then when either God in our formation or age and infirmity have brought us as it were into the safer harbour or retreat or deformity either naturall or accidentall What folly is it to seek to rig up our crazy vessâ—ll or to expose our selves by art on new hazards by putting out again to that tempestuous and oft naufragous Sea wherein youth and handsomenesse are commonly tossed with no lesse hazard to the body and soule too then S. Pauls voyage was to the life 's of himself and his company What true hearted Israelite would have returned back to Egypt when God had brought them out into the wildernesse whose barrennesse was compensated with safety and Gods society as Egypts 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 lesse inviting 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 practises as tend to a Self adulterating while we disguise and alter our faces not onely as to Gods 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 glasse 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 and woman such Characters either of beauty or majesty or at least of distinction as he sees sufficient for his own honor our content and others sociall discerning or difference whereby to avoyd confusions or mistakes So as there shall not need any further additionals of art which put a kind of metamorphosis or fabulous change on Gods and natures work Whose wisdome and power yet purposely no doubt orders some to be lesse wellfavored that they may be as foyles to set off the beauty he bestowes 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 sweetnesse and serenity So that in that variety which God hath chosen to set forth his noblest Creatures 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 generall symmetry of his works In which he hath as skilfull painters do in their pictures set forth his more quick and lively colours which are in some faces by those deep and darker shadowes 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 anything where God hath put to his last and compleating hand which is both able and wise to do what he sees best IMost willingly grant That the same pure and perfect God who hath forbidden all evill 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 perversenesse of the agents mind and intent Whos 's first fancies and most infant conceptions of sin are sinfull 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 goodnesse of the Creator Who is good in all his works though we have evill hands or eyes Yet doth not God tempt us to evill by giving us those good things which we abuse to sin by the inordinatenesse of our minds more then the activity of our hands or outward enjoyment § It is indeed a great Truth your LaP Ladyship 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 unlawfull to abuse good things to evill ends or to gratify any desire in order to violate Gods expâ—esse Command So where the heart is upright without any sinfull 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 lawfull 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 evill either in nature or in art but only as related to the inordinacy of the mind will and intent of a voluntary and mor all agent it must necessarily follow that as to the use of colour and complexion to the face there can be no evill in it as against the 7th Commandment where no adulterous wanton or evill purpose is harbored in the soul of those that use it but it is as 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 Creators 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 Gods glory but also those of the creatures life health delight and cheerfulnesse § That in many countreys and almost in all ages fomething which your LaP Ladyship would call painting or complexioning as washings anointings fomentations tinctures and frictions c. have been used by very sober chast and virtuous persons both maids wives and widowes I think your LaP Ladyship is not so uncharitable as not to grant Since even whole nations not onely the Jewes of old but Christians also have and do at this day by customary and civill fashions use it without any reproach scruple or scandall 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 are studiously intended to any sinfull 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
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 rags with the sluggard turning upon the hinges of holy idlenesse as those that are providentially condemned to eternall and irreparable poverty After these methods of holy ill husbandry we must let our fields and gardens ly oppressed under the usurpations of brambles and the tyranny of all evill weeds which are the products of providence as well as the best hearbs and flowers yea Nature seems rather a stepmother and dry nurse to these than to the other Nay you may not by the inventions of artificiall day supply the Suns absence with Candle or Torch light nor dispell the horror of that darknesse 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 fondnesse 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 sicknesse lamenesse beggery baldnesse and deformity under which not to have any sense or having a quick sense not to desire and endeavour any remedy and redresse were such a super-stolcall piece of Philosophy as is not at all of kin to Christianity whose complexion is of a farre more soft and tender skin than 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 bonds granted to humane and Christian industry to relieve it self by Gods 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 lawfull means of honest variations and happy changes Which your LaP Ladyship sees are not more frequently applyed by us than 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 diobeyed Nor is the divine goodnesse lesse to be seen venerated and praysed in those emendations which follow to our ease and comfort the lawfull applications of art and ingenuity than his power and Justice or possibly his speciall displeasure may sometimes appear in those unpleasing events which some would fain set up beyond Gods intent as Idols to such an unmoveable 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 mortall and mutable state There may be holy contradictions and humble contraventions as to Gods silent providence so to his declared will either discovered by effects or by his expresse 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 doome 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 Lazynesse 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 than to excite our inventions and industry Nor doth the infirme life of man require lesse active than passive graces The one to remedy what we may the other to bear what we cannot cure But Madame in vaine do I listen to your words when I see your contrary actions by which you give your self the fullest answer save me the labour Who I beseech you is more speedily curiously and earnestly solicitous to encounter the afflictions and crosse events of providence than your love and care is when any thing threatens or urgeth upon the health strength sight hearing shape or straightnesse 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 receipts 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 and artificiall having nothing of native vertue but meerly such a formall application as makes but a shew of help to natures defect Whom did your LaP Ladyship ever blame if in other things unblameable for using a glasse eye which is but an honest mocking of the world while it pretends to the place and office of a naturall 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 Crystall painted eye both to hide our own defect and deformity also to remove from others the lesse pleasing prospect of our blemish When was your LaP Ladyship scandalized with any grave and sober matron because she laid out the combings or cuttings of her own or others more youthfull haire when her own now more withered and autumnall seemed lesse becoming her How many both mens and womens warmer heats in religion do now admit not onely borders of forain haire but full and fair peruques on their heads without sindging one haire by their disputative and scrupulous Zeal which in these things of fashion is now grown much out of fashion Your La ps Charity doth not reprove but pity those poor Vulcanists who ballance the inequality of their heels or badger leggs by the art and help of the shoemaker Nor are those short leg'd Ladies thought lesse godly who fly to Chopines and by enlarging the phylacteries of their coats conceal at once both their great defects in native brevity and the enormious additions of their artificiall hrights which make many small women walk with as much
severe refined and sublimated wisdome passeth his penitentiall censure upon all things under the Sun To be vanity of vanities that is apart from and in comparison of that true and eternall light life beauty riches strength love honor glory and happinesse which are onely to be enjoyed in a neerer union to and communion with God the supreme and incomparable Good Yet he was farre from diminishing or reproaching the Creators power wisdome bounty and providentiall disposure of all things who made them all very good in their formes use and ends However the sin of man hath drawn over them a black shadow of vanity and of misery upon himself untill he be redeemed by Christ from that vanity of vanities Sin which makes all to be vanity and vexation to impenitent sinners while such but not to an humble and holy Christian who sees and adores God and Christ in all things and no lesse in this which may adde to the momentary comfort and content of its lookes than in other things which are not therefore sinfull vanity because not of absolute necessity As for the last place your LaP Ladyship voucheth of Abstaining from all appearance of evill which you think as a large net must needs include in its capacious bosome all these modes of auxiliary beauty Even this as all other Scriptures must be seasoned with the salt of a right and restrained sense lest it be corrupted by a loose and false interpretation else we must call no man master or father nor take care for tomorrow nor labour for our livings c. It cannot be meant that we must abstain from all those actions or things wherein evill minds do oft appear as most studiously so most wickedly while they appear under the mask colours and pretentions of piety virtue and sanctity by most affected and rotten hypocrisies This were to forbid us all those appearances which most become us For there is no forme or fashion of holinesse so severe demure and precise but it often falls under the devils counterfeit and imitation we must not abstain from being and appearing as Angels of light because Satan transformes himself to that appearance our light must shine before men though some call their darknesse light and put the beams of light on their darknesse The Pharisees pride and hypocrisy appears in Moses chair in long prayers in fastings and almes we must not therefore wholly abstain from these The sheep must not flea off his skin because the wolfe many times puts on its fleece No our Saviour teacheth there to adde sincerity to the solemnity and the power of godlinesse to the forme § I remember in my small reading of the Ecclesiasticall stories both ancient and modern that the holy severities of watching fasting hard lodging course fare and homely clothing used by Orthodox Christians were usurped by most damnable hereticks and desperate schismaticks the better to cover over their rotten manners and pernicious doctrines They will oft give all away to the poor in order to get greater estates by rapine They will be like John of Leiden reformers of Church and State that by sacrilegious arts and rebellious crafts they may mend their own fortunes yet these fallacious appearances must not deterre good Christians from reall charities and just reformings So then those appearances of evill from which we are bidden to abstain are such wherein sin and vice do generally appear as in their genuine and proper colours A Christian must not onely avoid grosse sins with open and impudent foreheads but also keep a loofe from the very suspicion of those pregnant sins as well as from the spot as Cesar required of his wife Further the Apostles meaning may be this that we must abstain from all sin which is notoriously and confessedly such what ever fair semblances and appearances it makes where sins are so putrid and unsavory that no fair pretentions can so perfume them as to make them pleasant to Christians that have their senses awake and exercised to discern true holinesse § As to this duty then of Abstaining from all appearance of evill Christians must be first wisely and exactly informed as of the natures so of the appearances of sins That they be not gulled and deluded with the devils baits and shews nor yet scared with every scarecrow and take every boyle for a plague-sore or every scab for a leprosie which superstitious fancies are prone to mistake not grounding their fear upon judgement but guiding their judgements by their fears Not therefore abstaining because God hath forbidden but therefore imagining God hath forbidden things because they have been accustomed to abstain from them Whence ariseth not reall and true but false appearances and misprisions of evill which falls not under the Apostles caution whose aime is to deterre Christians as well from misapprehensions of good or evill as from misapplications to them Nor would he have us to abstain from other than those appearances wherein evill commonly appeares like itself in its proper colours not onely as to its malice and mischievousnesse but also as to its disorder and impudence For to avoid all those customes and manners civill or sacred in which sin and superstition may and oft do appear we must either go out of the world or not at all appear in it As all is not good which good men do or say so nor is all evill which wicked men make shew of As infinite shadowes make not up one substance so nor many appearances onely make up one sin T is not what superstitiously appears as evill to weak and simple eyes but what really is and so appears evill to serious and judicious minds which we must avoid else ignorance superstition and hypocrisie will as I said obstruct and put in a prejudice against all things under the seemingnesse or appearance of evill which are not onely allowed of God but necessary in the outward shewes expression of either civility or religion As in all other cases then so in this of Auxiliary beauty it must first be convincingly proved that all use of such helps is in its nature a sin that none can use them in any case or the least degree without either breaking an expresse command of God in right Reason or Scripture or without a secret purpose and sinister intent to sin That there must be either a sin in use of the nature of the thing absolutely prohibited or in the inevitable depravednesse of the users intention if in nature it be allowed For the nature of the thing it is in vain cried down for sin when nothing is produced against it in Reason or Scripture nor more pretended against it than may as well be urged against the use of many other things as helps to naturall defects or ornaments to civill life of which they make no doubt who must deny this of tincture and complexioning So that either they must condemne other things with this which they approve or approve this with other things
weight of truth in it unlesse he fondly imagine with some that the race of the Giants before the flood were of this progeny which it is said the Sons of God whom he must interpret devils begat of the daughters of men whom they took because they were fair and to whom they contributed it seems this rare art of painting the face to keep them lovely What sober person can dote so farre as to allow any such monstrous fictions and more monstrous productions § As for the rarity of these Inventions which by any colour or tincture serve to help the ruddinesse of the face or the livelinesse of complexion neither Mr. Downame nor the Fathers needed to rake the Devils Skull to find them Alas it is a most easy and obvious thing hoth as to the things used and also as to the fancy of applying them to the skin or face as well as in any other ordinary waies of dying colouring or painting of things Nothing is and ever hath been more natively common as I formerly told your LaP Ladyship to all nations in the world than men and women painting and adorning themselves with severall colours juices and tinctures being an ordinary custome and as exposed to humane art and experience as the stayning or dying of any clothes the making of any pictures or statues To which the various and communicable colours afforded by Nature in feathers flowers rootes hearbs beanes stalks and wood in flies also and fishes do daily invite mankind to the exercise of their art and fancies in applying of them But Madam how sad a thing is it to see grave men urge in matters of sin and cases of conscience those putid fables and ridiculous fictions which themselves do not believe What is this but like the ratling of haile upon tiles which neither wets with moysture nor pierceth with its strokes and noyse Such downy feathers as these will never make up the ponderousnesse of a milstone And such as every grosse sin must be which sinks to hell both by its offence against Gods will and by that shame guilt or conviction which riseth in our own consciences either before in or after the commission § His other heap of arguments are only assertory not probatory As that it is an absolute sin in the nature and use of it Which he should have made good by some plain proofs and pregnant instance of right reason or Gods word against it which he doth not so much as offer at in the least kind when we all know that the formal malignity or evill in all sin is from the pravity or contrariety of our wills against the holy will of God either as revealed in Scripture or by the common light of Nature § In which last what he seems to urge as to the reproching and mocking of God the deception of others and the belying our selves I have already answered when your LaP Ladyship instanced in them Shewing your LaP Ladyship that there is no more done in this mending or ayding of the complexion by sober minds and modest persons than is done in many other practises of humane art and invention which help crookednesse lamenesse dimnesse of sight or any other defect and deformity in nature which no man is so foolish as to impute to the devils invention or to count them any burtfull imposturage injury or indignity against God our selves or others § For his fear lest women should rather poyson or marre their faces eyes and teeth by the use of such things as help their looks His care and charity to women in this is not so great as his ignorance is of those innocent and harmelesse applications which are far enough from what rusticall jealousies might possibly fear and imagine as if women were so mad of a little colour that they will venture upon uncorrected Quick-silver untamed Mercury the invincible Aquafortis or any such pernicious drugs Which yet sure may be used in their severall kinds and qualities without sin if they had a face-mending virtue in them But t is certain that tincture which women generally use to quicken their complexion withall is as safe and inoffensive to their own health as any flower So that from this error can be no true ground against it as if it were self-indangering and so offensive both to God or man § Lastly for his censure that all are proud leud vain and wanton women who use it in any kind to any end Truly it is as harsh as rash Nor is it to be justified as to the truth of the assertion if any ever did use it soberly and modestly least of all can it hold in Christian charity unlesse he had known the hearts and intents of all those that ever used it to be such as he there expresses when alas good man it is very probable he knew very few it may be not any one that used it Possibly he with other men of the same brow and severity might suspect some unjustly which is ordinary in those that cannot live well without censuring others for somthing evill No doubt he highly approved others for very virtuous and good Ladies who used some art and quickning while he was never the wiser nor they the worse either in his opinion or their own innocent intentions So that leaving the cloud and crowd of Authors and writers of Fathers and preachers whom I shall ever respect and value according to what I find of godly wisdome and Christian charity in them your LaP Ladyship must give me leave rather to look to the more sure word of God and that light of right Reason which enlightens everyman one in the world both in the Church as to the knowledge of good and evill sin and sanctity vice and virtue If Fathers or others speak not according to this light all their Oratorious polishings and shinings are but false beames as the glistering of gloe-wormes from humane not divine authority which onely can set a stamp of sin upon our actions Neither the wit nor tongue of any or many men can be a mint capable to coyne the least farthing sin much lesse so large a piece and medaile as this man pretends to make of any helping our complexion which seems to him to be as the talent of lead cast into the Ephah where the woman fate when truly he proves it not by any weight of arguing and bare words are but as wind to be so much as the dust of the balance And truly I cannot yet see but that in the height of religious severity it be put among those veniall vanities of humane life of which no stricter account in point of morality need to be given or exacted but onely that divine indulgence by which God in innocent freedomes as a father to his children gives us leave to adorn and please our selves without any of his displeasure § Nor may the violence and bitternesse of some good mens censures against all auxiliary beauty seem strange to us For nothing is
more easy and frequent than antique and popular errors which either cry things up or down as some one or more persons of eminency first fancied and opined From whom wiâ—hout any further triall many receive for currant all that is stamped with their name Thence it growes 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 streame rather than trouble themselves to crosse or question such vulgar and therefore authentick errors Which I remember my Lord your brother in one of his many excellent discourses meriting a far better memory tongue than mine observed to be so frequent both in politick and pious affaires in things civill and Ecclesiasticall 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 co de too is more by a superficiall tenour of credulity than any pregnant proofs and good evidences of Reason or Religion § Which easinesse if it be excusable to humane infirmity in lesser matters where there may be an adherence in perswasion or practise 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 affirme or deny Least they be over righteous beyond what God imposes or severe beyond Gods smitings or uncharitably lay either heavier pressures on the consciences or harsher censures on the actions of others than God himself doth Men of never so eminent learning and piety may not either adde or detract from the word of God least they be found lyers as Salomon 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 thatthey are most unworthy of a cautious and well advised Divine who being in Gods stead to people ought not to pretend Gods authority where he can produce none do not onely charge the consciences of Christians with needlesse burdens and binds them to unjust bondages but they very much also baffle the credit or honor of Religion highly diminishing the reverence due to the Ministeriall profession as to that binding and loosing power of the Keyes which is principally committed to them For nothing makes people lesse prone to observe or more ready to disbelieve their words as to the avoiding reall sins than when they find them so loose superficiall and but verbally imperious in feined and forced enormities 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 handsomenesse to the world Furthermore from such magisteriall rigors infinite doubts and scruples are raised among weaker consciences who dare lesse trust to their own judgements while they doubtingly use or do 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 growes 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 externall 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 easinesse and credulity do forbear to condemne as sin the use of those things that are ingenuously and innocently helpfull 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 n the order of Gods 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 he doer as their minds are morally and intentionally disposed either to modest and ingenuous decency which is commendable or to Leudnesse pride and lubricity which are blameable And as they find the things used to be in the cabanet 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 befall 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 thankfulnesse 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 prevaile over both manners and minds of men do oft take off he edge and keenesse of mens spirits against those things whereof they sometimes were great abhorrers reconciling their mortall feuds and wearing off their popular prejudices Few mens judgements are so died in grain buâ— they will fade and discolour being most what onely dipt by vulgar easinesse in common opinions Nor do I see any thing unlikely but that upon second thoughts and more exact view a faire moderation and civill attonement 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 than 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 soule or body of a virtuous woman than all other civill and allowed Ornaments are Where by adding a little quickning and lustre to her lookes she is no way hindred from the Love of God or her neighbour in chast and charitable waies That where no cost is lavished
my credit Out of which perplexity or streights of scandals both on the right and left hand I know no shorter or safer way to redeem a sober Christian that desires to live void of offence before God and man Than seriously to consider every thing before he either practise it himself or censure it in an other by the true notions and internall principles of good or evill as morally and conscientiously considered The onely way as David tells us to clense our own or others waies is by taking heed to Gods word regarding what in his precepts negative or affirmative either pleaseth or displeaseth him whose revealed will is a sufficient and infallible rule of all requisite holinesse According to which as I have just cause to be offended with my self and others in what I see my self or they do against the expresse will of God So where this doth not appear by any Scripturall reason and demonstration I have no cause either to scruple in my self or to suspect as a scandall in others that against which I see nothing declared by God but a naturall civill and ingenuous liberty left me and others which is alwaies to be kept within bounds of modesty and discretion which sober and unblamable conversation is enough to satisfy minds truely humble and charitable who love not as Salamanders to live in the flames of contention or like Caterpillars to make their cobwebs on bushes and thornes And however in things assuredly lawfull as to my private conscience a charitable and discreet tendernesse becomes the modesty and gentlenesse of a Christian toward others in those things which have possessed and perswaded men either by contrary customes or prejudices it may be by temporary precepts of God as in the case of Jewish ceremonies and externe observations of whose abrogation some were not soon or easily satisfied Also in the case of eating things offered to Idols which some scrupled out of an abhorrence of all Idolatry which God had strictly forbidden In these and the like cases I say a condescending for a while and private forbearance for fear of giving scandall is very fit till I have used those means which might best convince and instruct them of mine and their liberty given us now by God Yet if they carelesly proudly peevishly and obstinately resist or repell the pregnancy of my reasons without giving any valid answer to them or producing ought of right reason or scripture for their continued scruples scandals and jealousies They are henceforth to be looked upon and treated not as weak but wilfull Nor can I think it the duty of a Christian for ever to indulge their folly fondnesse and pertinacy of such forbearing to use those things for which he brings many pregnant reasons from the nature end and aptitude of things from their own want and capacity also from Gods permission of which I presume where I find no prohibition when as they produce little or nothing beyond a blind credulity a bayardly confidence or animperious insolence which delights to find fault with others and to domineer over them in some petty things for which at best they urge passion prejudice custome other mens opinions or such popular stuffe of which there is no end in which what reason cannot at present time will afterward easily confute that crosnesse and peevishnesse which oft transports men against many things beyond the measure of Reason or true Religion As I have heard for certain of a Minister of no small print and repute among the people who took great offence at the great sleeves of a Ladies new fashioned Gown calling them antichristian ungodly strange apparell and such as the Lord was displeased with yet within one year this good mans wife was in the same fashion without any scandall to her supercilious husband So crasie are some mens judgements and so easie their censures as to matters of scandall where Novelty or wontednesse sway more with them than either Reason or Religion Nothing lesse becomes a grave and godly Christian than to multiply needlesse scruples and scandals As to the pretended scandall which some say they take from womens use of any Auxiliary beauty truely where modest and sober persons use it discreetly the scandall cannot arise either from the nature of the thing done or the mind and manners of the doer which in all things appear worthy of a good Christian Nor can it arise easily from the certainty of their knowledge who are offended but onely from their impertinent curiosity and suspicion As the first is rude and unwelcome so the other many times false alwaies unnecessary It is seldome that any ownes their art to them nor is it oft that these inquisitive prayers can certainly conclude that to be used which they are so jealous of So that if they could forbear their uncomely inquisitivenesse and impertinent curiosity their scandall taken would soon cease which is more in their own eyes than others faces where any such thing is soberly and discreetly used without any haughtinesse and affectation of looks or wantonnesse of manners I believe for the most part such things are so used by all ingenuous persons that these morose Inspectors of Ladies faces are never the wiser unlesse they have more perceptive eyes than ever I had But if it were owned and confessed to them what I pray are they the worse or why offended Since neither have any of them as yet proved it to be a sin either from any positive Law of Gods word or from any necessary inordinacy and immorality of mind inseparable from the use of such things Nor are they by anothers use of it either urged or tempted to use it further than they want or approve it As for that depravednesse of mind which they fear may attend the use of these helps of handsomenesse It is as objectable against all those things which either native beauty or art afford whereof no wise man makes any scruple yet may they be as much occasions to sin as this whereof they are so cautious Evill minds as fowle stomacks turn the best food to corrupt humors But wee must not therefore starve our selves by forbearing good victuals § The work then that grave Ministers and other sober Christians have to do in this and the like cases of externe use of things is not presently to cry down every thing as wicked and abominable because they are at first through inconsideration or unwontednesse scandalized at them but seriously to examine what cause they have to be so scared and scandalized as from any morall evill pregnant and inherent in the nature or use of things And accordingly to state both their own censures and others consciences If nothing be found justly offensive they may not from fancy or custome call that unclean which God hath made clean But rather banish away those sinister and silly scandals which arise from the darknesse weaknesse or wilfulnesse of their own minds which are no just barres against anothers liberty
it had been hard to prove so it may be there was no such thing onely in this as other cases fame oft over-ballances the truth of things And our credit depends not on what we do 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 evill spirits are easier raised than allayed One spark oft times kindles that fire which many tuns of water cannot quench MAdame I find your LaP Ladyship 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 Truely your LaP Ladyship seems to have laid more in this last objection than in any one you at all urged before both as to the weight and the acutenesse of what you alledge against all acquired or artificiallbeauty 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 LaP Ladyship arguments do answer the shew and pomp of them many things are more specious than solid having like vermine a pretty kind of nimblenesse which comes farre short of that reall strength or usefull activity which is in more noble and solemne 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 uncleanesse or infection As I am well pleased to heare the freedome and force of your La ps 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 LaP Ladyship those sober and solid answers which may give you most satisfaction Since nothing is more uncomfortable in cases of conscience than to leave the mind tottering and unresolved First your LaP Ladyship urgeth against it the evill report it generally hath among people which I confesse may be so farre true as you only listen to what is reported and censured here in your own countrey 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 overwaighs 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 humor and opinion in lesser matters that they may have them their disciples and abetters in greater interests and concernements A little matter will lure or scare the common people into civil and religious fashions if they have easie leaders and bold dictators I have formerly told your LaP Ladyship as to Starch and Tobacco so to black hoods and all forrein fashions what potent and popular declamations were used by some persons against them So in religious formes what ebbings and flowings have been and daily are as to the vulgar opinion report and practise of things Sometimes seditiously destroying other while pertinaciously retaining Images in Churches so about caps and hoods vestures and gestures musick and organes crosses and weathercocks Steeplehouses and Churches what fierce conflicts and counterscuffles have been among people of various minds one side giving a good report the other imputing evill report to the same things Yea the use of publike Liturgies or solemne forme of Common prayers singing of Psalmes The recitation of the Creed and concluding with the Lords prayer These are fallen under various reports there are that cast so evill report on them as they are not pleased scarce patient to heare them used by others If one had as many eares as Argus is said to have had eyes they would not suffice to heare the various reports which at severall times in severall countreys are given about the same things yea the same men and women alter their minds and reports with their age hamors interests company and adherents according as the wind blowes either for or against any thing of civill 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 evill of what they understand not as doggs are to bark at what they see not onely because they heare others of their kind do so Therefore the Apostle who knew well how to passe through good report and evill doth in that place not onely bid us follow what things are of good reporte But also what things are just and true For as a false report though good and favorable cannot justifie that which is truely evill no more can an evill report justly blast that which is in it felf true and good more than the shout and suffrage of the Jewes could make the golden calf a God when they unanimously cryed 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 tels us must not regard Popular lungs are seldome sound or their breath sweet Their tongues may sometime hit on the right as Balams asse once spake reason when it met with an Angell but commonly the heard brayes rudely and ill favouredly with as little reason order or civility I need not say piety as those Ephesians cryed up their great Diana As if meer plebeian noyse dust clamor credulity and confidence were enough to make a Goddesse or sufficient either to consecrate or execrate any thing as divine or devilish So that the wise and holy Apostles direction to steere a Christians conversation by good report is not to set up any popular vote or vulgar suffrage for Christians card and compasse 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 lesse 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 goodmen though never so few and possibly over born by the number of others who are weak and wilfull opiners but not just arbitraters of good or evill report which must be reduced to the standard of learned judicious and unpassionate mens suffrages who give not their