Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	hair_n	nature_n	wear_v	1,532	5	9.6915	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38449	Englands vanity or The Voice of God against the monstrous sin of pride, in dress and apparel wherein naked breasts and shoulders, antick and fantastick garbs, patches, and painting, long perriwigs, towers, bulls, shades, curlings, and crispings, with an hundred more fooleries of both sexes, are condemned as notiriously unlawful. With pertinent addresses to the court, nobility, gentry, city and country, directed especially to the professors in London / by a compassionate conformist.	Compassionate conformist.	1683 (1683)	Wing E3069; ESTC R32945	62,360	146

Nations England hath scraped together and in a Bravery put it on the Estimation whereof is little a light wavering mind matched with a vain proud Heart desireth a light vain strange proud and monstrous Apparrel to cover and clad it but Sobriety is content with that which is seemly And in his Sermon before the Parliament recommending this one evil to their prudent considerations as fit to be redress'd being so dangerous and very grievous As our principal care must be for the higher matters Sincerity and Vnity in Religion so may we not pass over other matters which need redress Gorgeous Apparel and sumptuous Diet may seem small things but they are the causes of no small evil They eat up England and are therefore to be repressed by strait Laws And elsewhere in a Sermon before the Queen he expresseth himself pathetically and it is worth your noting Ezechiel teacheth that the Sins of Sodom that Sink of Sin were Idleness fullness of Bread Pride and unmercifulness to the poor Are not these the Sins of this Land of this City of this Court at this day Half England liveth idly or worse occupied we be fed to the full and who is not puffed up with Pride And who relieveth his Neighbours wants No man is contented with his own Estate but every one striveth to climb higher and to sit aloft there is want of the true fear of God in all sorts and Estates and Ages yet we please our selves and walk on as if God either saw not our Sin or else would not punish it Surely our Sins will not suffer his Plagues to stay long from us What Plagues I dare not presume to Prophesie for God hath kept that secret to himself But I stand in fear that we are the men to whom Christ saith The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you That we are they whose Sins will bring the Scepter of this Kingdom into the hands of an Hypocrite Know Reader that this was when the Papists expected so highly the Return of their Religion at the Death of Queen Elizabeth And that made the heart of this good man so bleed in that consideration he goeth on If God in his Justice do this ●o worth us most wretched men The Loss of the Gospel is the Loss of our Souls and the Loss of our Soveraign the Loss of our Lives Truly when I fall into consideration of the wickedness of this world that all sorts of men fall to sinning with greediness that in all conditions Iniquity doth abound and Charity wax cold that the Zeal of God is utterly dried up in the Hearts of Men that God is served for Fashion sake and not in truth what should I think but that God hath gathered his Lap full of Plagues and is ready to pour them down upon us And thus you see how God hath stirred up his Faithful Prophets to drop down their testimony against this poor Sinful Land for the Pride and prophaness thereof in that Age. Let us come down to King James his time and see whether the matter be any whit amended and one might justly expect it because they lay under the obligations of a new mercy in disappointing the expectations of the Enemies of the Gospel by the coming in of a Protestant Prince who so zealously by his Learned Pen contended for the Truth But we shall find this Vanity still triumphing in its full vaunt and Glory and I shall not disparage so holy a Witness as Bishop Sands by subjoyning a mean or unworthy Person to him but will call forth the sweet spirited and excellent Bishop Hall to give us his Evidence against the Pride of that Age wherein he Lived and besides others which I omit I will shew to what height the Women were grown at that time from a Sermon of his Preached at the Spittle O God to what a world of Vanity hast thou served us to I am ashamed to think that the Gospel of Christ should be disguised with such disguised Clients are they Christians or Anticks in some Carnaval or Childrens Puppets that are thus dressed Pardon I beseech you Men Brethren and Fathers this my just and holy impatience VVho can without indignation look upon the prodegies which this mis-imagination produces in that other Sex to the shame of their Husbands and scorn of Religion and damnation of their own Souls Imagine one of our Forefathers were alive again and should see one of those his Gay Daughters walk in Cheap-side before him what do you think he would think it were Here is nothing to be seen but a Vardingale a yellow Ruff and a Perriwigg with perhaps some Feathers waving in the top three things for which he could not tell how to find a Name Sure he could not but stand amazed to think what new Creature the times had yeilded since he lived and then if he should run before her to see if by the foresight he might guess what it were when his eyes should meet with a powdred Frizzle a painted Hide shadowed with a Fan not more painted Breasts displayed and a loose Lock swing wantonly over her Shoulders betwixt a painted Cloth and Skin how would he more bless himself to think what mixture in Nature could be guilty of such a Monster Is this the Flesh and Blood thinks he is this the hair Is this the shape of a VVoman Or hath Nature repented of her work since my days and begun a new Frame It is no marvel if their Forefathers could not know them God himself that made them will never acknowledg that he never made the Hair that he never made theirs the Body that is ashamed of the Maker the Soul that thus disguises the Body Let me say therefore to these Dames as Bennet said to Totilaes Servant Lay down that you wear it is none of your own All the world knows that no man will rough-cast a Marble VVall but mud or unpolished Rags that false art instead of mending Nature mars it But if our perswasions cannot prevail hear this ye Garish Popingays of our time if you will not be ashamed to Cloath your selves in this shameless Fashion see how the Spirit of this Meek Moses raiseth into indignation against this madness that all the world knew to be so mild and tender of it self God shall Cloath you with shame and confusion hear this ye plaister-faced Jezebels God will one day wash them off with Fire and Brimstone See Reader what a Faithful Witness this holy and excellent man was for God against the Pride and Folly of that day To this famous Witness for God Let us adjoin another of his own Order as Zealous and Faithful as himself the worthy Bishop King who bears his Testimony for God against the Rage of this folly that Ruffled so proudly Throw away your Robes and costly Cap●●isons You Kings and Queens of the Earth You that are not so by the Ordinance of God but by your own Usurpation that take such honour upon you not

tricked up in the most excessive Curiosity of Attire and I was surpriz'd when I found that Cornelius a Lapide in his Comment on Timothy has gotten the story by the end Mistress saith he vnless God give you Hell for all this Pains and Labour of Dress Verily He will do you great Injury But what said Old Plautus A Woman and a Ship are never sufficiently rigg'd up therefore said he if any Man want work or business for his mony Let him get him a Ship or a Wife Yet Plutarch tells us that Phocian the Athenian General was Singularly happy in this who when a great Lady of Jonia came to Athens to pass a visit on her and shew'd her all the Rich Jewels and Precious stones of her Cabinet But saith this Lady All my Riches and Jewels is my Husband Phocion Indeed those Athenians were a politick People and car'd very little that their women should bare away the spoiles of their Estate who therefore had Officers on purpose who were to order the Apparrel for women and to take care that no one might wear any thing unbecoming her Place or Degree and these were called Gyneconomi A Committee that sate on the Female affayrs to keep them in due Moderation and Order Very much wanted in England The like Power had the Ephori to correct the Spartan Extravagancies and I confess the Laws of Licurgus for youth especially were so choice and remarkable that the very reading of them would make us reflect on our own impudencies when as my Author tells me the very young men of the City were reduced to so high a degree of Civility and Modesty that passing through the Streets on their Lawful Occasions they would wrap themselves up in their Cloaks not stand prating to every one they met nor Gaze up and down but kept their very eyes fixt upon the ground by which means in a while the masculine Sex excelled in all bashfulness and gravity the very choicest perfections of the Feminine Their Voices were no more heard than if they had been Statues of Stone neither were the young Damosels more chast in their Chambers than were those young men as they walked in the Streets And does not this make thee blush Reader to consider the Rudeness the Incivility the Insolence the the Wild and Immodest Gestures and Deportment not of the Males only in our City but the Loosness the Staring and Gaping the Idle and Dissolute Carriage of the very Virgins and Young Ladies who set themselves out on purpose to be pick't up and Gaz'd on and turn their back upon every passenger as it were to tell him they are freely at his service Not to speak now of the swarmes of these execrable prostitutes the Plagues of the Town that have every Night their several walks and appartments to ply in you may find them as Solomon sayes not in the Corner of the Streets onely but thick in the very midst of them and turning the whole City into a Stews It were well if the like dispatch of some Ship-Loads of them were made to the Forraign Plantations as in the time of the Usurper there was And these too glittering as so many Stars all over in the sparkles of St. Martins the proper Lawful Dress of their Trade by the Lacedemonian-Law who allowed none of these Gayities to any but VVhores Nor can I but mention another most profitable Law of Licurgus who ordain'd that the young men of Sparta should have frequent meetings in some publick place where they should Eat and Drink together for a mutual increase of acquaintance and love but when assembled their chiefest discourses were ordain'd to be for the better contrivance and carrying on the prosperity and wellfare of the City on purpose saith my Author to avoid any idle or impertinent prattle and when all finish'd in due Order and Civility to depart each one to his proper home and betimes too without the Least Debauchery by VVine lest any notice should be taken of any disorder in their passage home through the Streets for Night was to be no mantle to vice no more than the day had been so as they were under an Excellent Government they should take care to honour it by as honest a Carriage What Reader does the Wilderness bring forth better fruit than the Garden We are every one striving for the Honour of the Church and the Kingdomes Let us at least take Example by these Heathen who surely were wiser in their Generation than we Is debauchery and sottishness become the true methods of Honour to so incomparable a Government we lye under and the roarings of our Taverns at midnight quite drowning the Anthems of our Church Alas when shall we begin with a faithful sobriety with these Spartanes to bring glory to the Crown and the Miter whose Honour we so passionately contend for yet suffer its Jewels to swim away in our Spew and then only to dispute for a Decipline when we have lost our sences in the draughts of intemperance and are not able to speak a plain word And further they were so farr from Pomp of Apparrel that no gain or encrease of Estate could tempt them to so vain a Superfluity they consulted the well-Ordering and Governing their Bodies more than any Exteriour magnificent Clothing and loved better to have Mony in their Purses than to lay it all out on their Backs When thou knowest Reader what a World of Byas'es appear like Princes among us yet carry all they have in the World about them as He. Long-Coats and a Drivelling-Cloth is the proper Demonstrative Garbe of a Natural and is not unbecoming for him who dresses himself up in his whole Estate and has left not a peny to dine on but is more ridiculous than Jack-Pudding who disguises himself to get some There was once a Gallant in a Velvet-Coat and a Scarlet-Cloak over it walking in Paul's where finding himself very hungry and over-hearing some others discourse of a Feast the Ironmongers held that day in their Hall was glad of that News and resolving to intrude amongst them No sooner appear'd then was courteously received and promoted by the Stewards to the best Seat at the Table as one they thought who might formerly be of the Society or at least descended from a Father that was and now had done them the Honour to Grace them with His Worshipful Company when Dinner was over and he had lay'd well about him and brisk'd up his Spirits with Wine The chiefest of the Company with whom he Convers'd were at length so bold to desire him to discover himself and what Relation he had to their Society To whom he very merrily replyed O a very near affinity to your Trade for I my self am a Monger too They pray him to explain what he meant By my troth Gentlemen since you must know I am a Whore-Monger and have wasted my Estate in my Vocation so that wanting a Dinner I supposed the contiguity of our Callings might

already Damned prepared for the Pomp of her Funeral into Torments For how desperate must the condition of those be who have wip'd away the Graces of the Regenerating Laver that once beautified their Faces with the vertues of that Holy Water which issued from the Crucified Saviours Wounds to Baptise themselves with the unsavoury Vnctions of the Devils preferring and devoting their persons preserving them the more unalterably to his service Whose Cursed Interests they are so superstitiously bigotted to that like the late Plotters they receive the Sacrament every day and Crucifie the Church not by their Apostacies onely but Heresy too And because the Holy offerings of God by special Command were to be without Spot their politick Master to ensure their Reprobation has bespotted them all over and marked them up for his own Workmanship as well knovving the Priest of Heaven at a distant discovery of those prohibited Blemishes would rather sacrifice those to the wrath of his God that should dare present these Leopards to the Altar VVho wearing on them the badges of Hell are yet so far from the shame of that horrid Relation that they are first secured from the Grace of blessing and so well seasoned to the Sodomitical Impudence that while the Show of their Countenance does witness against them they are proud to declare their Sin and Master VVhat Magical Rods have charmed our unfortunate Isle into the woful product of such speckled and spotted Cattel as these Sure I am they are not the natural issue of our fair and beautiful Clymate Stow tells us in his Chronicle That from one Spanish Ewe brought over and placed among other Sheep there followed so strange a Murrain that most of the Flocks of England dyed And is there no danger in these Ring-streaks Jude informs us what a plague the coming in of some black Sheep that were all Spots proved to the poor Flock of Christ that fed among them and are not these the very bane of Religion professed by us the very open enemies to the Purity and Peace of the Gospel The Immaculate Lamb who bled himself to death to scour away filth with the Drops of his heart that he might make a present to himself of a Glorious Church without wrinkle or Spot or any such thing but holy and without Blemish and offered himself without Spot unto God to that end and who does dotes on the Beauty of her that is all Fair and has no Spot in her hath Commanded us to be found without Spot and Blemish And though these Creatures fancy the Scripture-spots to be of a deeper stain than theirs yet even theirs are not the Spots of Gods Children but such as the Fathers assure them were first invented by the Devil who hath stuck them faster to their hearts than their Foreheads in their love and delight in them That they will stab once more even Jesus himself with the Speer of this madness and throw the very Spittle that sticks on these Pa●ches into the face of God again rather than be prevailed with to cast them away no not for the sake of his Blood And if that powerful charm hath no Efficacy to unseal their I fear judiciously obdurated hearts yet they can melt into Luxury fast enough What effect can I look for from my weak and contemptible Ink Let them know though even All w●ose painted and spotted faces bear an Eye yet able to light them to the reading of this very Paragraph That One of their Sex whose Repentance I fear they will not imitate whose Felicity therefore they can never hope to attain to will certainly confront them in the day of the great Judgment whose exemplary Penitence cannot operate them to the same bleeding remorse no not the shadow of it that so passionately afflicted her gracious Soul The great Lady Paula who under the lighter guilt of a rare and infrequent practice of these Fooleries in the days of her ignorance with Floods of bitter Tears and heart breaking Sobs and Groans so continually bewayled her Sin to her Maker that St. Jerome her Confessor who himself tells us the Story a nobis admonitur ut panceret oculis in a tender compassion to her very eyes was forced to use arguments to begg her to spare them No no saith she That Face that so often hath been Painted contrary to the Command of God does justly deserve to be all befould with tears That Body must be chastened a while on which I have spent so much time in in tricking it up I have been merry long enough 't is high time to betake me to weeping Now my fine Linnen and Silks and Ornaments are very fit to be changed into Haircloth I that have made it my business to please my Husband and follow the Fashions of the World now should endeavour e● approve my self to my Saviour And never while the works of the Holy Saint Ambrose survive in the World will the account of the unparalel'd vertue of the famous Spurina be lost in oblivion who in her Gentile and Pagan Estate was so great an Admirer of Purity That being a Virgin of incomparable Beauty and blessed with all the advantages of a desirable face was therefore sought for and courted by many wanton Lovers and woed to make a Sacrifice of all her Glories to the Lusts of her Admirers Did therefore to allay and extinguish those unlawful fires all hackle and cut her excellent Cheeks making Wounds and Scars in them on purpose to be free from the Solicitations of those who were even distracted for her And I will insert the Application of the Story which cannot be mended by a better Pen then his that wrote it O thou Christian Woman who dost paint thy self with an ill intention seeking to gain that by imposture which thou canst not attain by truth and not satisfying thy self with adulterating thy Beauty sparest not to discover among company a scandalous nakedness to shew in thy Breast the impudence of thy Fore-Head Consider a little what thou wilt answer to this Paynim with all thy Curiosity when her Blood her Wounds her Scars her Beauty disfigured which served as a Sacrifice to her Chastity shall accuse thee before the Inevitable Tribunal Saint Jerome in his Directions to Laeta for the right ordering and vertuous Education of young women hath these very words not unworthy to be taken notice of by all Christian Parents on whom the like charge and care is incumbent Accustome her not saith he to wear Pendants in her Ears nor to Paint nor to load her Neck and Head with Pearles Neither let her change the Colour of her Hair nor Curle or Crisp it up with Irons least it prove a prediction of Infernal Flames Beware she go not forth with Dinah to see the Fashions of the Maids of the Countrey Let her not be a Dancer nor gawdy in Apparel Let her read good Books and never go abroad without the knowledge of her Mother Let not a young Pretender whisper

things into her ears but cause them to speak aloud that the rest may hear The advices of this Father are so perfectly out of Fashion immodish in these days of ours that it s become even ridiculous and impudency to press them and my design of inserting them is rather for Lamentation of the ruins of the Primitive Piety then from any great hopes of a careful Imitation or practice of them While the shameless immodesty of too many of our Ladies makes me more to venerate the memory of the Lady Margaret Sole Daughter and Heiress of the great Duke of Burgundy who by a fall from her horse having broken her Thigh chose rather to dye then to expose her self to the inspection of the Chirurgeons yet what that Lady did from an innate Principle of bashfulness and perfect respect to the honour of Feminine Modesty the same are ours acting too from another of desperate obstinacy for though they have long since fallen from all the Ideas of Vertue and Goodness yea from the very pretences to it and by that slip have crack'd their Honours wounded their reputations dislocated their peace disjoynted their Consciences and endangered their Salvations yet are they so far from thoughts of setting again their broken Bones searching into the bottom of their Wounds applying Lenitives to asswage the Tumours of their bruised Consciences or Corrasives to eat out the dead Flesh that is about them That they desperately take up resolutions of dying too even these will be modest forsooth and keep their Gangrenes to themselves bravely bear the burning of their festring sores running up and down bleeding inwardly even to death but so they can set a good face on the matter plaister over the Orifice of the Wound and daub it with the Mortar of a gawdy Swathe and a few fine Clouts this answers all their projects Their Ambition is no higher than the Hypocrisy of those who flaunted up and down with a painted Profession of a superficial Goodness and appeared like Sepulchres which when open'd yield of all other the most nauseous stench And for Painted Ladies to yield nothing else but Mummye and Bones is very Melancholy to consider But this is not all for amongst some of them the fury of the distemper hath seized on the very Brain and utterly deprived them of their Sences You may hear them raging as Madly as ever did frantick in Bedlam and grown into a perfect insensibleness of any pain or distraction upon them as God knoweth they feel no more Ach and fear no more danger than those that have reached the impeceable Estate Nay will swear they be the best Saints in World and have done nothing but what they dare answer to their Maker they rail against others more modest than themselves and Fanatacize the whole Church that in pity and kindness to their lanugishing Souls do but offer the benefit of the Holy Offices to them and would apply the most probable remedies whose vertue might prevail to restore them to their Wits The good David once was put to it to counterfeit a Madness for the saving of his life but these a cruel one for the damning their Souls Therefore as Achish said Lo you see the man is mad so methinks I hear God say Shall these mad people come into my house And what have I to do with them any longer Of Perukes and Hair WHat a Bussle have we had about Plots of late and cries against Popery coming in When any that had but half an eye might have seen Pope Joan in the Chair and sitting as Head of the Church at least twenty full years already Don't you perceive many thousands that have rounded themselves into Priest hood and wearing the Mark of the Beast very confidently in their Foreheads Nay the devout Ladies so obsequious as to travel up and down with her Bulls But the poorer women in a Flame for her Government by whole swarms do thwack up the Nunneries and have offered up their Hair very humbly to the Abbess according to Order in full resolution to take up the Veyle So the Streets are full of the Monks with their Hoods on And the Fryars every where Peep out of their Coules Not a young Fellow that takes pet against his Noddle for catching the least Cough or Cold but strait in revenge off goes his Locks and himself is shaved into Orders Leaving the Kingdom as naked of good Subjects to their Prince as poor Spain whose Souldiers the Pope has garison'd up in his Monasteries That should occasion come for an Army to be raised a third part must consist of Holy Fathers The Rents of her Holiness far exceeds all that ever her Predecessors received from this Kingdom and upon strict account taken of her yearly Revenues as heretofore will be found I fear to vie weight with the Kings Her Collecters pass boldly up and down through every Corner of the Land to gather up the Materials of her Worship and have Authority to break open all the Dove-houses and Meal-Tubs to dig for Salt-peter to make Powder with which is an absolute Right to her Honour derived from the very first Founder of the Papacy Nay the poor Countrey Girls cannot keep their Coifes on for these Officers that have Commission to dig into the very Mould of their Souls after Oare of all Colours whether Or or Argent or Azure it all serves to make Shrines to the Glory of the Goddess and t is much the Goats escape the Inquisition and the poor Shocks will I fear be brought in for their Peter-pence towards the Maintenance of the Frizzes Thus with the Egyptians we are building goodly Temples to the Honour of a Deity But when the Votaries come to pay their Devotions there they find nothing else but the stately Pusse in Her Majesty who because she changed her Coat so often has at least a Thousand Taylors and their Journey-men very hard stitching up the Pontificals of her Dress which hang up for publick view and Sale as Diana's Shrines for very Strangers to buy up and bear away as the Medals of her Glory into every Countrey of the World whose Traders are grown to so prodigious an height that one of them passing off the Stage in the Pride of his Business left yet behind him an Inventory of some Thousands which far surmounts the hopes of Ten poor Heretical Priests to attain to in all the long series of their sweat So Deliciously do these Idolaters fare at Jezebels Table when the poor Prophets of Heaven are put to it to bite a piece of brown Cake at a Widows And to speak plainly forty or threescore pound a year for Perriwiggs and ten to a poor Chaplin to say Grace to him that Adores Hair is sufficient Demonstration of the weakness of the Brains they keep warm And let me take the boldness to manifest a few of the ill Consequences of this Idolatry First with the Womans Hair we have put on her Art not of Cookery and the

attired like men in Dublets and some men like women in Petticoats this excess hath so exceedingly dispersed it self in our Nation that by their exteriour new-fangled Robes the wisest of our Adversaries in Forreign Parts have past their Judgments of our giddy minds and unconstant behaviours inwardly saying That in wearing Dutch Hats with French Feathers French Dublets with Collers after the custom of Spain Turkish Coats Spanish Hose Italian Cloaks and Valentian Rapers with such like we had likewise stollen the vices and excesses of those Countries which we did imitate Natural Besides what a shame was it for us to be noted for this exorbitant excess that base Tailors and others which work as Hirelings aspiring to that abominable and indecent singularity should equal themselves in the cost and Fashion of their attire with some of the greatest Barons of this Land A Fault not to be imputed to the Laws for those are precise and strict in such comely considerations but in the dissolute and intemperate affections of people which instead of a little Liberty make a Licence at large Tyrannizing upon the Princes gentle disposition and Lenity Hence it was that the Nobility to distinguish themselves by this outward aport of their Degrees and Riches from the Rascal Rabble and base Ruffians were driven to most extream charge that they might make a difference of themselves from them equivolent in proportion Which course if the Queen her self had kept answerable to her State above some Ladies and others in the like analogy she might with ease have consumed an unspeakable Mass of Treasure Yet Reader 't is known that Queen Elizabeth did not spare for Cost in her Clothes By this means the Estates and Substance of Taylors Craftsmen and other Mechanicks was daily more encreased and the Fortunes of our Gentry utterly exhausted VVhich Leprosy did in a little so spread it self in this Nation that divers Livings of very ancient Demesne and Inheritance which had continued in succession from many Grand Fathers of one Race did hang up in Taylors Shops and were piled up in the Merchants Coffers This Emulation of excess having further prevailed grew to such outrage that when proper maintenance fayled in some to support such Riot they violently or secretly took from others turning open Robbers or secret Pilpherers to supply the same VVhich hath been the demolition and confusion of many Noble Families And persons lately great in worldly Reputation and others in private want purchased by their own intollerable profuseness have perished in their pestilent practises tending to the common ruine for satisfaction of their unsatiable Appetites This being the Testimony of a Gentleman no otherwise concern'd it seems then from the Inconveniences arising to the Commonwealth by this profuseness and Lamenting the ill Consequences of it on that account without any respect to the Sinfullness of it as a Provocation bringing Judgment upon a People where it should thus exceed I shall therefore to him add a Divine living in that very Age that you shall hear breaking out into this Complaint Is there any Nation this day upon the face of the Earth comparable to us in this Abominable Sin of Pride Mr. Teins Leprosy of Pride Our Excess in Apparrel will say no wherein both Men and Women of all Estates and degrees from the highest to the lowest from the Courtier to the Carter do monstrously Offend Servants are in their Apparel more costly then their Masters and Dames Yeomen and Yeomens Sons are herein equal to Gentlemen of good Worship Poor and mean Gentlemen compare with Lords Lords with Kings and Ladies with Queens What will become hereof at the last What is now become of that Moderation in Apparrel that formerly hath been in this Land When every one went habited according to their Orders and Degrees whereas now Gold Silver Velvet Sattin Fine Cambrick and such other costly things are worn by very mean Persons against the Laws of God and man against all Common-wealth and contrary to all good Examples of our Fore-Fathers which things rather belong to Kings and Princes and to Peers of the Land then to mean Subjects As Men and Women exceed in the Substance of Apparrel so also in the form they daily shew forth their Abominable Pride in their Inconstancy for no Colour Form nor Fashion long contenteth them One while we Imitate the Spaniard another while the French one while the Italian another while the Dutch Every Nation is a several Pattern for us Let these proud Peacocks but remember to what end Apparel was appointed by God at the first verily for a covering to hide our shame Diogenes seeing a proud young fellow struting and priding himself in his fine Clothes Sir saith he remember that the Sheep hath had your Coat on his back before you What Vanity is it for us to be so curious in our Apparel to take such Pride herein as we do we rob and spoil all Creatures almost of the world to cover our backs and to adorn our bodies withal from some we take their wool from many their Skins from diverse their Furrs from sundry their very Excrements as the silk which is nothing else but the very Excrement of the worm not content with this we come to Fishes and do beg from them their Pearles to hang about us we go down into the ground for Gold and Silver and turn up the very Sands for Precious stones And having borrowed all this of other Creatures we jett up and down provoking men to look upon us as if all this were now our own when the stone shineth upon our Finger we fancy our selves to shine with it when the Silver and Silks do glister on our very backs we look big as if all that beauty came from us It is reported of Athanasius that when he saw a woman Apparrelling her self in Proud Attire with Gorgeous Array he fell a weeping and being demanded why Because said he all this Preparation is for her own Destruction But our nice and Mincing Dames in England whose whole Life is spent for the most part in Study and Care to Deck Paint and Beautify themselves will hardly be perswaded by that holy Athanasius that they bestow all this cost upon themselves to their own Destruction Because these seem to be more private and obscure I will yet add another which you must look on as a Singular Witness for God against the Pride and Vanity of that Age. The most famous Edwin Sands who dyed Archbishop of York and who was so Faithful to the Interest of Religion as Mr. Fox tells you I do not Condemn all Apparrel that is Rich and Stately yea such as is Costly and Gorgeous may be fit for some Personages and States I do not doubt ●ut Hester and Judeth did wear Gold and were Gorgeously Deckt but if Paul and Peter did live in our days they would not spare the Vanity of our Women much less of our men The vain and Monstrous Apparrel of all other Countries and