amorous gestures, loofe attire, feafts and perfumes, from wine and strong drinks made to perfecute chastity: fome of these are the very prologues to luft. Remember it is easier to die for chastity than to live with it, and the executioner could not extort a confent from fome perfons from whom a lover would have intreated it. The glory of chastity will eafily overcome the rudeness of fear and violence, but eafinefs and foftnefs, perfuafion and tenderness, like the fun, make a virgin lay by her veil and robe; which perfecution, like the northern wind, would make her hold fast and wrap clofe about her. When a woman thinks fhe is beloved, fhe is very far gone in the way of loving; and apt to believe there cannot be fo much harm as is reprefented to her, in what is fo generous and grateful. Poor delufion! fhould generofity and gratitude make her damn her own foul, because her lover would damn his? Bu the devil puts on all fhapes, and appears fometimes like an angel of light; he puts fair gloffes on the fouleft actions, confounds vice and virtue, and covers; a pleafing temptation with the moft fpecious pretences. He who will fecure his chastity, muft first cure his pride and his rage. Luft is often the punishment of a proud man, to tame the vanity of his pride, by the shame and affronts of unchastity; and the fame intemperate heat which makes anger kindles luft. A fure way to escape temptation is to fly one's felf. Avoid being alone when you are afraid of it; feek nelief in company, whofe modefty may fupprefs, or their fociety divert, all unclean thoughts, and not that whose wanton mirth may awaken luft when it was afleep, as is commonly the effect of the joyous and galant conversation of this age. There is a reverence due to numbers which checks the lewdness of the tongue, and take care not to affociate with fuch as are infenfible of that reverence, and had rather be merry than difcreet and chafte; though, what they call mirth is generally fo beaftly when it turns on chastity, that wife men would have an equal contempt and abhorrence for the ribaldry and folly. Pray often, and fervently, to God, who is the effence of purity, that he would be pleased to reprove and caftout the unclean fpirit: for befides the bleffings of prayer, by way of reward, it has a natural virtue to reftrain this vice. Prayer against it is an unwillingness to act it, and fo long as we heartily pray against it our defires are fecured, and the tempter has no power. This was St. Paul's other remedy, "For this "cause I befought the Lord thrice;" and there is equal reafon and advantage in the use of it. The main thing which is to be fecured in this affair, is a man's mind, he who goes about to cure luft by bodily exercise alone, or mortifications, fhall, find them fometimes inftrumental to it, always infufficient, and of little profit : but he who has a chafte mind, fhall find his body apt enough to take laws; let it do its worst it cannot make a fin, and in its greatest violence, can only produce a little natural unneafinefs, not fo much trouble as a fevere faft, or a hard lodging. If a man be hungry he muft eat, if he be thirsty he must drink at some convenient time, or elfe he dies; but if the body be rebellious, provided the mind be chafte, let it do its worft, if you refolve perfectly not to fatisfy it, you can receive no great evil by it. Thefe confiderations may give room for others, arifing from every one's own experience. The fubject itfelf is fo nice, that it must be touch'd with delicacy. It will be easily comprehended, what are the evils we would exhort to be avoided, what the helps we may find in order to it. It is a fad thing, that a fin which carries along with it eternal damnation, should pafs off as a trifle; that it should be a fort of a jeft to fpeak ill of it; and that without being advocates for whoremongers and adulterers, one can hardly escape the scandal of being precife. The fouls of men are not to be: be complimented into fecurity; and let the greatest and faireft of mortals know, the time will come, when to have been fair and great will avail them nothing, and to have been pure and holy will crown them with immortal glory. The remedies we have mentioned, are of univerfal efficacy against lewdness in all cafes extraordinary and violent; but in ordinary and common, the remedy which God has provided, honourable marriage, has a natural efficacy, befides a virtue, by divine bleffing, to cure the inconveniencies which otherwife might afflict perfons temperate and fober. It is true, marriage is, like other good things, feldom spoken of but in fport; it is generally taken to prevent the inconveniencies of fortune, rather than thofe of virtue: the punishment as generally follows the crime; and those that marry for money only, have rarely any thing else with it that tends to happiness. No wonder people, fo given up to avarice, fhould fall into other fins; that the neglect of those wives whom they took out of covetousness, and not out of love, should end in adultery on both fides, and fuch vicious marriages be the ruin of their peace here, and their happiness hereafter. MODESTY. W! a ILL not the ladies take themfelves to be affronted, if we fhould fo much as question that they want leffons on this virtue? Will not men defpife us for thinking it becomes them? Is not the bashful man in the cavalier phrase a coward? Is it not a term of reproach? It is very hard, that in a country profeffing Chriftianity and reformation, most of these virtues are fo out of fashion, that it is a most uncourtly bufinefs to endeavour to recommend them. Thofe that do it are forced to affect Judicrous turns, and to perform by fatire, and not by inftruction. People who are not afraid of being damned, are afraid of being laughed at, and fuch as reprove with gravity and concern, may answer the dictates of their own confciences, but will have very little effect on their neighbours. Let us however, do our duty'; let us ftudy to find out the paths of truth and falvation, and put those that err in the right way in which they should walk. No virtue will give more grace to all their actions than this of modefty, whether we confider it as opposed to boldnefs and indecency, or to lightness and wantonnefs. Zeno has not ill-defined it to "be the Science of decent motion," it being that which guides and regulates the whole behaviour, checks and controls all rude exorbitancy, and is the great civilizer of converfation: it is indeed a virtue of general influence; it does not only balaft the mind with fober and humble thoughts of one's felf, it also steers every part of the outward frame it appears in the face in calm and meek looks: the impreffion of it is fo ftrong there, thất it has thence acquired the name of fhamefacedness. Certainly nothing gives fo great a luftre to beauty in women; it is of itfelf fo beautiful, that it has been a charm to hearts infenfible of all others, and conquered when a fair face has without it fet out all its glories in vain. An innocent modefty, a native fimplicity of look, eclipfe all the glaring fplendors of art and drefs. Let nature and art contribute to render a woman lovely, if boldness be to be read in her face, it blots out all the lines of beauty, and like a cloud over the fun, intercepts the view of all that was otherwife amiable, rendring its blacknefs the more obfervable, by being placed near fomewhat that was apt to attract the eyes. Modefty Modefty confines not itself to the face, it is there only in fhadow and effigy; it is in life and motion, in the words, whence the banishes all indecency and rudeness, all infolence and difdain, with whatever elfe may render a perfon troublefome or ridiculous to Company. It does not only refine the language, it often modulates the voice and accent, it admits no unhandfome earnestness or lewdnefs of difcourfe; the latter of which was thought fo indecent in Carneades, tho' in his public lecture, that the Gymnafiarch reprov'd him for it; and fure if it were not allowable to a philofopher in his fchool, it will lefs become a woman in ordinary converfation. A woman's tongue fhould be like the imaginary mufic of the fpheres, fweet and charming, but not to be heard at a distance. As modefty prescribes the manner, fo it does also the measure of fpeaking; it restrains all excefs of talking, a fault incident to none but the bold. To monopolize the difcourfe of the company, is a certain fign of the good opinion a perfon has of himfelf, and as certain a way to lofe that of the company; every one defires to to be heard in his turn, every one expects applaufe from what he fays, as well as he who would ingrois all: he who would please in converfation, muft endeavour to please others, and that cannot be done without hearing them with good liking, with which they will then hear you. The divine poet Herbert fays on this occasion, "A civil Guest, "Will no more talk all, than eat all at a feaft." To be always talking in company is affuming an infufferable fuperiority over it; it looks as if you took them for your pupils, and thought they wanted your inftruction. The wife Socrates faid, "It is arrogance to 'fpeak all, and to be willing to hear nothing,' "" This is a vice in both fexes; the forward coxcomb is fure to be the jeft or contempt of thofe he is eternally talking to, |