upon an ill run, the fullen looks, and the contorfions of countenance, fhe would forfwear any thing that gives fuch a difadvantage to her beauty.

Dancing is not of itfelf a fault, but all that fhould be aimed at in learning it, is how to move gracefully; all beyond it, may be called excelling in a mistake. A man or woman had better never dance, because they have no kill in it, than dance often because they do it well. The eafieft as well as the fafeft method of doing it, is in private companies, amongst particular friends, and then carelefly, like a diverfion, never folemnly like a business. A year, or indeed a month's converfe with a dancing-mafter, would be very ill spent, if one learnt of him to mifpend the reft of our time by it. Dancing is a recreation that contributes to health of body, as well as to deportment, and ceafes to be innocent only when we do it not fo much for our own fake, as the fake of others. The effect it has upon the body and mind, when ufed to excefs, fhould frighten us from fuch ufe of it; fo contrary to the prayer taught us by our Saviour, to be delivered from temptation, into which we then blindly throw ourselves. The freedoms familiarized by custom are, what at other times would fhock the delicacy and decency of ladies, who may affure themfelves that no diverfion is warrantable that is fhocking either to decency or delicacy.

All recreations are defigned to relieve, and not to foften the mind; they are no longer lawful than they anfwer that defign: and it will not be amifs to carry our reflection upon recreations to what is lawful and unlawful in them.

To be lawful, they must be fuch as have no fin in them; by which dancing and gaming, laft fpoken of, are in great danger of being excluded: they are placed on the very margin of virtue, and the leaft ftumble flings one into the precipice of vice. Whatever is dishonourable to God, or injurious to your

neighbour, cannot be lawful diverfion; and pr and wanton discourse, scandal and flander, are tainly not to be delighted in, or to be any part o employment of our time. All recreation mu moderate as well as innocent. Minutes, and days or hours, fhould only be given to them the purpose of diverfion is not to exempt us fro bour, but to fit us for it. If our paffions are too affected by our recreations, if we have them too at heart, they are no longer lawful, because they take off our minds from our fpiritual or tem duties; we shall be like fchool-boys, who after time cannot fettle to their books again. Time, a been obferved, is to be redeemed, and not flung a and when we confider what a great work we here to do, and how uncertain we are how long we shall have to do it, we fhould rather feek fo creation in the fublime meditations on the wond works of the Almighty, than in the follies and of this tranfitory life.

Little need have we to contrive ways to while our time, which flies fo faft from us, and return more. Remember this, you that loiter away days, and revel away your nights: remember ye gamefters, by whom days and nights are founded through an infaitable luft of gain. That the most extravagant inftance of avarice, rende almoft impoffible to game and not to fin. For if be any way lawful, it is when we play for not confiderable; otherwife we fhall fall into the vic covetoufnefs, and take pleasure in winning, o transported with rage at ill luck in lofing; both w

vices feldom come unattended. Covetoufnefs will t you to trick at leaft, if not to cheat; and ange fwear, and perhaps blafpheme. Go to a gam table at the publick places, fee the tranfports of winners and lofers at Bath, Tunbridge, Epfom, and then ask yourself, can diverfions, that fo

and disorder the foul, that keep it in a perpetual tumult of paffion, that make men forget what they owe to God and to men, can they be lawful? The contrary speaks itfelf, and whoever fins this way, does it against conviction, and in defiance of the Almighty. Thofe that find themselves too much inclined to game, and have not a due government of their paffions at it, will do well to lay themfelves under fome voluntary and valuable mulct, that the tie of intereft may help to reftrain them. Yet one would think that Chriftians, who are bid to pluck out their very eyes, and cut off their very hands if they offend them, fhould not need to be inftructed to part with unneceffary fports, rather than to fall into temptation. He that plays finfully lays his foul at ftake, which is furely of too great worth to be ventured on the caft of a die. Thofe that give themfelves up to gaming, make it no more a recreation. Such a man toils as much at it as he who labours for work; is there any fo painful as that of the mind, as the hopes and fears of the covetous man, and the impatience and rage of the angry?

I

DRES

S.

F drefs, as we are told in Scripture, was to cover nakedness, it seems in our days not to answer the end of it, especially with the ladies; who, one would imagine by their drefs, are fo far from reckoning themselves obliged to their mother Eve, for dreffing them, that they are for throwing away the very fig-leaves; they have already uncovered their fhoulders and breasts, and as they have gone fo far in a few months, what may they not do in years? They should confider that clothes were not the effect of pride, but of fin, and that instead of making them vain, it should humble

and

and mortify them, as having loft that innocence which was a much greater ornament to them than the most glorious apparel can be. Since fhame was the original of clothing, it ought to be modeft, and all fashions which are not fo, are finful; arguing the wantonness of the wearer, and provoking that of the fpectator; both which carry fin in them.

The defending the body from cold feems to be, to many, not a principal, but an accidental end of apparel. Naked breafts and naked bofoms, in both fexes, fhew us that health, as defirable as it is, is not confidered by youth, when any strong paffion is in the way. Those ladies that would catch cold at the fanning of a fummer-evening's breeze, bear the rudeft winter-blafts, to lay open their breafts and shoulders; the moft delicate of them are infenfible of wind or weather. Would one not believe they are fo warmed within, that they are infenfible of cold from without? And what muft men think of fuch women, who will indure fo much to be fo much feen? Nothing in the world is so easily communicated as defire; and inftead of mortifying it, the very churches are the places that help now to inflame it; people dress for them as wantonly as for the play-house: and a woman has not any beauty which fhe will not take care to expofe there to advantage. Hence it is, that divine fervice, instead of raifing men and women's fouls in devotion to the great Creator, is often made ufe of to convey wanton glances to each other; and when they pretend to be praying to be delivered from temptation, they with pleafure give themfelves up to it. God, who will not be mocked, knows the heart, and will at the laft day call them to a dreadful account for this wicked abuse of holy ordinances.

Another end of apparel is the diftinguishing of fexes and qualities, which, like the other two ends of it, modesty and health, is neglected and defpifed. Women, without blufhing, affume the coat, periwig, hat and feather, and ride as furiously as if there was really

nothing

nothing in fex, or they defired there fhould be no difference. What a mean opinion muft fuch ladies have of the delicacy of the heirefs of Burgundy, grandmother of Charles the fifth, who falling from her horse, and breaking her thigh, refufed the affiftance of the furgeon, and chufe to die rather than have her modeity offended. God himfelf exprefly commanded the Jews, that the man fhould not wear the apparel of the woman, nor the woman that of the man: but our ladies, like our politicians, think the Jewish laws do not extend to Chriftians, and refolving at any rate to please, will wear a hat or a head, as it fets them off beft. To diftinguifh qualities by drefs was one of the ancient ufes of it: The Romans were wery ftrict in their feveral diftinctions. "Gorgeous apparel is for kings courts, as our Saviour himfelf tells us. Men and women should content themfelves with that fort of clothing which agrees with their fex and condition, net ftriving to exceed or equal that of a higher rank, nor raise envy in their own. What difference is there now between the drefs of a citizen and a courtier, of a taylor and a gentleman, of a fervant and a mafter? The maid is very often mistaken for the mistress, and the valet for my lord. The general depravity of men's minds appears as much in this corruption, as in any; the neglect of decency and order, the confufion of ranks and degrees, produce contempt of them; and men fail in the respect inferiors owe to fuperiors. "Honour to whom honour," is one of the laws of the gofpel, which are forgotten, and men live in all things, as if they were their own mafters, and had no rule to walk by but their wills.

Foppery in drefs has been fo well ridiculed by men of wit, that we are less troubled with it than ever. While it was a fin only, and was ranked under the heads of pride and vanity, while damnation was only the punishment, it flourished amain; but now it is become a jeft, and the fop is fure to be laughed at; he avoids that for the fake of his character, which he would not have avoided for the fake of his falvation,

Clothes