A Just and Seasonable REPREHENSION OF NAKED Breasts AND SHOULDERS. Written by a Grave and Learned Papist. Translated by Edward Cook, Esquire. With a Preface by Mr. Richard Baxter.  
LONDON, Printed for Jonathan Edwin, at the three Roses in Ludgate-street. 1678.   

LICENCED,  
RO. L'ESTRANGE. October 25. 1677.   

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE LADIES.  
Ladies,  
THE Prerogative of your Sex, together with the indulgent Civility of England, which entitles you to the greatest Respect and Deference, obliges me to the Ceremony of this little Address; both as a vindication of myself from any Design of affronting you, and a demonstration that the following Discourse is the pure Effect of the most real Tenderness for your Honour, Fame, and Reputation.  
I cannot conceive (my intentions being wholly innocent) that this will displease the Virtuous, who must of necessity abhor both the Infamy and the Reproaches of those who are the blemishes of their Sex, from which this is intended to secure them. And for the Vicious, my Concern as well as Esteem runs too low to afford them any Apology, since I am satisfied, that however they may admire their own Nakedness and Undress, they are not capable of a Passion for the greatest Beauty in the World, Naked Truth.  
And now, fair Ladies, that my Visit may not importune you, I submit the following Papers to your censure, with some degrees of confidence, that your own Innocence will approve them, and their Innocence and great Devotion to serve you, will at least obtain a pardon for their want of what the World calls Courtship, but what is in truth most commonly designing Flattery, as well as for the Confidence of,  
Ladies, Your most humble Servant, Jonathan Edwin.   

THE PREFACE.  
IT will be perhaps objected, upon the first view of this following Treatise, why does this man Preface to that which is written by a Papist? I answer, Both because it is not Popery, but God's truth; and because it shall shame you the more if you disobey. Will any of you now that profess the Protestant Reformation, and pure Christian Religion, at once cry out against Popery, and all that you think doth savour of it, and also wilfully continue in such shameful Practices as Papists thus honestly write against? Will any that pretend to Christian Discipline, and to have Church-Communion to be kept pure, come thither in such a Dress a Papists drive men for from their Communion! O, self-condemnation is commoner than many think!  
I have been long blamed myself, for not preaching and writing more against such sinful Fashions. My Reason was, that our Hearers have still greater things to hear of; and most that are guilty of these, are guilty of so much greater heart-distempers, as must orderly be first healed. Could we bring them to the true fear and love of God, and sense of their everlasting concerns, and the Vanity of the World, they would easilier correct their Fashions of themselves. And we have so many quarrelsome Hearers, that I am still afraid of so preaching, as may tempt the ungodly to think, that such Fashions are the chief matter in which we differ from them: It is to the Faith of Christ in seriousness, and to the love of God and Holiness, and to the practical Belief of the life to come, to the contempt of the opposing tempting World, and the mortifying of sinful fleshly Lusts, and to love and do good to all men to their power, and all their life to prepare for death and judgement; it is to this that we earnestly persuade men. And I am afraid, lest when I mention some Fashion, Recreation, or controverted thing, they should think that this is all our difference.  
But yet no sin is to be made light of, especially when it is grown common; and more, when people otherwise sober are defiled by it; and yet more, when it is grown into the reputation of Innocent, and defended against all motions to repentance; and most of all, after God's dreadful judgements, yea and while they still continue.  
I confess I have said and written over and over abundance more against men's greater and more dangerous Pride, viz. Pride of seeming Wisdom, of seeming Holiness, and of worldly Greatness, Wealth, and Honours, than of these little feminine and childish sorts of Pride of Fashions and Apparel: For I thought these below the temptations of such as pretend much to Reason; and it irked me to talk much of this in Books or Pulpits, to persons of such childish toying dispositions, while they and others wanted the deep sense of those greater matters, which would best call off their minds from these. But being invited to preface this Treatise (translated by another out of French) I shall try your patience with my (in this kind) unusual freedom of speech.  
I must say, that had I my will, four sorts of Fashions should be altered: viz. 1. The nakedness of Women, treated of in this Book. 2. Their monstrous superfluity of Cloth or silk that must drag after them, or be carried by another, or fardelled behind them. 3. Their inordinate late Pride and laced gaudiness. 4. And especially the monstrous Periwigs of men, with somewhat like them now also used by Women.  
As to the three first as set together, besides what is said in the following Treatise, I humbly desire all that believe the sacred Scriptures, seriously to think of these things following.  
1. How unlike is such a Garb to that of Christ and his old Disciples? Is it the Badge of one that taketh up the Cross, or ever well knew a crucified Christ?  
2. It is not the discovery of a sinfully diseased mind? It is not without a cause. And what inward cause would you have men think that it proceeds from? Out of the abundance of the heart come out actions as well as our words: Doth your inordinate gaudery signify mortification, gravity, a continual regard to the eye of God, or a regard to grave and holy persons, more than to the eyes of the proud, worldly, or lascivious? I know young people will say, They must be married, and therefore may invite desires: and I know that God hath put some degrees of natural lust into Men and Women for the continued propagation of Mankind: But our highest Faculty, Reason, with all wise men, will here claim the last judgement, and the mastery of sense, and therefore you should recommend yourselves principally to men's Reason: and our highest interest (holiness and salvation) must make all fleshly interest vail: And therefore if you would be desirable to any wise man, it must be most by wisdom, meekness, and a holy frame of mind and life; and not by any thing contrary hereto.  
3. Let but your own consciences judge of those words, 1 Pet. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Wives be in subjection to your own Husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of their Wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear; whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of Gold, and of putting on of Apparel, (that is a curious Dress) but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price: For after this manner in the old time, the holy Women also who trusted in God adorned themselves.  
4. Do you not cross your own designs; which is, to be valued? If pride and vanity be a disgrace, why will you publicly disgrace yourselves? If you hear one say of you, Yonder goeth a proud, a vain, or an empty person, you would take it ill: And have Actions, your own Actions, no tongues nor sense? Say not that of yourselves which you cannot bear from others: Pin not such a reproach on your own backs or breasts: Or if you will needs go yourselves a wooing, keep to these few reasonable Rules: 1. Let it not be your every days work, and that in the open Streets and Churches. 2. Let not married Women go so, that are provided already. 3. Teach not your Children to go so, that are not marriageable.  
5. Poor souls, you lay snares (as this Treatise tells you) for yourselves as well as others! If you become a bait to sensual men, they will gape after you, and become also snares to you: and when their flatteries have won upon your passion and facile minds, what have you gotten by it? If you escape the damning sin of Fornication, perhaps you have won a sensual Husband, who may shortly hate you, and make you weary of your life, or by the like allurement grow as fond of others, as he was of you.  
6. Will you but think what that Flesh is which you are adorning? When the Surgeon shall dissect your Corpse, and open your loathsome Entrails, or when it is laid out for the Coffin, or laid to rot in a darksome Grave, where then is Naked Beauty, or the glory of your Ornaments? Do you not still foresee this day? How can you be so blinded, or cast asleep, as to forget it? What a change will the Small Pox, or a consuming sickness make of that body that you so proudly dress? Cry, saith the Lord to Isaiah, All flesh is grass! and yet flesh will not know itself, nor foresee its end.  
7. Do you think that this visible Pride is suitable to God's late dealings with us? and is it any where less excusable than in London? Hath God brought down your Pomp and Wealth so dreadfully by Plague and Flames, and yet are your minds no more brought down? Can you remember what a sight London was in its Ruins; can you think how the Carcases of men and women were heaped one upon another in Pits, and yet be as vain and proud as ever? Is there not more general gawdry in London, more vanity of Fashion, than there was before these dreadful Judgements? Do you not yet cry out of Common Poverty? and is all this nothing to take us down? Doth not God rather call us to humbling, and fasting, and sackcloth in our repentance?  
8. Are not you (among other unhumbled persons) the Prognostics of our continued or increased miseries? putting considerate men in fear, lest so impenitent a City should be yet more miserable?  
9 Do not the very Quakers shame you, that have so long cried down your pride? and though they mix their errors and follies, may not they join with the many years warning of faithful Preachers in witnessing against you.  
10. And is it not a horrid aggravation of Pride and Superfluities, that at the same time, and in the same Cities, thousands of poor Christians are ready to perish for want of necessary food? Methinks all, or some of these Considerations, should quickly and easily resolve all sober serious Christians, to be no more conformable to the Pride of sinners, nor to desire to wear the Badge of their enormity or folly.  
Were I not very backward to say much of such matters, I should fully tell, at least our ordinary Citizens, my mind; that will presume to imitate the Great ones and Gallants, in the Fashion of monstrous Periwigs. I speak not against the use of such as are like a modest man's hair, worn for any necessary lawful use. But I confess I think that ordinary Citizens should bethink them in a time when thousands are in distressing wants, whether the price of these Periwigs, and such other vanities, would not be more comfortably reviewed at last, if it had been given to relieve the needy.  
Most of the Objections that you use to make are answered in the following Book. One only I will add, and answer. I hear some say, If religious people go not in the common Fashions of the Times, they will be taken for humourists; and worse than so, for such as are distinguishing themselves from others, to make a Party.  
Answ. 1. There can no duty be done, or sin avoided, which some men may not turn to matter of Calumny. 2. There is no Reason for this Objection here: As the Bishops and conformable Clergy go in a Dress that's plain and grave, and countenance none of these immodest or monstrous Fashions, so many of the Laity go soberly and gravely, without any note of differing Parties. 3. The truth of the case I fear is here, Pride maketh men loath to be accounted of the lower or poorer sort; and therefore what ever Fashion the Richer and Ruling sort take up, is imitated as far as they are able by the Lower; even by Servants, and by some that are in want.  
And if any should be guilty of this sinful Excess, who borrow and live on other men's Money, it is a heinous aggravation of their sin and shame. And if any such fall into poverty, it greatly hardeneth men against compassionating or relieving them, when they lived in the Garb of the rich before. And its just with God, that they that must needs have Superfluities, should want Necessaries.  
I wish the Readers to make so much use of this Treatise of a sober Papist, as the evidence of truth therein be speaketh. And I humbly offer these two Motions to all that regard my judgement.  
1. That all religious sober persons, men and women will agree to avoid all immodest Fashions, and gross Superfluities and Gawdery, and not to affect Conformity in Apparel with them that are contrary minded; but imitate the ancient decent Gravity.  
2. That yet none take occasion by this to expect that all Persons should be attired alike: nor grow too censorious of those that continue some Fashions which we could wish they did reform, because we may be ignorant of their case and reasons; and if they are insufficient, we must remember that Education, Prejudice, Company, and other Temptations, may seduce wellmeaning Persons in such Matters. But a Soul truly devoted to God, and willing to know his Will, and to do it when we know it, is of absolute necessity to our Salvation.  
Sept. 26. 1677. R. BAXTER.   

The First Part. That Naked Breasts and Shoulders are much blame-worthy and offensive.  

I.  
IT IS sufficient ground for any good man, when he sees the sensual sort of men allow and approve of a doubtful thing, to conclude, that a Christian ought much to suspect it, if not to avoid and condemn it: For certainly▪ none in Europe can be ignorant that the world is an irreconcilable Enemy to Jesus Christ, and that his senitments are so opposite to its Maxims, that it is above possibility to observe the laws of one, and not to violate those of the other. And as the Christian should only be animated by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, as the world does always follow the spirit of the Devil, it is evident that Christians ought to fly from what the sinful world most eagerly pursues, blame what it Authorises, and have the extremest aversion for that, to which it does most passionately make its Court.   

II.  
WE find indeed by lamentable, if I may not say fatal, experience, that the world too much allows of nakedness in women; and therefore we may the more boldly disapprove of it, or rather we ought to condemn it, and with so much the greater zeal set ourselves against this faulty abuse, as it is strengthened through a long use, and now passed into a custom so general, that it is become common almost to all women, and maids of all sorts of conditions; and hath spread itself abroad into most parts of the Earth, and also into all manner of places.   

III.  
IT IS not only in particular ses, in Balls, in Chambers of entertainment, and in the walks, that Women do appear with naked Breasts, but there are those, who, by a strange kind of temerity, do even come to triumph as it were over Jesus Christ himself, at the feet of his Altars: and as if the Devil was resolved to be served by them, not only to Strike at the Sanctity of Churches; but likewise to violate the immunity and privilege of them: they come thither to wound the eyes of the most innocent and just, and to give death to those who are yet but weak and staggering in Virtue. Men do retire themselves in Temples, as in Asylum's, where Satan scarce dares to attack them, and where he can very seldom get any conquest over them; but that which he cannot do by himself, he effects by the women he brings thither▪ and who by the shameful nakedness of their necks, arms, and shoulders, attack, wound, and vanquish those who think themselves in safety, and thus make the Devil triumph even in those places that are destined to the triumph of Jesus Christ.   

IV.  
THE very Tribunals of Penance, which ought to be wet with the tears of those worldly women, are profaned by their nakedness; and the Angels, who with respect and fear assist at the Holy Table, do tremble through indignation and horror to see them come thither in a posture not only immodest, but sometimes impudent and lascivious.   

V.  
I DO not marvel that the world applauds this disorder, because it is its self the Author of it; but I cannot conceive how Persons of an honest and sincere integrity are able to remain in silence, and suffer it without speaking, and without pouring forth their laments, as if they had neither mouth, nor Piety. Will it not be said, that there is a public prohibition to be scandalised at such indecent objects? or will it not be thought that our God can see no more than those false Divinities of the Heathens, who had eyes, but yet could not behold those who came to pay their adorations to them in their Temples? From whence spring we! and what can we hope for from our silence, and our weakness! since we do know the greatness of the evil, why do we not endeavour to apply the remedy?   

VI  
IF it be true, as it is I think beyond any to doubt, that a modest woman is equally agreeable to God and men; it is not less certain, that a woman without modesty must needs displease men, as she is herself displeasing to Almighty God. Or to speak in the language of the Apocrypha, 
Ecclesiasticus 26. 15. Gratia super gratiam mulier sancta & pudorata.  if it be true, that it is grace upon grace for a woman to be modestly clothed, and to show forth the marks of her holiness by her decent purity; 'tis questionless than a double crime for a woman to be fashioned after the mode of this world, and so to bring her Innocence into dispute through her immodest nakedness; because she herself not only sins against shame, but causes others also to sin against purity, and at the same time that she renders herself suspected, she is labouring with the Devil to make them so too.   

VII.  
THE Apostle Saint Paul foresaw all this, 
1 Tim. 2. 9 Similiter & mulieres in habitu ornato cum verecundia & sobrietate ornantes se, & none in tortis crinibus, aut auro, aut margaritis vel veste pretiosa: sed quod decet mulieres promittentes pietatem per opera bona.  and for a Remedy, he exhorts the Women not to appear in the Churches but in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered Hair, or Gold, or Pearls, or costly Array, but (which becometh Women professing godliness,) to have such Garments as may testify their Piety, and such a Carriage and Behaviour as may be a proof, or at least a mark of the holiness of their Actions. Without doubt, the Women ought to study how to follow exactly the counsel of the Apostle, and the Men ought to take care that it be observed, since it is no less profitable to the one, than to the other. Nevertheless the Women violate it without any scruple, and the Men see them do so without emotion.   

VIII.  
BUT however, let us labour to imitate the zeal of Saint chrysostom, 
Chrysos. in cap. 2. 1. ad tim.  and if we cannot prevent this disorder, let us strive with him to make these Women know how great their fault is, in coming to Church in such undecent Habit; and, if I may presume to say so, as it were half naked. Do you come into the House of God as to a Ball, says that great man to them? do you come into the Sanctuary to make your Conquests there, and there to satisfy your sensuality? do you come thither to attaque God or men? and done't you think that you must once be carried thither in a Coffin to serve for food to worms? What? does this pomp, this soft and wanton Delicacy, this affected Nakedness any whit suit with, or become the state of Suppliants and Criminals? Are they befitting persons that ought to beg for Grace and Mercy? and are these good dispositions to weep for your sins, and to obtain the pardon of them?   

IX.  
Retrieve yourselves then, and get out of this besotted blindness, ye vain and worldly Women! Slaves to the Age, and Idolisers of Vanity, Remember Satan is the Prince of this World, and you become his Subjects and Votaries, so far as you conform to the Maxims which the World proposes to you, and follow those abuses that it has introduced. Alas! how has only the magnificence of your Apparel, and your superfluous Ornaments made all the Saints to sigh and groan, who have been Eye-witnesses and Spectators of them! What would they say now, if they saw that all this pompous Gaiety did not only tend to flatter your Vanity and your Pride, but also to engender Lust and Impurity, and to inspire those who are your Spectators, with unlawful Desires, and sensual Thoughts! Must you needs be at such riotous expense to cover your Bodies, and yet for all that to leave them half naked! Is it not in some manner to sacrifice them to the Men of the Age, thus to expose them to their sight and lust?   

X.  
INDEED ought they not to fear lest we reproach them for too much loving the World, and for being too passionately desirous to be beloved of it? what do not they do to please it? they consume the goods of Fortune; and when by their splendour and immodesty they solicit Libertines and profligate Wretches to behold them, may it not be said that they are become like to that Woman whom Ezekiel speaks of, 
Ezek. 16. 33. Omnibus meretricibus dantur mercedes: tu autem dedisti mercedes cunctis amatoribus tuis, etc.  that by her care and costliness endeavoured to gain the Friendship of those that regarded her: and if it may be allowed me to make use of those terms to express the thought of that Prophet, who bought her Prostitution, whereas others took gifts, and made a sale of theirs.   

XI.  
THINK, think, that in your Baptism you have renounced the Pomp and Vanities of the World; and make some reflection with yourselves, how that by your unprofitable Ornaments & shameless Nakedness, you practise that which the World teaches, and which is most dangerous and impious. Alas! do not believe it, it is a deceitful Siren that labours only to seduce you, and that can never make you happy nor contented, whatever promise it makes you. You ought not to join your Alliance with it, since that it is your Enemy. And if you are so weak, and so unfortunate, as to consent to what it demands of you against yourselves, if you cannot resolve entirely to quit your Luxury, and to cover your nakedness; at least make some difference betwixt the House of your Lord, which is consecrated by the Celebration of our Mysteries, and those which are profaned by the Libertinism of the Age; between places destined and set apart for Prayer & devotion, & such as are peculiarly appropriated to mirth and gallantry, joy and divertisement. Wherefore will you so extend the Empire of the Prince of this world beyond his prescribed limits? he can only have jurisdiction over places that are profane, and you by your immodesty make him to Reign even in sacred Places.   

XII.  
WHO IS there but knows that God is jealous of the respect one ought to have for his Temples, and that the zeal of his house, by which he is as it were devoured, says the Prophet, 
Psalm 68 Zelus domus tuae comedit me.  will not permit him, to let those go unpunished who profane it? what severity did he not use against those trafficking Merchants that made it legitimate to buy and sell in the Temple of Jerusalem such beasts as were to be employed in their Sacrifices? and what chastisement ought not those Women to expect who are vain and loose, and who, (far from doing any thing that may contribute to sacrifices, and favour the zeal of those who come to pay their devout adorations to Almighty God, as did those Merchants whom Jesus Christ drove out of the Temple) do dishonour the most solemnly to be remembered of all Sacrifices, and do divert or corrupt the intention of those who are assistant at it, and sometimes too of those that celebrate it: who expose all their beauty in the Churches in so indecent a manner, that they do as it were hold a kind of impure and unchaste commerce between themselves and those that behold them; In a word, who, more guilty than those very sellers in the Temple, that only designed at getting money without doing any injury to the Divine Worship, do only aim at the acquisition of hearts, to ravish them even from God himself.   

XIII.  
BUT let me not only pour out my laments for those who appear vain and light in Sacred Places, where they should discover contrition and humility; but also let me show my fear for them who do not fly their company, or who turn away their eyes from those places where God more immediately bestows his gracious presence, to cast them upon those Idols that are so gaudily and immodestly dressed up. There is always danger in attentively looking upon a naked Breast; and there is not only a great danger, but a kind of crime in beholding it with attention in the Churches, then, when we are most seriously commemorating the Passion and Death of our dear Saviour: for Jesus Christ being then in so eminent a manner to be remembered by us, methinks, to prefer a Woman to him, or at least to divide our attention, and perhaps our vows, between him and her, and to remain, as it were in suspense, to whom we were best to give our desires and mind, is without doubt a great injury.   

XIV.  
YET alas! once more, if we cannot hinder and put a stop to this nakedness, however let us not neglect to show our disallowing of it in our taking heed to shun even the very sight thereof. If the honour of Jesus Christ obliges us to it, our duty and our interest does likewise engage us: the sight of a fair neck, and pretty swelling breasts, is no less dangerous for us than that of a Basilisk; and it is then we may say with the Scripture, that the Devil makes use of the windows of our bodies, 
Jerem. 9 21. Ascendit mors per fenestras nostras.  for Death by Sin to enter into our Souls; if it be true, as says the Prophet Jeremiah, that our eyes do sometimes commit a rape upon the Soul, 
thr. 3. Oculus meus depraedatus est animam meam.  it is then without doubt when they are fastened upon the attractive beauties of a bewitching Face, and when they do also in some manner fix there our mind and heart, in bringing to it with our looks our affections and desires. And I believe that the Patriarch Job had a mind to teach us this Truth, 
Job 31. 1. Pepigi foedus cum oculis meis, ut ne cogitarem qui dem de virgin, quam enim partem haberet in me Deus.  when he declares that he had made a Covenant with his Eyes, to the end that he might not think on the Beauty of a Maid; for it is not the Eyes that think and desire, but it is the Heart or Mind: wherefore, says he then, that he might remove from his Mind and Heart the Idea and illegitimate Love of Women, he made a Covenant with his Eyes, rather than with his Mind and with his Heart; to hint to us that it is easy not to think of Women, when once we have got beyond the prospect of seeing them; but that it is next to an impossibility for them not to fill our Minds and Hearts, if we do not make a compact and agreement with our Eyes not to look upon them.   

XV.  
AND it is so much the more necessary for us to turn away our Eyes from beholding Women whose Necks and Shoulders are naked and bare, as, according to the thoughts of the same Patriarch, it is difficult to conceive what place God can find in a Soul which the Eyes have betrayed, and into which those impure objects are entered, that do possess and trouble all its powers. Let us remember that Maxim of the Great St. Gregory, 
Greg. Intueri non decet quod non licet concupiscere.  that it is a mighty piece of imprudence to look upon that which we are not permitted to desire; and if we will resolve to conserve the tranquillity of our mind, and the innocence of our heart, let us never voluntarily and out of choice look upon those nakednesses, in what places soever we are, but especially in the Church.   

XVI.  
IF Christians ought to make themselves to be known by their modesty, according to the Doctrine of the Apostle, it is principally then, 
Ad Phil. 4. 5. Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus. Dominus prope est.  when they are in the House of God, where they do not come but because they are Christians: it is there that they ought to make a Covenant with their Eyes, not only not to look upon Women, but not to look upon any thing, but to resemble him that runs at the Ring, who never turns his Eyes either one way or other, but keeps them always fixed and direct at the mark; he who prays in the Church, (for we ought not to come thither but to pray, as none ought to enter into the Lists but to run) he, Isay, who prays in the Church, aught to be so very attentive on what he is doing, that he should refrain from looking upon those objects which are nearest to him, for fear lest his Heart should run after his Eyes, and his Mind insensibly straggle from the work he is about, and forget whom he is praying to.   

XVII.  
WE do greatly deceive ourselves, if we think we are not obliged to regulate our Looks by a wise and modest circumspection, and we deceive others if we say that one may indifferently and innocently behold all things. David sinned for being too prodigal and free of his Looks, and one single glance sufficed to make him fall into sin. That Prince was holy, and Bathsheba, on whom by accident he cast his Eyes, was innocent, but she was naked: David saw her in that posture, and there needed no more to make David lose his Holiness, and Bathsheba her Innocence. Who is this proud One, that will refuse to be instructed by so great an Example, and who after this example will not avoid with care the sight and address of a Woman, that openly exposes all those Charms which she thinks are most beautiful and surprising? Who is that confident Man, that will believe himself in safety, when he is in the same danger wherein David was lost? And who will not be afraid to be overcome by the same Arms wherewith he was vanquished?   

XVIII.  
THE Great St. Basil teaches all the Faithful, in instructing one of his Disciples, with what care they ought to turn away their Eyes from a Woman that mightily affects to appear dazzling and glorious. Take you heed, 
Basilii Ep. Cave omnibus modis falsas intueri pulchritudines & pernitiosas; quia deturpatur anima si earum decorem attendas. Christus non in corporis decore, sed in animâ delectatur, etc. Caveto ergo, fili, species per quas plurimos cernis periisse, etc.  says he, as much as ever you can, of considering those false and pernicious Beauties; Jesus Christ was only pleased with the Beauty of the Soul, and despised that of the Body, and you ought only to esteem those things which are pleasing to Jesus Christ. Know likewise, that that Beauty which they present to you, if you behold it with attention, will sully your Soul, and render it deformed; do not credit the report that your Eyes make of it, but believe that which Reason and Faith does say to you of it, and be you careful that you do not split yourselves upon that Rock whereon many persons more wise than yourself have run upon and perished.   

XIX.  
LET Men therefore endeavour to make good use of this Advice, and let Women know that these instructions and these counsels that are given to Men, are for a true reproach, and severe reprehension to them: let them know that if men do run the hazard of offending God in looking upon them, they also do offend him in effect by presenting themselves to men in a manner which may, and which in all probability will tempt them or scandalise them. In truth when Ecclesiasticus advertized us not to gaze upon a Woman that desires to please all the world, 
Ecclesiasticus 9 5. Ne respicias in muli●rem multivolam, ne sor●● incidas in laqueos illius.  for fear lest we should fall into her snares, may we not say that he accuses and blames Women for exposing to the Eyes of all the World all those Beauties that are any ways capable to ravish hearts and gain them Lovers; that he condemns them for wounding that bashfulness and modesty that is so natural to them; that he accuses them of laying Snares to our innocence, in losing their own. For it is with reason that the Prophet Ezechiel hath told us that a naked and discovered Breast was a Bed whereon impurity reposed and became fruitful in corrupting her who laid it open, 
Chap. 23. 17. Cubile mammarum, &c  and him that beheld it.   

XX.  
THERE is not any Woman or Maid but knows that Eves nakedness, which the Scripture makes mention of, was a consequence and mark of her Crime; she perceived herself naked, because she had sinned, and she knew that she had sinned when she saw herself naked. Why then will they judge otherwise of themselves than of their common Mother? and why will they not infer that from their own nakedness which they conclude from hers? that it is a mark of the depravation of their Souls: why do they not conclude that they displease God, since they see themselves naked? Surely they do not care at all how much they are displeasing to God, since they do so please and prank up themselves in their nakedness. For in that I think they are more guilty than Eve, as criminal as she was; for she was ashamed of her nakedness, and delayed not to cover herself.   

XXI.  
CAN they be ignorant that it is of them principally that the Apostle speaks, 
Ad Rom. 6. 19 Exhibuistis membra vestra servire immunditiae & iniquitati, etc.  when he condemns those persons who uncover one part of their Body to yield their Members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity. They are servants to uncleanness because with what pretence soever they cover it, or what excuse soever they flatter themselves withal, the grand motive and design that makes them to be in Love with nakedness is never pure, they cannot do it with an intention to please God; and therefore necessarily it must be to please the world; they cannot do it out of modesty, nor from a principle of Piety, therefore it must proceed from a want of Shame, or from a Spirit of of Vanity, and oftentimes of uncleanness and impurity. They are servants also to iniquity, according to the sense of the Apostle, since that they stir up their disorderly motions of Concupiscence; and they become the Instruments of the Devil, in making men to yield to sin.   

XXII.  
SAINT Jerome reproached Jovinian for having Amazons in his party, 
Lib. 2. advers. Jovi. habet in castris Amazonas, viros ad libidinem provocantes mammâ exertâ & brachio nudo.  who with their naked Necks, & Sleeves of their Arms tucked up almost to their Shoulders, did excite men to Libertinism to make them their followers. And may not we say with as much justice, that our Women, whose Arms, Breasts, and Shoulders are naked and bare, are the true Amazons of the Devil, who combat and labour as much for him as for themselves? and who scarce ever overcome but for him? who employ the beauty of their Body to pervert Souls, and to subject them to Satan? and in a word, who after they have ranged themselves on the side of the Prince of this world, industriously strive to suborn those who follow the party of Jesus Christ.   

XXIII.  
I COULD wish that all Maids and Women were well persuaded of the truth of what St, chrysostom hath said, 
Chrysost. in Psalm. 113. figurae nudae Daemon assidet.  and which has been justified by many Authentic Histories; that a naked Image and Statue is the Devil's chair, they would from thence conclude, that by their nakedness they do not only become the Seat, but the Throne of Satan; that he does not only repose himself upon their Breasts and Shoulders exposed to the view of men; but that he reigns and has an absolute dominion there, and there he triumphs; they would then know that their Bodies almost half naked did as much allure Devils as they did the eyes of men. And as there are commonly many men who will be looking upon their Breasts, Shoulders, and naked Arms; so there are also many Devils on every one of those parts taking their possession, and, if I may so speak, making there their retreat, their harbour, and their castle. And possibly being convinced that they are encompassed, beset and covered with many of those Monsters, according as they appear in public more or less naked; possibly, I say, that this Idea would make them have a just fear, and a holy horror at their nakedness.   

XXIV.  
IF IT be true that St. John teaches us in his Apocalypsis, 
Apoc. c. 16. v. 15. Beatus qui vigilat, & custodit vestimenta sua, ne nudus ambulet, & videant turpitudinem ejus.  that those persons are blessed who watch and take heed after what manner they dress themselves, and who do so adjust their Garments, as never to appear bare, and so discover their shame and immodesty by their nakedness; may not we then say by the same reason vice versâ, that those people are not blessed, who do only dress and adjust themselves to appear half naked, and who by their affected nakedness discover, let them do what they can, their little bashfulness and immodesty, and do make manifest the secret defects of their Soul by the Grace and Beauty of their Bodies: for what man is there that has ever much relied upon a Woman's virtue, because she has gone with a naked Neck? nay, who are those Christians, or Heathens indeed that this nakedness has not made to doubt of the Innocence of their behaviour, or at least of the sincerity of their intention?   

XXV.  
NONE scarce are ignorant, how that before the Advent of Jesus Christ, the greatest Libertines of the Jewish Women, nay, even the very idolatrous Women themselves, 
Cornel. in cap. 11. 1. ad Corinth  made use of Vails to cover their Faces, their Arms, and their Shoulders, every time that they were seen abroad, and appeared in public: and it is very well known that an Illustrious Roman did repudiate his Wife, only because he had met her without a Veil out of his Palace. What shame is it then for Christian Women to have less reservedness and modesty than those debauched and idolatrous Women? 
C. Sulpit. apud Valeria. Max.  those would not be seen in public, but they would be vailed, to the end that none might have reason to suspect their virtue; these will appear with their naked Necks without any concern for the hazarding their virtue, and giving persons a just occasion to believe they scornfully laugh at the Maxims of their Religion. Both of them are sensible that it is a mark of purity for them, to be seen with covered and enclosed bosoms, the idolatrous Women hide them, but the Christian Women lay them as open as they can to view; what can be from thence inferred, except it be as to this particular, that the idolatrous Women appear Christians, and the Christians Idolaters? What can we conclude, except it be what Tertullian hath already concluded of them, 
Lib. de veland. Virg. Judicabunt Arabiae foeminae ethnicae, quae non caput, sed faciem quoque ita totam tegnnt, ut uno oculo liberato, contentae sint dimidiam frui lucem, quam totam faciem prostituere.  that at the last Judgement, the Heathen Women will rise up against our Christian Women, to accuse them, and convince them of immodesty, to demand their condemnation, and peradventure to obtain it?   

XXVI.  
IT IS high time then that these vain and earthly Women should be delivered from their error, and leave off their sinful, foolish custom; if they are not touched with a deep and serious repentance, seeing the injury they do to their Religion, and the hurt they cause to their Neighbour; if they have not any scruple of conscience at displeasing God, and exposing themselves to lose their Innocence; in a word, if they neglect the Beauty and the Health of their Souls, yet let them at least take care of conserving the Health and Beauty of their Bodies, of which they are such Idolisers. Are not they to be blamed, for putting themselves upon the wrack and torture, only because they would appear to be dressed up in the Mode, and to give some Charm and Grace to their Breasts, because they would have them seen? to how many Infirmities & distempers do they not expose themselves in their overlacing their Gown-bodies, and so thrusting up their Breasts, on purpose that they might show them half naked? how cold soever the weather be, and sharp the Air, yet they endure it without complaining, provided it does not alter or prejudice the Beauty of their Necks, or bring upon them Fluxes and Rheums, which are the ordinary effects of their going naked; they support with a resolute courage and constancy the rigour and severity of all Seasons, to have the pleasure of being seen, and the hopes of being able to please.   

XXVII.  
ALAS! It is but too true, that the World and the Devil have their Martyrs; and might not I say of them what the great Chancellor of England did; that God would be too blame to refuse them Hell, seeing that they took so much pains to deserve it? it is with justice, saith that Great Man, that so fearful and tremendous a recompense should be given them, for their being at such unreasonable and criminal pains to make themselves appear charming by those naked postures: but also it is with an extreme injustice that those Women should be content to endure those wracks and tortures to damn themselves, and will not be persuaded to suffer the least thing in the World for their own Salvation.   

XXVIII.  
HISTORY acquaints us, that formerly a great Princess was so wrought upon by the counsel and persuasion that a Holy Person gave her to abolish the Mode of naked Necks, that she was the first who began to cover hers; and that joining her Authority to her Example, she obliged and persuaded all at once the Ladies of her Court not to come into her Presence, but with modest habits, or at least with such Ornaments as might not wound the bashfulness of their Sex, although they made the greatness of their Birth conspicuous. Would to Heaven this Treatise might have the same effect as that Counsel, since they both do tend but to one and the same end. But if the Reasons and Authorities that I have made use of are not powerful enough to persuade the Women of this Age to condemn the abuse of naked Necks, I wish that the Example of this Princess, and of so many Illustrious Personages, who advanced their Dignity by their Modesty, might inspire them with a holy desire of imitating them.   

XXIX.  
THESE Ladies of the Times are very much deceived, if they think to derive any real honour from their Beauty, which they disclose with so much artifice and address; for those Airy Gallants of theirs which commend their Beauties to the Skies, do suspect them for their want of innocence; their reason ofttimes disapproves what is pleasing to their Eyes, and at the same time that they are praising the pretty pouting Breasts which they are showing to them, they do despise or condemn even those that show them. Wise and judicious men, who know that the reputation of a Maid or Woman depends principally upon her reservedness and modesty, are amazed to see 'em so inconsiderately expose themselves to lose and forfeit their esteem in endeavouring to acquire it, and are much more surprised at their imprudence, than at their Beauty. Pious and devout persons have a secret indignation at the sight of such nanakedness, and are forced to deny their approbation to a Mode so diametrically opposite to the Piety and Spirit of Christianity, to a Mode that Religion detests, that Reason blames, and even which Libertinism itself laughs at, at the same time that it authorises it.   

XXX.  
I WOULD willingly ask these fair Virgins and Women, whom do you pretend to please? whom do you desire to be esteemed of? is it of wise and devout men? they do not at all ambition to see that naked Neck which you present to them, no, they turn away their Eyes from it: Is it of these young, foppish worldlings? You know very well their approbation is not much considerable, and likewise you are not ignorant that they commonly set light by what is offered them, and but very little esteem that which becomes common to all the world. What is then your conduct and choice? to do a thing that is displeasing to one part of those who behold you, and that does not gain you the absolute esteem of the others? whereas you are assured that both the Young, vain Citts of the Town, and the wise and devout men would have an equal respect and esteem for you, if you did appear before them with covered Necks, and with that modesty which Nature inspires into your Sex, and which Religion prescribes to you.   

XXXI.  
BUT I will suppose that you may possibly meet with some brave blustering Gallant, who at the sight of your Breasts gives you all his approbation, and with it all his Heart; can you from thence derive such a satisfaction as to make you proud of that which ought to fill your face with shame and blushes? And is it not rather for you a ground of confusion than of joy, not to be commended by any, but by those whose praises are not only to be suspected of flattery, but in themselves are contemptible, and to be scorned? no, it is not a glory, but a kind of dishonour only to be approved of by loose and profligate wretches, because they approve of nothing but what they love, or what they do; and their perverse Habits carry them to love, and do nothing but that which flatters and indulges them in their Lust, and which is conformable to their wicked inclinations.   

XXXII.  
YOUR Nakedness is pleasing and agreeable to Libertines and Sinners, and therefore there needs no more to conclude that it excites and stirs up to sin, and that it bears the mark and character of Libertinism. But without your Conscience hath told you thus much before now, and this weak glimmering light of original Innocence which still remains in you, hath made you know in spite of yourselves, that if it be modesty to cover your Necks, it is then just the contrary to go with them bare and naked. Our first Parents did only continue naked so long as they remained in a kind of ignorance and blindness; and as soon as they had tasted of the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil, 
Tertul. lib. de Vela. Virg. Principes generis Adam & Eva quamdiu intellectu carebant nudi agebant, at ubi de arbore agnitionis gustaverunt, nihil primum senserunt quam erubescendum. Itaque sui quique sexus intellectum tegmine notaverunt.  the first evidence they gave of their knowledge and understanding, was in their being ashamed of their nakedness, and presently going to cover it. Make use then of your Reason, and it will teach you that you ought to avoid a nakedness, from whence you cannot derive any good to yourselves, and which may be the cause of many evils and mischiefs to you. Harken to the instructions of your Conscience, and it will make you understand that you cannot, without a kind of Crime, affect to be seen so naked as now adays you go, since that Nature itself inspires you with fear, aversion, and even with horror too for nakedness.   

XXXIII.  
AND if you will but consult your Religion, it will teach you that all that is done out of a Spirit of Vanity and Concupiscence, out of a motive of self-love, and self-complaisance, cannot be agreeable to God, who commands us to be chaste, and to be humble; and who requires of us to despise, and even to hate ourselves. It will teach you, that a Christian Maid and Woman ought to make themselves be known as much by their bashfulness, shame, and modesty, as by their Faith: and as they ought to think more how to please God than men, they ought to conceal themselves from men, and to lay themselves open before God: it will tell you, that if all the glory of the world is vain and idle, and to be despised; that which you seek for by the nakedness of your Breasts, is more so than any other, not only because it is founded merely upon the beauty of the Body; but also because you seek it by a way that is base, and unworthy of a noble and generous Soul. You solicit, and beg, if I may so say, the approbation of men, to whom you discover that which Nature, Reason, and Piety counsel and oblige you to conceal.   

XXXIV.  
RELIGION will tell you that you are the Temple of God, and that Purity ought to be the Portress of that Temple, which is obliged to acquit herself well of her duty, not only in driving from your minds all impure thoughts; but also to remove from your bodies all the lascivious regards of wanton and dissolute persons, who dishonour your Chastity, though they do not sully it, and render you guilty at least of a strange impurity. To conclude, it will tell you, that it is not sufficient for a Christian woman to be pure and chaste, but that she ought to appear what she is; that her Chastity, to be perfect, ought equally to shine forth and show itself in her Mind, & in her Body; in her Thoughts, and in her Words; and to rebound, as I may so speak, upon her Actions, her Looks, her Behaviour, and her Apparel▪ For if the Fashion in which she is dressed does belly the manner in which she lives, one may truly say that she is chaste but in part, and that neglecting to acquire and practise that which is wanting in her to have a true purity, she puts herself in hazard of losing what she has of pure and innocent, and of corrupting and debasing her Soul in her indiscreet showing of her Body.   

XXXV.  
IF YOU make but a serious reflection upon what the Holy Scriptures say, 
Prov. 22. Finis modestiae timor Dei.  That the fear of God is the end of Modesty, that is to say, that outward Modesty gives birth to the fear of God in our Soul, or keeps it and augments it there: And if you remember at the same time that the same Scripture instructs us, That the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the principal cause of Salvation, ought you not to avow that that Woman truly fears God, and seriously thinks how to save her own Soul, who out of shame covers both her Arms and Neck, who dresses herself in such a manner, as neither to derogate from her Birth, nor her Dignity, nor from the quality of a Christian? but who discovers by her Modesty, that her Virtue is correspondent to her Birth, her Dignity, and her Religion? But also ought you not to confess, that a naked Neck, bare Arms, and uncovered Shoulders do convince a Woman of her want of Modesty? and so by consequence accuse her of not having the fear of God before her eyes? or of not being concerned whether she lose it or no? as also of forgetting her Salvation, or at least of neglecting it? for if Modesty induces us to fear God, Immodesty certainly persuades to the contrary: if modesty work in us a great disposition to a Christian life, immodesty then must needs be a powerful obstacle against it; and methinks the Learned African had Reason in him, in giving the name of Daughters of God to those Women who went not to any Public Places, and especially to Churches, but with their Breasts covered, and their Faces vailed, but in calling those the Daughters of men, who affected to have their Faces and their Breasts exposed to the common view of all men.   

XXXVI.  
WE read in Genesis, 
Gen. 3. 21.  that God himself made unto Adam, and to Eve his Wife, Coats of Skins, and did clothe them, thereby to let us know that their nakedness was displeasing to him. We learn also from Ecclesiastical History, that many Saints, not by any means enduring to pull their clothes off of any part of their Bodies, when they were to go through little Rivers, Almighty God has miraculously transported them on the other side, to show to us how greatly he approved of their modesty. What may we then infer from thence, but that those Women who study how they may modestly cover their Breasts, and Arms, and Shoulders, are animated by the Spirit of God; and that those who affect such naked and indecent going, are seduced by a contrary spirit, to wit, by that of the Devil, or of the World, which is his Disciple? that God condemns all nakedness of Body, and that the Devil approves of it; that God blesses and recompenses those who Scarf up, or otherwise cover their Shoulders, and that the Devil abuses and deceives those whom he persuades to lay open theirs? in a word, that God has an aversion to all kind of nakedness about the Body, and that the Devil is most pleased and delighted with it?   

XXXVII.  
GOD hates nakedness, because he is purity itself; the Devil loves it, because he is impure: God hates nakedness, because it is a sign of our defeat and overthrow; and the Devil loves it, because it is a mark of his Triumph: God hates nakedness, because it is the cause of sin; and the Devil loves it, because it is a proof of our misery, and at the same time discovers our indigency, and our Crime: God hates nakedness, because he cherishes us, and that obliges him to turn away his Eyes from us; the Devil loves it, because he hates us, and makes that instrumental to our destruction: in short, God hates nakedness of Body, because it is a Figure of that of the Soul, and it represents to him continually our inward poverty; and the Devil loves nakedness of Body, because it makes him remember, that by his address and subtlety we have been despoiled of all the Graces which did adorn our Soul; so that those who love nakedness with the Devil, do in some manner presage that they shall be deprived of those Graces which they possess, and seem to consent to it; they, as it were, join hands with the Devil to undo and destroy themselves, and they do mostly hate themselves through their too much self-love; they applaud the victory that the Devil obtained over Eve, and in some sort renew her crime in conforming themselves to the estate in which she lived, as soon as ever she became a Criminal.   

XXXVIII.  
AH! Since that by the nakedness of their Bodies they become the Images of guilty Eve, why do not they labour to be like unto her by the movements of their Hearts? Eve acknowledged her fault, and detested it in covering her nakedness; why do not they likewise cover their Arms, their Shoulders, and their Bosoms, to show that they acknowledge the fault they have committed in going with them bare and naked? Eve durst not appear before God, till all her Body was covered, and they at least ought to be somewhat scrupulous how they present themselves to God in the Churches with their naked Arms and Necks. In a word, Eve could not without shame and blushes suffer even her Husband to be the Spectator of her nakedness; and they do seek out Witnesses of theirs, and such Witnesses as cannot behold them without danger, or without a Crime, and wherewith they endeavour to surprise, and to pervert the inclinations, in their striving to please them.   

XXXIX.  
IF they would but attentively consider all these things, I am certain they would themselves disapprove of their conduct, which has been condemned by the first of Sinners, and which apparently adds something to the malignity of corrupted Nature. But we must endeavour to convince them by their own proper judgement. Is it not true that they would blame a Woman whose cunning and artificial words lead to filthiness and impurity, and who would declare herself in such a loose and open manner, though sly and witty, that she should engage those in a profane Love, who would but hearken to her Discourse? how then can they be exempt from blame, who do show their Breasts and Shoulders at so extreme a rate, since they cannot possibly be ignorant, that that nakedness must needs be much more powerful than words, to excite the motions of Concupiscence? for who does not know that the Eyes are the guides of Love; and that it is through them, that it most commonly steals into our Souls? If the Devil sometimes makes use of the Ear to seduce our Reason, he does almost always make use of the Eyes to disarm it, and to bewitch our hearts. Who is there but knows, that Words vanish with their sound in an instant, and whatever efficacy they have to inspire into us dishonest sentiments, yet they want duration to be able to engrave them deep into our minds? But a naked Breast and bare Shoulders are continually speaking to our hearts in striking and wounding our Eyes; and their language as dumb as it is, is so much the more dangerous, as it is not understood, but by the mind, and the mind is pleased with the understanding it. To conclude, who knows not that the Discourses of a Woman, if they are a shock to purity, do yet shock us against our wills, and give us a secret disgust, and a kind of aversion and contempt for her that utters them? But the beauty of a Neck which is presented to our Eyes hath nothing which repels it, hath nothing but what attracts and allures us. We begin to look upon it without repugnance, we continue to behold it with pleasure, we see it afterwards with emotion: and as it does not cease speaking to us in its way and manner, nor cease soliciting us, and being pleasing to us, it at last triumphs over our liberty, after it has abused and betrayed our senses.   

XL.  
SO that we may boldly conclude, that those Young Ladies and Women who make themselves to be seen in that posture, are more unblamable than those who by their impure and lascivious Discourses endeavour to seduce men to Libertinism, not only because they surprise more persons by laying indifferently their snares to all the World, which the most debauched Women dare not do by their Discourses; but also because, to get them Adorers, they make use of an address that is so much the more dangerous, as it is more engaging and proper to inspire Love, to which wise and prudent persons are exposed by hazard, what precaution soever they take to avoid it, which those that are simple do not in the least mistrust, and to which almost all young people are pleased to yield.   

XLI.  
AFTER this, I do not wonder that God in his Prophets reproaching his people for the greatness and multitude of their crimes, 
Ezek. 16. 7, & 8. Pervenisti ad mundum mulibroum ubera tua intumuerunt, etc. Eras nuda & confusione plena, & transivi & vidi te, & ecce tempus tuum tempus amantium.  tells them, that they are become like to a Woman who delights to appear naked, and to make herself be beloved; who cloth themselves with pomp, and study how to make their Breasts to rise and swell, that so they might seem more charming and graceful, who knew not indeed any time but the time of Loves; that is to say, who did not believe they could better employ their time, than in so adorning and trickifying their Bodies, as that thereby they might be able to make their conquests. In truth, it is a time of their Loves, because 'tis then that men begin to love them, being surprised and smitten with the nakedness of their Bodies; and it is also their time, because they are satisfied with the hopes, or the pleasure they have to see themselves beloved.   

XLII.  
LET us therefore judge from thence, if a Maid or Woman, who does not cover one part of her Body, but to show and advance the beauty of the other, be an object very pleasing and agreeable to Almighty God; and who, exposing to the view of all men what she ought to keep reserved and hid, gives us just ground to more than think that she does conceal and cover by constraint what she does not let them see? since God represents them to us in this estate as the Image & Model of great Sins, ought not she to fear least this estate be an estate of sin to her? and aught she to know that it is a State of sin to others? fatal Estate, which contains all malignity, and which expresses all the misery of sinners, who destroy themselves by too great a self-love, and contribute to the destruction of others, either by their malice, or by their address! fatal Estate, in which the Women do not engage themselves, but through a defect of modesty, or of purity! An Estate which ought to make them blush with shame, and which ought to be punished with the extremest confusion. Therefore was it, without doubt, that after Almighty God had compared the sinner to a Woman richly adorned and naked, he adds, that she was full of confusion; she has not been ashamed to appear publicly with her body half naked, she shall be covered with shame at the last Judgement, when the vileness of her Conscience will appear unveiled, and without a covering, and her Soul will find itself void and naked of all Virtue and Grace.   

XLIII.  
YOU see then what will be the consequence of that Nakedness which you affect, O vain and worldly Women! you see what it presages to you, it renders you now criminal, it will render you one day miserable; it now begets you Lovers, it will raise you one day Enemies; and even those persons that now caress and flatter you with praises, will reproach you with injuries and blasphemies, in that you have been the cause of their Damnation; they will become your Accusers and your Executioners; and for the complete aggravation of your miseries, possibly those Arms, those Shoulders, and those Necks, which you and they so much did idolise, will prove the Instruments of your punishment, and will be the eternal object of your rage, and of your despair.   

XLIV.  
BUT yet notwithstanding I do not intend to place in one and the same rank all Women, who use to go with naked Necks, I very well know that they are not all equally guilty, and that the various motives by which they Act, and the ends they propose to themselves, may put a great difference between those persons who commit one and the same fault. But if there may be found any that is exempt from a great Crime, there is not one, that is not worthy of blame; and whatsoever reason they may allege in their defence, whatsoever excuse they may serve themselves withal for their justification, they will never appear entirely innocent. For how is it possible for them to unite Innocence with Nakedness, since that Nakedness was the first mark of the loss of Innocence?   
The End of the First Part.   

The Second Part. Concerning the vain and frivolous excuses that those Women make, who go with their naked Necks and Shoulders.  

I.  
IF IT be certain that our first Parents have transmitted their Crime to all their Posterity, and have communicated to their descending Generations a natural propensity, and a strong inclination to sin; it is not less indisputable, that they have inspired into us a violent desire of extenuating and excusing all our faults and miscarriages, and of appearing Innocent, even then when we are indeed most guilty. We are born Criminals from criminal Adam, we sin as he sinned; and as he did, we endeavour to justify ourselves before God and men: and in the same manner▪ says St. Gregory, as he would have covered his nakedness with the Leaves of a Tree, so we do vainly labour to hide and perdue our sins by studied words and frivolous Discourses.   

II.  
I DO not therefore wonder that the Women who are pleased with going so naked about their Necks and Shoulders, should study how to justify their procedure, or at least to excuse it. But before I shall make them see that all their excuses are unjust and unprofitable, I think it my duty to advertise them how that they augment and double their sin in so obstinately setting themselves to excuse it, and that they render themselves so much the more guilty, as they say they are entirely innocent. There are four degrees of malice in all sins, says the Abbot Rupert; 
Rupert. lib. 1. in lib 1. Reg. c. ●2.  The first is when we consent to it: The second, when we do it: The third, when we persevere in it: The fourth, and the most dangerous, when we excuse ourselves, and defend our sin. It is by this that we make sometimes a Crime of a simple Fault, and a Crime so disagreeable to Almighty God, that it is according to the opinion of that great Doctor, that fourth sin for which God says that he will abandon the inhabitants of Damascus to their evil conduct, 
Amos c. 1. v. 3. Haec dicit dominus super tribus sceleribus Damasci, & super quatuor non convertam eam▪  after he had forgave them their three sins, of thoughts, of actions, and of habits.   

III.  
IS IT not true, that when they endeavour to excuse and justify their fault, they labour to purchase, and to give themselves the Liberty of failing? is it not true that they testify they are pleased with the evil they defend, and that they excite and stir up others to imitate their irregularity, in maintaining that they do nothing which can be disapproved? thus from their particular disorder would they make a public licentiousness, and after they had joined obstinacy to sin, they add scandal to obstinacy; and thus it is, that they pervert the Women, after they have seduced the men, and render themselves incapable, and unworthy of coming out of their error, in endeavouring to communicate it.   

IV.  
BUT I hope they will acknowledge it and condemn it too, after the reading of this little Treatise, and knowing that an humble and sincere confession of our faults is always followed with pardon, because it is an assured mark and testimony of our repentance; they will ingenuously confess that they have done ill so openly to show their naked Necks and Shoulders. And to facilitate for them the means to do it, I am resolved to examine with them the Reasons which they allege for their defence, that so they may acknowledge with me, that the Devil to this present time has put upon their minds the veil which they ought to have put upon their Necks and Shoulders, and that he has hindered them from discovering the Truth, in persuading them to expose their bodies half naked to public view.   

V.  
The First Excuse.  
AND among the Excuses they bring to their defence, there are some that are common to Maids and Women, and there are some that are to be particularly appropriated to the one and the other. The first, and the most general is, the Mode and Custom. It is permitted us, say they, to do what others do, and it is not only in one Town or City, but it is in divers Kingdoms, that Maids and Women do go in public with their naked Necks and Shoulders, and this usage is not such a one that has been introduced within these few years, but has been known for many Ages; so that one cannot condemn it without drawing up a Bill of Indictment against whole Nations and Generations. 
It seems it is not so new in France as in England.    

VI  
IF this Reason be receivable, there is not any disorder which ought not to be approved of, and authorized, because all abuses are necessarily introduced by usage contrary to Reason and to Law, which by succession of time passes insensibly into Custom. Thus Custom only is so far from being a proof of the Justice of the Usage, that it is a presumption that it is unjust; and when this Usage is evidently opposite to what Reason counsels us, and the Law prescribes us, it cannot serve for an excuse to the evil which we do in following it, and it only proves that in following it we Continue to do evil.   

VII.  
JESUS CHRIST, says Tertullian, is not called the Custom, but the Truth; and we may say that the World is not called the Truth, but the Custom; it cannot establish its Maxims but upon Custom, because they are not strengthened but by Error; but Jesus Christ hath established his Laws without the succour, and contrary to the Authority of Custom, because they are founded upon Truth. Upon Truth, against which not any Custom can prescribe, which Men and Devils may attaque, but are not able to destroy; and to which neither length of Time, nor authority of Persons, nor difference of Places can do any prejudice. So that as we cannot without a Crime quit a Custom which Reason and Truth have introduced and authorized, we ought to set ourselves against a Custom which Truth and Reason both condemn; otherwise 'tis less to approve of Custom than Error, it is to accustom ourselves to do ill. Instead of diminishing our fault, it is to augment the number of guilty Souls in imitating those who have before us observed this evil Custom.   

VIII.  
IT was upon this Foundation that the great St. chrysostom, 
Chrysost. Hom. 12. in 1. ad Corinth. Noli mihi adducere consuetudinem: nam si malum est ne semel quidem faciendum, itaque sic ornanda sponsa est, ut si malum est, ne semel quidem fiat, etc. Sed propter hoc maximè deflendum est quod in consuetudinem haec traxit Diabolus.  condemning the manner of the dresses of new-married people of his time, as being contrary to Christian modesty, answered those that objected to him that they followed the Custom; that the Devil being the Author of this Custom, they ought to sigh and groan to see it established, and not to continue in the practice of it; that since it was an evil to be apparelled in the Mode and Fashion of those Brides, they should be so far from continuing in doing it, that they ought to desire it had never been done, and to believe that an ill mode is but too much observed, when it is but one time followed.   

IX.  
'TIS then in vain that Maids and Women do labour to excuse their nakedness by the Authority of Custom; and the more they pretend that the Custom is ancient, the more they contribute, without thinking of it, to augment their faults; It is ancient 'tis true, and so ancient that it was before Christianity itself. It is a Custom that many Idolaters have at all times approved of, and which the Devils themselves have taught the Women, according to the opinion of Tertullian, and some other Fathers of the Church. So that the Women who would fain make the Antiquity of this Custom serve for their justification, imprudently accuse themselves to be the Disciples of the Devil, and and the Apes of Heathen Women, to prefer the disorders of Paganism to the rules of the Gospel, and to be willing to continue the abuse which Jesus Christ came with a design to destroy.   

X.  
WE may likewise assure them, that when they presume to lessen their Sin, in saying it is but a consequence and an ordinary effect of a long Custom, that they confess against their Intention, they expose themselves to a punishment that is both more hasty and great: for who is ignorant that the more an evil Custom is ancient, the more it hath irritated God's wrath? And who knows if God at last being wearied with seeing for so long a time the Christian Maids and Women, who are a shame and scandal to their Religion by their nakedness, and who do labour to renew a piece of Idolatry in getting to themselves Adorets', and in showing themselves in the Temples and places of worship adorned and naked just as Idols; who knows, I say, if God being weary with all these disorders, will not convert his patience into fury; and if after he hath pardoned even to this present time those who have committed them, he will not sacrifice to his Justice those who go on to commit them further?   

XI.  
WELL then, once more I say it is in vain that those Maids and Women who make a profession of Christianity, allege as an excuse for their nakedness, the Example and Custom of many Ages. If they think the Authority of Custom can justify them, they must then confess in spite of all resistance, that the Authority of Custom can condemn them; and upon this foundation, it is easy to confound them, and to convince them of Error. They allege a criminal custom, there is opposite to it a holy custom; They allege a custom which is repugnant to the Maxims of our faith, the opposite to it is a Custom conformable to the precepts of Jesus Christ; They allege a Custom which the worldly and licentious Women have practised according to the Examples of Idolaters; The opposite to it is a Custom which the true Christians have always followed, to distinguish them from Idolaters. Since that they will regulate themselves upon Custom, they must of necessity choose one of the two, and by their Choice they range themselves either on the side of Heathen Women, and those that are past all sense of shame and modesty, who have approved of the use of naked Necks and Shoulders, or else on the side of Christian and modest women who have always had a horror to appear half naked. Alas! will not they be ashamed to let all the world know that they have no respect for a Custom but when it is an engagement to a Crime, and that they do disapprove it when it does set us at a distance from vice, and leads us on to piety?   

XII.  
The second Excuse.  
THEY say for a second Excuse, that it is not expressly forbid in Scripture to uncover one's neck, and therefore they don't think they do amiss in going so. We must confess that lust is very industrious, as ignorant and as blind as it is! Sometimes it hinders us from knowing virtue in darkening to us the illuminations of reason and faith; Sometimes it persuades us that vice is unknown to us although we have a perfect knowledge of it, and making an equal use of those darknesses to conceal from us the good that we ought to do, and the evil which we have done: It makes us fall into Sin, either by a gross ignorance, or by an ignorance that is voluntary. And to which of these two ignorances' shall we impute, or rather to which of them shall we not impute those Maids and Women, who say that they do not believe they have done amiss in showing their naked Necks so as they have done?   

XIII.  
ARE not they guilty of a gross and criminal ignorance, if after all that the Ministers do continually preach in their Pulpits, after all that the learned Doctors do teach in their books, after all that the Confessors say in their tribunals, after what they have promised in their baptism, after what Jesus Christ and the Apostles have commanded them, and after what the Church hath prescribed them, they do not know that it is their duty to be and appear chaste, and to justify the Innocence of their manners by an Exterior modesty? are not they guilty of an affected ignorance, which is without doubt the fatallest of all ignorances', if to the prejudice of the promise they have made to God in their Baptism, and knowing that Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Church, the Ministers, the Confessors, the Doctors and generally all persons of Piety do condemn this nakedness, they imagine themselves to be able without a crime to approve of them by their deportments and by their conduct?   

XIV.  
WHEN the holy Scripture teaches them, that the first Woman as Criminal as she was, was ashamed to see herself naked, 
Gen. c. 3.  does not she teach them that they cannot be innocent, and take a pride in making themselves to appear in such a naked and indecent posture? when the Scripture proposes to us a worldly Woman, who goes with uncovered breasts, 
Ezek. c. 16.  as the model of Sinners, does not she reproach them for the sin they commit in showing their snowy and mountainous hills to all spectators? when the Scripture commands Maids and Women to cover their heads, and faces with a veil, does it not then by an argument à fortiori command them to hide their Necks and their Shoulders? In a word, when the Scripture exhorts them to be modest, and adorned with shame, 
1 Tim. c. 2.  rather than with gold, and pearl, and precious stones, does it not point out to them that they ought no less to avoid immodesty than impurity, and by consequence that they ought carefully to avoid going with naked Necks and Shoulders, which is no less an effect of impurity than of immodesty? how can they then without abusing themselves, and putting a vile cheat upon their reason and their senses, excuse the abuse of nakedness, under pretence that it is not expressly forbid by the holy Scripture?   

XV.  
BUT also how can they say, without belying themselves, that they do not believe they do ill in discovering one part of their bodies, since that the attractions of Grace which they resent, the rules of their faith which they know, the Maxims of their Religion which they are not ignorant of, and the movements of nature itself, the secret impressions of which they are sensible of in spite of themselves, do reproach them for their doing ill? They have enough to do to endeavour to stifle the voice of their Conscience, it will continually tell them that modesty and bashfulness are the natural appavage and portion of Women, that they betray the interests and the glory of their sex when they suffer themselves to be seen with their bodies half naked, that all Women are as to this regard naturally Christians, and that they ought to do some violence to the instinct and inclination to hide their breasts, which nature inspires them with, to follow the irregularity of the mode which solicits and stirs them up to uncover them.   

XVI.  
THE world itself to which they would be conformed, contributes to convince them of their evil faith, and to make them see that they do know the evil which they commit: for it is certain that the cajoling complaisance and gallantry (wherein consists the most innocent Air and Spirit of that which they call the world and the age,) it is certain, I say, that the most innocent cajoling complaisance and gallantry, either of worldly men, or women, is most usually terminated in the praising of the beauty of those parts which are most open and exposed to common view. And both of them know by a fatal experience that profane Love places itself upon a fair Neck as upon an Eminence, from whence it attacques us with advantage; that it remains there as upon a throne where it pleasurably exercises its domination; that it takes its repose there as upon a bed were it combats without pain, and where it triumphs without employing any other arms than Softness itself.   

XVII.  
MEN do very well know how dangerous it is to look upon a naked bosom; and your vain and light Women are sensible how advantageous it is to them to show it; Men say and say again to the women, how much they are smitten at the sight of their Necks and Shapes; the Women know the pernicious effects which the beauty of their Shapes and Necks produce in the minds of men; and after that, they dare to say they do not believe they do amiss, when they study as much as they can how they may bare all their necks and shoulders, and so show at the same time, and by one and the same address, all the beauty of their shapes. Ought they not rather acknowledge that they are seduced by the world which they love, and ingenuously confess that after it has instructed them of the danger to which they are exposed themselves, and to which they expose others by their nakedness, it hides from them that danger, when any occasion presents itself to satisfy their vanity, and to captivate any heart? that to render them the more Criminal, it obliges them to feign that they are ignorant of the evils they are the cause of, and to endeavour to hide their faults under the umbrage of a false and pretended ignorance?   

XVIII.  
The third Excuse.  
THEY will answer me, without doubt, that they have not any evil Intention when they make bare their Necks and Shoulders: that if there happens from thence any inconveniences, they come from the weakness or the incontinence of men. And to justify that their design is not to please the world, nor to create to themselves any Lovers from those that behold them: It is sufficient, they say, to remark that those who have resolved not to go out of their doors, and who know that they shall see no body; that those who are retired into Cloisters, where they commonly converse with none but with their Nuns and Abbesses, do yet usually go with their Arms and Breasts uncovered,   

XIX.  
WE MUST confess that all Love which hath only the creature for its object, is blind, whether it be that whereby we love others, or that whereby we love ourselves. But if ever there be any one love in the world more blind than another, it is most certainly that of self-love, for it does not only hinder us from blaming our defects, but it also does hinder us from knowing them. It sees nothing in us but what is pleasing to it, and it does still approve of both what we say or do, because it does never discover any imperfection to us in either of them. 'Tis this alone which hath given these Maids and Women this third excuse; and which after it has falsely persuaded them that they may without Scandal and Sin appear as it were half naked to the view of all the world, makes them believe it is a good reason to say that they have no evil intention.   

XX.  
THEY dare not maintain that their Intention is good, and that the end they propose to themselves is pious and holy, since that what they do excites to impurity, and is repugnant to all the Maxims of Christian Piety and holiness; they cannot say that their Intention is indifferent, since that not having any design either to render themselves agreeable to God, who has testified his extreme aversion to the nakedness which they affect, nor to observe the Precepts of the Scripture which they violate, nor to conform themselves to the Cannons of the Church, which they despise, nor to follow the sentiments of the Saints which they condemn. They must then necessarily think, either of pleasing others, or of satisfying themselves, unless they will ingenuously confess that they are in that point more deprived of Reason than the brute Beasts, and that what they do, they do it without any motive, and without knowing wherefore.   

XXI.  
IT IS difficult to conceive, that they are not desirous either to please Men or Women, and that indifferently showing their nakedness to all the World, they do not at all care whether they have the approbation of any or no. But yet for all this I will believe it, that so I may please them, and suppose with them that it is not so simply, but to satisfy themselves. Do they think they are less guilty by it? and if it be apparently a vanity or sensuality in being willing to make ones own self be beloved, or esteemed by the nakedness of one particular part of their body, is it not also a secret vanity and sensuality to take a delight and pleasure in this nakeness? Shame, honesty, and chastity are repugnant to it, and therefore this pleasure can't be neither pure, honest, nor chaste; so much the more as it is impossible that she, who is pleased with looking upon her own Bosom, should not be at all concerned that others should admire it too; she accustoms herself, without thinking of it, to be seen, and so insensibly is disposed to desire, that the complaisancy she has for her own Beauty, should be confirmed by the whole World; so that we may boldly conclude, that with what thoughts soever the Women do flatter themselves, who love to have their Necks bare, their Intention can never be good, but is always much worse than they imagine.   

XXII.  
AND though it should be granted that their intention might be really innocent, yet would they not thereby be exempt from blame; either because whatsoever intention they have, we are always to be blamed when we do a thing which we know is condemned by the holy Scriptures, 
1 Thes. c. 5. v. 22. ab omni specie mala abstinete vos.  by Reason, and by the very instinct of Nature: or because according to the Doctrine of the Apostle, we ought to avoid not only all that is evil, but likewise all that hath any appearance of evil. And they cannot deny, that, doing the same thing which even the shameless and licentious Women do, their conduct does not bear also the Character of Shamelesness and Libertinism, and that one may without too much rashness, suspect them for being of the number of those whose Example they follow.   

XXIII.  
BUT they do not only expose themselves to the loss of their Reputation, but they do greatly run the hazard of losing their Innocence too; their Chastity is even struck and wounded by every glance of a loose and wanton Eye, and their modesty is shockt by the vain approbations which are given them; the Idea of their Breasts does not less enter into their imagination, than into that of the men, who consider it attentively, and commend it; and, as they most commonly do, join the Idea of all the body to that of their Breasts, being persuaded that they show the Beauty of the one, to make that of the other be better judged of, they easily cause them to be of those sentiments they would inspire them with, and so only fill their minds with their own image, but with an Image that is sensual, which imprints in their Souls by little and little the Inclinations of those Libertines that behold them. The Chastity of a Woman, 
Tertul. lib. de Virg. Vela. Vera & tota & pura virginitas nihil magis timet quam seipsam, etiam foeminarum oculos pati non vult, confugit ad velamen.  says Tertullian, when it is true and perfect, does not fear any thing so much as herself, she cannot endure the eyes of other Women; she trembles when she meets with those of men, and she does so much more apprehend her own eyes, as according as she is habituated to see herself naked, she loses the liberty of being able with Justice to blame those who take pleasure in seeing her nakedness; and in the same manner as Libertines do only imitate her, in being pleased to behold her uncovered Breasts, so does she imitate the Libertines, and beholds them, as they do, with sensuality.   

XXIV.  
I DOUBT not but many among them may tell me they do sufficiently know themselves not to fear any such thing. But I will answer them, that this very confidence they have of their virtue, is a great disposition to them not to be much longer virtuous: she that does not fear to lose her Innocence, will not be over curious and watchful to preserve it, and the less precaution she takes, the greater danger she runs, and the more she neglects the danger to which she exposes herself, she is the less capable to get out of it with success. But how can they without presumption believe they will not consent to any thought that shall be against purity, when by the nakedness of their Breasts, they labour to imprint impure sentiments in the hearts of many persons? One always participates a little of the fault which one causes others to be guilty of, and therefore they cannot be perfectly chaste, if they favour impurity at the same time as they make their boasts of having a horror for it. Do not they know by their own experience, that corporal Beauty is only fit to awaken Lust in us, that it easily excites and augments all the Ardours of it; and to speak the Language of the Fathers, that it invites us to sinful Volupty, and provokes us to dishonest Love? and are they ignorant that their own Beauty may become as fatal to them in inspiring and swelling them up with vanity, as to those who thereby are inflamed with Love? for who can believe that a Woman shows her Neck and Breasts for any to despise them?   

XXV.  
'TIS most certain than that they do run the hazard of losing their Innocence, when by the nakedness of their necks they lay snares for the Innocence of others: and whatever they may say, it is very plain that they do expose themselves to Sin by either a motion of pride, or of impurity. Possibly some may be found who by a particular happiness are able to secure themselves from either of these Sins; but yet they shall not exempt themselves from the reproach of being too hazardously exposed to commit them. And though, as it is impossible, their Intention should be good, and their self-nakedness irreprehensible, though they should remain pure and humble among the vain applauses, and unchaste regards of dissolute Libertines, yet they would still be guilty of those beastly and nauseous thoughts which they inspire them withal, and of those evils which they cause.   

XXVI.  
'TIS THE Doctrine of Tertullian, and of the great St. Cyprian, 

Tertul. Lib. de cultu foem. Perit ille ut tuam formam concupierit, & facta es tu gladius illi, ut si culpâ vaces ab invidia non libereris.  
Cyprian. Lib. de habit. & discipl. Virg.  
Si tu sumptiosius comas te & oculos in te juventutis illicias ut etsi ipsa non pereas alios tamen perdas & velut gladium te & venenum praebeas videntibus, excusari non potes quasi ment casta sis & pudica redarguit te cultus improbus & impudicus ornatus   after whom I may certainly with Justice address these words to them. If your gait be too full of pride, if you adjust yourself with too much artifice, if you do dress yourself in such a manner as to draw upon you the eyes of young wantoness; know that you, having given them the kill glance, and the venom that poisons them, are not innocent of their loss, although you have not at all desired it. You are criminal although you have not committed any crime yourselves, under pretence that your Soul hath not been sullied with any impure thought, since that your undecent garb and clothes accuse you, and your nakedness so fatal to many young men does condemn you. You are the sword which hath given death to that man, who seeing your naked breasts, hath fell under the temptation, and yielded to the Sin: you are as the stains and corruption of his blood; wherefore then do you flatter yourselves with the thoughts that you are not tainted, but are innocent? will it be permitted you after you have been advertised of the dreadful effects which your nakedness causes, to render yourselves voluntarily the homicides and murderers of a Christian Soul, without our being able to impute any fault to you, whilst that those are taxed as Criminals who are but the Murderers of bodies, and who do it only through imprudence, and without any design?   

XXVII.  
PRAY Remember that God heretofore ordained by the mouth of Moses, 
Exod. c. 22. v. 6.  that if any one kindled a fire, which by an unexpected accident, and against his Intention, did burn the corn and fruits of his neighbour, he should be obliged to give him a full satisfaction for his damage; and therefore consider and acknowledge yourselves to be always responsible for all the evils which the fires you kindle by your nakedness, do cause in the hearts of those who behold and admire you.   

XXVIII.  
SAINT Jerome goes further; and in his Commentary upon Isaiah, he assures us, that if a Maid or Woman dresses herself in so extravagant and vain a manner as to attract the Eyes of Men, and stir up unlawful desires, 
Hieron. in Isa. Quia venenum attulit si fuisset qui bibisset.  she commits a Crime which sometimes deserves a severe punishment, although indeed she does not actually herself commit any crime; because she prepares and presents a poison that may give death, and it is otherwise than she intended, or at least contrary to all probability, if no body drinks of it.   

XXIX.  
ALAS! according to the Doctrine of St. Clemens Alexandrinus, there are many occasions in which a Christian sins, 
Lib. 7. Strom. nam si ita se gessisset, ut jubet verbum seu ratio, ejus vitam ita esset reveritus vicinus, ut non peccaret.  only because he does not live in such a strict and modest manner, as might be sufficiently exemplary to restrain and curb the libertinism of Sinners, and to inspire in them a shame and horror of their crimes, or a fear of the Judgements of Almighty God. What can we think of those Maids and Women, who by their immodest nakedness do become a very strong and pressing occasion of Sin? who, far from going about by their modesty to suppress the impure and filthy sentiments which their sight may beget in the hearts of Men, do renew and bring a double accession to them by their immodesty? who, far from doing any thing to show their repugnancy to Libertinism, do favour and cherish it by showing themselves so shamlessly naked?   

XXX.  
AS THERE is nothing more divine and spiritual than to put men at a good remove from vice, and to bring them over to virtue; so there is nothing more Diabolical than to tempt and provoke them to Sin; and yet this do those Women who pretend to so much innocence. And in the same manner as the Devil is not less a Devil, that is to say, less a Deceiver, less agreeable and pleasing to God, and less worthy of punishment, when his temptations and efforts are unprofitable to him, and he endeavours in vain to seduce us; so may not we say with proportion, that those Women, who tempt us with showing their naked necks and shoulders, are not less guilty, when they do not stir up in us any dishonest and wanton affection, as when they do inspire with a profane love those who cast their eyes upon them?   

XXXI.  
LET not them then cast upon the weakness and incontinence of men, the sins of which they are the principal cause; that men are weak, it must be confessed; but therefore in all sober opinions they ought not to tempt them. That men are incontinent it cannot be denied; but then they are in that so much the more guilty, as not being ignorant of their incontinence, they yet do stir them up to Impurity. Do they think that the Precept of Loving their Neighbour, and of interessing themselves for their Safety, was only given to the men? do they pretend that this fundamental Law of Christianity, was not a Law too for them, but that they are permitted to violate it with impunity? they know, they own, and publish that the men do give themselves up to the Flames of an unchaste Love, and they imagine that it does not wound Christian Charity, and Natural Honesty, when they voluntarily set themselves out in such a loose and enticing manner, as may excite illegitimate Fires in their Hearts. Is it not a deplorable blindness, and such a blindness as does so much the more become fatal to those Maids and Women, as it conceals from them their own weakness and their own incontinence?   

XXXII.  
LET them know, that if men are weak, They are so likewise, and that they are not less incontinent than them. Let them consider, that at the same time they tempt men, they expose themselves to be tempted by men. They tempt them by the Beauty of their Necks, they expose themselves to be tempted by their Flatteries and Compliments; they inspire them with a dishonest passion; the other express to them the ardour of their passion they resent; They have charmed them with their Eyes; the Men bewitch them by the Ears: They return them, as I may so phrase it, their own Coin of Love again; and then they always receive it with pleasure, and without repugnance, as a thing which originally proceeds from themselves as well as from the Men, and which is an effect of their merit, and of their Beauty.   

XXXIII.  
BOAST then as much as you please of your strength of Virtue and your Chastity, ye Women of the Times! who so freely and so boldly uncover your Breasts; magnify you selves for your being insensible of the bonne mine, the Gallantry, the Rhetoric, the Janty Dress, the Magnificence, and in one word, of all that is charming to men. It is enough that you are sensible of your own Charms to be in danger of perishing, since it is by them that they tempt you; and you cannot discover but that you have, not only a sensibility; but a particular Reverence and Value for your own Charms, since you cannot resolve to conceal them: and notwithstanding all the reproaches which Nature, Reason, Religion and Piety make you, you will make them all appear by the nakedness of your Arms, your Necks and Shoulders. But if you are not concerned for the Salvation of others, at least be wise and think of your own: if you make no scruple to tempt men, take heed, and fear the temptations of men, and cover that half naked Body by which you tempt them, and which serves them for a Subject and a Pretence to tempt you.   

XXXIV.  
BUT without doubt, these vain and worldly Women do confess in spite of all their resistance, that the peril wherein they engage the men is common with them; and when they appear half naked, they do the office of the Devil's Champion-Wrestlers, and as I may say, they enter into the Lists to combat for his Glory: They ought not less to think of defending themselves than of attacking, and indeed they ought so much the more to fear lest they fall and are worsted in this Combat, as they do not attack men but with the Arms of Impurity, and they, as I may say, do re-attacque them with those of Impurity and of Vanity both together.   

XXXV.  
'TIS likewise for their security as well as for ours; 'tis for their Salvation, as well as for the Salvation of men, that the Fathers of the Church and the great men have from age to age declaimed against Balls, Playhouses and other public Spectacles where Women show their Necks and Breasts with the greatest liberty and advantage. How innocent soever those Spectacles be in themselves, they become in some manner criminal, in that they are so dangerous both for Women and Men. For the men, because they give them an absolute liberty, and also a mighty opportunity of considering leisurely and with attention the naked Breasts of Women. For the Women, because they meet with a most fatal inconvenience there, and they do often find there an unavoidable necessity to hear the lewd and dishonest discourses of dissolute men, who under pretence of applauding their good Grace and their Beauty, lay Snares whereby to entangle their Virtue, to wound also, and weaken their Shame and Immodesty.   

XXXVI.  
THIS is what the Heathens themselves have acknowledged, if we may believe one of the greatest Libertines of their Poets; 
Ovid. Fast.  and Tertullian Censors of Rome, 
Tert. Lib. de spect. Saepe Censores nascentia cum maxime Thetra destruebant moribus consulentes, quorum, scilicet perículum ingens de lascivia providebant.  who by the duty of their charge were obliged to remedy the corruption of manners, and to hinder it, if it were possible, did oftentimes destroy the new Theatres which they had erected to hold the people that assembled to them, foreseeing, says he, that the free commerce the Men had with the Women in those sorts of Assemblies, would become a commerce of impurity and defilement, and that they would corrupt one the other, not coming thither but apparently for this design, because they dress themselves with so much curiousness and pompous art.   

XXXVII.  
FROM thence comes it, says the same Tertullian, that the Great Pompey, after he had caused a very magnificent Theatre to be built, fearing lest it might bring a blemish upon his Reputation, and the people would accuse him for having favoured Unchastity and Libertinism, called his Theatre the house of Venus, and made it to be consecrated as a Temple, to veil his fault under the covert of Religion. But in that he consecrated his Edifice to the Goddess of unchaste Love, he seemed, methinks, to hint to us, that his brave Structure should be as the Asylum and Fortress of Impurity; and if I may be permitted to use the expression, as the Amphitheatre, and Scaffold, where Innocence, Honesty, and Chastity should be sacrificed. So difficult is it for men to keep themselves innocent among Women that are so glorious in their Dresses, and naked in their Bodies; and for Women to conserve all their purity in the company of wild Sparks, who make it all their study and business to flatter and please them, and who entertain them freely with the violence of their passions. Both the Men and the Women do study their pleasure and divertisement in those Assemblies, 
Nemo ad voluptatem venit sine affectu, nemo affectum sine casibus suis patitur. Tert. de Spect.  and both of them therefore esteem and love pleasure: and how can they avoid those lamentable consequences of the irregular affection of volupty at the same time, when they only think of satisfying it?   

XXXVIII.  
I HAVE not forgot that there are Maids and Women who think they are allowed to go with naked Necks, at least when they are in their house, where there are none but those of their own family, and when they are in a Cloister where they only converse with Nuns & Abbesses: for in those two cases, they say, we cannot have any design to please men; and we can neither cause scandal, nor inspire any evil thoughts. It is very easy to answer them, that though it should be true, that in those two occasions their nakedness cannot prejudice any person, it is sufficient that it may be of fatal consequence to themselves. A woman truly chaste does not only fear and avoid both strangers and domestic eyes; but even her own; and she who accustoms herself to go with deep naked Necks, by her usual habit comes not to have any shame of her nakedness, and by consequence prepares herself to make others see her without any scruple. It is not necessary that she be desirous to please men in discovering her bosom, to make herself guilty, It is sufficient that she desires to please herself to become so; for since the value she hath for her own beauty is not of a nature different from that which she may have for the beauty of others, she is not less sensual, nor does she excite any motions that are more Innocent.   

XXXIX.  
MOREOVER, if these Maids and Women do not expose their nakedness to the view of men, it is only by accident; and I dare say that it is apparently against their Intention: for what likelihood is there, that the desire and indeed the habit they have to show their Necks, should be destroyed and vanish, when they think a man ought to see them? and at the same time therefore that this habit and desire ought in all probability to be renewed and increased? what likelihood is there that they should refuse any opportunity to hear themselves commended for those breasts they are so strangely charmed with, and which they do not discover, but only to conserve, augment, or show the Beauty of them? in a word, what likelihood is there that those who cannot resolve with themselves to have their necks covered, when they are alone, should take care to hide them, when volupty, self-love, and vanity most powerfully solicit them to show 'em most bare and naked?   

XL.  
BUT FROM whence have they learned, except it be from error, and a lie, or dream, that they cannot do any hurt to their family, although they do go with their breasts and shoulders naked? may not I say to them with Tertullian: 
Oro te sive mater, sive soror, sive filia, virgo, vela caput; si mater, propter filios; si soror, propter fratres; si filia, propter patres; omnes in te aetates periclitantur. Tert. Lib. de Virg. veland.  whether you are a mother, or daughter, or Sister; if you are a mother, be veiled because of your children, be not any cause of temptation to your Sons, do not give any ill example to your Daughters: If you be a daughter, be veiled, because of your Father: if you are a Sister, cover your Neck and Breasts because of your brothers: and whatever you be, Sister, Daughter, or Mother, be veiled because of your Servants. There is no age, nor quality which exempts a man from being tempted by the sight of a naked Neck; and the Inclination that Nature inspires into us for our Neighbours proves oftentimes a disposition to the dishonest love which the Devil suggests to us.   

XLI.  
OF WHOM could they have learned, but of the Father of Lies and Errors, that they did not scandalise any person by their nakedness, under pretence that they are retired into Monasteries, where they have scarce any society but with Virgins consecrated and devoted to God? Could they be the cause of a greater scandal in the Church, than of coming to attack Innocence even in its Asylum, and Chastity even in its strongest Castle; the Nuns are shut up in Cloisters, the better to be able to resist the Devil, and the Charms of voluptuousness; these Maids and Women insinuate themselves into the Cloisters, and by their naked Necks do become the very Devils, and tempters of these Nuns, the very Ministers and furtherers of sensuality. Those Religious Votaries for Heaven have preferred a perpetual prison to the criminal Liberty which the world inspires, and have rendered themselves captive to Jesus Christ, that so they might be free from the tyranny of sin; but these Maids and Women enter half naked into those Sacred Cloisters to introduce there the Libertinism of the Age, and to shake even the Devotion of those holy Nuns, to change the Captivity of those happy Vestals, and to make them the Slaves of the Vanities of the World, whereas they are now Servants to the Law of Jesus Christ. They solicit those Spouses of our God to be unfaithful to him; they renew in their minds the Idea of the pleasures they have renounced, and seem to give them a secret reproach for having left the world for God, and a private Lesson to quit God for the World. Do they not think they scandalise our Religion as well as those holy Nuns? and can they doubt but that they serve as a scandal to those Religious persons that have any solid Piety, and that they are not the cause of your irregularities, and it may be too of the destruction of those that have but a weak, and staggering Devotion?   

XLII.  
WHAT fellowship can there be, says the great Apostle, between Jesus Christ and Beliel? and what communion ought there to be between the Spouses of Jesus Christ, and those of Beliel: that is to say, of the world, which refuses to bear the yoke of Jesus Christ? If the loose Women of the Age will live Nuns, they ought to live then as becomes Nuns; they ought to imitate their modesty, so far should they be from wounding their bashfulness; they ought to learn from them to live like Christians, so far should they be from teaching them to live like worldlings; they ought to imagine that if there be not any men in Cloisters, yet the Angels are there in the room of men; and that if they do not tempt the Angels by their nakedness, they displease them, they offend them, and they provoke them.   

XLIII.  
The Fourth Excuse.  
AFTER this, what can there be alleged for the justification of those Maids and Women, who affect going with naked Necks? will they say that they ought to be suffered to uncover their bosom, since it is allowed that they should go with their Faces bare, and that it is principally by the beauty of the countenance, that they are surprising to the eyes, and do touch the heart? It may be answered them, It is only through condescension that the Church allows them to go without a veil over their heads, and that this relaxing of the modesty of the first Christians, cannot serve for a reason to give them greater liberty, and to conform themselves wholly to the vanities of the age.   

XLIV.  
BUT, Suppose it has been ever been held lawful and becoming for Christian Maids and Women to appear in public with their Faces unveiled, we may not conclude from thence, methinks, that they may publicly show their Necks quite naked also. On the contrary, we ought to infer, that the Church, having only permitted them to make a discovery of their Faces, hath tacitly forbidden them to let any of their breasts be seen: and certainly, there is a great deal of difference between bearing their breasts, and showing their Faces. The natural Society and civil communion which one has with the other, do require that we should be able mutually to know one another; and as we cannot be known but by the face, they have given a just foundation to introduce the custom both among men and women to go with their Faces bare and uncovered, though the women ought to use it with a great deal more precaution than the Men. But what necessity is there that they should discover their Necks and Breasts? what motive can oblige them to it which is not criminal? what can they make known by that, except it be what they ought to conceal?   

XLV.  
AGAIN FURTHER, There is nothing that is repugnant to the retreating bashfulness and modesty of their Sex, in going with their Faces unveiled; and if a Maid or a Woman appears modest in veiling her face, she may make it much more apparent, in discovering a holy shamefacedness upon her brow. She shows only that she is discreet in covering her face; but she may in a better manner instruct us of her wisdom, when she gives us the liberty to look upon that face, wherein the charms of a natural sweetness are as it were sanctified by a prudent gravity, and a Christian reserve. In short, nothing is more capable to beget a respect and esteem for their Sex, than this chaste shamefulness and blushing modesty which is conspicuous in a lovely Face: it stifles all the sensual sentiments which beauty may possibly create in our hearts, and it makes it serve as an Instrument to Grace, to moderate and qualify our illegitimate ardours, whereas the Devil pretended to fortify the concupiscence of it, the more to inflame us. The eyes of a beautiful Woman, modestly inclined to the ground, condemns the indiscreet liberty, and licence which the young men take of viewing her all over, and we may say that they suppress and put a stop, do what they can, to the lasciviousness of their looks. In a word, there is nothing more fit to inspire modesty into such men as are most fleshly and licentious, than a prudent and a modest Woman, because they know that to please her, they must make themselves like unto her, and nothing can better convince them of her Wisdom than the modesty that appears on her face.   

XLVI.  
THOSE Maids and Women than are not to be disapproved of who walk with their Faces unveiled, since it is by that principally that they may appear what they ought to be. But by this same reason we ought to blame those who show their naked Necks, because they are repugnant to the natural bashfulness of Women, and hinder not only a Woman from being truly modest, but even from appearing so. It is always to be suspected, that her reservedness is feigned, when she will show those marks that make her seem to be lost to all shame, and her affected gravity will pass for an hidden hypocrisy, whilst that she'll be endeavouring to make men fall in love with her, in pretending to neglect and despise their approbation: For there is this third difference between a Face unveiled and a naked Neck, that the beautiful face most commonly causes surprise, and does not give less respect and admiration than tenderness: but a beautiful breast seldom or never begets other than sensual thoughts and dishonest sentiments, either because there cannot appear there either modesty, reservedness, or shame, as there does upon the face; or because it only presents to the mind a Corporeal and fleshly Idea, which clogs it, and so strait carries it out to sensuality; and that the face being the exterior Seat of the Soul, and as its table, it sufficiently possesses, recreates, and satisfies the mind, and thereby ofttimes diverts it from forming any criminal thoughts: or lastly, because God, having a regard to this almost inevitable necessity wherein young Maids and Women are cast, of appearing sometimes with their faces uncovered, either to make themselves to be known, or to approach the Sacred Table, hinders the beauty of the face from becoming either so ordinary, or so pressing an occasion for men to sin, as the beauty of their Necks, which they discover without any necessity, and almost always out of a motive of self-love, of sensuality, or of vanity.   

XLVII.  
The fifth Excuse.  
AFTER we have examined the Excuses that are common to Maids and Women who have accustomed themselves to go with naked Necks, it is easy to answer the reason which both of them bring separately. The principal or rather the only one that is proper and peculiar to Maids, consists in saying that God and their own inclination calling them to marriage, they may innocently make use of all their beauty to inspire love, and to engage some young man in his Courtships to them, so much the more as they are most an end led by their senses, and are most easily smitten by the eyes.   

XLVIII  
THIS Reason might be possibly receivable from the mouth of a Heathen Maid, who knows nor acknowledges any other Laws than those of corrupt Nature, and of a profane Religion. Though it may be objected to her with Justice that she Eclipses the glory of her virginity, which makes her so highly to be valued, when she renounces modesty, which is as the Gardianness of that virginity. Though it may be answered her, that her own proper self betrays herself, and she does a wrong to her Chastity by her own beauty; since that a Virgin ceases in some sort to be so, when but by her own fault she may be otherwise, 
Ex illo enim virgo desinit ex quo potest non esse Tert. de vela Virg.  and that the naked neck she shows indifferently to all the world, gives others occasion to believe that if she be chaste of body, possibly she is not so in mind. To conclude, though it may be said by way of reproach, that the too earnest desire she discovers to be a Woman, may make one presume that she is not an entire virgin, and that she has already given herself many husbands before any one hath offered to be so to her.   

XLIX.  
BUT can a Christian Maid, without forgetting what she is, say that she seeks a husband by the nakedness of her body? This is to bring to the marriage a disposition absolutely contrary to the purity that it demands: since it being a perfect Image of the union of Jesus Christ with his Church, it ought not only to be contracted without impurity, but to bring it about by ways that are entirely pure and innocent. These are the Virgins which chiefly adorn the Church, & it belongs to the Church principally to adorn them; It belongs to Her, and to her Ministers, rather than to the Mode and the persons of the age, to regulate their habits, and their Ornaments, their mien and conduct, because it is Jesus Christ they ought to please, rather than the world. It is for him that they ought to demand a husband, and it is from him that they ought to receive him.   

L.  
THERE is not one among them but say Marriages are made in Heaven, before they are concluded on, on Earth; But yet they will take care that Heaven shall have no hand (as we say) in their Marriage, if they can possibly help it, when they make use of so impure a means to get themselves Married as that of nakedness: and methinks, it is not from the hands of Jesus Christ, but from those of the friend of Lechery, Asmodeus, that they resolve to take a husband. They have recourse to the only Charms of their beauty inst add of addressing themselves to prayer; and from thence no doubt it comes that they lose the esteem and affection of their husbands accordingly as their beauty diminishes. How proud and haughty soever they appear, yet they discover a baseness and submission, when they reduce themselves even to go half naked, and all that they may be able to please a man. And therefore it is possibly, that God, to whom this nakedness is so displeasing, permitts them to find in that man a Master who treats them ill, and not a husband who loves and cherishes them.   

LI.  
'TIS from God only, says Solomon, that men can receive a wise and prudent Woman for their wife, 
Domus & Divitiae dantur à parentibus, à Domino autem propriè uxor prudens Prov. 19 14.  and so it is he only that can give a woman a rich, a loving, and faithful man for her husband. and if you demand of me what a Maid ought to do to obtain of God this husband, and so to lead a happy life in marriage, I will answer you with the same Solomon, that she both aught to be, and to appear modest.  
Finis Modestiae divitiae & gloria & vita. Prov. 22. 4.   

LII.  
WHAT then do you think on, Christian Maidens, when you wound modesty by your naked Necks? do you not know that when God makes marriages, it is but for the mutual happiness of both the married parties? and even as he gave a woman to the first Innocent man, to have a care of him; and to assist him in his labour; to lessen his troubles, by partaking of them, and to augment his pleasures, by participating with him: so most commonly he gives a wise and modest Maid a Husband to be a comfort and support to her, to be her Protector, and her Father. Can you be ignorant that Marriages are almost always unfortunate, when the World is the Author of them, when Voluptuousness or vanity have been, as I may so speak, the Factors, and makers up of them, and that the men have not been engaged to them but by some sensual passion which the nakedness of your bodies have stirred up in them?   

LIII.  
YOU have only then to choose either to be in all probability happy, if you will be mindful to please God by your restrained garb and carriage, that so you may please a Man, and make him the witness and approver of your modesty, before he be your husband: or of evidently exposing yourself to be miserable, if without ever taking any heed to gain the esteem of those whom you desire for your husbands, you endeavour only to beget in them a foolish love, which most an end goes out of the mind as easily as it entered into it, and which is almost as soon over, as the enjoyment of the pleasure which is proposed?   

LIV.  
IT IS no difficult thing to judge which side they ought to follow, if they are but reasonable creatures, and mean to be happy in the Marriages they aspire to. And we may be sure of this, that they may be so, they ought to keep their Arms covered, their breasts concealed, and their shoulders not exposed to the view of men, so far should they be from showing them as now they do. Men make a great deal of difference between a Courtesan, or a light woman, and a Wife; they love that nakedness in those whom they look upon as the former, but do extremely disapprove of it in those whom they desire to make their Wives. Nothing more pleases them in a Maid, than a modest gravity, and a natural beauty, without Art, and studied ways of setting it out. 'Tis only their irregularity and their passion that sometimes approves of women's naked breasts and shoulders; their reason and their prudence always condemns it; they know that that proceeds from one and the same principle of being desirous to look upon a fair Neck, and of affecting to show it: and as they are sensible by themselves that it is most difficult to behold it innocently and with pleasure, they judge that Maid who is so pleased with having it seen by them, not to be so innocent as she would fain appear, and be thought for. And as they cannot doubt but this is a great sign of piety and devotion in a young man, when he blushes at the sight of a naked neck, and avoids the looking on it, they are convinced that a Maid is pious and devout, when she is ashamed to uncover her breasts, and therefore keeps it equally from her own sight, and that of others too.   

LV.  
O PRUDENCE of the Flesh, how blind art thou, and how deceiving! the Maids of this Age pretend to secure and advance their Marriages by the nakedness of their Necks; and it is by that they defer them, or it may be totally hinder them; they are not careful in pleasing God, through the hopes of their being able to be pleasing to man; and God suffers them to appear less amiable to that man, by that means, by which they labour so much to please him; they lose his approbation and esteem, in desiring to surprise his affection, and they discourage him to marry any of them, by their ambition to engage him to it.   

LVI.  
THEY know as well as men, that the beauty of the bosom hath this property, that it almost continually inspires dishonest Sentiments: why will they then excite that in others which they profess themselves not to resent? or why done't they believe that the men suspect them for having the same sentiments as they would inspire into them? and if they do believe it, what is their blindness, to imagine that from their naked breasts should arise a legitimate Love? and to persuade themselves that a man loves such a disposition in a woman which is proposed to him for his Wife.   

LVII.  
MOREOVER, when they do so extremely affect to show what ever they have of beautiful, and to heighten the loveliness of their faces, in discovering the regular from of their bosoms, the whitness and the delicacy of their necks, do not they make a plain indication that they place all their confidence in the sole beauty of their body, and that they have neither wit enough, nor a sufficient Virtue, to make themselves be admired and loved; or that they despise Virtue and Wit in compare with their beauty? do they account this a very Judicious way to persuade a man that their possession will be his felicity, and that they will be so reserved and prudent, so discreet and pious as a Woman ought to be to render her husband happy?   

LVIII.  
THERE are almost none in the Christian world but know that Virgins are the spouses of Jesus Christ: and when we consider them in that quality, we may say that they in some manner are entering into their Second Nuptials, the very first time that they are actually married. And as we Judge of a woman's conduct in her second marriage, by that which she has observed during the time of her first, we commonly do infer in what manner a Maid will live with her husband, by that in which she used to live during her virginity to Jesus Christ her first spouse. If when she is a Maid, she appear wise, modest, and reserved; It is presumed that she will not cease being so when she is become a wife; if when she is a Maid, she only studies to be pleasing by her curious and artificial dress, and to get a vain reputation of Beauty by the nakedness of her body; we may then justly fear she will not change her humour, in changing her condition; and we may persuade ourselves that having a much less reason to love and fear her husband than Jesus Christ, she will not be very faithful to man since she is unfaithful to God, who would willingly acknowledge her for his spouse.   

LIX.  
TERTULLIAN has thought that Virgins, no more than other Christians could not get any glory and honour from their bodies, but in mortifying their flesh by repentance, and making it to resemble that of Jesus Christ, which was torn and wounded for our salvation. But methinks they have this advantage over other Christians, that in glorifying of God by their flesh, in conserving it pure and chaste for his sake, they may by that means make their bodies tend to their own glory: for what can be more glorious for a Christian, than to contribute to the glory of Jesus Christ? But to enjoy this great advantage, and to offer up to God a body that is well pleasing and acceptable to him, a body perfectly pure and chaste, a Maid ought not to expose it to the view and to the desires of all men, as the body of a shameless and impudent Woman, but she ought to cover it with modesty; and not being able wholly to avoid the danger there is of seeing men, and being seen by them, she ought at leastwise to avoid the evil there is in tempting them by her nakedness.   

LX.  
THEY ought to do so without doubt; and we may say that their particular interest obliges them to it, since by their want of modesty, they do not so much inspire love, as they do disgust, and mistrustfullness, into judicious and wise men whom they desire to make their husbands: and that only creating a passion in loose, and dissolute, and sensual men, they industriously labour to make themselves miserable by the husbands that those naked indecencies procure to them. They ought to do so, since prudence requires it, Religion commands it, honesty and piety exact it. They ought to do so, since that according to the opinion of the Apostle St. Paul, God hath given long hair unto Maids and Women for no other end than to serve as a natural veil to cover their Necks & Shoulders; 
Nun ipsa natura docet vos quod vir si comam nutriat ignominia est illi, mulier vero si comam nutriat gloria est illi. 1. Cor. c. 11.  and that Nature itself imprints into them a great desire to keep the length of their hair for that purpose, that so they may always be provided with somewhat wherewith to veil themselves, when ever they shall be suprised by the regards of any curious Inquisitor.   

LXI.  
The last Excuse.  
THESE Reasons appear to me to be sufficiently powerful to be able to persuade Women as well as Maids, to cover their naked necks; But yet notwithstanding there are many of them that will not acquiesce and submit to them but do pretend that they may without any scruple go with their bare necks, under pretence that it is to please their husbands. But they do not consider, that having recourse to this last excuse, they do thereby tacitly acknowledge in spite of all resistance, that all the others are unprofitable and supervacaneous: and being obliged to justify their procedure, to allege the obedience or complaisance which they owe to those whom God hath given them for their superiors, they confess, without thinking of it, that they do a thing which their reason cannot defend, though their passion may excuse it. When Adam said to God, that it was to please his wife, that he had eaten of the forbidden fruit; he confessed his Crime in going to excuse himself in that manner. And when Women say that they go with naked necks to please and satisfy their husbands, they acknowledge and confess their fault in desiring to cast it upon another.   

LXII.  
MOREOVER, I would fain have them to consider, that to the end this excuse might be legitimate, they ought in the first place to be assured that it is the will and pleasure of their husbands to have them go so; which is not a thing so easy as they imagine. A husband is not less jealous of the purity of his wife, than of his own honour; and as, if he be prudent, he does never endanger himself to lose his honour, so there is not any likelihood that he should desire his wife to run the risk of losing her Innocence. A husband is always interessed for the Reputation of his Wife; and if he be judicious, he may very well see that she is much to blame, when she dresses herself according to the vain modes of those women who wholly give up themselves to sensuality and fleshyness. A husband, says Tertullian, does very well know what are the charms of his wife; and there is no necessity for her to show him them every hour; and perhaps he ought to wish that she does not by her naked breasts discover to all the world those which ought not to be common but to him alone.   

LXIII.  
THERE is likewise a vast difference between what a husband suffers and allows of, and what he desires. A husband that is honest, and has a kindness and affection for his wife, may permit her without any inquietude, or complaint to go with her neck bare; but it does not follow therefore that he desires and commands it. And yet if this husband does not declare expressly to his wife that he will have her go so uncovered, but he only toerates it, she is to blame to allege for her defence the will of her husband, since that instead of conforming herself through respect to his desires, as she would fain have the world believe of her, it is he that through his tenderness and love lets himself be carried over to her humour.   

LXIV.  
IN THE second place, if it be only to please her husband, that she goes with naked breasts, why does she unveil and discover them in any other presence than in that of her husband? In the third place, we will suppose also that her husband should command her to go in public with her naked neck, she ought to do so through pure obedience to make herself innocent; but she ought to do it with some secret repugnance, knowing the danger to which she exposes herself: and those who behold her. But if, on the contrary, she does it with Joy and pleasure, it is an evident sign that she is less thoughtful of obeying the will of her husband, than of satisfying the passion she has to appear beautiful, and so to inspire love. When her husband commands her something that thwarts and crosses her Inclination, she finds out many ways to make him change his mind; and it is very probable, she would not obey him with so much readiness and felicity, if he should command her to cover her breasts.   

LXV.  
LET HER not therefore any more allege for a pretence of her nakedness, the complaisance she has for her husband; and if she considers it but as much as she ought, she will affect to appear with her neck and face too veiled, since by that means, 
Ideo debet mulier potestatem habere supra caput. 1. Cor. C. 11. id est velamen signum potestatis mariti. secundum Tertull. ch. conc. Gangrense etc. nunquid obliviscetur Virgo ornamenti sui aut sponsa sasciaepectoralis suae? Hier. c. 2. 32.  says the great Apostle, she will show that she is truly and voluntarily submissive to the Authority of her husband: for in St. Paul's time when a Maid was married, she had a vail put over her head, and shoulders, to testify that she was under the power of her husband, and that she hid from all other than him her face and bosom. From thence it happened that God himself in the prophet Jeremiah, says that a married Woman ought never to forget the veil wherewith she hides her bosom, no more than a Maid ought to forget her ornaments.   

LXVI.  
IF WOMEN would but refresh their memories with the council that St. Peter gives them, to labour the conversion of their husbands by their outward modesty, by their pure and chaste conversation, that I may make use of his terms, they would not desire to foment the fires of their concupiscence, in appearing before them in the habit and posture of Courtesans. If they did but reflect how they flattered or cherished the libertinism of their husbands, how they accustomed themselves to please them, and to invite 'em to show them the like nakedness in showing them their naked necks and shoulders they would leave off doing it out of interest, for fear lest they disposed them to become unfaithful to them, by endeavouring more and more to engage them. To be short, if they would consider that their real glory depended more upon their Virtue, than their beauty, they would more covet to appear modest in covering their bosoms, than beautiful in uncovering them, and possibly likewise, the reputation of their beauty would be more highly celebrated, if they would make it but less common, if they would but veil some part of it. At least, their beauty would be less suspected of artifice, and the praises that should be given them would be more pure; because there would not then be found any thing to shock modesty, but all would be fair and beautiful.   

LXVII.  
IF ALL that I have said was not sufficient to prove that the nakedness of Breasts is unblamable and offensive, and to answer the excuses which Maids and Women bring, it would not be very difficult for me to convince them by new Arguments, and by more Authorities. But because I would not swell this Treatise to too large a Volume, but would make it profitable without having it over-troublesome, I will close up all in conjuring those, who do so much boast of their honesty and virtue, to take heed lest by their nakedness they conform themselves so mightily to the Courtesans, as to have scarce any but God alone to be able to know the difference that is between them: why will they imitate those in their manner of dressing, whose actions they condemn? or rather, why do they imitate the actions, and outward carriage of those, whose disorderly conduct they so much blame? they are like them in what appears, and yet pretend to be very unlike them in what does not. What Judgement can men make of them, who do not Judge but by what they see?   

LXVIII.  
OUGHT they not to tremble, knowing that from time to time many Prelates have given order, that the Sacrament should be denied all Maids and Women indifferently who came with naked arms, and necks, and shoulders; and that they have forbidden them, under pain of Excommunication, to come in that posture to the Holy Table, and indeed, so much as to enter into the Church?   

LXIX.  
OUGHT they not to shake with fear, considering that most of the Courtesans did not become unchaste in their manners, but only from the immodesty of their habits? that they began to Show their bodies before they offered to Give them; and if I may be permitted to speak so, that they had not exposed themselves to sale, but because they have too freely let themselves be seen by Libertines, and dissolute persons?   

LXX.  
'TIS TRUE, Christian Religion does allow Maids and Women to adorn themselves, and to go according to their quality and condition; but it would not then have it be to inordinacy and excess, but in modest apparel, and not for luxury: 
Similiter & Mulieres in habito ornato.  it has always forbid them to make their ornaments serve and be instrumental to libertinism and immodesty, 
1 Tim. c. 2. v. 9  the use of which it has approved of, the better to make their shame and bashfulness be conspicuous; and it has always testified an aversion and horror for the extreme nakedness of the Arms, Neck and Shoulders, which are equally repugnant to natural honesty, and Christian piety, to the illuminations of Reason, and of Grace, and to the Laws of the Gospel, and those of Polity, to the sentiments of Honour, to the instinct of Nature, and in a word, to the glory, reputation, and benefit even of those Maids and Women.    

AN ORDER OF THE Vicar's General of the Archbishopric of Tholouse, the See being Vacant. Against naked Arms, Shoulders, and Necks, and the indecency of Maids and women's apparel.  
THE Vicar's General of the Archbishopric of Tholouse the See being vacant: to all those whom these presents shall come, greeting. Among all the irregularities and abuses whereby the evil Spirit hath endeavoured in the first Ages of the Church, to corrupt the purity of the customs of the faithful, there hath been none against which the holy Fathers have exercised their Eloquence, and spoken with so much heat and vigour, as against the vain Ornaments and indecent dresses of Maids and Women. Those very same irregularities have descended to us, and as if the succession had purchased them a right and privilege to show themselves, they appear with an Audaciousness as is only belonging to ancient crimes. We still behold Christian Maids and Women, who forgetting the Renuntiation they have made in their Baptism, before the face of the Church, of all the pomps and vanities of Satan, and violating all the Laws of Modesty, do employ their whole address, and time to bedeck their heads with borrowed hair, and solicitously to be laying snares, by the nakedness of their Arms and Necks, to catch and ruin those Souls which Jesus Christ hath redeemed by his blood. We see them with an excess of Luxury, and with an immodesty we would condemn even in Heathens, to appear in public after so scandalous and shameless a manner, that to Judge of their Intentions by the Liberty of their wanton and languishing Regards, by the form and dress of their habits, and by all those other vain, and bewitching braveries, we cannot refrain but we must judge them criminal; since that according to the opinion of one of the Fathers of the Church, they are as so many fatal swords that give a spiritual death to the Souls of Libertines, who are smitten and wounded by their Eyes, and who become the miserable victim of defilement and uncleanness. As this Spirit accompanies them every where, they are not contented (according to the Language of a Prophet) to lift up the Ensign of their prostitutions in the streets, in the walks, and in other public places; but they likewise come by an insupportable temerity and blindness, to brave even Jesus Christ at the feet of his Altars, and to violate as it were the immunity of Churches, darting by the nakedness of their Arms and Necks the fire of an impure Love into the hearts of the faithful who are retired there, as into a Sanctuary consecrated to prayer and holiness.  
THOSE very Tribunals of penance, which ought to be wet with their tears; and the holy Table, where the food of Angels ought not to be distributed but to those that are clothed with the nuptial Robes of Innocence and Humility, are shamelessly profaned by those pompous gaieties of the Devil, And by the world's Liveries, which they make to triumph over Christian modesty.  
ALL these disorders, which are but too public, joined to the voice of Ministers, whose complaints are great and loud to us, not suffering us any longer to remain in silence, we have judged it fit, and to be our Duty, to stop an evil which every day grows and gets new ground among us.  
FOR these causes therefore, and to keep from this Diocese the punishments with which the Justice of God does commonly chastise public Scandals, and the propharation of holy things, we enjoin all Secular and Regular Confessors upon pain of suspension, to deny the Sacraments to those who come thither with their naked Necks, and Arms, and Shoulders, and whose nakedness shall not be modestly concealed by such scarves or other dresses that are not to be seen through: of which nakedness of arms, or neck or shoulders, as of a public Sin and Scandal, we reserve to our particular selves the Absolution, as to those who after this Order, shall continue in so damnable a custom as that is.  
WE forbid likewise both maids and women of all conditions, upon pain of Excommunication, to come into the Churches, and to present themselves at the Sacraments in that immodest and indecent habit, to cause their gowns to be held up there, and to place themselves among the Priests. And because the Laws of Holy Church are so little observed, and oftentimes prove ineffectual, by reason of the stubbornness of her children, most of whom are less touched with the motives of their duty, than with the fear of temporal punishments; we exhort and conjure, by the mercy of God, those to whom his Providence hath committed the sovereign Authority of Justice for exterior Discipline, to renew the force and efficacy of those Decrees, which their zeal and piety have oftentimes caused them to make upon the like occasions for the better observance of the Orders of the Church; that so not only the material Temples may not be profaned by those indications of Luxury and Vanity; but also that the living Temples of the Holy-Ghost may be edified in every place, by the example of a truly Christian modesty and humility.  
WE further Order all the Curates and Ecclesiastical superiors of the Secular and Regular houses of the City and Diocese, to be strict in their Churches, and careful to put in execution this our present Order, by such ways and means as they shall judge most convenient.  
AND lastly we enjoin the Procurer Fiscal to publish this our present Order at all the Parish-Churches of our Town and Diocese, during the three Sundays preceding the Feast of Easter, and to make a speedy distribution of Copies to the Superiors of the Secular and Regular Houses of the Diocese. Given at Tholouse the 13 day of March. 1670. Signed, CIRON, vicar General, DU FOUR, Vicar General, DE LA FONT, Vicar General, DESTOPINYA, Vicar General.  
By the Command of the said Vicar Generals. BAUVESTRE, Secretary.  
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
PAg. 3. l. 6. ses, r. houses. p. 30. l. 9 immodesty, r. modesty. p. 33. l. 15. their, r. the. p. 40. l. 20. [not] too much. p. 58. l. 5. she, r. she not. p. 81. l. 11. Appavage, r. Appanage. p. 83. l. 4. were. r. where. p. 84. l. 4. rather, r. rather to. p. 85. l. 3. happens, r. happen. p. 92. l. 15. more, r. the more. p. 105. l. 9 them, r. themselves. p. 117. l. 10. [been] too much. p. 144. l. 15. fecility, r. facility.