nament be but modest, decent clothing, and not immodest, insolent, luxurious, vain or against nature, or the law of God or man, it is in that respect allowable. But so is no cover of deformity by unlawful means. 3. It may be lawful, if also it be to a lawful end, as to obey a governor, or only to cover a deformity, so as not unnecessarily to reveal it but it is always sinful, when the end is sinful. As (1.) If it be to seem extraordinarily beautiful or comely, when you are not so; or if it be to be observed or admired by beholders. (2.) If it be to tempt the beholder's minds to lustful or undue affections. (3.) If it be to deceive the mind of some one you desire in marriage: for in that case, to seem by such dissembling to be what you are not, is the most injurious kind of cheat, much worse than to sell a horse that is blind or lame, for a sound one. (4.) If it be to follow the fashions of proud gallants, that you may not be scorned by them as not neat enough; all these are unlawful ends and reasons. 4. So also the principle or mind that it cometh from, may make it sinful: as (1.) If it come from a lustful, wanton mind. (2.) Or if it come from an over great regard of the opinion of spectators; which is the proper complexion of pride'. A person that doth it not in pride, is not very solicitous about it: nor makes any great matter of it whether men take him to be comely or uncomely; and therefore he is at no great cost or care to seem comely to them. If such persons be deformed, they know it is God's work, and not their sin; and it is sin that is the true cause of shame and all God's works are good, and for our good if we are his children. They know that God doth it to keep them humble, and prevent that pride, and lust, and wantonness which is the undoing of many and therefore they will rather be careful to improve it, and get the benefit, than to hide it and seem comelier than they are. 5. Also the consequents concur much to make the action good or bad: though that be not your end, yet if you may foresee, that greater hurt than good may follow, or is like to follow, it will be your sin. As (1.) If it tend to the ensnaring the minds of the beholders in procacious, lustful, wanton pas

Laertius saith, that when Croesus sat in all his ornaments and glory on his throne; he asked Solon, An pulchrius unquam spectaculum viderit? Illumque dixisse : Gallos gallinaceos, phasianos, et pavones. Naturali enim eos nitore et incredibili speciositate vestiri, Diog. Laert. lib. i. sect. 51. p. 31.

sions, though you say, you intend it not, it is your sin, that you do that which probably will procure it, yea, that you did not your best to avoid it. And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause, it is nevertheless your sin to be the unnecessary occasion, For you must consider that you live among diseased souls! And you must not lay a stumbling-block in their way, nor blow up the fire of their lust, nor make your ornaments their snares; but you must walk among sinful persons as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder; or else you may see the flame which you would not foresee, when it is too late to quench it. But a proud and procacious, lustful mind is so very willing to be loved, and thought highly of, and admired, and desired, that no fear of God, or of the sin and misery of themselves or others will satisfy them, or take them off, (2.) Also it is sinful to adorn yourselves in such fashions, as probably will occasion pride or vanity in others, or seem to approve of it. When any fashion is the common badge of the proud and vain sort of persons of that time and place, it is sinful unnecessarily to conform yourselves to them; because you will harden them in their sin, and you join yourselves to them, as one of them by a kind of profession. As when spotted faces (a name that former ages understood not) or naked breasts, or such other fashions, are used ordinarily by the vain, and brain-sick, and heart-sick, proud and wanton party, it is a sin (unnecessarily) to use them. For (1.) You will hinder their repentance. (2.) And you will hinder the great benefit which the world may get, by their vain attire for (though it be no thanks to them that intend it not, yet it is a very great commodity that cometh to mankind by these people's sin; that fools should go about in fool's-coats, and that empty brains, and proud and wanton hearts should be so openly detected in the streets and churches that sober people may avoid them; and that wise, and chaste, and civil people may not be deceived by such in marriage to their undoing as the different clothing of the different sexes is necessary to chastity and order; so it is a matter of great convenience in a commonwealth, that sots, and swaggerers, and phrenetics, and idiots, and proud, and wanton, lustful persons should be openly distinguished from others: as in a plague-time the doors of infected houses are marked with a Lord have

have mercy on us.' And the wisest magistrate knew not how to have accomplished this himself by a law, as the wretches themselves do by their voluntary choice: for if it were not voluntary, it would be no distinguishing badge of their profession. Now for any honest, civil people to join with them, and take up their livery, and the habit of their order, is to profess themselves such as they, and so to encourage and approve them, or else to confound the proud and humble, the vain and sober, the wanton and the chaste, and destroy the benefit of distinction.

By this you may see, that it is not so much the bare fashion itself that is to be regarded, as the signification and the consequents of it. The same fashion when used by sober persons, to better signification and consequents may be lawful, which otherwise is unlawful. Therefore those fashions that can hardly ever be supposed to have a good signification and consequents, are hardly ever to be supposed lawful. Note also, that any one of the aforesaid evils maketh a fashion evil, but it must be all the requisites concurrent that must prove your fashions good or lawful.

Quest. IV. Is it not sometimes lawful to follow the fashions?' Answ. It is always lawful to follow the sober fashions of sober people; but it is not lawful to follow the vain, immodest, ill-signifying fashions of the riotous, proud and wanton sort: unless it be in such cases of necessity as David was in, when he behaved himself like a madman, or as Paul when he told them that he was a Pharisee, to escape in a persecution, or from thieves or enemies. 2. Or unless for a time it prove as conducible to the good of others, as Paul's circumcising Timothy was, or his becoming all things to all men, that he might win some. But to follow ill-signifying fashions, unnecessarily, or for carnal ends, to avoid the disesteem or evil speeches of carnal persons, or to seem to be as fine as they, this is undoubtedly a sin.

Direct. vi. Be sure to avoid excess of costliness in your apparel.' Remember that you must answer for all your estates. And one day it will prove more comfortable to find on your accounts 'So much a year laid out in clothing the naked,' than 'So much a year in bravery or curiosity for yourselves or your children.' Costly apparel devoureth that which would go far in supplying the necessities of the poor.

Phil, iii. 10. Rom. xii. 2. Eph. v. 11.

Direct. vII. 'Be sure you waste not your precious time in needless curiosity of dressing.' I cannot easily tell you how great a sin, and horrible sign of folly and misery, it is in those gallants that spend whole hours, yea, most part of the morning, in dressing and neatifying themselves, before they appear to the sight of others: so that some of them can scarce do any thing else before dinner time, but dress themselves. The morning hours that are fittest for prayer, and reading the Word of God, are thus consumed. They spend not a quarter so much time in the serious searching and adorning of their souls, nor in any holy service of God; but God, and family, and soul, and all is thus neglected.

Direct. vIII. Next to the usefulness of your apparel for your bodies and labours, let your rule be to imitate the common sort of the grave and sober persons of your own rank.' Not here and there one that in other things are sober, who themselves follow the fashions of the proud and vain; but the ordinary fashion of grave and sober persons. For thus you will avoid both the levity of the proud, and the needless singularity of others.

Direct. Ix. Regard more the hurt that your fashion may do, than the offence or obloquy of any.' For proud persons to say you are sordid, or not fine enough, and talk of your coarse attire, is no great disgrace to you, nor any great hurt but it is a greater disgrace to be esteemed proud. It signifieth an empty, childish mind, to be desirous to be thought fine: it is not only pride, but the pride of a fool, distinct from the pride of those that have but manly wit. And you ought not thus to disgrace yourselves, as to wear the badge of pride and folly, any more than an honest woman should wear the badge and attire of a whore. Moreover, mean apparel is no great temptation to yourselves or others to any sin: but proud and curious apparel doth signify and stir up a lustful or proud disposition in yourselves; and it tempteth those of the same sex to envy and to imitate you, and those of the other sex to lust or wantonness. You spread the devil's nets (even in the churches, and open streets, and meetings) to catch deluded, silly souls. You should rather serve Christ with your apparel, by expressing humility, self-denial, chastity, and sobriety, to draw others

to imitate you in good, than to serve the devil, and pride, and lust by it, by drawing men to imitate you in evil.

Direct. x. Remember what a body it is that you so carefully and curiously adorn:' well is it called by the apostle a "vile body." What a silly, loathsome lump of dirt is it! What a thing would the pox, or leprosy, or almost any sickness make it appear to be! What loathsome excrements within, are covered by all that bravery without! Think what it is made of, and what is within it, and what it will turn to? How long it must lie rotting in a darksome grave, more loathsome than the common dirt; and then must turn to common earth. And is purple and silk", and a curious dress beseeming that body that must shortly have but a winding-sheet, and must lie thus in the grave, and it is to be feared the soul for this pride lie in hell? Is all this cost and curiosity comely for one that knoweth that he is returning to the dust?

Direct. x1. Remember that you have sinful souls, that have continual cause of humiliation, and that have need of more care and adorning than your bodies. And therefore your apparel should express your humiliation, and shew that you take more care for the soul.' How vile should that sinner be in his own eyes, who knoweth what he hath done against God! What mercy he hath sinned against! What a Saviour he hath slighted! What a Spirit of grace he hath resisted! and what a glory he hath undervalued and neglected! He that knoweth what he is, and what he hath done, and what he hath deserved, and in what a dangerous case his soul yet standeth, must needs have his soul habituated to a humble frame. Every penitent soul is vile in its own eyes, and doth loathe itself for its inward corruptions and actual sins: and he that loatheth himself as vile, will not be very desirous to have his sinful, corruptible body seem fine, nor by curious ornaments to attract the eyes of vain spectators. How oft have I seen proud, vain gallants suddenly cast off their bravery, and gaudy, gay attire, and clothe themselves in plainness and sobriety, as soon as God hath but opened their eyes, and humbled their souls for sin, and made them better know themselves, and brought them home by true repentance! So that the next week they have not seemed the same persons. And this was done by mere hu

t Phil. iii. 21.

u Luke xix. 19.

* Luke xvi. 23. 25.