The Loathsomeness of Long Hair, Part 5 – Part 6
Seven Arguments against Spots, and Black-patches (worn for pride) on the Face, &c.
AS for Spots and Black-patches on the Face, Back, Breast, &c. which some call Beauty-spots (the Devil loves to put fine names on foule things) we may call them base and Beastly-spots, the spots of the proud, wanton, idle Droans of the world. Let such consider,
1. That these spots are not the spots of Gods Children: Deut. 32. 5. These are not spots of Infirmity, but spots of Malignity and Rebellion; they are proud, and they will be so; they are spotted, and spotted they will be, in despight of all the Ministers in the world. These are Leprosie-spots, not Beauty-spots, spots that defile and debase, but no whit adorne the wearers of them. Such spots, many times, are the husbands blots. Christs Spouse knowes no such spots, Cant. 4. 7. she is wholly fair, and there is no spot (of wilfull pride or vanity) in her: her modest, grave, and plaine attire we must follow, and not the fashion of every vaine fantastick person.
2. Consider, if the Plague-spots appeare Sin-Spotts are the worst spots; we must be spotlesse as if Sons of God, Phil. 2. 15. (i. e.) without such spots we are unsuitable to our Son-ship, some are so be spotted that they are called Spots. Iude 12. He that hath many spots is not forward to hold up his face, then how shall he who is a spot? Garyll on Iob 22. 15.on a person, or a garment be infected with it, we will not come nigh them; but these spots are worse, for those are but spots of Punishment, by which God is glorified; but these are spots of Pride and Vanity, by which God is dishonoured, his Name blasphemed, and Religion scandalized, especially if they be Professors, such as penne Sermons, and sit before the Lord as his people; it were well if such would lay downe their Pennes, and pull off their Patches, either Professe lesse, or Practise more; for as Jacob complained of his Sonnes, that by their cruelty and treachery, they had made him odious, and to stinke in the nostrills of the nations amongst which he lived; so these make Religion to be abhorred; they are spots in our Fasts, and blots in our Feasts, (Jude 12. 2 Pet. 2. 13.) the botches of Christian Society.
3. This is a conforming our selves to the sinfull fashions of the age we live in, contrary to Rom, 12. 2. Fashion not your selves like to this world; and at our Baptisme we openly renounced all the Pomps and Vanities of the world, of which this spotting is one.
4. Christians must not onelyonly shun evil, Viti… ad…sus utra…que …gis … … …unda gra…antia fug…s. Pa…aeus.but they must also shun the appearance of evill, 1 Thes. 5. 22. they must hate, not onelyonly the garments, but the faces also that are spotted, with the flesh; Jude 23. they must keep themselves, not onelyonly unblotted, but also unsported of the world; many will shun the grosse blots, but we must shun the lesser spots of the world. James 1. 27.
5. Such cannot worship God, or pray to him with comfort: With what a face … such a one come into the presence of t…e most h…ly God, whose Eyes are … … of fi… to c…sume them, & his Feet as brasse (Rev. 1. 14, 15.) to break in pieces those that carry such ensignes of pride and vanity in their faces, backs, and breasts? And though they should pray, yea, and make many prayers, yet God will not heare, so long as they walk in wayes of rebellion against him. Isa. 1. 15.
6. By thy evill example thou infectest others, thy pride makes others proud, thy painting and patching makes young ones doe so, to the endangering of their chastity; for though some young ones, for the present, may be chaste (being led to this folly by the example of their superiours, by fond education, or the iniquity of the times) yet few, or none that practice this nakednesse, painting, &c. being of yeares of discretion, but give just cause of jealousie and suspition: we should rather study to be patterns of piety …o others; and as our Predecessors were carefull of their walking, that they might be exemplary to us, so we should be carefull of our ways, that we might be exemplary to others; for when we are in our graves, yet our examples live, and may be presidentiall to others for good, as the example of the wicked is for evill. It was the glory Magna vis est in exemplis in utram que partem. …olloe in Johan. 13. 17. mihi p. 736. Quàm Sanctus est Deus qui tam purè & sanctè … Christianis colitur, imò qui eos facit tam puros… & sanctos:of the Primitive Christians, that by their innocence, patience, unity, and purity of life, they made the very Heathen to adore and admire their God, saying, [O how holy is that God which hath such holy followers!]
7. This monstrous pride is ever a forerunner of destruction, as we see in the woman of Judah a little before the Captivity. Isa. 3. 16. to 26. God is the same still, and hates pride as much in England as ever he did in Israel. He that punished painted Iesabel, who was cast out at a window in the midst of her pride, and eaten up with doggs, will not suffer the proud Dames of our time to go unpunished, unlesse by speedie humiliation and amendment, they prevent it, Isaiah 3. 16, 17, &c. The Prophet numbring up their severall trinkets, and parts of their pride, descends to shew how the Lord would reward them in a meet proportion: Instead of their costly perfumes and sweet smells, they should have stinke; to wit, most noysome and loathsome savours in their siege, and in the cabins and holes, whither they that escaped should be thrust in their Captivity, or where they should be glad to hide themselves. Instead of their brave and costly girdles, they should have rends; that is, they should go in tatters and raggs, as poore beggars having never a whole coat to their backs. Instead of dressing of haire, to wit, of all their frizling, crisping, curling, laying out their haire, their perukes, the hanging downe of their locks, or tufts, or whatsoever they had, they should have baldnesse, when they had torne off their haire through the extremity of misery. And instead of their rich and costly stomachers and attires, to set them forth, they should be glad of sackcloath, sackcloath in token of humiliation, sackcloath to cover their shame, and burning instead of beauty. That beauty of theirs, which they had so abused, it should now be painted with another die; it should be tanned and burnt with the Sun, like the hu… of the Black-moores. Brinsly on Ezek. 9. p. 278, 279.
CORONIS.
SI pictor egregius pinxisset imaginē, & alius plebeius ei alios colores injiceret, pictor sanè excandesceret: ita Deus naturae opifex & pictor jure irascitur, quòd ejus naturam & sapientiam accusetis inscitiae, ipsùmque creatorem damnetis imbecilitatis. Nolite ergo Dei corrumpere imaginem, neque tentatis ea addere, quae sapienter non dedit, neque hanc adulterinam excogitare pulchritudinem, quae vel pudicis affert excidium, vel videntibus insidias. Theodor. in vitis Patrum.
Indignum est Christiano faciem fictam gestare, cui simplicitas indicitur; effigiem mentiri, cui linguam non licet; appetere quod datum non sit, cui studium pudicitiae est: quomodo praecepta Dei custodientis, lineamento Dei non custodientes? Tertul. de habitu mulier.
Non metuis quae talis es, ne cū resurrectionis Dies venerit, artifex tuus te non recognoscat & adsua praemia & promissa venientem removeat & excludat? Increpans vigore censoris & judicis dicat: hoc opus meum non est, nec imago haec nostra est, cutem falso medicamine polluisti, crinem adultero colore mutâsti, expugnata est mendacio facies, figura corrupta est, vultus alienus est, Deum videre non poteris, quando oculi tui non sunt, quos fecit Deus, sed quos Diabolus infecit. Cyprian de habitu virginum. Consule locum, ibi quàmplurimas invenies sacras margaritas.
FINIS.
End of the text · Thomas Hall, The Loathsomeness of Long Hair (1654)