Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (5).pdf/21

Rh The third, too bold to be respected. 1. Chuse not by your eyes.—2. Chufe not by your hands.—2. Chuse not by your ears.

1. Chuse not by your eyes, looking at the beauty of the person. Not but this is lovely in a woman, but that this is not all for which a woman should be loved. He that had the choice of many faces stamps this character upon them all, Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain. The sun is more bright in a clear sky, than when the horizon is clouded; but if a woman's flesh hath more of beauty, than her spirit hath of Christianity, it is like poison in sweet-meats, most dangerous, Gen. vi. 2. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. One would have thought that they should rather have looked for grace in the heart, than for beauty in the face. Take care of inning at the fairest signs; the swan hath black flesh under white feathers.

2. Chuse not by your hands, for the bounty of the portion.

When Cato's daughter was asked, why did she not marry? She thus replied, "She could not find the man that loved her person above her portion." Men love curious pictures, but they would have them set in golden frames. Some are so degenerate, as to think any good enough, who have but goods enough. Take heed, for sometimes the bag and baggage go together. The person should be a figure, and the portion a cypher, which added to her, advances the sum, but alone signifies nothing. When Themistocles was to marry his daughter,