N00500:86
Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a virtuous…Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a vertuous…
Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a virtuous woman: in a discourse which directs the female-sex how to express, the fear of God, in every age and state of their life; and obtain both temporal and eternal blessedness. / Written by Cotton Mather ; [Four lines in Latin from Tertullian, followed by a six line translation into English]Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a vertuous woman: in a discourse which directs the female-sex how to express, the fear of God, in every age and state of their life; and obtain both temporal and eternal blessedness. / Written by Cotton Mather ; [Four lines in Latin from Tertullian, followed by a six line translation into English]
printed by S.G. & B.G. i.e for Samuel Phillips, 1692
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
VI. For an old Woman to flaunt it in a Youthful Dress, is altogether as prodigious a Disorder, as for the Flowers of May to appear among the Snows of December. A Summer Dress will not suit a Winter Age. The Aged show themselves to be Twice Children, indeed, if they go like Children, and no•, put away Childish Things. For a Woman that knows her self near her Winding Sheet, still to affect a Wedding Robe, is a Lightness than which there can be nothing more uncomely.
VI. For an old Woman to flant it in a Youthful Dress, is altogether as prodigious a Disorder, as for the Flowers of May to appear among the Snows of Decemb•r. A Summer Dress will not suit a Winter Age. The Aged show themselves to be Twice Ch•ldren, indeed, if they go like Children, and no•, put away Childish Things. For a Woman that knows her self near her Winding Sheet, still to affect a Wedding Robe, is a Ligh•ness than which there can be nothing more uncomely.
VII For a Pious Woman to Preserve no Distinction from a Deba•••• one, in her Apparel, where it may be done, is to leave her self without a Distinction which might preserve her when the Common and Wasting Judgements of God are Punishing the strange Apparel in her Neighbourhood. It was well advised by Tertullian to the Matrons in his Days, Ut sit in••r A•cillas Dei & Diab•li Discrimen, that the Handmaids of God would go so as to distinguish themselves from the Handmaids of the Devil; and believe it, the plagues which ⟨p. 57⟩come upon the Haughty Daughters of Zon, will make no Difference between those that make none for themselves. We read concerning The Attire of the Harlot; and the Woman that will Wear like such an one, will probably Fare like her, in her Calamities. The Curtesns in some Nations, of old, were known by Veils of a particular shape; and it is pity but that Virtuous People should agree to avoid such Habits, as Vicious persons have signalized themselves withal.