can she repine at anothers well-fare, who reckons it the greatest part of her own? No Covetousness will gain admittance in this blest abode, but to amass huge Treasures of good Works, and to procure one of the brightest Crowns of Glory. You will not be solicitous to encrease your Fortunes, but to enlarge your Minds, esteeming no Grandeur like being conformable to the meek and humble JESUS. So that you only withdraw from the noise and trouble, the folly and temptation of the world, that you may more peaceably enjoy your selves, and all the innocent Pleasures it is able to afford you, and particularly that which is worth all the rest, a Noble, Vertuous and Disinteress’d Friendship. And to compleat all, that _Acme_ of delight which the devout Seraphic Soul enjoys, when dead to the World, she devotes her self entirely to the Contemplation and fruition of her Beloved; when having disengag’d her self from all those Lets which hindred her from without, she moves in a direct and vigorous motion towards her true and only Good, whom now she embraces and acquiesces in with such an unspeakable pleasure, as is only intelligible to those who have tried and felt it, which we can no more describe to the dark and sensual part of Mankind, than we can the beauty of Colours and harmony of Sounds to the Blind and Deaf. In fine, the place to which you are invited is a Type and Antepast of Heav’n, where your Employment will be as there, to magnify GOD, to love one another, and to communicate that useful _knowledge_, which by the due improvement of your time in Study and Contemplation you will obtain, and which when obtain’d, will afford you a much sweeter and more durable delight, than all those pitiful diversions, those revellings and amusements, which now thro your ignorance of better, appear the only grateful and relishing Entertainments. But because we were not made for our selves, nor can by any means so effectually glorify GOD and do good to our own Souls, as by doing Offices of Charity and Beneficence to others; and to the intent that every Vertue, and the highest degrees of every Vertue may be exercis’d and promoted the most that may be; your Retreat shall be so manag’d as not to exclude the good Works of an _Active_, from the pleasure and serenity of a _Contemplative_ Life, but by a due mixture of both retain all the advantages and avoid the inconveniencies that attend either. It shall not so cut you off from the world as to hinder you from bettering and improving it, but rather qualify you to do it the greatest Good, and be a Seminary to stock the Kingdom with pious and prudent Ladies, whose good Example it is to be hop’d, will so influence the rest of their Sex, that Women may no longer pass for those little useless and impertinent Animals, which the ill conduct of too many has caus’d ’em to be mistaken for. [Sidenote: Mr. _Nor. Conduct of Hum. Life_.]