these things reflected upon; were the incessant wooings of Jesus, and his importunate knocks and entreaties, by his light and grace, at the door of their hearts, but kindly answered, and He admitted to take up his abode there: and lastly, were such resolved to give up to the instructions and holy guidance of his eternal Spirit, in all the humble, heavenly, and righteous conversation it requires, and of which He is become our Captain and example; then, O then, both root and branch of vanity, the nature that invented, and that which delights herself therein, with all the follies themselves, would be consumed and vanish. But they, alas! cheat themselves by misconstrued Scriptures, and daub with the untempered mortar of misapplied promises. They will be saints whilst they are sinners; and in Christ, whilst in the spirit of the world, walking after the flesh, and not after the Spirit, by which the true children of God are led. My friends, mind the just witness and holy principle in yourselves, that you may experimentally know more of the Divine life, in which, and not in a multitude of vain repetitions, true and solid felicity eternally consists. IV. _Nor is this reputation, wisdom, and virtue, only to be attributed to men: there were women also in the Greek and Roman ages, that honoured their sex, by great examples of meekness, prudence, and chastity; and which I do the rather mention, that the honour, story yields to their virtuous conduct, may raise an allowable emulation in those of their own sex, at least, to equal the noble character given them by antiquity, viz._ 1. Penelope.--2. Hipparchia.--3. Cornelia.--4. Pompeia Plautina.--5. Plotina.--6. A reproof to voluptuous women of the times. I. Penelope, wife to Ulysses, a woman eminent for her beauty and quality, but more for her singular chastity. Her husband was absent from her twenty years, partly in the service of his country, and partly in exile; and being believed to be dead, she was earnestly sought by divers lovers, and pressed by her parents to change her condition; but all the importunities of the one, or persuasions of the other, not prevailing, her lovers seemed to use a kind of violence, that where they could not entice, they would compel: to which she yielded, upon this condition, that they would not press her to marry, till she had ended the work she had in hand: which they granting, "she undid by night what she wrought by day;" and with that honest device she delayed their desire, till her husband returned, whom she received, though in beggar's clothes, with a heart full of love and truth. A constancy that reproaches too many of the women of the times. Her work shows the industry and employment, even of the women of great quality in those times; whilst those of the present age despise such honest labour as mean and mechanical.