IV. Pompeia Plautina, wife to Julianus the emperor, commended for her compassion to the poor, used the power her virtue had given her with her husband, to put him upon all the just and tender things that became his charge, and to dissuade him from whatsoever seemed harsh to the people: particularly she diverted him from a great tax his flatterers advised him to lay upon the people. V. Plotina, the wife of Trajan, "a woman," saith a certain author, "adorned with piety, chastity, and all the virtues that a woman is capable of." There are two instances; one of her piety, the other of her chastity; the first is this: when her husband was proclaimed emperor, she mounted the capitol after the choice, where, in a religious manner, she said, "Oh, that I may live under all this honour, with the same virtue and content, that I enjoyed before I had it." The second is this: her husband being once exiled, she caused her hair to be cut short, as the men wore it, that with less notice and danger she might be the companion of his banishment. VI. Thus may the voluptuous women of the times read their reproof in the character of a brave Heathen, and learn, that solid happiness consists in a neglect of wealth and greatness, and a contempt of all corporeal pleasures, as more befitting beasts than immortal spirits: and which are loved by none but such, as not knowing the excellency of heavenly things, are both inventing and delighting, like brutes, in that which perisheth: giving the preference to poor mortality, and spending their lives to gratify the lusts of a little dirty flesh and blood, that shall never enter into the kingdom of heaven; by all which their minds become darkened, and so insensible of more celestial glories, that they do not only refuse to inquire after them, but infamously scoff and despise those that do, as a foolish and mad people: to that strange degree of darkness and impudence this age has got. But if the exceeding temperance, chastity, virtue, industry, and contentedness of very Heathens, with the plain and necessary enjoyments God has been pleased to vouchsafe to the sons and daughters of men, as sufficient to their wants and conveniency, that they may be the more at leisure to answer the great end of their being born, will not suffice, but that they will exceed the bounds, precepts, and examples, both of Heathens and Christians; anguish and tribulation will overtake them, when they shall have an eternity to think upon, with gnashing teeth, what to all eternity they can never remedy; these dismal wages are decreed for them, who so far affront God, heaven, and eternal felicity, as to neglect their salvation from sin here and wrath to come, for the enjoyment of a few fading pleasures. For such to think, notwithstanding their lives of sense and pleasure, wherein their minds become slaves to their bodies, that they shall be everlastingly happy, is an addition to their evils: since it is a great abuse to the holy God, that men