And lastly, I was induc’d to allow my self a more fashionable Stile, than would perhaps be suitable to a meer Sermon, or Book of Divinity, because I fear’d, that the Youthful Persons of Quality of both Sexes, that I was chiefly to regard, would scarce be sufficiently affected by unfortunate Vertue, if the interweaving of passages relating to Beauty and Love, did not help to make the Tragical story, Delightful, add the Excellent Sufferers Piety, Amiable. If it be objected, that in some of the discourses of the two Martyrs, there are Passages that argue more Knowledge, than is likely to have been found in Lay Persons no Elder than they. I answer, that such Discourses indeed were somewhat strange, if they were ascrib’d to a young Gallant, and a younger Lady, of Our degenerate Times; wherein so many Persons of that sort, make Diversion their grand Business; and, having as little Leisure as Concern to mind any thing, but their Pleasures and petty Interests, think it their Priviledge to know little of Religion, and leave to meaner People the study of things Serious and Useful. But, _though_ among this sort of Persons, it were so difficult to find many that would Emulate such Knowledge and Vertue as shin’d in _Theodora_, that I fear they would not so much as believe them; _yet_ among better qualify’d Judges, the lately propos’d objection will be of no great force, if it be consider’d, that _Didymus_ and _Theodora_ liv’d in the Primitive and devout times of the Church, and in the _Roman_ Empire, when the Christian Religion was as diligently Taught by Excellent Divines, as frequently Oppos’d by Arguments, and violently assaulted by Persecutions. Upon which scores, the zealous Candidates of Martyrdom, many of which obtain’d the Crown of it, even in their greener Age, were early and skilfully instructed in the truths of their own Religion, and furnish’d with good Arguments, both to Defend It, and Confute the Erroneous Opinions and Impious worships of their Heathen Adversaries. Nor is it any wonder, that they should think That Religion worth Studying, that they thought worth Dying for. I will not here examine, whether the Ignorance wont to be imputed to Women, be Their fault, or that of their Accusers, and whether it is any natural want of Capacity, or rather want of Instruction, that keeps most of them from Knowledge, though This regards not Sexes. But without inquiry, whether it be not our Interest, or our Envy, that Makes Women what we are wont to decry them for Being; I shall not scruple to own, that I have sometimes had the honour to converse with Ladys, that convinc’d me, That, to attain to a great proficiency in Knowledge, ’tis not necessary to be a Doctor of Divinity, or so much as a Man, since they discours’d of Divine things, with no less Wit than Piety. And to return to our Martyr, if we may judge by the Effects, we may reasonably suppose, that our Virgins Parents not only thought it their Duty, but took much