Wesley Corpus

13. Fourthly. Gay and costly apparel directly tends to create and inflame lust. I was in doubt whether to name this brutal appetite; or, in order to spare delicate ears, to express it by some gentle circumlocution. (Like the Dean, who, some years ago, told his audience at Whitehall, "If you do not repent, you will go to a place which I have too much manners to name before this good company.") But I think it best to speak out; since the more the word shocks your ears, the more it may arm your heart. The fact is plain and undeniable; it has this effect both on the wearer and the beholder. To the former, our elegant poet, Cowley, addresses those fine lines: -- The' adorning thee with so much art Is but a barbarous skill; 'Tis like the poisoning of a dart, Too apt before to kill. That is, (to express the matter in plain terms, without any colouring,) "You poison the beholder with far more of this base appetite than otherwise he would feel." Did you not know this would be the natural consequence of your elegant adorning To push the question home, Did you not desire, did you not design it should And yet, all the time, how did you Set to public view A specious face of innocence and virtue! Meanwhile you do not yourself escape the snare which you spread for others. The dart recoils, and you are infected with the same poison with which you infected them. You kindle a flame which, at the same time, consumes both yourself and your admirers. And it is well, if it does not plunge both you and them into the flames of hell!