This pamphlet is about the ‘strange woman’ that the Bible warns man about—the kind that might entice him into carnal relations. Because of the year of its publication, the rich vocabulary, the abundance of anecdotes, the helpful illustrations, and the righteous hit against ‘papists,’ I do not doubt that the anonymous author is what was called, in the 17th century, a ‘Puritan divine.’

The spiritual physician’s best prescriptions for the cooling of lust are, in my opinion, the following two. First, industry: “Idleness is the bow out of which the devil shoots the fiery darts of his temptations at us.” Second, marriage: the ‘sacred bonds of matrimony’ is ‘the most pleasant physic’ against lust.

This is a worthy old tract on a delicate subject. The reader’s labored breathing makes for a perfect delivery of it.