The Players Scourge

SCENA SECVNDA.

SEcondly, as the Style, and subject Matter of Stage-Plays is Scurrilous, and Obscene, so likewise it is Bloody, and Tyrannicall; breathing out Malice, Fury, Anger, Murder, Crueltie, Tyrannie, Treacherie, Frensie, Treason, and Reuenge, (the constant Theames, and chief Ingredients, of all our Tragedies,) which Efferate, and enrage the Hearts, • nd Minds, of Actors, and Spectators; yea, oft times animate, and excite them to Anger, Malice, Duels, Murthers, Reuenge, and more then Barbarous cruelty, to the gre • t disturbance of the public Peace. From whence I frame this sixth Argument.

The Minor is evident: First, by Experience: Secondly, by express Authorities ; both which do testify: that the Style, and subject Matter of our Tragedies are Bloody, and Tyrannicall; abounding with Envy, Malice, Furie, Clamours, Wrath, Crueltie, Treacherie, Frensie, Murthers, Treasons, Villany, Vnplacablenesse, Discordes, Mutinies, Rebellions, Conspiracies, Rapes, Duells, and Reuenge, which provoke, and whet on the Spectators to all these Barbarous, and inhumane Vices, which they should abhor.

The Major is vncontrouleable: First, because the Scriptures do expressly enjoin us: to put away all Malice, Anger, Wrath, Contention, Sedition, Strife, Cruelty, Violence, Rapine, and Reuenge; together with all Truculent, Clamorous, Furious, Irefull, Tragicall, Bloody, Fierce, Malicious, and revengeful speeches: and that for sundry reasons: First, because such words, and actions as these, are Earthly, Carnal, Diuelish; proceeding from the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, ( who are fraught with Rage, and Crueltie: ) not from the wisdom of God from above, which is Pure, Peaceable, Gentle, easy to be entreated, full of Mercy, and good Fruits: Secondly, because such speeches as these, are the Fomenters of Contention, yea, the Chariots of Anger, Crueltie, and Reuenge: Thirdly, because such Tragicall, Fell, and Bloody discourses as these, are altogether vnsuitable unto Christians; who are, or should be, Men of a Quiet, Peaceable, Gentle, Meeke, and tender-hearted Disposition, being Kind, and Louing one towards another, and forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, hath forgiven them. The God of Christians, is a God of Peace: the Head of Christians, is a Prince of Peace: the Guide of Christians, is a Spirit of Peace, and Unity: the Rule of Christians, is a Word, a Gospel of Peace, which bringeth, and proclaimeth Peace to all, and persuadeth Peace with all Men: the way of Christians, is a way of Peace; yea, their Vocation, Life, and End, are Peace: therefore all Irefull, Truculent, • ierce, and Tragicke Spectacles, or Poemes, which breathe out nothing but Crueltie, Blood, Unmercifulness, Discorde, Vnplacablenesse, and Reuenge, must needs be unseemly, and unlawful to them; as being opposite, and Repugna • t to their Peaceable, Meeke, and Courteous constitution. Secondly, such Barbarous, Bloody, Tyrannicall, Fierce, and Cruel Spectacles, and Interludes as these, where Tyrannie, Envy, Malice, Murder, Furie, and Reuenge, are Acted, and Applauded to the Life, must needs Inrage, Imbitter, Exasperate the Spectators, and provoke them to Crueltie, Passion, Rage, Reuenge, and Discontent, upon very small occasion, as I shall prove at large anon: therefore they must needs be Evil. Upon this very ground, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athenagoras, Theophylus Antiochenus • Tatianus, Lactantius, Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Minucius Felix, Saluian; together with all the Christians in the Primitive Church, as these record, did utterly condemn, and avoid all Sword-Plays, Tragoedies, and bloody Spectacles of cruelty; as Fightings, and Combates of Men, with Men, or Men, and Beasts together, (which the Lacedemonians, together with Plato, and Seneca, though Pagans, did likewise censure, and reject: ) because they did excite, and stir men up to Murder, Crueltie, and Reuenge; and make them guilty of the Wounds, and Blood of all those Combatants, and Sword-Players, which they did behold. And hence likewise was it, that the good Emperor Constantine ; together with Nerua, Arcadius, and Honorius; prohibited all Sword-Plays, Duels, and such like Cruel, and Bloody Spectacles ; as misbeseeming Christian hands to act, or eyes to see; because they were but so many Incendiaries, and Fomentors of Crueltie, Quarrells, Murthers, and Reuenge. Since therefore the Style, and subject Ma • ter of our Plays, together with the consequences of them, are such as these, we must, we cannot but reject them, on the fore-said reasons, as those fore-quoted Authors have already done.

SCENA TERTIA.

THirdly, the Style, and subject Matter of most popular Stage-Plays, is Heathenish, and Profane, consisting of the Acts, the Rites, the Ceremonies, Names, and Persons; yea, the very Rapes, Adulteries, Murthers, Thefts, Deceites, Lasciuiousnesse, and other exc • rabble Villanies of Dung-hill, Idole, Pagan-gods, and Goddesses, or wicked men which should be buried in everlasting oblivion lest the memory, and reuiuall of them should defile the light: From whence I raise this seventh Argument.

For the Minor; not only our own experience, which is a thousand Witnesses, and the truest Index ; but even sundry Fathers, and Moderne Authors: as Clemens Alexandrinus Oratio Exhort. ad Gentes. Clemens Romanus Constit. Aposto. lib. 2. cap. 65.66. Tatianus Oratio Aduers. Graecos. Theophylus Antiochenus Contr. Autolicum. lib. 3. Tertullian De Spectac. lib. Cyprian De Spectac. lib. & Epist. lib. 2. Epist. 2. Arnobius Aduers. Gent. lib. 3.4. & 7. pag. 230. to 242. Lactantius De Vero Cultu. cap. 20. Diuinarum Instit. Epit. cap. 6. Basil De Legendis libris Gentilium Oratio. Nazianzen Ad Seleuchum. Eusebius De Praeparatione Euangelii. lib. 4. Theodoret De Sacrificiis. lib. 7. Chrysostom Hom. 6, 7. & 38. in Matth. Augustine De Ciuit. Dei. lib. 1. cap. 31, 32. lib. 2. cap. 4. to 29. Saluian De Gubernat. Dei. lib. 6. Minucius Felix Octauius. together with Doctor Reinolds, Master Northbrooke, Mr. Gosson, John Mariana, in their Books against Stage-Plays: Ludouicus Viues De Causis Corruptionis Artium. lib. 2. & Comment. in lib. 2. Augustini De Ciuitate Dei. Master Stubs in his Anatomy of Abuses: with sundry others, do expressly testify: that Stage-Plays are fraught with the Genealogies, Ceremonies, Images, Relics, Imprecations, Inuocations, Names, Adulteries, Whoredomes, Incests, Rapes, Love-pranks, Furies, Lusts, Lasciuiousnesse, Thefts, Murthers, Cheates, Persons parts, Histories, and abominable Villanies of Heathen Idole-gods: and for this very cause, they utterly condemn them, as sinful, and pernicious: And so much the rather: because these Demonicall, and Infernal Deities, being delighted with these their true, or feigned wickednesses; did purposely command them to be Acted on their solemn Feastiualls; that so men might be encouraged to imitate them, and to proceed, yea persevere without redress, in these their Adulterous, Inhumane, and Infernal Vices, which were Countenanced, Authorized, yea Legitimated, and commended by their practical, and Divine examples. All Times, all Ages, yea all Ancient, and Moderne Stage-Plays, and Experience, Subscribe, and Suffragate with these our Authors to our Minor: therefore we must, we cannot but acknowledge it.

For the Major, it is clearly evident by its own light, and by the luster of the Scripture. For first of all; God himself, enjoins his People: not to make mention of the names of other God's, not to let them be heard out of their mouths, but to overthrow their Altars, break their Pillars, burn their Groues, hew down their graven Images, and to destroy their very Names out of their places: Whence David doeth solemnly profess: that he will not offer the drink Offerings of Idole-gods, nor yet take up their names within their lips. The very names of Pagan-gods are so odious, and displeasing unto God, so vnsuiteable unto Christian mouths, and ears; that God himself protesteth; he will cut off the name • d of Ioles out of the Land, and they shall be no more remembered: yea, that he will take away the names of Baalim out of his people's mouth, and they shall be no more remembered by their name. Hence was it, that the Christians in the Primitive Church, would rather die, then call Jove a God ; as he is oft times styled in our Stage-Plays: (and truly they had little reason for to deem him a God, whose Adulteries did exceed his issues in their number: ) Yea, such was their reverence, and Piety towards God, that they would not so much as apply any Poetical names unto him ; as we Christians to our shame, and his dishonor, oft times do: Christians have been always coy, and charie of the very naming of Heathen Idols, unless it were with detestation, and dislike. God forbid (saith Saint Jerome ) that omnipotent Jove, O my Hercules, my Castor, or other such monsters rather then God's, should ever • ound out of a Christian mouth. A faithful Christian, writes Clement of Rome; ought not to sing any Heathen verse, or Meretricious song; because he may chance in singing to make mention of the names of Diuelish Idols; and so instead of the holy Ghost, the evil Spirit may seise upon him. Saint Basil, and Nazianzen, persuade, and advise all Christians; to avoid all Heathen Poemes, and Writings, which treat of Heathen God's; relating either their Genealogies, Histories, Adulteries, Loves, or Rapes; as being the Doctrine of Devils, or so many Traps, and Snares, to endanger them. Saint Augustine, inhibites Christian women, so much as to name Minerva, or any such unlucky persons, in their Spinning, Dying, or any other work. Saint Gregory the great, and Gratian, inform us: that the Praises, Histories, or mention of Jove, do not beseem any Godly Lay-man's mouth, much less a Bishops: whence they blame Desiderius a Bishop of France, for teaching the Art of Grammar, in which he must discourse, both of the Names, and Praises of Heathen God's: upon which ground, the fourth Council of Carthage. Canon 16. together with Saint Jerome Epist. 22. cap. 13. Isiodor Pelusiota. Epist. lib. 1. Epist. 63. Tertullian De Idololatria. lib. cap. 18. to 24. Isiodor Hispalensis De summo bon • . lib. 3. cap. 13. & Gratian Distinctio. 37. Prohibit Bishops, and other Christians from reading the Books of the Gentiles; least by Applauding the Names, and Approouing the speeches of their Idole-gods, they should incur Idolatry. And good reason is there, that Christians should not admit of the Names, and Histories, (much less of the imprecations, and abominable practices,) of Heathen God's. First, because God himself, with all these Fathers, do thus inhibit them. Secondly, because the second Commandment, as Philo Judaeus well observes; doeth not only prohibit the Images, and Pictures, but even the Histories, and Fables of the Marriages, Births, and casualties of Heathen God's. Thirdly, because the recital of their Names, and Histories, by way of approbation, or d • light, doeth give a tacit, or secret allowance of them to be God's: where as in truth, they are but Devils; or wicked Men ; or rather as Saint Paul informs us, nothing in the World. Fourthly, because the Hearing, and Reading of such Histories, and Fables as these, which are oft times sugared, and guilded over with the very quintessence of Art, and Rhetoric,) doeth alienate, and cool our love unto the Sacred, and Soul-saving word of God, which runs in a less Elegant, and more humble Style. Fifthly, because the recital, acting, and personating of their Names, their Histories, and notorious Villanies, doeth revive their names, and memories, which should rot, and perish in oblivion: It is the will, and pleasure of God: that the Names of the wicked should rot: that the Memories, Relics, Ceremonies, Names, and Monuments of Idole-gods, should utterly be abolished from of the Earth, and quite exiled from the Tongues, and Pennes of Christians ; as being the original authors, and chief Fomentors of Idolatry; the propagators of all sin, and villainy ; and the very Corriualls of God himself, whose Sovereign Deiti • they would, yea, did usurp: the reuiuall therefore of their Names, and Memories, the Varnishing of them with fresh, and lively Colours in our Stage-Plays, with affectation, and delight, must needs be evil; because it thwartes the Lord's good pleasure. Sixthly, because those Plays, and Poemes, which are fraught with the Genealogies, Names, and Histories of Heathen God's, are a means to revive that Heathenism, and propagate that Idolatry, which the light, and power of the Gospel, hath long since abolished: It is the unanimous resolution of sundry Fathers: that these Comicall, Tragicall, and Theatricall Poemes, wherein the Genealogies, Marriages, Births, Ceremonies, Histories, and Lasciuious actions of Heathen God's, were but f • inedly, and sportingly desciphered, were the chief, and primary cause of that Paganism, Prophanenesse, and Execrable, or Atheistical Idolatry, which did formerly overspread the World: which Poemes the Gentiles dis • oft times embrace, for good Diuintie. If then these Plays, and Poemes have hatched, have propagated Idolatry, and Paganism heretofore; they may likewise resuscitate, and foment it now, unless God's grace withhold us from it; since we are all by nature prone unto it, as the sundry exhortations, and cau • ats to avoid it testify: No sin more natural, more pleasing, and agreeable to man then this; no sin so generally practiced, so hardly avoided, so ensely entert • ined, as this one alone ; which hath always captivated, the greatest portion of the World ; and oft times conquered, and bewitched the very chosen people of the Lord himself, who oft revolted to its love, and service. It is dangerous, it is sinful therefore to applaud such Plays, admit such Poemes, which may withdraw us Christians from our God, to gross Idolatry, as they have oft seduced others, as able, as resolute to withstand this insinuating, and bewitching sin, as we: these Authorities • these Reasons then should cause, yea, force us to condemn them.

Secondly, the Scriptures do expressly condemn all Imprecations, all Adiurations, all Admirations by, all Inuocations of, all Heathen God's: God himself commands us: to swear by his own Name: not by the names of Idols, Ba • l, or Malcham, or any creature whatsoever: He enjoins us to Inuocate, Imprecate, and Admire none but himself alone; not Pagan Idols, not Saints, or Angels, who can neither hear, nor help • us at our needs. How then can it be lawful, to Inuocate, or Implore the alde, or help of Jove, of Juno, Apollo, Minerva, Neptune, Bacchus, or such like Heathen Idols? How can we Swear by Jove, by Mars, by Venus, by Hercules, by the Celestial God's, or such like Pagan Oaths? How can we exclaim, (as oft we do in Stage-Plays,) O Jove! O Muses! O Cupid! O Venus! O Neptune! O ye God's! O Vulcan, Hercules, Mars, Apollo, Minerva, Castor, Pollux, Lucina, and the like; without a great offense? Certainly, if these infernal Deities may not be named, much less may they be Inuocated, Imprecated, or Sworne by among Christians: their very names are odious, and worthy highest indignation; how then can we approve their Oaths, and • mprecations, their Praises, and Applauses, which our God condemns? How Execrable, and Vile these names have been to Christians in the Primitive times, the former Section can inform you: and shall not then their Oaths, and Inuocations, be much more detestable, and loathsome unto us? The sixth Council of Constantinople, Canon 94. subjects all such to the penalty of Excommunication, who should swear the Oaths of the Gentiles: and shall we then approve them in our Interludes, as Elegant, and comely Ornaments? Certainly we cannot do it, without the peril of Idolatry, or affronting God unto his face. For first these Heathenish Oaths, and Imprecations, or Inuocations of Pagan God's, do give a kind of tacit, yea, attribute a manifest Divinity to these Idols, since nothing is • o be Inuocated, or Sworne by, either in sport, or earnest, but God alone. Now to attribute a Deity to these Pagan God's, whose Villanie did manifest them to be worse then men, is gross Idolatry. Certainly, if the reading of a Lecture of some Heathen God: If the styling of an Idole by the name of God, without this addition • Heathen Idole, or Dung-hill God: if the receipt of a blessing from a Pagans mouth, which, in truth, is rather a cursing, then a blessing,) in the name of an Idole, without rejecting, or disapproouing it, be flat Idolatry, as • ertullian, with others, hath affirmed; because it gives an approbation to these Idols, and ascribes a covert Divinity to them: then much more must the Admirations, the Inuocations, the Imprecations, and Exclamations in these Idols names, which are frequent in our Stage-Plays, be palpable, and gross Idolatry; which is the highest sin, and iussells God out of his Throne. Secondly, these Oaths, and Imprecations, as they are exceeding Heathenish, and Profane, unbeseeming Christian mouths, or ears; as they are Ridiculous, Vain, and Foolish, and so within the verge, of vain, and foolish words, which God condemns, and will at last severely Judge: so they are a direct breach of the third Commandment: thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; in that they attribute the Name, and Prerogatiue of GOD to Idols, which are the greatest vanities of the World, yea Vanity it self: and a manifest violation of these peremptory Injunctions: Swear not at all: and above all things my Brethren Swear not: no, not by the Name of God, unless we are lawfully called to it: much less, by the names of Pagan Devil-Idols; which is the worst, the vainest, and profanest Oath: therefore they must needs be odious, and abominable; yea, displeasing unto God, and dangerous unto us. Thirdly, these Oaths, these Inuocations, and Imprecations, as they renew those Heathenish, and Infernal Deities, whose memories should forever rot: so they do likewise ingender Heathenism, and Prophanen • sse in men's lives, and speeches: they alienate men's Hearts, and Thoughts from God, and heavenly things: they tip their Tongues with Vanity, and Prophanenesse, which should flow with Grace, and Holiness: they stamp their lives, and actions with dissoluteness, and gracelessness: they cause them, to live without God, in this World; and to admire, and relish Heathen Deities, and Discourses, more then God, or his Soul-saving Word: how may, how dare we then approve them? how can we but condemn them?

Yet loe the Impious, and strange Prophanen • sse, yea, the Impudent, and sottish Idolatry of our sinful Age, which not only tolerates, and applauds, but likewise justifies, and defends the naming, and inuocating of; the Swearing, and Exclaiming by these Hellish, Heathenish Devil-Idols, in despite of God's Command, with these two Wittie, or rather Impudent pretences, and Euasions.

First, that these Idols are Inuocated, Adiured, Named, Imprecated, and sworn by, in sport, and merriment only; not seriously, or in earnest.

[ 2] Secondly, that they are uttered by way of Proxy, or representation only; not as the Words, or Oaths of the Actors, but of some feigned persons, whose Parts they represent: so that they are not with in the compass of the Scriptures, and reasons fore-alleged.

To the first of these I answer: First, that the Heathen Poets did Nominate, Inuocate, Adiure, Adore, and Supplicate these Idols, and discourse of all their Genealogies, Villanies, and Obscenities, but in a Fabulous, and sporting manner, and that in Theatricall Interludes, and Poemes, as we now do: yet this the fore-recited Fathers tax in them, as gross Idolatry; as an abominable, and filthy crime. If then this were detestable, and Idolatrous in them who knew not God, must it not be much more so in us, who not only know him, but profess him too? Certainly, if their fabulous, and jesting discourses of these Idols, were a notorious crime, ours cannot be less then an abominable, and transcendent wickedness.

Secondly, the Scriptures know no such distinction between jest, and earnest: they enjoin us peremptorily: not to make mention of the names of Idols; not to Inuocate, or Adiure them; not to Swear by them, but utterly to abolish both their memories, names, and relics: which precepts being universal Negatiues, admit of no evasion: If then we may not Name them, Implore them, or Swear by them at all, much less may we do it by way of Sport, or Merriment: since it is more tolerable, less heinous, to sin in earnest upon some pretended necessity, though no necessity can once authorize or force us for to • inne, ) then thus to sin in jest.

Thirdly, if this distinction of breaking God's Commandments in jest, or earnest, should be warrantable; then every man as many do, ) would daily violate them by way of sport, and merriment, not in earnest, and yet they should be no sinners, because they sin in jest: and so all God's Laws should be euacuated, Religion undermined, and sin made a jest.

Fourthly, this Inuocating, Naming, and Swearing by these Heathen God's in jest, is far more odious, and sinful, then to do it in good earnest, out of ignorant Superstition, or blind Devotion. He that sins thus in jest, and merriment, sins more wittingly, willfully, contemptuously, and presumptuously, then he that sins in earn • st; he contemns, and slights both God, and these his precepts more; he loves, and approves sin more, he fears, and hates it less ; he sins upon fewer, and less weighty provocations, then those who sin in earnest: therefore his sin is far more heinous, and abominable then theirs is, or this his own had been, had he committed it with greater seriousness, as the Pagans did.

Fifthly, King Solomon informs us: that it is the property of Fools to make a mock of sin, and a pastime to do wickedly: that he who deceiveth his Neighbor, (much more then he who thinks to deceive God, yea deceives himself,) and saith: Am I not in jest: is as a madman who casteth abroad Fire-brandes, Arrows, and Death. If then we make a mock, and sport of the Names, and Oaths of Idols, we prove our selves but fools, and mad-men, and cast abroad Fire-brandes, Arrows, and Death to our own Eternal ruin.

Sixthly, these Lusorie, and sporting Oaths, and Imprecations by, or Discourses of these Idole-gods; may now as well ingender Heathenism, and Idolatry, or foment a secret Atheism in men's Hearts, as they did in former times ; Yea, they do as really revive the names, the relics, and memories of cursed Idols, (which • hold putrefy, and perish in obliuions Lethe:) and as effectually propagate all profaneness, as if they were uttered in the most serious earnest. This jesting distinction therefore, of jest, and earnest, can neither palliate, nor salve this festered sore, nor justify these Pagan, and Infernal Oaths, and passages, which Christians must abominate, unless they mean to Deifie the Devil, and adore these Idols.

Lastly, the taking of God's name in vain, is simply evil ; yea, so evil, that God will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his Name in vain. But the attributing of a Divinity to these Idols; the styling of them God's: the Supplicating, and Adiuring of them, together with the swearing by them, as God, with approbation, and delight; and that by way of Sport, and Merriment only, without any necessary, or urgent cause, (which is frequent in our STAGE-PLAYES,) is the highest taking of God's Name in Vain ; since both the M • rriments, Passages, Idols, O • thes, Imprecations, yea, the very Actors, Spectacles, and Interludes themselves are wholly vain ; therefore it must needs be sinful in despite of this evasion.

To the second, that they are uttered by way of Proxy, or Representation only, not as the Words, the Oaths, and Imprecations of the Poets, or Actors, but of those feigned persons, whose parts they represent: I answer:

First, that it is sinful to utter, yea, to hear, and read such Heathenish discourses, Oaths, and Imprecations as these, with Approbation, and Applause ; because the fore-quoted Scriptures do condemn them.

Secondly, it is infallibly true, that every man shall bear his own iniquity, and answer for his sin: it is likewise as vnquestionably true; that these Pagan Oaths, and Passages • are sins ; and that they shall be • imputed as sins to some men, because no sin can ever subsist without its proper subject. If then all this be granted: on whom shall all these Oaths, these Heathenish discourses, and Imprecations light? on the persons whose parts they help to fill? Why these are eith • r feigned, or long since departed: or suppose they are alive, yet they give no allowance to them, therefore they cannot rest on them: nee • es then must they rest upon the Poets, Actors, and Spectators heads, their Souls shall answer for them all at last, and then this vain Euasion will not help them.

Thirdly, this absurd Delusion, hath neither color, ground, nor warrant in the Scripture; which gives commission unto none, to Act an oth • rs part, or p • rson on the Stage; much less, to personate another's sin, which is it self, an heinous sin, well worthy of a thousand Deathes. Suppose that God should enter into Judgment with any Play-Poets, or Actors, for these Idolatrous Imprecations, Profane, and Pagan Oaths, or Heathenish Stage-Plaies, as he will surely do at last, ) what answer could they make? Can they say, that all was done in sporting mirth, or in the part, and person of some other, who gave no such commission to them? Alas, this Plea will not a • aile them then, let it not therefore g • ll, and cheat them now: Questionlesse, all such incarnate Devils, who dare to Countenance, Admit, Applaude, or Act these Idols persons, Parts, Names, or Oaths in jest, shall be Damned for them, in good earnest: As it was wittily, and truly said of Nonresidents, and Pluralitie Ministers, who put over their Flock to Hirelings: that he who feeds his Flock by Curate, shall perchance, go to Heaven by his Vicar, but undoubtedly to Hell by himself: so he who personates these Heathen God's, or Supplicates, or Sweares by any of their Names, by representation only, in another's person, may chance to enter Heaven in that others person, but Hell undoubtedly, in his own: These evasions therefore are but vain, and cannot justify that they plead for.

Thirdly, the Scriptures do expressly prohibit, the personating of any sin ; much more then, the acting of Adulteries, Incests, Rapes, Murthers, Thefts, Love-pranks, or leaude, and execrable Vanities of Jupiter, Bacchus, Cupid, Venus, and others of that Diuelish, and Infernal crew, which pester, and defile all Theaters; which Saint Chrysostom rightly stiles; the Devils shop. If we did but suruay the Scriptures, as seriously, as frequently, as we behold these Hellish Interludes, we should there find God himself commanding us: to abstain from all appearance of Evil, yea from the very resemblances, and shows of sin: and can we then personate, or Act these gross, and odious sins to the very life, (whose representations are at leastwise, the appearances, and resemblances of sin,) without offense? God himself enjoins us, not so much, as to make an Idole, or the likeness of anything that is in Heaven, or Earth: And can we then lawfully take up, not only the interdicted names and rites, but even the very persons, images, habits, shapes, and representations of D • vill-Idols ( expressly prohibited by the second Command • meant ) that so we may the more liu • lie personate their most execrable wickednesses ; when as not only Tertullian, and S ^t . Basil ; but even an whole general Council, have both prohibited and condemned all representations, either of Idols or Devils, under the s • verest censures: because such representations, do not only cause men to frame the very images and portraitures of Pagan Deities, which is gross Idolatry ; but likewise transform even men themselves, (the most lively image of the living God ) into the very portraiture of those Devil-Idols, whose parts they are to act : and so turn the express Image of God himself into the very image of the Devil ; a sin beyond expression:) and yet deem ourselves guiltless of the breach of this most sacred Precept? It is the Apostles peremptory command: But fornication and all uncleann • sse, and filthiness and foolish talking, let it not be once named among you as becometh Saints: And can we then practice or approve, not only the a • siduous commemoration of the names, but likewise the artificial, if not real acting, not only of the Parts, but also of the incests, rapes, adulteries, whoredoms, and such like execrable abominations of the beastliest Devil-gods, or infernal Men-monsters ( which were anciently exiled all such places where Christ's Gospel came, as inconsistent with it, ) and yet think to pass for pious Christians? It was David's importunate prayer unto God; Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity (which the Fathers generally apply to Stage-Plays) and quicken me in thy way: And can we, dare we then once turn our eyes, and ears ( which should be always centred upon God and heavenly objects, that might meliorate, nourish and refresh our souls, ) unto those matchless obscenities of Pagan Idols that are daily acted on the Stage ( the very filthiness of which might cause even Devils themselves to blush and tremble ) and yet flatter ourselves, that we are in David's pious condition? Certainly, every true Christian indeed (if we may beleve the Scripture) doth fear and tremble, not only at the act, but likewise at the very appearance and thought of sin: yea, he stoppeth his ears from bearing blood, and sh • tteth his eyes from seeing evil. And can we then prove ourselves to be Christians, either in God's, or our own consciences account, when as we are so fa • re from trembling, that we do even rejoice at the sight, the hearing of these lewd Theatricall Interludes: being so far from shutting our eyes, or stopping up our ears against them, that we do readily open them with greediness and delight to these infernal, diabolical, prodigious Stage-abominations, which would pierce an heart of steel with gri • fe, and dissolve even eyes of Adamant into brinish tears ? It was David • religious protestation, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes, I will not know a wicked person: And shall we who ought to follow David's steps in this his pious practice, be never better recreated, more delighted, then when the laruated persons, parts and wickednesses of the very worst of men and Devils, ( that are everywhere abominable in the eyes of all men, but only on the Stage, which hath n • such sanctifying virtue in it, as to make ill things good, when once they are brought upon it, ) are most emphatically represented to our eyes and ears at once? It is registered of righeeous Lot; that he dwelling among the wicked S • domites, vexed his righteous soul from day today, in seeing and hearing their unlawful deeds : And can any Players or Play-haunters then persuade themselves, that they are in Lots condition, when as their unrighteous souls, are so far from being vexed at the sight and hearing of those-more then Sodomitical uncleannesses of Pagan Deities, which are acted on the Stage, that they are more abundantly recreated and delighted with them, then with all the soul-ravishing pleasures, of God's house, or the most delightful consolations of his Word and Spirit, before which they oft prefer them? O the horible incests, the execrable adulteries, rapes and whoredoms; the vnparalleld wickednesses, the infernal practices of those lewd Pagan-Deities, and stupendiou • Men-monsters that are daily acted on our Theaters? What chaste, What modest Christian heart can once recount, what tongue relate, what eye behold, what ear receive, what pen diseypher them (unless necessi • ated to display their filthiness ) witho • t shame and horror, if not sin it self? Are not the very Masterpeeces, dregs and off-sceuring of all those horrid adulteries and transcendent wickednesses, that either the pravity of man, or the wit of h • ll could hitherto invent, epitomized and diplayed on the Stage? Do not Play-Poets and common Actors ( th • Devils chiefest Factors ) rake earth and hell it self; do not they travel over Sea and Land; over all Histories, poemes, countries, times and ages for unparalleled villainies, that so they may pollute the Theater with all the hideous obscenities, with all the detestable matchless impieties, which hitherto m • n or Devils have either actually perpetrated, or fabulous • y divulged ? What shall I record the several abominable adulteries of Venus; the i • finite suparlative incests, rapes, fornications, love-pranks, Sodomies, murders, cheats, with other such ex • crable wickednesses of Jupiter, the very worst, though greatest of the Pagan Deities? What shall relate the several b • astly flagitious practices, ceremonies, obsceniti • s, of Juno, Bacchus, Cupid. P • iapus, Mars, Serapis, Atys, Flora, the Mother of the God's, or of the rest of that infernal crew, which come so frequen • on o • r Theaters ? Is not their fil • hinesse, their lewdness so barbarously, so stupendiously impious, that it even strikes men's h • arts and tongues with horror, forbidding them to relate it ? And can any then behold, or act these gros • e abominations with delight, (the very relation of which is suf ••• ient to pollute the ears that hear them, the common air that receives them, yea the breath that utters them) and yet be innocent, be untainted by them? Alas, we cannot but with shame and grief acknowledge, that our moderne Play-Poe • s do not only record and publish to posterity in their lascivious Interludes, the execrable lewd examples of our present Age ( which parallel or surpass all those of former times ) but likewise dive into oblivions deepest Lethe, resuscitating those obsolete putred wickednesses of former ages, which Hell had long since buried in • er lowest Cels, lest present and future times should be so happy as not to imitate them, or finally to forget them. And can we then act, or see the action of these moderne, these ancient, these moth • eaten filthy crimes, without a crime? No verily. O therefore let Stage-Players perish, yea, forever perish, which thus revive the cursed memory of Pagan Idols, and their infernal wickednesses, whose remembrance should forever be forgotten lest we perish by them: O let those filthy Interludes, those shameless Actors, who fear not to display those shameful works of da • kenesse in the sight of thousands on the open Theater, with more then blushlesse impudency, which their very Pagan, yea, infernal Authors did even blush, • id tremble to commit in sec • et, where no eye was present to behold them, but their own, and that omniscients, who is omnipraesent, beholding both the evil and the good ; be ever execrable to all pious Christians, whose eyes and ears • re forever consecrated to that holy God, who is p • rer of eyes then to behold the least iniquity, then to ⁱ approve our filthy Stage • plays ; which might cause even heaven, earth, nay, hell to blush for shame, and move the very Sun it self to veil his Cristall beams for fear they should defile their light. The Scriptures, Fathers, two famous Councils, with sundry Protestant Divines, have utterly condemned the making, the beholding of all obscene lascivious pictures; as being a mean to enflame men's hearts with lusts, with filthy pleasures, and to draw them on to actual uncleanness. And shall not then those lively, if not real pictures and representations of the adulteries, rapes, incests; Love-pranks, murders • • reasons, and other such practices of Pagan Idols, which ar • so artificially acted on the Stage, that a man can hardly difference the representations of them from the sins themselves, be much more liable to condemnation on the self-same grounds? Doubtless, if the substance be evil, the shadow of it cannot be good : if the person be odious, the picture will be such: if the thing acted be simply evil, the representation of it will resemble it. All sins (much more the loathsome facts of Devil-Idols ) are detestably evil in themselves, ^s therefore the personating, the imitation of them on the Stage, the characterizing of them in their freshest colors in our Theatricall Poems, must needs be sinful, yea, abominable, unto all good Christians. The perpetrating of such sins is evil, therefore the personating. Quod in facto reijcitur, in dicto non est recipiendum. Since then we cannot but abominate these odious transcendent sins themselves, which sunk their original Authors, down as low as the very deepest depths of hell it self, from whence there is no return forever, let us not justify their representations, nor applaud their action. And so much the rather, because these filthy Devil-Idols, (as the Fathers testify,) did heretofore, either really commit those beastly crimes that are acted in their persons on the Stage; or else purposely admit them to be Poetically forged of them, and then openly to be divulged to the people o • the Theater in their names, that so they might give a kind of divine approbation or public allowance to these their notorious wickednesses by their own personal examples, to animate and draw on the Spectators more securely, more boldly to commit the selfsame sins, to the eternal ruin of their souls. Whence Athanasius informs us from his own experience, that the proclaiming of the vices of Pagan Idols on the Stage, did much increase the sins of men. For when as they perceived their Idol-gods to be delighted with such filthy sins, they presently fell to imitate them. Insomuch that almost every City was fully fraught with all the filth and dregs of wickedness, whiles they studied to conform themselves to the sins and vic • s of their Idols: there being not one chaste or sober man among all the worshippers of such vicious Idol-gods (as there are now few such among Players and Play-haunters; those only being appla • ded by them, whose lewdness was most notoriously known unto all men. If then the personating of the wickednesses of H • athen Idols, be but a mere stratagem of Satan, to encourage, to precipitate and allure men to the selfsame sins: If it revives the execrable memory of those infernal crimes which should be buried in eternal oblivion : If it work a love, a liking, at lest-wise a slighting or less hating, of such hellish abominations in the hearts of men: If it be always attended with the very lively appearances, or, resemblances of evil, from which Christians should absteins. If it doth more advance the Devils service, ( the original Author of Stage-plays, as himself, and others testify,) then recreate the Spectators ; which none can contradict, since Satan gains more souls, more service by them, then Play-frequenters pleasure: This must, this cannot but enforce all Christians forever to abandon Stage-plays, because they are thus pestered with the very grossest impurities of Devil-Idols, and the wor • t of men, which should not once be named, (much less then acted) among Christians.

Objection. But here our Actors and Play-haunters, that they may seem in this case to sin honestly, or rather not to sin at all; frame these two justifications for the personating, the beholding of these their Stage-obscenities.

First, that in the personating of the vices of Idol-gods and men, they always introduce their virtues; to the end that their virtues may be imitated, and their • inns eschewed.

Secondly, that these their notorious wickednesses are thus personated, thus divulged on the Stage to this very purpose, that the beholding of their filthiness might learn men to detest them : therefore the acting of them in this nature must needs be commendable, not unlawful.

Answer. 1. To the former of these two allegations, I answer, First, that the virtues of Idol-gods, or wicked men, are seldom brought upon the Stage, but as they are vshered in by their very grossest sins: for in all our tragical, in most of our Comicall Interludes, sin is the primary, adequate and most proper subject of the Play, virtue, a Parenthesis only in the by: Sin is the Mistress, Virtue but the Handmaid, which occasionally sometimes attends it. Vice hath the whole, at least the greatest share in all our Stageplaies; poor Virtue hardly finds a part in any, most parts in none. The virtues therefore that are acted in our Theaters, as they do not balance, so they cannot justify nor excuse the vices.

Secondly, Vice oft times acts it part alone upon the Stage with great applause, whereas Virtue seldom comes upon it but accompanied with a cloud of sundry spredding vices; which as they sooner pierce the hearts, a • d insinuate into the affections and lives of men then virtues ; so they deprave their minds and manners more, then all the virtues of Heathen men or Idols can ever rectify them, were they only acted, always magnified on the Stage. As therefore dead Flies corrupt the ointment of the Apothecary, or as poison vitiates wholesome food; so the contempering of some inferior Virtues with more transcendent Vices in our Stage-plays, doth either turn these Virtues into poison, or else deprive them of their efficacy.

Thirdly, the V • rtues magnified on the Theater, are only those of Devil-gods, of graceless Pagans, or desperate wicked men, who never had true virtue in thē. No men are truly virtuous, but those who are truly religious: others (as Scypio, Cato, Fabriti{us}, Regulus, Fabius, Aristides, & the like) may hav • the shadows of virtue in thē, not the substance; which grows not in a Devils, an Idols, a Pagan, or wicked persons, but in a real Christians heart, wherein Christ's Spirit dwells. It is the pr • perty of all true virtue, to conquer, to expel all Vice; not to cohabit with it, or submit unto it: so that there can be no true vir • ue seated in such persons hearts, whose virtues are inferior to, or coexistent with t • eir vices. Nay, all the virtues of those Devil-Idols, or Heroicke Pagans which Players use to act, were contaminated, deformed and controlled by their vices, to which they were inthralled; therefore they are not true, but only bastard virtues, which have scarce the very husk of virtue in them. Since then their virtues, are in truth no virtues, but mere empty shadows of virtue, or rather glittering sins, as the Fathers, and some others style them; but their vices gross and real sins which plunge men's souls in endless misery • the acting of these feigned virtues (which are as far from real virtues, as Players are from those whose parts they act) can never balance, much less excuse, the personating of such execrable vices, which hell it self can hardly parallel.

Fourthly, the mutilated outside virtues of Devil-gods, or graceless Pagans, as they can never make their imitators, or Spectators truly ver •• ous ; so they are no fit patterns for a Christian, who hath Christ himself, the Paragon of all virtue, together with all those Saints and blessed Martyrs, who tread his footsteps, for his platform. Christians, as they must excel all Pagans (much more then Devil-Idol • ) in their virtues ; so they have far more transcendent patterns of true virtue for to follow, then the best of Pagans are. Christ Jesus is their guide, their way, their example: his virtues, his graces must they imitate; him only must they follow, and none else but him, or those glorious Saints of his, who walk as he hath walked. The supremest virtues of the most renowned Pagans are to inferior precedents for the meanest Christians. The very worst of Christians who shall ever enter Heaven Gates, must transcend the virtues of the best of Pagans: for the Scripture is peremptory: That except our righteusnesse exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (much more then the degenerate copper virtues of Heathen Infidels) we shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. How then can we take those Heathen virtues for our examples which we must far excel ? The Copy must surpass the Hand; the Sampler, the Needleworke which doth but imitate it. The rule must needs be more exactly perfect, then that which is squared or directed by it; else all will be erroneous. For Christians then, who should soar above all others, to stoop to Pagan virtues, or to allay their sublimer metal to their courser temper, is to degenerate into Pagans; to prove worse, yea, less then Christians. It is all one, as for an expert Artificer to lay aside his skill, to imitate a Bungler: or for a School-master to give over teaching, and to subject himself to the Tutorship of his rudest Scholar. Pagans and Devil-Idols (whose Parts come frequentest on the Stage,) are the very worst of creatures ; there is no such grace or virtue in them, as is either seemly, necessary, or essential to a Christian. And shall Christians then resort to Play-houses, to learn true virtue from such sinks of sin; such Glowormes, shadows or carcasses of virtue, as these Idols, these Pagans were, whose very virtues led them but to Hell? Doubtless it is but a very Heathenish, graceless, devilish practice; yea, a very shame and blemish to Religion thus to do; as if Christ's own example, the examples of his saints, the precepts of his Word, were not sufficient to teach Christians virtue ; but that they must resort to Devil-gods, to Infidels, to Stage-Plays for to learn it. The acting therefore of such counterfeit virtues, for the ends pretended, is no plea to justify Stageplayes, much less the action of the forenamed Vices.

Fifthly, if there be such Virtues taught and acted in our Plays, as is surmised, I wonder much why our eminentest Actors, our most assiduous Play-haunters, are more generally, more desperately vicious then most other m • n, as I shall prove anon? Certainly, if there were any virtue to be learnt from Stageplayes, or those Pagan virtues that are acted in them, our Players, our Play-hunters would have been good proficience, not retrogrades, in the school of Virtue, long ere this; whereas they are now naught else but Graduates, but chief Artists in the school of Vice. Either therefore there is no good, no virtue to be learnt from Stage-plays, (as in truth there is not ) or else their Vices are far more active, more infectious then their virtues, or else the Actors, the Spectators of our Plays are past all grace, all virtue which our Plays can teach them, since they learn it not.

Sixthly, admit there be some Virtues acted in our Stage-plays, yet there are far more Vices. Now as men by Nature are more propense to imitate men's vices then their virtues ; even so it fares with Stage-plays. All practice, all take up their vices, none their virtues: all prove the worser, none the better by them. The hurt, the sins, the vices which they hatch and foster, are obvious unto all men's view; we see, we read them both in the Actors and Spectators lives, who make a daily progr • sse in the ways of Vice: the good, the virtue which they teach is yet unknown to the world; we hear, we see it not. Since then our Stage-plays are so barren in producing virtue, so strangely fruitful in ingendring Vice; their goodness will not, cannot balance, nor assoil their ill.

Seventhly, suppose there are some real virtues acted in our Interludes; yet who can be so grossly stupid, as to think, to learn any grace or virtue from a Play-house? Who ever sought for gold, for pearls in dirt? for a Crystal spring in filthy mire; for wholesome water in a noisome kennel? Who ever resorted to a Pest-house to look for health, or drunk down poison to preserve his life? Who ever posted to a tippling Alehouse to seek sobriety; or to a Stews to learn true Chastity? Play-houses, (as the Fathers testify, ) are the very Nurseries, Schools and Marts; the very shops and sinks of all Vice and wickedness whatsoever: they are the very Devils temples, Venus her Synagog • es, Vices Oratories, Sins Palaces, Hels Ware-houses, Pollutions thro • e, Religions slaughter-house, Virtues Pesthouse ; and shall we then flock to them to learn true virtue? Can Gaull yield Honey, or a Flintstone Milk? can Sin bear Virtue, or Prophanesse Grace? then Plays and Play-houses, (the very grand empoysoners of all Grace, all Virtue, yea, the very Devils • ets to catch men's souls ) may make men truly virtuous. Let us not therefore seek for virtue in a Play-house where it grows not, as too many do, for fear we fraught ourselves with nothing but a load of Vice, which will sink our souls forever to the dephes of Hell.

Lastly, the Church of God, not the Play-house, is the only School; the Scriptures, Sermons, devout and pious books; not Plays, not Play-books, are the only Lectures, the Ministers and Saints of God, or rather God himself ; not common Actors, not those Devil-Idols, who rule and work in Stage-plays, the only Tutors of true virtue: True virtue is a plant that comes from heaven, growing only in the Churches, not the Stages garden. Philosophy and Philosophers could not teach it ; and can Plays or Players do it? O no: It is the prerogative royal of the King of heaven, to teach men virtue ; and that not by Stage-plays, or lascivious Poems, but by his Word and Spirit only, which breathe not in our Theaters: It is then a sacrilege, ye • , a madness, to relinquish God, his Church, his Word, his Ordinances, his Saints (the only fountains of true virtue) as too many do, to seek out virtue in Plays, in Play-houses, which are no other but the sinks of Vice.

Answer. 2 To the second Objection; that Stage-plays do not teach, but discover Vices, that so men may learn to hate them, not affect them: I answer first; that it is God only by his Word and Spirit, who must teach us to abhor all Vice ; not Stage-plays, the very fuel of all sin and lust.

Secondly, if there were any such virtue in Stage-plays, as to alienate men's affections from the vices which they personate, they would then no doubt, not only have reclaimed the ancient Play-admiring Pagans and Comedians, but likewise our moderne Play-Poets, Players, and Play-haunters from all those lewd and filthy Vices which come most frequently on the Stage. But I never yet could hear or read of any ancient or moderne Actor, Composer, or Spectator of any Theatricall Interludes, whom Plays recalled from the love, the practice of any Vices, that were ever acted on the Stage, whereas they have drawn milions for to imitate them. Therefore there is no such hidden virtue in them. To cause men to abandon Vice: which if there were, it would have emptied our vicious Play-houses long ere this, and have made our lascivious, adulterous, amorous Plays, so odious, that none durst approach them, for fear of being polluted by them.

Thirdly, Stage-plays are so far from working an abhorring, that they produce, not only a love and liking, but also animitation of those pernicious vices that are acted in them, which are commonly set forth with such flexanimous rhetorical pleasing, (or rather poisoning) streines; with such pathetical, lively and sublime expressions, with such insinuating gestures; with such variety of wit, of art and eloquence, that if ever men did hate them from their hearts before, they cannot affect, at least approve, or but less detest them now: they being prone enough by nature for to practice them, without any allectives to edge them on. This practice therefore of acting Vices, doth only propagate them, not restrain them.

Fourthly, if Stageplayes had been fit Lectures, Play-houses apt Schools to instruct men to abandon Vice, the Primitive Church, together with sundry Councils, Fathers, and moderne Christian Writers of all sorts, would never have so frequently condemned, so constantly avoided Stage-plays, as the fruitful Nurseries of all sin and wickedness ; Profane and vicious persons would never flock so fast unto them, as they use: yea, the very Devil himself, ( whom not only Nature, but likewise long experience hath made exceeding politick ) would never have been so improvident as to invent, to propagate, so inconsiderate as to multiply, to perpetuate Stage-plays to his own great prejudice, were they such disswasiues from Vice, from wickedness, such attractiues unto Virtue, as these plead they are, how truly let all men judge.

Fifthly, Stageplayes themselves, as the sequel will at large demonstrate, are pernicious sin-producing, Vice-fomenting pleasures, which all godly Christians have condemned: For any man then to undertake to make men hate Vice by frequenting Stage-plays, is but to cure one vice with another, or to prevent a lesser mischief with a greater; yea, it is in truth naught else, but to make Vice a balm, an antidote against it self; and to make ill men good again, with that self-same thing which made them evil at the first: a paradox beyond my stupid apprehension.

Sixthly, the acting of foreign obsolete, and long-since forgotten Villanies on the Stage, is so far from working a detestation of them in the Spectators minds (who perchance were utterly ignorant of them, till they were acquainted with them at the Play-house, and so needed no dehortation from them;) that it oft excites degenerous dunghill spirits, who have nothing in them for to make them eminent, to reduce them into practice, of purpose to perpetuate their spurious ill-deserving memories to posterity, at least-wise in some tragicke Enterlude. It is storied of Herostratus; that he set the great and famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus on fire, for this very end; ut nomen memoria sceleris extenderet; that the very m • mory of this his villanous exploit might eternize his base obscure name, and add unto his fame.

is the only rode, the best, the speediest passage, that sordid desperate obscure spirits know or take to honor, wealth or fame, especially in declining, vi • ious, turbulent or discontented times. Wherefore since obsolete unknown sins, are always freest from imitation, and more • asily avoided then sins divulged, though with shame, disdain or punishment; whence wise Lawgivers, have rather chosen, to inact no public Laws against unnatural rare-committed crimes, then to prohibit them by public Edicts, under the severest punishments, for fear the public knowledge of them, by means of known Edicts, should make them more frequent in men's practice ; it were far more commodious, less dangerous, less pernicious, that those vnparalleld forgotten villainies, whose memory is revived on the Stage, were forever drowned in oblivion, then re-imprinted in men's minds by Vice-perpe • uating Stage-plays: ne exempla fiant quae iam esse facinora destiterunt ; least our depraved times should make those moth-eaten wickednesses, the patterns of their imitation, which all-devouring antiquity had expunged, out of the much enlarged Catalogue of moderne sins.

Lastly, if Stage-plays do only discover Vices for to make them odious, then those lascivious Pagans who most delighted in them, should have been meliorated and mor • alized by them. But the best Christian and Pagan Authors unanimously agree : that Theatricall Plays and Poems were the chief corrupters of their minds and manners, the most effectual propagators of all kind of vice, there being none so vicious and lascivious, as those Pagan Greeks and Romans, who most frequented Stage-plays. Therefore the acting of such vices doth daily propagate and diffuse them, not decrease them.

Since therefore the subject matter of Stage-plays is thus heathenish, vicious and profane, consisting of the fabulous histories, ceremonies, vices, names, and execrable wickednesses of Pagan gods and men, which should not once be named among Christians ; we may hence also conclude them to be sinful, and utterly unlawful unto Christians.

SCENA QVARTA.

FOurthly; the subject matter of our stage-Plays, is for the most part, false and fabulous ; consarcinated of sundry merry, Iudicrous, officious artificial lies, to delight the ears of carnal Auditors. From whence I form this eight Argument.

The Minor is evident, not only from experience, and the concurrent suffrages of sundry Fathers, and Pagan Authors, who style Stage-plays, fabulous, artificial, sporting lies, from whence they take occasion to condemn them : but likewise by the copious testimony of sundry ancient Play-Poets, who style their Plays by the very name of Fables, Lies, and figments. The Major needs no large dispute. For since every lie is diametrally contrary to the God of Truth: • ince it proceeds originally from the very Devil, who is a Liar, and the Father of lies: since it is dir • ctly opposite to the Spirit and Word of Truth, which enjoineth every man, (especially the children of God) : to speak no lies; to put away lying: to refuse profane and Oldwives fables, with all idle fabulous tales and babblings: to hate all such who delight in lying vanities; and to speak naught else but truth; because whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, shall be excluded the new Jerusalem, and have his portion in that lake which burnet • with fire and brimstone forever : Since sundry of the Fathers recorded in the margent, have abundantly condemned all sorts of lies; as well officious, fabulous and sporting, as pernicious : And since divers Paga • Authors have positi • ely c • nsured, all • udicrous lies and poems composed only for delight ; we cannot but sub • scribe unto the Major, as an undoubted truth, and so by consequence to the Conclusion too. Since therefore Stage-plays are but merry lies ; and since Saint Ambrose informs us; that all those who love a lie, are the children of the Devil, the Father of lies ; let this cause us to detest all fabulous lying Stageplayes, as the very snares and traps of Satan, • or fear we prove the Devils of-spring, who hath no inheritance but Hell to leave us.

SCENA QVINTA.

FIftly, the subject matter of Stage-plays is ofttimes impious, sacrilegious, blaspemou • , and that in sundry respects.

First, in that the sacred names of God the Father, Sonn • , and holy Ghost ( which ought n • t to be mentioned but with reverence and holy fear ) are frequently recited on the Stage, (too profane, too impious a place for such dreadful holy names to come into) and that in a sacrilegious, blasphemous, ridiculous, impious sporting manner, to their great dishonor and pollution. Hence was that passionate exclamation of Clemens Alexandrinus against the Gentiles: O impiety: you have made the Theater heaven: you have made God himself an Act; that which is holy have you also derided under the person of Devils; you have lustfully and fili • ily polluted Religion and the true worship of God, with the superstitions of Devils. Hence was it, that Tertullian in his book, De spectaculis cap. 28. Chrysost. homily 38. on Matthew: Salvian De Gubernatione Dei lib. 6. the third Council of Carthage, Canon • 11. with sundry others, did long since style all Stage-players, Blasphemers : because they did not only deride, abuse, and personate their own Idol-gods upon the Stage, for which the Christians taxed them : but likewise blasphemously profane, satyrically traduce the very sacred names of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in their public Interludes; whence the Fathers laid no less then blasphemy to their charge. A sin to frequent in our moderne Stage-plays, where these dreadful names (to our shame, Plays ruin be it written) are most desperately profaned, most Athei • tically blasphemed. Witness our own late religious Statute, of tertio Iacobi chapter 21. Where our Sovereign Lord the King, together with the Lord's Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in that Parliament • ssembled, for the preventing and avoiding • f the great abuse of the holy name of God in Stage-plays and Interludes, which then grew common, enacted this pious Law (which is seldom or never put in execution, because few else but such who delight in blasphemy, and therefore are unlikely to prove informers against it, resort to Stage-plays;) That if at any time or times after that Session of Parliament determined, any person or persons in any Stage-play, Enterlude, May-game, or Pageant should jestingly or profanely speak or use the holy Name of GOD, or of Christ Jesus, or of the holy Ghost, or of the Trinity, which are not to be spoken but with fear and reverence • that for every such offense by him or them committed, he or they should forfeit ten pounds. The one moitie thereof to the Kings Majesty, his Heirs and Successors: the other moitie thereof to him that will sue for the same in any Court of Record in Westminster, wherein no Essoigne or wager of Law shall be allowed. A sufficient evidence to testify the execrable blasphemy of our domestic Interludes; since, ex malis moribus optimae oriuntur leges: & emendari quam peceare posterius est.

Secondly, as these Sacred names, even so the Histories, Texts, and sacred passages of holy Scripture (which should not so much as come within the polluted lips of graceless Actors, especially in sports, in plac • s of profaneness ) are ofttimes most Atheistically, irreligiously, blasphemously acted, uttered, profaned, derided, mis-applied, j • stead at, and sported with in Stage-plays. This Authors, this experience largely testify, to the grief of all good Christians, and if this be not sufficient, we have the express Authority of an Act of Parliament, even of • 4 and 35 of Henry the 8. chapter 1. which irrefragably confirms this truth. Now for Christians thus to abuse the Word of God, and Scripture Histories on the Stage, what is it but the very height of all impiety, which well deserves God's heaviest judgments: It is storied, of Theopompus an historian, and of Theodect • s a Tragaedian; Tha • God struck the one of them with madness, the other with blindness for a season: the one, for inserting a part of Moses sacred writing into his profane story; the other of them for intermixing some passages and histories of the Old Testament with his lascivious Play-Poems; neither were they restored to their sight, or senses, till they had particularly repented of this their wickedness. If then these Pagans, for these their Scripture profanations did undergo so sharp, so exemplary a judgment; what a severe punishment may those Christian Play-Poets, Actors and Spectators look for, who willfully profane those sacred Scriptures on the Stage, by which they must be sanctified and directed now, and judged at the last ? What a stupendous impiety, a desperate blasphemy and profaneness is it, for m • n, for Chri • tians, to turn the most serious Oracles of God's sacred Word into a Play, a Iest, a Fable, a Sport, a May-game? to temper the purest Scriptures with the most obscene lascivious Play-Poems, that filthiness or profaneness can invent? to pollute those sacred histories on the Theater, the very house and Synagogue of the Devil, which the sanctifying Spirit of God hath forever consecrated and bequeathed to the Church of God ? to make the Sin-slaying, the Lust-mortifying, Soul-converting Word of God, the only evidence of our salvation ; a mere Pander to men's beastly lusts, their ribaldrous mirth, their graceless wits, and carnal jollity; yea, a mere instrument to the very Devil himself , who rules in Stage-plays ; and so an obsignation of their just damnation. Doubtless, as the damnablenesse of this most execrable impiety, (which is next of kin to that unpardonable sin of Blasphemy against the holy Ghost, the Author of the Script • res ) transcends my narrow expressions; so the eternal tormens allotted to it, do surpass men's largest thoughts. And yet it now acts it's Part so frequently, so pla • sibly on the Stage, that many cease, not only to apprehend no sinfulness, no danger in it, but also deem it worthy of their best applause. Alas, with what face or confidence; with what joy or hope can such hear or read the Scriptures in the Church, who thus actually profane them, or hear them thus profaned in the Play-house? With what assurance can they call upon the Name of God, of Christ for mercy at th • last, who delightfully resort unto those Theaters, where they ar • frequently blasphemed and profaned now? Can any thus abuse, pollute God's holy Name, or Word; and yet hope for consolation, for absolution, for salvation from them at the last? Can any thus blaspheme the Name of God, of Christ, or patiently endure the audience of such blasphemies as are belched out against them on the Stage; and yet dare to invocate them in their greatest exigencies? Certainly, God will not, Christ will not thu • be mocked. Let not such blasphemers then as these expect anything from God's hands, but wrath, & vengeance, th • only portion of their Cup, unless they speedily repent of these their damnable, profane, blasphemous Stage-plays, which thus abuse the sacred Scriptures, in a transcendent manner.

Thirdly, as the historical passages of the Old Testament, so the history of Christ's death, and the celebration of his blessed Sacraments, are oft times profaned in theatrical interludes, especially by Popish Priests and Jesuits in foreign parts: Who, as they have turned the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood into a Mass-play ; so they have likewise trans-formed their Mass it-self, together with the whole story of Christ's birth, his life, his Passion, and all other parts of their Ecclesiastical service into Stage-plays. This, not only Protestant Writers, but even their own Records (where the Index Epurgatorius hath not clipt their tongues) do largely testify, to their shame. AEneas Silvius, surnamed Pope Pius the second: as the Records of himself, that he was much given to Wine, to Ven • ry, Belly-cheer and other beastly lusts,. and that he begot a Bastard son on the body of an E • glish woman, whose chastity he oft solicited before he could prevail; in which fact, which son of his, he much rejoiced, as his own Epistle witnesses: such was his Pius Papal chastity. So he is not ashamed to publish to the world; that in his younger years he penned the wanton Comaedie of Crisid, with other am • rous Poems: and in his elder days in honor of Corpus Christi Feast, he caused a Shew or Stage-play to be acted, wherein was represented the Court, of the King of Heaven, and God the Father sitting in Majesty: together with God the Son, (O blasphemy, O profaneness beyond all expression) offering up the blessed Virgin his Mother, taken out of her sepulcher, unto his eternal Father. What wickedness • , what blasphemy like to this, as thus to Deifie a Player, and to bring the very Throne, the Majesty of God himself, yea, the persons of the eternal Father, Son, and God of glory on the Stage. But peace, it was an vn-erring Pope that did it, and so perchance it was no sin at all in him. Honorius Augustodunensis, an Author of some credit among the Romanists, in his Book, De Antiquo Ritu Missarum. lib. 1. cap. 83. the title of which chapter is, De Tragaedijs : to signify to the world, that the Popish Mass is now no other but a Tragicke Play, writes thus, We must know that those who rehearsed Tragedies on Theaters, did represent unto the people by their gestures, the acts of fighters. So our Tragedian (thus hath he styled the Mass-Priest, how aptly the ensuing words inform us) represents unto the Christian people by his gestures, the combat of Christ in the Theater of the Church, and inculcates into them the victory of his Redemption. Therefore when the Presbyter saith, (Pray ye) he acteth or expresseth Christ, who was cast into an agony for us, when he admonished his Apo • tles to pray. By his secret silence, he signifieth Christ led to the slaughter as a Lamb without a voice. By the stretching out of his hands, he denotes the extension of Christ upon the Cross. By th • Song of the Pr • face, be expresseth the cry of Christ, hanging upon the Cross, &c. Loe here a Roman Mass-priest becomes a Player, and instead of preaching, of reading, acts Christ's Passion in the Mass; which this Author stiles, a Tragedy. Lodovicus Vives complains, that it was the custom of the Priests and Papists in his age, when as the solemnity of Christ's death was celebrated, to exhibit Plays unto the people, not much different from those ancient Pagan Ent • rludes; of which practice (saith he) though I say no more, whosoever shall hear, he will repute it discommendable enough, even in this regard, that Plays should be made in a thing most serious, There Judas is derided, uttering the most foolish things he can devise, whiles he betrayeth Christ. There the Disciples fly, the soldiers pursuing them, and that not without the dirision and laughter, both of the Actors and Spectators. There Peter cu • s off the ear of Malchus, the ignorant multitude applauding him, as if by this means the captivity of Christ were sufficiently revenged. And a little after, he who had fought so valiantly, being affrighted with the questions of one little Girle, denies his Master, the multitude deriding in the mean time the Maid that questions him, and hissing a • Peter who denies him. Among so many Players, among so many shoutes and ridiculous fooleries Christ only is serious and grave: and when as he endeavors to eliciate sorrowful affections; I know not by what means, not there only, but likewise at the Sacraments and holy Ordinances he waxeth cold, with the great wickedness and impiety, not so much of those who behold or act these things, as of the Priests, who appoint these things to be done. Loe here their own Author declaiming against Popish Priests for their frequent acting of Christ's Passion, in the very self-same manner, as the Pagans of Old did use to act the lives and practices of their Devil-gods. A sufficient testimony, how little Papists really estimate the bitter Passion of our blessed Savior, since they make a common Play or pastime of it. This passage of Vives hath so offended the histrionical Mass-Priests, that Gaspar Quiroga in his Index Expurgatorius, commands it to be expunged out of all new Impressions of Saint Augustine, and the Divines of Lovan, in their Impression of Saint Augustine's Works, Antwerp • 1575. and in other of their Editions since that time, have razed it out accordingly, that so they might still proceed to Act Chri • ts Passion without control. To pass by Johannes Langhecrucius, a Popish Author, who makes mention of this playing of Christ's sufferings, and seems for to approve it. As also to pretermit the Statute of primo Edw. 6. chap. 1. which informs us, That divers Papists • ad then of late marveilou • lie abused, contemptuously depraved, despised and reviled, the most holy Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, in sundry rimes, songs, Plays, and Iests; calling it by such vile and unseemly words as Christian ears do much abhor to hear rehearsed: an uparalleld blasphemy and profaneness: The provincial Popish Council of Colen under Adolphus, in the year 1549. cap. 17. and 22. not only impliedly allows the acting of sacred histories, but likewise expressly Records; That when as the Church carried about the consecrated host of Christ's body and blood in long processi • ns (the reason of which processions are there at large expressed) the secular vanity of worldly men did creep into those processi • ns; in so much, that they joined with them profane and scurrilous Plays with a great noise; and as if they were going to War, Drums and Fiffes were struck up, and idle spectacles which suite not with these things were exhibited: with which the people being delighted, they were wholly avocated from the things done in procession, Whence this Council commands all Clergy men to absent themselves from such processions, which were turned into Plays. Yea, the Popish Synodus Carnotensis, an. 1526. & Synodus Turvinra. 1583. informs us, That Catholic Priests, in the days of the first Masses of their new Presbyters, after their merry Feasts, their great and unhallowed banquets, did go forth in public to exhibit most gross unchaste Comaedies to the people, and that in the Feast of Saint Nicholas, I • nocents, and on other Festivals, they did put on Visars, and act some ridiculous or foolish thing, (and sometimes the Passion of our Savior, or these of their Sai • ts & Martyrs either in their Churches or some other place. It is true, that some few Italian Bishops, being ashamed of this diabolical practice, of the Paganizing Church of Rome, in acting Christ's Passion, did in a Council at Millaine, under their Archbishop Borrhomaeus, in the year of our Lord, 1566. decree for their Province; that the Passion of our Savior should not be hereafter acted in any sacred or profane place whatsoever, because of the scandal which it did occasion: But yet to qui • the credit of their Church which might justly be taxed for approving this ungodly practice, they put this fair gloss upon this so execrable villainy; that the acting of Christ's Passion, however it came to be abused, was a custom religiously practiced and brought in at first: A most irreligious evasion of ambitious spirits, who would rather audaciously justify their greatest errors to their greater infamy; then ingeniously acknowledge them to their praise. But hath his provincial Council or Synodi • s Carnotensis, 1526. and Synod •• s Turonica, 1583. which are much to the like effect, abolished this abuse out of the Antichristian Church of Rome ? No verily, for the Jesuits themselves are not ashamed to publish to the world, that instead of preaching the Word of God • the fall of Adam and Eve, with their exile out of Paradise, and the history of our Savior, they acted and played them among their Indian Proselytes. A true Jesuitical practice, beseeming well this histrionical infernal Society, who have turned the very truth of God into a lie, and the whole service of God into an Enterlude. And no wonder is it that Papists and Jesuits thus turn Christ's Passion into a mere ridiculous Stage-play, (a practice yet in use among them, especially on Good-Friday :) since Pope Leo the tenth, (such was his unerring pious blasphemy) reputed the whole history of our Savior, a mere cheating gai • efull Fable ; as we may justly sear these acting Priests and Jesuits do, or else they durst not thus to play it, to abuse it as we see they do. And as • hey thus act the sacred Passion of our blessed Savior, even so ( if Fitz-stephen Polydor Virgil, Bochellus, or Francis de Croy, may be credited) they act the lives, the miracles, the martyrdoms torments and legions of their Saints upon their solemn Festivals, and that within their Churches in their Mother tongue; not out of any devotion, but for mirth anb recreation sake, after the manner of the ancient Pagans. Saint Augustine, writing of the honor (not of the adoration, a thing not then in use) which the Christians gave the Martyrs in his age; informs us; that they did neither exhilerate them with their crimes; nor yet with filthy Plays, with which the Gentiles did usually delight their Idol-gods. Yet our novellizing Romanists, ( who vaunt so much of antiquity, though their whole Religion, (wherein they varry from us) be but novelty ) abandoning the pious practice of these Primitive Christians, (conscious to themselves no doubt, that many of their late Canonized Tiburne-Martyrs, were no other, no better then the devil-gods of Pagans, who were ofttimes deified for their notorious villainies, as Popish Saints are for their matchless treasons;) have not only adored them as gods, erecting temples to their names and worship: but likewise solemnized their anniversary commemorations, by personating in their several Temples, the blasphemous lying Legends of their lives and miracles, (so fit for no place as the Stage it self) in some theatrical shows; adoring and honoring them in no other manner, then the very Pagans did their Devil-gods, with whō these • ell-saints are most aptly paralleled. Such honor, such worship give the Papists to our blessed Savior, to these their idolized Saints, as thus to turn, not only their Priests into Players, their Temples, into Theaters ; but even their very miracles, lives, and sufferings into Plays. To leave the Papists and close up this Scene. It is recorded of one Porph • ry a Pagan Stage-player, that he grew to such an height of impiety, as he adventured to baptize himself in • est upon the Stage, of purpose to make the people laugh at Christian Baptism, and so to bring both it and Christianity into contempt: and for this purpose he plunged himself into a vessel of water which he had placed on the Stage, calling aloud upon the Trinity: at which the Spectators fell into a great laughter. But loe the goodness of God to this profane miscreant; it pleased God to show such a demonstration of his power and grace upon him, that this sporting baptism of his, became a serious laver of regeneration to him: in so much that of a graceless Player, he became a gracious Christian, and not long after, a constant Martyr. The like I find registered of one Ardalion, another Heathen Actor, who in derision of the holy Sacrament of Baptism, baptized himself in jest upon the Stage, and by that means became a Christian; God's mercy turning this his wickedness to his eternal good: not any ways to justify Plays or Players, or to countenance this his audacious profaneness; but even miraculously to publish to the world the power of his own holy Ordinaces, w ^ch by the co-operation of his Spirit, are even then able to regenerate those who most contemn them, when they are used but in scorn. These notable histories, with the premises, sufficiently evidence, the subject matter of Stage-plays to be ofttimes impious, sacrilegious, blasphemous: from whence I raise this ninth Argument.

SCENA SEXTA.

SIxtly, Stage-plays are for the most part satyrically invective against the persons, callings, offices and professions of men; but more especially against Religion and Religious Christians, the chiefest objects of the Devils malice. From whence I deduce this tenth Play-oppugning Argument.

The Major needeth little proof, since God himself enjoins all Christians, to put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, clamour, and evil speaking, with all maliciousness: to be courteous and tender-hearted one towards another; not rendering railing for railing; but forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any one hath any quarrel against another, (much less then when as there are no personal variances between men) even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven them, The Scripture requires, that Christians should be patient, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits without grudging or calumny, without hypocrysie or backbiting, without railing or slanders, especially against godly men, whose lives, whose persons, whose graces should nowhere be traduced, much less upon the Stage. Men's persons are the work and image of G • d himself ; their honest callings, offices and employments, the very Ordinances of God: their graces, their holiness (to omit their credit and good names, which are better then precious ointment, yea, more desirable by far than great riches) the very beams that flow from the Sun of Righteousness : Wherefore, to personate, deride, revile, or scoff at all, or any of these, upon the Theater, must needs be sinful ; because it not only brings them into contempt and scorn, but also offers open indignity to God himself, from whom they issue.

The Minor is abundantly evident. First, by the express testimony of profane Author • : It is storied of Aristophanes, that scurrilous carping Comaedian, that he personally traduced and abused virtuous • Socrates on the Stage, by the instigation of some lewd Athenians • who maligned him for his resplendent virtues; accusing him both for a trifler, an Atheist, who did neither know nor reverence the gods; of purpose to bring him into derision with the people. Eupolis the Comaedian, did the like to that famous Graecian Worthy, Alcebiades, for which he commanded him to be drowned in the Sea. Aristotle writes of Comaedians, that they are wholly occupied in surveying, in deriding the vices of other men, which they proclaim upon the Stage, whence he ranks them in the number of traducers, and evil • speakers. Isocrates blames the Athenians much, for preferring Comaedians who did nothing but carpe at them, and blaze abroad their vices to their infamy, before such who best deserved at their hands. Diogenianus in Plutarch, reputes it an unbefitting thing, to entertain Players, or their Comedies at any solemn Feasts; because their virulent invectives, scoffs, and jests, would occasion sudry quarrels and debates. The Lacedamonians banished all Stage-plays, Players, and Play-Poets, out of their Territories; because they could not endure to hear their laws carped at, or spoken against in jest or earnest. Tiberius exiled all Stage-players out of Italy, by reason of those many commotions which their insolent personal invective Plays occasioned. To pass by that famous Gracian P • ricles, who was oft times personated and traduced on the Theater: Dionysius Ha •• icarnasseus describing the ancient Interludes of the Romans, records: that Cavillatorie and satyricall Plays were of old received among the Romans: in which Plays it was lawful for the Actors to cast Iambickes, scoffs and floutes upon the most illustrious persons, yea, upon the Emperors themselves: as it was lawful heretofore among the Athenians, for those who accompanied their Triumphes and Shewes in Wagons, to scoff at any they met withal, which liberty of • c • f • ing, (as Ovid testifies) was likewise used in the Floralian Stage-Plays. So that invective Plays were common, both with the Romans and Athenians. Athenaeus Records: That Comaedians abound in personal scoffs, reproaches, taunts; which are frequent in the Comaedies of Aristophanes: Yea, Horace the Poet, is very copious in describing the personal invectives of Plays in former times, especially the Fescennia, and the ancient Comedy, which spared neither friends nor foes; whose personal invectives grew so excessive, so odious and intolerable, that the Romans enacted a Law against them, to suppress their vile abuses • n this kind. This concurrent testimony then of Pagan Authors, is a sufficient justification of my Minors truth. Secondly, as these heathen Writers, even so the Fathers, with sundry ancient and moderne Authors do positively affirm the truth of this assumption. Witness Philo Judaeus, his punctual testimony, De vit • Contemplativa; page 1209. Clemens Alexandrinus Oratio Adhortatoria ad Gentes, fol. 8, 9. Tatianus Oratio adversus Graecos, Bibl. Patr • m Tom. 2. p. 180.181. Tertullian De spectaculis cap. 15, 16. Cyprian Epist. lib. 2. Epist. 2. Donato, & de Spectaculis lib. Arnobius adversus Gentes. lib. 4. p. 149.150. & lib. 7. p. 230. to 242. Jerome. Epist. 4. cap. 2. Ambrose De officijs, lib. 1. cap. 23. Chrysostom homil. 38. in Matth. Nazianzen. Oratio 48. p. 792. D. 797. D. Augustine De Civitate Dei lib. 2. cap. 4.5. and 9. and • Sancti Valeriani homilia 6. De otiosis verbis, Bibliotheca Patrum: Tom. 5. pars 3. p. 482.583. Ludovicus Vives, Notae in August. De Civit. Dei. lib. 2. cap. 4.5.8.9. Bulli • gerus De Theatro lib. 1. cap. 9.10. and 58. Gosson in his Plays confuted, Action 2. The third Blast of Retrait from Plays and Theaters, p. 116.117. Doctor John Whites Sermon at Paul's Cross, March 24. 1615. section 11. (to which I may add • our own Statutes of 1. Edw. 6. chapter 1. of 2. and 3. Edw. 6. chap • er 1. of 1. Eliz. chapter 2. which precisely prohibit the satyricall depravi • g, traducing, or derogation of the Common Prayer-Book, and of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in any Interludes, Plays or Rimes, (in which kind Plays had been formerly peccant) und • r severe penalties. ) All these, I say, with sundry others which I pretermit, expr • sly tax • , yea, utterly condemn all Plays, in regard of these their personal invectives against particular persons, functions, offices, callings, and the like, concurring fully in my Minors truth.

But to pass by Authorities, our own particular experience, is a thou • and witnesses to this Assumption. Survay we all our moderne Stageplayes with an impartial eye, There is hardly one of them among an hundred, wherein Religion or religious men, or some • particular persons, offic • rs, callings, professions, are not notoriously, satyrically derided, personated, traduced, defamed, by such who neither consider nor bewail their own iniquities, whiles they curiously survey, and maliciously divulge the faults of others. Not to particularize those late new scandalous invective Plays, wherein sundry persons of place and eminence have been particularly personated, jeered, abused in a gross and scurrilous manner; the frequent scoffs, reproaches, scandals, Satyrs, and disgraceful passages that are darted out in Stageplayes, against Ministers, Lawyers, Courteours, Physicians, Merchants, Citizens, Tradesmen of all sorts; against Judges, Iu • tices, Mayors, and such like Officers; but especially against all zealous practical professors of Religion, who seldom scape the Players lash : (by means of which, both Governors, Government, Religion, and Devotion are brought into contempt • ) do abundantly confirm the Satirical invectivenesse of Stageplayes. Which vicious quality is sufficient to make them odious unto Christians.

Objection. If any here object in defense of Stage-plays; that they inveigh not against particular persons, offic • rs, or professions; but only against their vices; which is not only law • ull, but useful, but commendable.

Answer. To this I answer. First, that the Objection it self is merely false; since not only Cyprian, and the fore-quoted Authors, but even Players and Play-haunters themselves can testify, that all sorts of persons, of professors are abus • d often on the Stage: their virtues, their graces being there more frequently censured, derided, traduced, then their vices. Secondly, admit the Objection true; yet for Players to censure, to proclaim men's vices or abuses on the Theater, must needs be sinful. First, because they have no authentic commission, either from God or man to do it. For though every private man may secretly admonish or reprove another for his sins, as opportunity shall require: yet none must publicly censure sins or sinners, but Magistrates, Ministers, and such like public persons, who are deputed by God himself to this very office ; upon which no common • Players must encroach. Secondly, because Players are of all others, the unmeetest pers • ns to reprove men's vices. He, who will effectually rebuke the sins, the enormities of other men, must be • ree from open crimes himself ; else his reproofs will wa • t authority, and rather exasperate or encourage the reproved in their sinful courses, then reclaim them from them. Now Players are commonly the most criminous and enormious persons of all others, being for the most part deeply guilty of all those vices, those abuses which they condemn in any: Therefore their reproofs are vain and fruitless. Thirdly, because Players are always peccant in the manner of their reproofs. He, who reprehends another's faults in a lawful Christian way, must be sure to observe these circumstances. First, he must do it with the spirit of m •• kenesse, of compassion, without wrath or passion. Secondly, he must do it with discretion, in a decent, and prudent manner ; having a due respect both to the person, time, and place, to the vice or fault reproved. Thirdly, he must do it out of conscience, love, and friendship: with an unfeigned desire to reform the persons, the vices reprehended; not to vent his own private spleen, • r to disgrace the party rebuked. Fourthly, he must openly reprove the delinquents to their faces, that so they may take notice of their vices to reform them: not covertly behind their backs, for this is mere detraction, not reproof : A publication of men's vices unto others to their great disgrace; not a discovery of them to themselves for their amendment. Now our Vice-censuring, Sin-proclaiming Actors, ( who commonly discover, but not correct their own enormities, whiles they display and censure others, which makes them truly miserable ) transgress in all these circumstances. Their reproofs are always satyricall, edged with private malice, or pointed with revenge: they are never serious, seasonable, private, discreet: their aim is only men's defamation, not their reformation : sin • e they proclai • e men's vices unto others, not lay them open to themselves: they dare not look the delinque • ts in the face, but are always clamouring behind their backs: their rebukes proceed not from true Christian love, which delights to cover, not propalate and divulge menssinnes: therefore they must needs be evil. Fourthly, (as a reverend worthy of our Church observes ) there is nothing more dangerous in a state, then for the Stage and Poet to deride sin, which by the Bishops and Pastors of the Church is gravely and severely to be reproved; because it causeth Magistrates, Ministers, and State • men to lose their reputation, and sin to be less feared. Lastly, admit that Players had sufficient authority to censure the vices, the abuses of particular persons, o • ficers, and professions (which I cannot believe they have, till they can show me an act of State, or a Commission for it in the Scripture,) yet this is infallible, that they ought not to receive or raise an ill report of any: to deride or scoff at any man's vices, and so to make a mock of sin, or to speak evil of any one, as they do: since God himself prohibites it, since Michael the Archangel, (whose example all mu • t imitate) disputing with the Devil about the body of Moses, durst not bring any railing accusation against him, but said; The Lord rebuke thee: yet our desperate wicked Players ( who in this are worthy the severest penalty, that • eing so superlatively vicious thenselves, they dare presume to censure others ) to testify to the world, that they are within the number of these scoffers, and dispisers of those who are good, which are prophesied of in the latter times ; dare open their black infernal mouths, in bitter invective Interludes, against all gr • ce and goodness; against the very prof • ssion and professors of Religion; against all qualities, callings and degrees • f men, scarce glancing lightly at their vices. Therefore their Plays must needs be inexcusably sinful, even in this respect.

SCENA SEPTIMA.

LAstly, admit the style or subject matter of Stage-plays be no ways such, as I have •••• erto demonstrated it to be; yet at the very best it is but idle, frothy, superfluous, unprofitable; as vain, as e • pty, as vanity it self. From whence I raise this eleventh dispute.

The Major is uncontrollable; since God himself inhibits Christians, to utter vain knowledge; to reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches which will do no good, to walk in vanity, or things that will not profit; and to follow after vain things which will not profit, because they are but vain. Christians must not lay out their money for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which satisfieth not, • hey must not delight in vanity, or in things that increase, vanity, and make not man the better ; but they must pray with David; Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity: since the Scripture is express; that the speaking, loving, or lifting up of the soul to vanity, folly, and unprofitable things, is an undoubted character of such wicked men, who shall not ascend into God's holy hill ; not any property of God's children: Who as they must abandon all idle, fabulous, unprofitable discourses; Because that for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account at the day of judgment : so they must likewise direct even all their actions, speeches, recreations to God's glory; the edification of others, and their own spiritual good ; to which Stage-plays, no ways tend. Therefore the Major is vnquesti • nable.

For the Minor; Th •• the style and subject matter of Stage-plays is in its very best acception, but vain, but frivolous and ridiculous, bringing no glory at all to God, nor good to men: is most apparent. First, by the concurring testimony of sundry Fathers, and other learned Writers, Hence Hilary, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bruno and others, in their Commentaries and expositions on the 118. alias the 119. Psalm verse 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity : together with John Salisbury, lib. 1. De Nugis Curialium, cap. 8. Master Gosson, Doctor Reinolds, Master Northbrooke, and others in their Treatises against Stage-plays ; interpret this vanity in the Psalmist. of Stage-plays, and such like spectacles, which they condeme as vanity. Hence Clemens Alexandrinus writes of plays; that they are fraught with obscene and vain speeches, rashly uttered: Hence Gregory Nazianzen stiles Plays; the vanities of life, and the hydra of pleasures. Hence Chrysostom writes of Plays: that they are fraught with laughter, wantonness, and words • ull of folly and vanity. Hence Anastatius Sianita writes of the Severiani: That their positions were more ridiculous, absurd and foolish, then those things that are acted in any Stage-plays. Hence Bernard writes, That the true soldiers of Christ, reject and abominate Players and Stage-plays, as vanities and false frenzies. Hence John Salisbury stiles Plays, the spectacles and rudiments of vanity. Hence Cyprian, Lactantius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, Basil, Salvian, Macarius AEgyptius, and others, formerly quoted, have utterly condemned Stage-plays, as the very pomps and vanites of this wicked world, which Christians have abjured in their Baptism. If then we believe these several Fathers, together with Plautus, Maecrobius, Apuleius, three Heathen Authors; or Master Gosson, Master Northbrooke, Master Stub • , and Doctor Reinolds, in their books against Stage-plays : or the third Blast against Stage-plays and Theaters, together with Caesar Bulingerus De Theatro, lib. 1. cap. 11. de Ludis p. 141. We must needs acknowledge, both Plays themselves, together with their style and subject matter, to be mere idle useless vanities ; Since all these repute and style them such.

Secondly, our own experience, will readily subscribe unto it as an undoubted truth. For what are all our Stage-plays, but the frothy excrements of superfluous idle brains; which being impregnated with some swelling words, or high-towering conceited plots of vanity, (which they secretly adore with highest admiration, as being worthy the most suparlative Stage-applause, ) do travel in pain until they have brought forth their long-conceived issues on the Theater, w ^ch prove but ridiculously vain at best? Wha • are they, but mere miscelanies of over-studied, well-expressed vanities? Their subject, their action, their circumstances; what else are they but vanity of vanities, but ridiculous follies or frenzies in the highest degree, unworthy of a wise-man's sight, much less his approbation? Their Actors, their ordinary Spectators, what are they but ridiculous, foolish, vain, fantasticke persons, who delight in nothing more then toys and vanities? Their very fruits, their ends, what are they else, but either the nourishing, or the increase of sin and vanity? If we survey the good, the profit which accrues from Stage-plays, we shall find, that they are good for naught; that they bring no glory at all to God, no benefit, no comfort unto men; therefore they must needs be vain. If we respect God's glory; where shall we find God more dishonored, more provoked then in Stage-plays? which had the Devil himself for their author, subject, and composer, who proves sometimes their Actor too. Where are God's Name, his Word, his Attributes, his Ministers, his Saints, his Substitutes, his Children, his Wor • hip, his Graces, more blasphemed, profaned, traduced, or derided, then in Stage-plays? Where is God more offended, more affronted with swarms of crying sins, then in the Play-house? And how can it be otherwise? We know it was the received opinion of the ancient Pagans; that their Devil-Idols (to whose solemn honor and worship, all Stage-plays were at first devoted) were so well pleased with these Theatricall Interludes, that if they did but honor and adore them with them, they would forthwith pardon, yea, forget their sins against them, and of enemies, become propitious, kind, and friendly to them. And can any Christian then conceive such base conceits of God, or so far derogate from his Majesty, his purity, his Deity, as to deem him honored or delighted, not grieved, not offended with such Stage-plays wherewith Devil-Idols were atoned ? Doubtless, that which the Devil himself hath invented, appropriated to his own honor and advantage, can never bring any praise or glory unto God: therefore our Stage-plays cannot do it. If we reflect upon the good they bring to men, alas, what is it? Where do they suck in more poison, more corruption; where do they mere blunt their virtues, or make greater shipwreck of all their Christian graces, then a • Stage-plays, the grand-empoysoners of men's souls? I have known, heard, and read of thousands, who have wracked their credits, their estates, their virtues, yea, their very bodies and souls at Plays, at Play-houses: but never could I yet hear or read of any who have been meliorated or reclaimed by them. I have read of sundry pestiserous • ff • cts, and sinful fruits of Stage-plays, of which you shall hear at large hereafter : but never could I find in all the Fathers, in any mod • rne Writers, so much as any one necessary virtue, grace or real benefit that hath resulted from them. I have read of divers Republics, Emperors, Magistrates, and Authors of all sorts, who have suppressed Stage-plays, as intolerable evils in a Christian or well-ordered Commonwealth; they being the Seminaries of all kind of vices; the chief corrupters of men's minds and manners: But never could I meet with any, who affirmed them to be good or use • ull in a State. Since therefore it is evide • t by all the premises; that Stage-plays in their best condition, are but mere Nugatorie, ridiculous, superf • uous van ties, which lead • to serious evils ; and bring no glory at all to God, nor good to men; we may conclude them to be not only incongruous, but unlawful unto Christians, who must not cast their eyes upon the vanities of this wicked world, since Christ himself hath crucified them in his flesh, that we forever might abandon them.

You have seen now, Christian Readers, the common style and subject matter of popular Stage-plays, and I dare confidently aver, that there is scarce one Stage-play this day acted (our moderne Plays being far more lewd then those of former times. ) whose subject, parts and pass • ges are not reducible to all, to some, or one at least of these recited particulars: therefore we must needs pass sentence of condemnation against them, even in this respect.

ACTVS 4.