The Players Scourge

SCENA QVARTA.

THE fourth Objection for the lawfulness of Plays is this: That they are ancient, and of long continuance, that they are tolerated still among us; that many, yea most frequent them, approve them in their judgments; therefore they are certainly lawful.

To this I answer first; That the long continuance and antiquity of Stageplayes is no good argument of their goodness. The Devil and sin are of greater antiquity and continuance than Stage-plays; yet their antiquity makes neither of them good: yea both of them are therefore the worse, because they are so ancient ; and so are Plays. Ill things the elder they are the worse. Secondly, though Plays are ancient, yet their [ 2] original is known what it was, it was from their Father the Devil, and idolatrous Pagans: and that which had so bad a beginning, will hardly contract any real goodness by any effluxe of time. Thirdly, though they were ancient and of long continuance among heathen Greeks and Romans, yet they are but of punic standing among Christians, the primitive Church and Christians wholly abandoning and never admitting them, as I have largely proved. Fourthly, though they have long continued, yet their persciption hath been oft interrupted, and themselves suppressed as well by Pagans as Christians: yea the very best and chiefest of Pagans, of Christians have always constantly oppugned them from their very infancy till this present, as most pernicious evils, as I have largely proved. Their antiquity therefore is only an argument of their long-continued, long-oppugned lewdness, no proof at all of their present goodness.

Secondly I answer. That their toleration is a strong evidence of their mischievous naughtiness: since good and profitable things are always approved, established, and naught but ill things tolerated or connived at, which are to be removed: But admit they are thus tolerated, yet their toleration makes them not good or lawful in themselves. We know, that usury is permitted by the laws and State ; yet it remains a sin still: We know, that many wicked men and notorious malefactors are tolerated for a time; and that not only by men, but even by God himself, who is patient and longsuffering towards sinners: and yet they are not therefore good, but bad men still; and so much the worse, by how much the longer they are forborne. The toleration therefore of Stage-plays will not evince their goodness: the rather, because though they are connived at de facto, yet they are long since condemned de jure by our Laws, our Statutes, our Magistrates, and Writers, as unlawful pastimes: their toleration therefore is no better an evidence of their lawfulness, than a reprive or pardon of a condemned traitors innocence: which are only arguments of a Princes l • nity, but infallible testimonies of the traitors guilt. That Plays, that Players are suffered still, (as too many other condemned sins & mischiefs are) it is only the fault of Magistrates, who may, who should suppress them, not of our Laws, which are most severe against them.

Thirdly, for the multitude of Play-haunters, and Play-approvers, I answer; first, that it is no argument of their goodness, but of their badness rather; since multitude, for the most part is an infallible sign of the worser, not of the better part; of the broad way [ 3] which leads to destruction, where the passengers are always many; not of the narrow way that leads to eternal life, which few ever find, and fewer walk in. If multitude were an argument of goodness, then Pagans and Mohammedans should be as good, nay better than Christians; Papists, better than Protestants • drunkards and wicked men, better than sober and good men, because they are more in number than they: yea then the world the flesh and the Devil should be good, yea as good or better than God himself, because more follow them, serve them, than there • follow God. The multitude therefore of Play-haunters, of Play-patrons is no convincing evidence of their goodness. Secondly, we must not judge of the lawfulness of unlawfu • l things by the most, but by the best of men: now the best, the wisest of men, as I have largely proved, have always condemned Stage-plays, no matter therefore what the multitudes judgment or practice is, whom we must not follow to do evil. Thirdly, Christians are not to walk or judge by examples, but by precepts; the word of God, not the actions or lives of men, must be the only rule both of their practice and their judgments too. Now the Scripture, (yea the whole Church of God from age to age ) have passed sentence against Stage-plays, as unlawful pastimes: no matter therefore what the world esteems them. Fourthly, for those who approve of Stage-plays or resort unto them, what are they? Children, youngsters, ignorant injudicious persons who know not how to distinguish between good and evil, judging only of the goodness of things by sense, by pleasure, by the opinion and practice of others, or as they are swayed by their u • ruly lusts, not by right reason or the word of God: or else they are graceless, dissolute, profane, lascivious, godless persons, (as most Players, Play-haunters, and Play-proctors are ) who call good evil, and evil good: who count sin their honor, sobriety, modesty, and true piety, their shame: judging amiss of God, of grace, of holiness, of all kind of goodness and good men: no matter therefore, what these judge of Stage-plays, who thus misjudge of all things. Let us therefore judge of Stage-plays with righteous judgment, as God, as Christians, as the prim • tive Church • as Councils, Fathers, and the best, the wisest of Christian, of Pagan Emperors, Magistrates, Republickes, Philosophers, and Writers of all sorts have already determined of them to our hands; and then we must certainly condemn them, as most intolerable and unchristian pleasures; as all these have done.

SCENA QVINTA.

THE fifth Allegation in the behalf of Stage-plays is this: That there is much good history, many grave sentences, much good council; much poetry, eloquence, oratory, invention, wit, and learning in them. Therefore they must certainly be very good and commendable recreations.

To this I answer first: that it is true, there is in many Stage-plays many commendable parts of history, poetry, invention, rhetoric, art, wit, learning; together with much good language, and some sage Counsel too, all which are good and useful in themselves; but yet there is so much obscenity, scurrility and lewdness mixed with them, like deadly poison in a sugared potion, that these very good things make the Plays far worse. The stronger the wine, the better, the sweeter the conserves wherewith poison is contemperated, the more deadly, the more dangerously it works; the deeper it sinks into the veins, and the more greedily and insensibly it is swallowed down. So the more witty, the more eloquent and rhetorical the Plays, the more imperceptibly, the more perniciously & abundantly diffuse they their vices, their obscenities, & poisonful corruptions into the ears and hearts of the Spectators. It is a true saying of judicious Augustine, That evil things elegantly expressed are most pernicious: whence Lactantius affirms; that the heathen Philosophers, Orators and Poets were most hurtful in this, that they did easily entangle unwary minds with the sweetness of their words, and the harmony of their smooth-running verses, which were but as honey covering poison. The more elegant and witty therefore the Plays, the more dangerous and destructive are they, as the Fathers teach us; there being nothing else but poison under the honey of art and eloquence. Secondly, the reason why there is so much history, poetry, sweetness, wit and curious language in our Stage-plays, is only to conceal their venom, their contagion, that so the auditors, the spectators may swallow it down with greater greediness, and less suspicion. Nulla aconita bibuntur fictilibus: the Devil and his accursed instruments know full well, that poisoned potions must be infused not into earthen, but into golden Cuppes ; that venomous pills must not be tempered with gall or colloquint, but with honey, sweet-meats, or the most luscious conserves, else none will swallow or quaffe them down: wherefore they temper, they guild over their venomous obscenities and Stage-corruptions (which if they came naked on the Stage without these trappings, would be so bitter, so foul and desperately obscene that few Christians could digest them ) with these specious outsides, these luscious conserves of wit, of eloquence, invention, learning, history, and the like, that so they may the better countenance, shroud and vent them to the hurt of others. What Gregory the Great writes of Heretics: Habent hoc haeretici proprium, ut malis bona permisc • ant, quatenus facile sensus audientis illudant. Si enim semper prava discerent citius in sua pravitate cogniti, quod vellent, minime persuaderent. Ita permiscent recta perversis, ut ostendendo bona auditors ad se trahant; et exhibendo mala, latenti eos peste corrumpant. Or what Faustus Rhegiensis writes of the Devil and malicious poysoners. Diabolus calliditate veteris artificij ac multiformis ingenij, condit blandimenta peccandi. Sic etiam malefici facere solent qui mortiferos herbarum temperant succos in condito aut aliquo dulci poculo nescientibus propinaturi, gustum mentita suavitate componunt, virus amaritudinis obscurant fraud dulcedinis. Provocat primus odor poculi, sed praefocat inclusus sapor veneni. Mel est quod ascendit in labia, fell est quod descendit in viscera. Or what Vincentius Lerinensis writes of Heretics: Faciunt quod hi solent qui parvulis austera quaedam temperaturi pocula, prius ora melle circumli • unt; ut incauta aetas cum dulcedinem praesenserit, amaritudinem non reformidet: Quod etiam ijs curae est, qui mala gramina, et noxios succos, medicaminum vocabulis praecolerant, ut nemo fere ubi supra-scriptum legerit remedium, suspicetur venenum. The same may I truly write of Play-poets and Actors. They cover and sweeten over their poison, their corruption with eloquence, art and witty inventions, that so they may have the freer vent; and temper their evil with some shows of good, that so it may more easily circumvent the Auditors, and find freer entrance into their souls. This Cyprian, this Tertullian, Salvian, with other Fathers, together with Didacus de Tapia, and sundry moderne Authors testify: hear but Tertullian for them all, who writes thus of the pleasure, the eloquence and good ingredients that are oft in Plays. Nemo venenum temper at felle et hellebora, sed conditis pulmentis et been saporatis, et plurimum dulcibus id mali injicit. Ita diabolus letale quo conficit, rebus Dei gratissimis ac acceptissimis imbuit. Omnia itaque illic (speaking of the Theatre) seu fortia, seu honesta, seu sonora, seu canora, seu subtilia proinde habe ac si stillicidia mellis de libalun • ulo venenato; nec tanti gulam facias voluptatis, quanti periculum. All the eloquence and sweetness therefore that is in Stage-plays, is but like the drops of honey out of a poisoned limbecke, which please the palate only, but destroy the man that tastes them. So that I may well compare our Stage-plays to Apothecaries Gallie-pots: Quorum tituli habent remedia, pyxides venena: which have glorious soothing titles without, but poisons only within. Thirdly, though all these good things are in Stage-plays now and then, yet they are there only as good things perverted, which prove worst of any. Nothing is there so pernicious as good parts, or a good wit abused: as wit, art, eloquence and learning cast away upon an amorous, profane, obscene lascivious subject; on which whiles many out of a vain-glorious humor have spent the very cream and flower of their admired parts, I may truly affirm with Salvian, Non tam illustrasse mihi ipsa ingenia, quàm damnasse videantur: they seem to me not so much to have illustrated as damned their much applauded wits and parts, in being acutely elegant in such unworthy sordid theames, which modest e • es would blush to read, and chaste tender consciences bleed to thin • e of. As therefore Ovid's transcendent poetry, Martials profane and scurrilous pande • lie wit, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius their eloquence, made their obscene lascivious poëms far more pernicious, not more chaste and commendable; so the elegancy, invention, style and phrase of Stage-plays, is only an argument of their greater lewdness, not any probate of their real goodness. What therefore Vincentius Lerinensis writes of Origen and Tertullian, that their transcendent abilities of eloquence, learning and acuteness, made their erroneous Tenants far more dangerous: the same we may conclude of Plays and Poets; the more witty and sublime their style or matter, the more pernicious their fruits: for then,

We drink down deadly poison in a honey potion; which proves honey only in the palate, but gall in the bowels, death in the heart; as the most delightful amorous Stage-plays always do.

SCENA SEXTA.

THE 6. Objection in the defense of Stage-plays is this; which is as common as it is profane: That Stage-plays are as good as Sermons; and that many learn as much good at a Play as at a Sermon: therefore they cannot be ill.

To this I shall answer first in the words of Mr. Philip Stubs, and of I. G. in his Refutation of the Apology for Actors, p. 61. Oh blasphemy intolerable! Are obscene Plays and filthy Interludes comparable to the word of God the food of life, and life it self? It is all one as if they had said; Baudry, Heathenry, Paganism, Scurrilitie and Divelry it self is equal with God's word: or that Satan is equipollent with the Lord. God hath ordained his word, and made it the ordinary means of our salvation: the Devil hath inferred the other as the ordinary means of our destruction. God hath set his holy word and Ministers to instruct us in the way of life; the Devil instituted Plays and Actors to seduce us into the way of death. And will they yet compare the one with the other? If he be accursed, that calleth light darkness and darkness light; truth falsehood, and falsehood truth; then à fortiori • is he accursed that saith, Plays and Interludes are equivalent with Sermons, or compareth Comedies & Tragedies with the word of God; whereas there is no mischief, almost, which they maintain not. Thus they. But if Stage-plays be as good as Sermons (as many profane ones, who hear and read more Plays than Sermons, deem them;) then Players certainly by the selfsame argument, are as good as Preachers: and if this be so, what difference between Christ and Belial, Play-houses and Churches, Ministers and Actors? yea why then do we not erect new Theaters in every Parish, or turn our Churches into Play-houses, our Preachers into Actors, since they are thus parallels in their goodness? But what prodigious and more than stygean profaneness is there in this comparison? Who ever paralleled hell with heaven, vice with virtue, darkness with light, Devils with Angels, dirt with gold? yet there is as great a disparity in goodness between Plays and Sermons, as there is in these; the one being evermore reputed the chiefest happiness, the other the greatest mischief in any Christian State. But this part of the objection is too gross to confute, since the very naming of it is a sufficient refutation. I come therefore to the second clause: That many learn as much good at Plays, as at Sermons. And I believe it too; for had they ever learned any good at Sermons, (which would be altogether needles, if so much goodness as is objected might be learned from Plays) they would certainly have learned this among the rest, never to resort to Stage-plays. The truth then is this; most Play-haunters learn no good at all at Sermons; not because Sermons have no goodness for to teach them, but because they are unapt to learn it: partly, because they seldom frequent Sermons, at leastwise not so oft as Plays: partly, because their ears are so dull of hearing, and their minds so taken up with Play-house contemplations whiles they are at Church, that they mind not seriously what they hear: partly because the evil which they learn at Plays, overcomes the good they learn at Sermons, and will not suffer it to take root within them: and partly, because Plays and Sermons are so incompatible, that it is almost impossible for any man to receive any good at all from Sermons, whiles he is a resorter unto Stageplayes: Well therefore may they learn as much goodness from Plays as Sermons, because they never learned ought from either, but much hurt from both, the very word of God being a stumbling block, a means of greater condemnation, yea a savor of death unto death to such unprofitable hearers who reap no grace nor goodness from it. But to pass by this, if there be so much goodness learned from Plays, I pray inform me who do learn it. If any, then either the Actors or Spectators: For the Actors, their goodness verily is so little, that it is altogether to be learnt as yet; and if ever they chance to attain the smallest dram of grace (as they are never like to do whiles they continue Players) it must be then from Sermons only, not from Plays, which make them every day worse and worse, but cannot possibly make them better. For the Spectators, they can learn no good at all from Plays, because (as Isiodor Pelusiota long since resolved it) Players and Stageplayes can teach thē none. Never heard or read I yet of any whom Stage-plays meliorated or taught any good: all they can teach them, all they learn from th • m is but some scurrill jests, some witty obscenities, some ribaldry ditties, some amorous wanton complements, some fantastique fashions, some brothel-house Courtshippe to woo a strumpet, or to court a whore: these are the best lessons these schools of vice and lewdness teach, or these their scholars learn: I shall therefore close up this objection with that of Mr. Stubs and I. G. in their forequoted places. If you will learn to do any evil, skillfully, cunningly, covertly or artificially, you need go no other where than to the Theatre. If you will learn falsehood, cozenage, indirect dealing • if you will learn to deceive, to play the hypocrite, sycophant, parasite and flatterer: if you will learn to cogge, lie and falsify; to jest, laugh, and fleere; to grin, nodde, and mow; to play the vice, to curse, swear, tear, and blaspheme both heaven and earth in all kinds and diversities of oaths: if you will learn to play the bawd or curtesan; to pollute yourself, to devirginate maids, to deflowre wives, or to ravish widows by enticing them to lust: if you will learn to drabbe and stab, to murder, kill and slay; to pick, steal, rob and rove: if you will learn to rebel against Princes, closely to carry treasons, to consume treasures, to practice idleness, to sing and talk of filthy love and venery; to deride, quippe, scorn, scoff, mock and float; to flatter and smooth: to play the Devil, the swaggerer, the whoremaster, the glutton, the drunkard, the injurious or incestuous person; if you will learn to become proud, haughty and arrogant: Finally, if you will learn to contemn God and all his laws, to care neither for heaven nor hell, and to commit all kind of sin and mischief with secrecy and art, you need not go to any other schools: for all these good examples may you see painted before your eyes in Interludes and Plays. These, and these only are the great good instructions that either Actours or Spectatours learn from Stage-plays; which make them fit scholars only for the Devil, and train them up for hell, where all Play-house goodness (unless God grants mercy and sincere repentance) ever ends.

SCENA SEPTIMA.

TO pass by other Objections in the defense of Stage-plays; as namely, that they reprehend sin and vice; that they inveigh against the corruptions and corrupt ones of the times; that they remunerate and applaud virtue, and sharply censure vice: that their abuses, their exces • es may be regulated, and themselves reduced to a good decorum: therefore they are lawful: which Objections I have answered by the way before: viz. at pag. 34. to 42. p. 96. to 106. & p. 124. to 127. The grand Objection of our present dissolute times for the justification of these Plays is this; That none but a company of Puritans and Precisians speak against them; all else applaud and eke frequent them; therefore cetainly they are very good recreations, since none but Puritans disaffect them.

To this I answer, that the objection is as false as frivolous: For first, I have already fully manifested, that many Heathen States and Emperors, and among the rest, Tiberius, Nero, and Julian the Apostate, (who were as far from Puritanism, as the deboisest Anti-puritans, the most dissolute Players or Play-patrons this day living) have condemned, suppressed Plays and Players: Besides, I have largely proved, that not only Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and other heathen Philosophers; but even Horace, Juvenal, nay Ovid and Propertius, (the most lascivious heathen Poets, who were as far from Puritans, as they were from Christians) have declaimed against Stage-plays. And is not this then a notorious falsehood? that none but Puritans condemn Stage-plays. Were Tiberius, Nero, Julian, Aristotle, Tibullus, Ovid, (think you) Puritans? Were all those fore-quoted Pagans, who censured and suppressed Stage plays Puritans? If these be now turned Puritans in the Objectors phrase, I pray what manner of Christians (I dare not say incarnate Devils) are those persons, who thus tax these dissolute Pagans for puritanicalll Precisians? certainly if they are somewhat better than infernal Fiends, yet they are by many degrees worse than the very worst of all these Pagans ; who by their own confessions, are Saints, are Puritans in respect of them. O then the stupendous wickedness! the unparalleled profaneness of our graceless times! when Christians are not afraid, ashamed to profess themselves more desperately vicious, lascivious, and deboist, than the very worst of Pagans, whom they thus honor with the style of Puritans • because they are more virtuous, less vicious than themselves! Certainly if atheistical profaneness, and infernal lewdness increase but a little more among us, as it is very like if Stage-plays still continue, I am afraid these O • jectors will grow to that excess of wickedness ere long • that the Devil himself, (nay, Beelzebub the very Prince of Devils ) shall be canonized by them for a Puritan, because he equals them not in wickedness. Let these Play-patrons therefore, either waive this false Objection, or else confess these very heathen Puritans (as they deem them) to be much better, much worthier of the name of Christians, than themselves.

Secondly, I have infallibly manifested; That the whole primitive Church both under the Law and Gospel, together with all the primitive Christians, Fathers and Councils have most abundantly censured and condemned Plays and Players in the very highest degree of opposition. And were the primitive Church and Christians, the Fathers, or Bishops who were present at these Councils, Puritans? If not: then the objection is false. If Puritans; then Puritans are no such Novellers, or new upstart humorists as the world reputes them: yea then they are in truth no other, but the true Saints of God, the undoubted successors of the primitive Church and Christians, whose doctrine, discipline • graces, manners they only practice and maintain. And indeed if the truth of things be well examined, we may easily prove the Fathers, the primitive Church and Christians, (yea Christ himself, his Prophets and Apostles) Puritans, if that which brands men now for Puritans in profane ones censures, may descide this Controversy. To instance in some few particulars. One grand badge of a Puritan is (as the objection testifieth) to condemn Stage-plays, Players and Play-haunters, and wholly to renounce these Pompes of the Devil: But this the Apostles, the Fathers, the primitive Councils, Church and Christians did, as I have plentifully manifested, this being the most notorious character of a faithful Christian, to abstain from Stage-plays. By this badge therefore they are arrant Puritans. To condemn effeminate mixed dancing, lasciviousness, and diceplay ; together with health-drinking, drunkenness, deboistnesse, roaring, whoring, ribaldry, obscene or amorous songs and jests, and naked filthy lust provoking pictures, are now chief Symptoms of a notorious Puritan: but Christ, his Prophets and Apostles, together with all the primitive Churches, Christians, Fathers, Councils have condemned all and each of these with an unanimous consent: therefore they are arrant Puritans. To speak or write against men's wearing of perewigges, Love-lock • s, and long hair, together with the effeminate frizling, pouldring, and accurate nice composing of it: to declaim against our whorish females frizling, broydring, pouldring, dying, plaiting, with their late impudent mannish, that I say not monstrous cutting and shearing of their hair; and their false borrowed excrements: to declaim against face-painting, vain wanton complements, strange fashions, tyr • s, newfangled or overcostly apparel, are eminent characters of a branded Puritan: But Christ Jesus himself, his Prophets and Apostles, with all the primitive Churches, Councils, Fathers, Chri • tians, have earnestly spoken, written, declaimed against all & each of these lewd sinful practices. Therefore they are Puritans. To be holy in all manner of conversation even as God and Christ are holy: to live right • ously, soberly and godly in this present evil world, crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof; avoiding, detesting all sin and wickedness whatsoever in ones self and others; and shining as lights and patterns of holiness in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation • to be frequent in hearing, reading, preaching, or meditating • and discoursing of God's word: to repeat Sermons, (a duty warranted by Scripture, and much pressed by Caesarius Arelatensis, an ancient Father; to pray constantly morning and evening with ones family; to abandon all lewd places and companions, all pleasures and delights of sin, all Christmas excesses and disorders, all Pagan rites and heathenish customs ; and to make the holiest S • ints his best, his sole familiar friends, the word & service of God his chief delight: to stand for God and for his truth in evil times when they are most opposed; to live civilly and pio • sly in the midst of wicked men, and not to join with them in the same excess of sin and riot of dissoluteness and deboistnesse that they run into: to reprove or cross men in their sinful fashions, customs, disorders, lusts or courses: with sundry other particulars which I pretermit; are now infallible arguments and symptoms of a rank Puritan. But this did Christ, his Prophets and Apostles, together with all the primitive Churches, Councils, Fathers and pious Christians, as those whom the world stiles Puritans do now: therefore without all doubt they are Puritans (as Puritans are now reputed) even in the very highest degree. Yea, were our Savior Christ, St. Paul, St. John, together with all those holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Fathers, and other primitive Saints which we read of in the Scriptures, or Ecclesiastical Writers, now living here among us, I doubt not but they would all be pointed at, hissed, reviled, hated, scorned, if not persecuted, as the very Archest Puritans, for their transcendent holiness, and rebukes of sin & sinners: since those poor Saints of God, who have not attained to the moity of their transcendent grace and purity, are now styled, & pointed at for Puritans, even for that little purity and holiness which is discovered in their lives. If therefore Christ himself, his Prophets and Apostles, together with all the primitive Churches, Fathers, Councils, and Christians were Puritans, in that very sense, & on the selfsame grounds that those whom the world stiles Puritans are so named now, as I have fully manifested by the premises; and dare make good in all particulars against any Anti-puritans whatsoever; the objectors must now either disclaim their A • tecedent, (that none but Puritans condemn Stage-plays:) or in case they grant all these to be Puritans, they must now invert their rash conclusion: that Stage-plays certainly are evil, because Christ, his Prophets and Apostles, the whole primitive Church, the Fathers, Councils, and primitive Christians, (all rank Puritans) have out of their very purity and holiness condemned them long ago, and none but the very shame, the scum of Christians, or men unworthy that worthy title did anciently approve them, as I have largely evidenced, Act. 4. Scene 1, 2. Act. 6. Scene 3, 4, 5. & Act. 7. Scene 1. to 7.

Thirdly, I have manifested, that many moderne Christians, not only Protestants, but Papists too, have utterly condemned Stage-plays. And I hope all Papists (the original inventors of this style of Puritans, which they have cast on orthodox Protestants as a very Motto or by-word of disgrace,) are exempted from this number of Puritans intended in the Objection. Either Papists therefore must be Puritans, for condemning Plays, which many of the chief Objectors being Papists (as are most of all our Players) will hardly grant; or else the Objection must be false.

Fourthly, admit that none but Puritans condemn or censure Stage-plays; consider then, I pray you, with an impartial eye, what kind of persons these Play-abhorring conformable Puritans and Precisians are: Are they not the holiest, the devoutest, the eminentest and most religious gracious S • ints, who lead the strictest, purest, heavenliest, godliest lives, outstripping all others both in the outward practice, and inward power of grace? Are they not such whose piety, whose universal holiness in all companies, times and places, are an eye-sore, a life-sore, an heart-sore, yea a shame and censure unto others? Are they not such as Lactantius writes of? Sunt aliqui • ntempestive boni, qui corruptis moribus publicis convicium been vivendo faciunt. Ergo tanquam scelerum et malitiae suae testes extirpare funditus ni ••• tur et tollere; gravesque sibi putant tanquam eorum vita coarguatur. Idcirco auferantur, quibus coram vivere pudet; qui peccantium frontem etsi non verbis, qui • tacent, tamen ipso vitae genere dissimili feriunt et verberant: Ca • tigare enim videtur quicunque dissenti • . (The case of the primitive, pious Christians, amongst the dissolute vicious Ge • tiles.) And they not such who are peremptory in the co • scionable performance of every holy duty; resolute in the hatred of every customary sin, refusing to run into the same excess of wickedness, into the gross corruptions of the times, into which most men rush with greediness, as the horse into the battle? Doubtless, what ever the malice of others may conceive of them, yet they are no other but such as these, as the very fiercest Anti-puritans consciences whisper to them; qui suspectis omnibus ut improbos metuunt, etiam quos optimos sentire potuerunt. If any man doubt of this, these few experimental arguments may convince him. For first, there is never a sincere, de • out or pious Christian this day living in England, who excels in holiness of life, in integrity of con • ersation, avoiding all the corruptions that are in the world through lust; and living righteously, soberly and godly in this present evil world; refusing to conform himself to the fashions, vanities, pleasures, sins, and wicked humors of the times, (which perchance he hath too much followed heretofore before his true conversion,) but is commonly reputed, and oft times styled, a Puritan, a Precisian, and the like, be his place or condition what it will. He who hath more grace and goodness, more chastity, modesty, temperance or sobriety, more love and dread of God, more hatred of sin and wickedness; less tincture of atheism, impiety, voluptuousness and profaneness, than others among whom he lives, let him be never so just in his dealings towards men, never so conformable to the doctrine and ceremonies of the Church, is forthwith branded for a notorious Puritan and Precisian all England over; and the more eminent his graces and holiness are in the view of others, the more is he maligned, envied, hated, and the greater Puritan is he accounted, as every man's own experience can inform him • These Puritans and Precisians therefore are the best of Christians. Secondly, those who are most violently invective, and maliciously despiteful against Puritans and Precisians, both in their words and actions, are such who are unsound or popishly affected in their religion, or profane and dissolute in their lives. The most Romanized Protestants, the deboisest drunkards, the effeminatest Ru • fians, the most fantasticke apish Fashion-mongers; the lewdest whoremasters, Panders, Strumpets; the profanest Roarers, Players, Play-haunters, and Brothel-hunters; the most prodigious Swearers, Epicures, and Health-quaffers; the most graceless vicious persons of all ranks and professions; (especially temporizing, slothful, unorthodox, epicurean, Alehouse haunting, dissolute Clergy men, the greatest enemies of all others, to true grace and piety, as all ages witness;) are always the greatest railers, the fiercest enemies against Puritans and Precisians as the world now stiles them: therefore they are certainly the very best and holiest Christians, because the very worst of men (who like vicious Nero, never heartily condemn ought else, but some great good or other ) detest, revile them most. Et argumentum recti est, malis displicere, as not only Seneca, but the Scripture teacheth us. Thirdly, there is no man ever styled a Puritan or Precisian by another in scorn or contempt, as these names are now commonly used; but it is either for some evil or other that he hates, which he who stiles him so, affects; or for some grace or goodness, or some transcendent degree of holiness that is in him, which the other wants. To instance in some particulars. Let a man make conscience of drunkenness, of drinking and pledging healths, of frequenting Ale-houses, Taverns, and Tobacco-shops; and presently he is cried out upon and censured for a Puritan by all the Pot-companions, and Drunkards with whom he shall converse. Let any one refuse to follow the guise and dissolute effeminate fashions of the times; let him cry out against Love-locks and ruffianly long hair; against false hair and perewigs which our men and women now generally take up, as if they were quite ashamed of that head which God hath given them, and proud of the tire-woman's which they have dearly bought: Let any Gentlewoman of quality now refuse to cut, to poulder, frizell, and set out her hair like a lascivious courtezan, or to paint her face like some common prostituted harlot; or to follow any other amorous complements and disguises of the times, adorning her self only in modest apparel, with shamefastness, sobriety and good works, as becomes a woman professing godliness ; the only feminine ornaments that St. Paul commends: and what else shall they hear from all the Ruffians, fantastiques, and Frenchefied wanton Dames that live about them, but this opprobrious censure, that they are become professed Puritans. If any make conscience of frequenting Play-houses, Dice-houses, Whore-houses; of lascivious mixed dancing, lascivious ribaldry songs and discourses, inordinate gaming, and such other sinful pleasures which the most delight in; refusing to bear men company in these delights of sin: our Play-haunters, Dicers, Gamesters, Whoremasters, and such voluptuous persons, will presently voice them up for Puritans. Yea such is the desperate wickedness of the times, that let a man be vicious in one kind, and yet temperate in another; as let him be a Play-haunter, a gamester, and not a drunkard; a drunkard, and yet no swearer, no whoremaster, no ruffian, or the like; or let a man be vicious in diverse kinds, and yet not so bad as others of his companions, and he shall be sometimes reproached for a Puritan, because he is not so universally, so extremely wicked and deboist, as those of his companions who are far worse than he. Whence we oft times find, that such who are reputed no better than profane ones, when they are in company somewhat better than themselves; are censured for Puritans among profane ones, because they are not so immeasurably wicked as the worst of them. And as those who are not so desperately outrageous in their extravagant sinful courses as others, are thus houted at for Puritans and Precisians, by such as are lewder than themselves: so those who outstrip all others in holiness, piety and virtue, are reputed Puritans too, because they excel in goodness. For let a man be a diligent hearer and repeater of Sermons and Lectures; a constant reader and discourser of God's word ; a strict observer of the Lord's day; a lover, and companion of the holiest men ; a man that is holy and gracious in his speeches in all companies and places, desirous to sow some seeds of grace, and to plant religion where ever he comes: let him be much in prayer, in meditation, in fasting and humiliation, much grieving for his sins, and complaining of his corruptions ; let him be always hungering and thirsting after grace, and using all those means with conscionable care which may bring him safe to heaven, abandoning all those sins, those pleasures and companies which may hinder him in his progress towards heaven: Let a man be a diligent powerful soul-searching sin-reproving Minister, residing constantly upon his benefice, and preaching every Lord's-day twice: or let him be a diligent upright Magistrate, punishing drunkenness, drunkards, swearers, suppressing Ale-houses, M • y-games, Revels, dancing, and other unlawful pastimes on the Lord's day, according to his oath and duty; Let any of any profession be but a little holier or sticter than the Major part of men; and this his holiness, his forwardness in reliligion, is su • ficient warrant for all profane ones, for all who fall short of this his practical power of grace to brand and hate him for a Puritan, as every man's conscience cannot but inform him. It is manifest then by all these particular experimental instances; that those whom the world stiles Puritans and Precisians, are the very best and holiest Christians, and that they are thus ignominiously entitled, yea hated and maligned, because they are less vicious, more pious, strict and virtuous in their lives than such who call them so. Fourthly, there is no man so fierce an Antipuritan in his health and life, but desires to turn Puritan and Precisian in the extremity of his sickness and the day of death. When God sends his judgments, crosses, or tormenting mortal diseases upon such who were most bitter Satyrists against Puritans all their lives before; or when he awakens such men's consciences to see the gastly horror of their notorious sins, when they are lying perplexed on their death-beds with the fear of damnation ready to breath out their souls into hell at every gasp, they will then turn Puritans in very good earnest, desiring to die such as they would never live: yea then in such extremities as these they send for those very Puritan Ministers, whom they before abhorred to instruct, to comfort them, to pray with them, for them, and to advise them what to do that they may be saved: & however they reputed thē no better than hypocrites, fools, or distracted furious mad ones before, yet they would willingly change lives, change souls and consciences with them then, wishing with many tears and sighs that they were but such as they. This every days experience almost testifies; therefore Puritans and Precisians even in the true internal conscientiall judgment of every Anti-puritan are the most godly men. Fifthly, let a drunkard, a whoremaster, a swearer, a ruffian, or any other profane notorious wicked person be truly converted from these their sins, and unfeignedly devoted and united to the Lord so as never to return unto them more, cleaving inseparably unto him both in their hearts and lives; or let God work any such visible notorious happy change in men, as to call them out of darkness into his marvelous light, and to translate them from under the power of Satan into the kingdom of his dear Son ; and no sooner shall they be thus strangely altered from bad to good, or from good to better, but presently they are christened, as it were, with these two proverbs or reproach, and pointed at for Puritans and Precisians, as if they were now unworthy for to live because they are thus converted to the Lord. Before people turn religious and gracious, they are never pestered with these disdainful terms: but no sooner can they begin to look towards heaven, to change their vicious courses and amend their lives, but these Mottoes of contempt are cast upon them, even because they are grown better than they were before. Thus was it long ago even in Salvian his days, who thus complains. Statim ut quis melior esse tentaverit deterioris abjectione calcatur. Si fuerit sublimis, fit despicabilis; si fuerit splendidissimus, fit vilissimus: fi fuerit totus honoris, fit totus injuriae: ubi enim quis mutaverit vestem, mutavit protinus dignitatem. Perversa enim sum et in diversum cuncta mutata. Si bonus est quispiam, quasi malus spernitur: si malus est, quasi bonus honoratur. Si honoratior quispiam se religioni applicuerit, illico honoratus esse desistit, ac per hoc omnes quodammodo mali esse coguntur ne viles habeantur. Et ideo non sine causa Apostolus clamat: Seculum totum in malo positum est: et verum est • merito enim totum in malo esse dicitur, ubi boni locum habere non possunt: siquidem ita totum iniquitatibus plenum est, a • t ut mali sint, qui sunt; aut qui boni sunt malorum persecutione crucientur. And thus is it now in our days. Therefore Puritans and Precisians are undoubtedly the very primest Christians, because they are never honored with these titles till they turn better than they were at first, yea better than all those that reproach them by these names of s • orne. And here we may observe a difference between eminency in religion, and excellency in all other things besides. For let a man be exquisite in any other art or profession whatsoever, be it in Physic, Music, Law, Philosophy, or any liberal science, or mechanicke trade; yea let a man be a zealous forward Papist, Jesuit, Priest or Votary; the more eminent they are in all or any of these, the more honored, reverenced, frequented, admired, and beloved are they of all sorts of men; because they are but natural human excellencies, to which corrupt nature and the Devil have no antipathy at all. But let any man become a conscionable, zealous, sincere and forward professor of true religion, transcending others in the practical power of grace, or in the inward beauty of holiness; and the more perspicuously eminent he grows in these, the more is he commonly hated, slandered, persecuted, reviled by the tongues of wicked men, and the greater Puritan do they account him; because there is grace within him, that is diametrally contrary to their corruptions. Neither need we wonder at it: forever since God at first put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, those who have been borne after the flesh, have persecuted, slandered, abhorred those who have been borne after the spirit; and those who who are of this world, have hated such who are redeemed out of the world; there being never as yet in any age, any concord or truce between Christ and Belial, light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, Believers and Infidels; those who are upright in the way, being always an abomination to the wicked, for these very reasons only, and no other; because they follow the thing that good is, and run not with them into the same excess of riot; because their works are good, and theirs who thus revile and hate them, evil: because their lives are not like other men, and their ways are of another fashion: because they are not for wicked men's turns, and they are clean contrary to their doings, upbraiding them with their offending the Law, objecting to their infamy the transgressions of their education, and abstaining from their ways as from filthiness, testifying unto them by their holy lives, that the works they do are evil. These and no other were the true original causes of men's hatred & reproach against Christians, against Christ and his Apostles heretofore ; and of men's inveterate rancor and malicious calumnies against Puritans now, what ever men's pretences are against it, as I have more largely manifested in a precedent Treatise. If any think this strange, that men should be thus persecuted, hated, reviled, nicknamed, slandered and contemned even for their grace, their holiness, and the very practical sincere profession of religion: let them consider but these few particulars which will give them ample satisfaction in the point. First, those frequent predictions or premonitions of our Savior to all the professors of his name: That they shall be hated, persecuted, reviled of all men & Nations for his sake: that they shall separate them from their company, cast out their names as evil, & say all manner of evil against thē falsely for his names sake: that in the world they shall have tribulation, and that whosoever killeth them shall think he doth God good service. Secondly, that memorable position of St. Paul, 1 Tim. 3.11, 12. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution: for through many tribulations and afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven. Thirdly, the examples of God's Saints in all ages even from Adam to this present. If we look upon Cain and Abel, the two first-borne of the world, we shall behold graceless Cain, who was of that wicked one, slaying his righteous brother Abel: & wherefor slew he him? S. John resolves the question in these very terms, because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous: and thereupon he grounds this inference; Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. Non enim mirum est, (writes Salvian ) nunc sanctos homines quaedam aspera pati, cum videamus quod Deus etiam per maximum nefas, primum sanctorum sivit occidi. Look we upon holy King David, we shall find him thus complaining: Psal. 38.19, 20. They that hate me wrongfully are multiplied, they also that render me evil for good are my adversaries, (pray mark the only reason) because I follow the thing that good is. The Prophet Isaiah complaineth thus of his times: Isaiah 59.14, 15. Judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter: yea truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey, or is accounted mad: yea he brings in Christ himself prophetically speaking in this manner: Behold I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders even in Israel. The Prophet Amos writes thus of his age: Amos 5.8. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and abhor him that speaketh uprightly: and the Prophet Zechariah informs us, that Joshua the high Priest, and his followers that sat before him (to wit, Christ and all his followers) were men wondered at in the world, as if they were some monstrous creatures, or men besides themselves. The Prophet Daniel we know, was so unblameable in his life and actions, that his very enemies could not find any error, fault, or occasion against him, except it were concerning the law of his God, and that he made prayers and supplications before the Lord his God three times a day: and for this his piety only they procured him to be cast into the Lions den. I could instance in divers others of God's dearest Saints who were thus persecuted and maligned for their graces before our Savior's time, but that Tertullian hath long since forestalled me; whose memorable passage to this purpose I wish all Antipuritans to consider. Aprimordio justitia vim patitur: statim ut • oli Deus caepit invidiam religio sorti • a est. Qui Deo pla • uerat occiditur, et quidem à fratre, quo procliviùs impietas alie • um sanguinem sectaretur, à suo auspicata insectata est. Denique non modo justorum, verum etiam et Prophetarum: David exagitatur, Elias fugatur, Hieremias lapidatur, Isaiah secatur, Zacharias inter altare et • dem trucidatur; perennes cruoris sui maculas silicibus adsignans. Ipse clausula legis et Prophetarum, nec prophets sed Angelus dictus, contumeliosa caede truncatur in puellae salticae lucar. Et utique qui spiritu Dei ageb • ntur, ab ipso in martyria dirigebantur, etiam patiendo quae praedica • sent, &c. Talia à primordio et praecepta et exempla debitricem martyrij fidem ostendunt. If we look upon Christ and his Apostles, we shall find them hated, persecuted, slandered, reviled with opprobrious names and obloquies, being made as the very filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day ; yea we shall see them martyred and put to death for no other cause at all, but only for their grace, their holiness, their transcendent goodness, and their opposition to the sins and errors of the times: as I have elsewhere amply discoursed. If we behold the primitive Christians but a while, we shall discover no other cause of their hatred and persecutions against them, but only this, that they were Christians, that they were better than they were before, and more holy than their neighbors. This Pliny himse • fe affirms in his Epistle to the Emperor Trajan. Affirmabant autem hanc fuisse summam vel culpae Christianorum, vel erroris; quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carnemque Christo quasi De • dicere secum invicem: seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati d • negarent: A • d yet for this alone were they persecuted and put to death. Hence was it that Clemens Alexandrinus writes thus in the behalf of Christians: Nos ergo prosequuntur, non ut qui nos esse injustos depraehenderent, sed quod nos vitae humanae injuriam facere existiment e • quod simus Christiani, et ipsos inquam, qui sic vitam instituimus, et alios ad • ortamur ut vitam degant similem. Hence is that exce • lent discourse of Tertullian to the like purpose: Ecce autem et odio habemur ab omnibus hominibus nominis causa. Non scelus aliquod in causa est, sed nomen: et solius nominis crimen est. Non ideo bonus Gaius, et prudens Lucius, quia Christianus. Vt quisquis nomine Christiani (I may now say Puritani ) emendatur offendit. Oditur in hominibus innocuis, nomen innocuum. Nomen detinetur, nomen expugnatur, et ignotam sectam, ignotum et auctorem vox sola praedamnat, quia nominatur non quia convincitur. Which I may as justly apply to Purita • s and Precisians, as ever he did unto Christians who are persecuted and hated only for their graces, their surpassing goodness, under the vizard of these odious names, by such who would rather slander, than imitate their holiness. Hence Gregory Nazianzen also thus complained of the usage of the pious Christians of his age: Spectaculum uovum facti sumus non Angels et hominibus, sed omnibus ferme improbis et flagitiosis, et quovis tempore et loco, in foro, in compo • ationibu • , in voluptatibus, in luctibus: Iàm etiam ad scenam usque prodijmus (quod propemodum lachrymis refero) et cum perditissimis obscaenissimisque ridemur; nec ullum tam jucundum est spectaculum, quàm Christianus comicis cavillis suggillatus. And is it not as true of Puritans and Precisians now, as it was then of Christians? Hence also was the complaint of holy St. Augustine. Insultatur homini quia Christianus est: insultatur etiam homini qui inter multos Christianos melius vivit, et timens aspera verba insultatorum incidit in laqueos diaboli. Tibi pro convicio objicitur quod Christianus es. Cur autem modo objicitur quod Christianus est? Tam pauci non Christiani remans • runt, ut ijs magis objiciatur, quia Christiani non sunt, quàm ipsi audeant aliquibus objicere quia Christiani sunt. Tamen dico vobis fratres mei, incipe quicunque me audis vivere auomodo Christianus, et vide si non tibi objiciatur et à Christianis, sed nomine, non vita, non moribus. Nemo sentit nisi qui expertus est. And is not this the case of Puritans • among titular Christians now? Survey we all the other Fathers and Ecclesiastical Historians, we shall find them very copious in this theme • that the best Christians have been evermore hated, persecuted and reviled by carnal men, and that only for their grace and goodness: Witness the express resolution of St. Chrysostom: Christianorum genus, non quia est odibile, sed quia est divinum, odiunt carnales: Which St. Augustine thus seconds. Invidentiae illius diabolicae qua invident bonis mali, nulla alia causa est, nisi quia illi boni sunt, illi mali. Omnis enim malus ideo persequitur malum, quia illi non consentit ad malum. And this only is the cause why Puritans and Precisians are thus maligned and despited now.

If any here object, that they condemn not Puritans for their goodness, but because they are hypocrites and dissemblers; or because they are seditious factious persons, & enemies to the state and government; the crimes wherewith the world now charge them, whose accusations are still as various, flitting and uncertain against Puritans, as they were of old against the Christians.

To this I answer first: That it is no wonder for Puritans to be reputed hypocrites and impostors now: For even our Savior Christ himself was not only counted, but called a Deceiver, and one who did but cheat the people ; though we all know and believe that there was no guile at all within him: Yea all the Apostles and Saints of God were accounted Deceivers, and yet they were true, 2 Cor. 6.8. And St. Jerome informs us, that Christians were thus styled even in his age. Vbicun{que} viderint Christianum, statim illud e trivio 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; vocant Impostorem et detrahunt. Hi rumores turpissimos serunt, et quod ab ipsis egressum est, id ab alijs audisse se simulant; ijdem auctores et exaggeratores: as our Antipuritans are now. Secondly, admit that Puritans were but hypocrites & Impostors (which is impossible for any particular men to judge, since they are unacquainted with the secrets of their hearts, which God alone can only search, which me thinks should stop these objectors mouths) yet none exclaim against them as Puritans and Precisians for these vices only; but for that very profession of religion which they make. For let a man be never so treacherous or deceitful in his dealing, yet if he make no forward profession of religion, he may pass very well for a politique, crafty, provident man ; he shall then be no Puritan: but let him profess religion, be he never so honest in his dealings, yet he s •••• certainly be branded for a Puritan: It is not therefore men's hypocrisy, but their profession of religion that makes them Puritans: which if it be but merely counterfeit, why do not our Antipuritans make that profession of religion in truth, the very show o • which they so much hate, even for the substance sake? Thirdly, admit some Puritans or Precisians are mere Impostors, making religion a very veil to cloak their treachery, and circumvent their brethren ; as there are now too many such: yet malice it self must needs acknowledge that the Major part of them are most just and upright in all their dealings towards men; witness experience, and the common speech; that such and such are very honest and upright in their trades, or they are worthy Gentlemen which men may safely trust, but yet they are Puritans; as if their piety were a disparagement to their honesty: and yet men hate and slander them all alike for the hypocrisy only of some few; as they did the Christians in St. Augustine's days. Quanta mala (saith he) dicunt in malos Christianos quae maledicta perveniunt ad omnes Christianos? Nunquid enim dicit qui maledicit, aut qui reprehendit Christianos, ecce quid faciunt non boni Christiani? Sed ecce quae faciunt Christiani; non separate, non discernit. Thus do men deal with Puritans now; they hate, revile and persecute them in the lump without distinction; they deem them hypocrites and deceivers all alike, when as the most of them are not such; (as if their very profession of religion made them hypocrites, which men are apt to believe: ) therefore they detest them not for their hypocrisy which reacheth only to some few, but for the strict holiness and preciseness of their lives alone, wherein they all accord. Fourthly, the reason why men thus uncharitablie forejudge • all Puritans for hypocrites, though they neither know their hearts nor persons, is only this; because they see that holiness, grace and goodness in them, which they find not in themselves or others: and th • reupon to satisfy their own self-condemning consciences, they censure all excess of grace and holiness as mere hypocrisy, for fear themselves should be reputed but profane in wanting all those graces, those eminent degrees of holiness wherein they excel. It was a true speech of an heathen Orator: An non hoc ita fit in omni populo? nonne omnem exuperantiam virtutis oderunt? Quid? Aristides nonne ob eam ipsam causam patria pulsus est quod praeter modum justus esset? Certainly if the exuberancy of moral virtues have made heathens odious unto vicious Pagans, no wonder if the transcendent eminency of Puritans graces procure the malice, the reproaches of all carnal Christians, who being unacquainted with the power of saving grace themselves, are apt to censure it as folly, hypocrisy or madness in all others: but yet this may be their comfort; Cùm damnamur à vobis, à Deo absolvimur.

If any now reply, that Puritans live not as they speak and teach; therefore the world condemns them for hypocrites and dissemblers: let Seneca give them a satisfactory answer. Aliter, inquit, loqueris; aliter vivis. Hoc per malignissima capita, et optimo cuique inimicissima Platoni objectum est, objectum Epicuro, objectum Zenoni, Omnes enim isti dicebant non quemadmodum ipsi viverent, sed quemadmodum vivendum esset. De virtute, non de me loquor. Et cum vitijs convicium facio, in primis meis facio: cum potuero, vivam quomodo oportet. Nec malignitas me ista multo veneno tincta deterrebit ab optimis. Ne virus quidem istud, quo alios spargitis, vos necatis, ne impediet, quo minus perseverem laudare vitam, non quam ago, sed quam agendam scio, quo minus virtutem adorem, et ex intervallo ingenti reptabundus • equar. Expectabo scilicet, ut quicquam malivolentiae in •• olatum sit cui sacer nec Rutilius fuit nec Cato, &c. De alterius vita, de alterius morte disputatis; et ad nomen magnorum ob aliquam eximiam laudem virorum, sicut adoccursum ignotorum hominum minuti canes, latratis. Expedit enim vobis neminem videri bonum; quasi aliena virtus exprobratio delictorum vestrorum sit. Inviti splendida cum sordibus vestris confertis, nec intelligitis quanto id vestro detrimento audeatis. Nam si illi qui virtutem sequuntur avari, libidinosi, ambitiosi{que} sunt; quid vos estis quibus ipsum nomen virtutis odio est? Negatis quenquam praestare quae loquitur, nec ad exemplar orationis suae vivere. Quid mirum? cum loquantur fortia ingentia, omnes humanas tempestates evadentia: cum refigere se crucibus conentur, in quas unusquisque vestrum clavos suos ipse adjicit. Non praestant Philosophi quae loquuntur, multa tamen praestant quod loquuntur, quod hone • ta mente concipiunt. Nam si et paria dictis agerent, quid esset illis beatius? Interim non est quod contemnas bona verba, et bonis cogitationibus plena praecordia studiorum salutarium, etiam citra affectum, laudanda tractatio est. Quid mirum si non ascendunt in altum? Arduos aggressus virtutis suscipe: etiam si decidunt magna conantur. Generosa res est, respicientem non ad suas, sed ad naturae suae vires, conari alta, tentare, et mente majora concipere, quam quae etiam ingenti animo adornatis effici possint. Qui hoc facere proponet, volet, tentabit, ad deos iter faciet; ne ill, etiamsi non tenuerit, magnis tamen excidet ausis. Vos quidem qui virtutem cultorem{que} ejus odistis, nihil novi facitis. Nam et solemn lumina aegra formidant, et aversantur diem • plendidum nocturna animalia, qui ad primum ejus ortum stupent; et latibula sua passim petunt, abduntur in aliquas rimas, timida lucis. Gemite, et infaelicem linguam bonorum exercete convicio. Instate, commordete, citius multo frangetis dentes quam imprimetis. It is true that the best of all God's children have their weaknesses, their passions and infirmities, which they cannot wholly conquer whiles they continue here; they have flesh in them as well as spirit, which sometimes shows it self; they have a dying body of sin within them, which though it reigns not in them as a King, yet sometimes it overmasters them in some particular actions as a tyrant; insomuch as they cannot do the good they would, and the evil that they would not that they do • But yet this frees them from hypocrisy. First, that they unfeignedly desire and endeavor to mortify all their sins and lusts, and to be freed from them. Secondly, they utterly abominate and detest their sins, continually watching, fighting, praying against them, and laboring to destroy them. Thirdly, when they fall into any sin of infirmity out of human frailty, they condemn and judge themselves for it; it is their greatest grief and shame, and they go mourning for it all their days, loathing and abhorring themselves because they have thus offended. Fourthly, they become more vigilant against their sins and frailties for the time to come, binding themselves by solemn vows and covenants never to relapse into them more, crying mightily unto God for strength to resist • and power to subdue them. Fifthly, they allow not themselves in one known sin whatsoever; they sin not so frequently, in that manner as others do, keeping themselves innocent for the most part from great offenses, and notorious sins, in which those who most condemn them wallow. Lastly, they lead far holier and stricter lives than other men, they serve and honor God more than they ; they love and fear God more than others, being far more frequent, more constant in hearing, reading, prayer, meditation, fasting, and all holy duties, than those who declaim against them most; and yet they desire, they endeavor to be better and holier every day. Therefore they are no hypocrites, as all Antipuritans for the most part are; who profess themselves Christians as well as Puritans, and yet live like Pagans, like Infidels in gross notorious sins, without any shame or sorrow for them, or any war against them, endeavoring not to grow better than they are.

For the second part of the Objection; that Puritans and Precisians are seditious, factious, troublesome, rebel • ious persons and enemies both to state and government: and that this only is the cause why they are so much hated, persecuted, reviled. I answer, that this is an ancient scandal which hath been always laid upon the choicest Saints of God from age to age; whe • fore we may the less wonder at it now. For did not Pharaoh long ago, thus censure Moses and Aaron, and thereupon drove them out of his presence as factions persons who did let the people from their work, and stir them up to mutiny? Did not King Ahab accuse the holy Prophet Eliijah as a troubler of Israel, when as it was only himself and his fathers house that did disquie • it? and did he not hate and imprison the good Prophet Micaiah as an enemy to him and his proceedings, because he always prophesied truth unto him, and would not flatter him in his ungodly courses and humors? Did not that wicked favourite Haman, accuse the whole Nation of the Jews to King Ahasuerus, that their laws were diverse from all people, that they kept not the Kings laws, and that it was not for the Kings profit to suffer them; and thereupon procure the Kings Letters to the Lieutenants and Governors of the people, that they might be destroyed? Did not Rehum and Sh • mshai write letters to King Axtaxerxes against Jerusalem of purpose to hinder the building of it ou • of their malice • o the pious Jews: that it was a rebellious and a bad City, and hurtful unto Kings and provinces, and that they had moved sedition of old time in the midst thereof, for which cause it was destroyed: informing the King withal, that if the walls thereof were set up again, they would not then pay toll, tribute and custom, and so the Kings revenue should be endamaged? and did not S • nballat send his servant to Nehemiah with an open letter in his hand, wherein it was written; it is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel, for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their King? &c. Was not the Prophet Jeremiah persecuted and imprisoned by the high Priest, the Prin • es and all the people, for a man of strife and contention to the whole earth; as a professed enemy both to the King, the State, and all the people, for no other cause but this, that he faithfully delivered those displeasing messages which God enjoined him to proclaim against them for their sins? Did not Amaziah the Priest of Bethel accuse the Prophet Amos to King Jeroboam, for conspiring against him in the midst of the house of Israel, and that the land was not able to bear his words? Which scandalons accusation not succeeding, did he not thereupon advise him, to flee into the land of Judah, and to eat bread and prophecy there; charging him like an Episcopal controller, not to prophecy anymore at Bethel, for it was the Kings Chapel, and the Kings Court, where he would have no faithful Prophets, no truth-telling sin-rebuking C • aplaines come who knew not how to flatter. Did not the governors who conspired together against the Prophet Daniel, put in this information against him to King Darius, that he neither regarded him nor his decree which he had signed ; accusing him of disobedience • faction and opposition to his laws and royal authority? Yea was not our blessed Savior himself, though he paid tribute to Caesar, enjoining all his followers, to give unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's ; being as free from all sedition or rebellion against Princes as from all other sins; accused, condemned as a seditious Anti-monarchical person? Did not the whole multitude of the people with the chief Priests and Scribes accuse him before Pilate, saying; We found this fellow perverting the Nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying, that he himself was Christ a King? and did not they thereupon cry out against P • tate when as he sought to have released him, saying, if thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend, for he speaketh against Caesar? And if our most innocent Savior were burdened with these most false and scandalous reproaches of sedition, faction, treason and rebellion against Caesar ; no wonder if none of all his followers can be exempted from these calumnies: For if they have thus falsely called the Master of the house Belzebub, how much more will they style those of his household so? the Disciple not being above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord ; as himself doth argue in this very case. To confirm this further by some other pregnant examples. Was not St. Paul himself, together with all the Disciples and believing Christians both at Philippi and Thessalonica, accused by the Jews and other lewd companions, as men who did exceedingly trouble the Citty, and teaching new customs which it was not lawful for men either to receive or observe? that did all contrary to the decrees of Caesar, and that they had turned the whole world upside-down, insomuch that their sect was everywhere spoken against? Did not the Jews cry out against this most laborious Apostle St. Paul, saying, Men and brethren help; this is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place, and hath likewise defiled this holy place; and did not all the people thereupon lay violent hands upon him, intending to put him to death, as a most seditious factious person. Yea did not Tertullus the Jewish Orator, accuse him before Felix, and the high Priests & Pharisees traduce him before Festus, for a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, & a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarens? And yet who so free from sedition, fa • tion, rebellion or discord, as this most blessed Apostle; who commandeth every soul to be subject to the higher powers: to obey those who have the rule over them, and to submit unto them even out of conscience sake? who exhorts all men to make supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for Kings and all that are in authority: to keep the unity of the spirit in the boud of peace: to mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine they had received, and to avoid them: blaming the Corinthians for their dissensions. Besides this, doth not St. Peter inform us, that albeit the Christians in his time had their conversation honest among the Gentiles, submitting themselves to their Governors, Kings and lawful ordinances for the Lord's sake; yet the Gentiles were always speaking against them as evil doers, and falsely accusing their good conversation in Christ, as if they were naught but seditious factious people, and rebels or enemies to Governors and government? To pass by many notable texts of Scripture which ratify this notorious truth ; Do not Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, Minutius Felix, St. Chrysostom, with all Ecclesiastical Historians, both ancient and moderne, expressly inform us, that the primitive Christians (who were oft nicknamed by the ignominious titles of Galilaans, Sibyllists, Impostors, Greeks, Sarmentisij, Semassij, Biothonati, Magicians, Ioannites, and the like, as they are now derided under the names of Puritans and Precisians ) though they were neve • detected of any tree • son, rebellion, mutiny, or sedition whatsoever (the case of those whom men style Puritans and Precisian • now:) yet they were always slandered, accused, traduced, persecuted as refractory, seditious, factious, mutineers; as enemies and rebels to the Emperors and Governors under which they lived, and as the authors of all the mischiefs and troubles that happened in the world; by which false pestilent suggestions in the ears of Princes, continual bloody persecutions were raised up against these innocent lambes, who had no other offensive or defensive arms, but prayers and tears: and do not the Century-Authors thence conclude evē for our present times; Solenne est ut Christianis crimina seditionis, blasphemy, et lesae majestati • à persecutoribus affingantur, quibus tamen non sun • obnoxij? Do we not likewise read, that Athanasius, Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, with sundry other ancient sin-reproving, error-confuting Bishops were accused of faction and sedition for • pposing the sins and vices of the times? and was not our own worthy Bishop Latimer, with other pious Martyrs, accused, slandered as raisers of sedition, as factious, turbulent, and seditious persons, by those whose sins and errors they reproved, and that even in good King Edward the 6 • his days? Survey we all the Fathers, all Ecclesiastical Stories, we shall find poor innocent peaceable harmless conscionable Christians in all times and places, maliciously slandered with the crimes of sedition, faction, rebellion, disobedience to Princes and their law • , of purpose to make them odious both to Prince and people, even without a cause; they being but as lambes in the very midst of wolves. And is it any wonder then • that Puritans and Precisians should suffer the very selfsame calumnies now? Alas what powder treasons, what conspiracies have these poor Play-condemning Puritans and Precisians hatched against King or State? what rebellions have they raised? what public up • ores have they ever caused from the beginning of reformation till this present? what treacheries, what mutinies are they guilty of, that they are thus condemned, as if they were as bad or worse than Papists, Priests or Jesuits, (for so some a • firm;) whose very faith is faction, whose doctrine rebellion, and their practice Treason? Certainly were these whom the dissoluteness of the times now brand for Puritans and Precisians, though every way conformable to our Churches discipline, such rebels, factionists, mutineers, disobedient antimonarchicall persons as the world conceives them, as Papists, Priests, Jesuits, profane & dissolu • e companions proclaim thē for to be, we should have seen some fruits, experiments and detections of it ere this. But blessed be God, we have heard of no Puritan treasons, insurrections or rebellions in our age; and experience (in despite of scandal and all lying rumors) hath manifested, that these Puritans and Precisians are such persons as both fear God and honor the King, though they oppugn the corruptions, sins, profaneness, and Popish and Pelagian Errors of the times, with all such factious Innovators, who either broach new heresies and superstitions, or revive old. As for their loyalty to their Prince, his power and prerogative, it is so apparent, that however Papists and persons popishly affected, now slander them as enemies to Monarchy and Princes Prerogatives in words, (to take off this merited imputation from themselves) yet they b • ame them even under the very name of Puritans, as over-great advancers and chiefest patriots and propugners of Monarchy, of Princes supremacy, in their printed works ; none going so far in suppressing the Popes usurped Authority, or e • larging the Kings and tempora • l Magistrates prerogatives and supremacy as they, as even the Jesuit in his Answer to Deus et Rex, hath proclaimed u • to all the world. Let therefore the Moguntine Jesuits Contzen disciples, (following the desperate plot of their Master, to cheat a Protestant Church of her religion • and to screw in Popery into it by degrees without noise o • tumult, by raising slanders upon the Doctrines and persons of the most zealous Protestant Ministers and Protestants, to bring them into the Princes, and people's hatred, and thrust them out of office ) accuse Puritans of faction, sedition and rebellion now, without any ground or proof at all as the Pagans did the Christians long ago: or let the Epicures and profane ones of our voluptuous times repute them such, because they wage war against their sins and sinful pleasures: yet now upon the serious consideration of all these premises, I hope their consciences will acquit them of these malicious slanders, and readily subscribe to this apparent truth, that they are the holiest, meekest, and most zealous Christians, and that they are only hated and reviled for their goodness. Since therefore these Play-censuring conformable Puritans and Precisians in their proper colors (uncased of these odious persecuted terms of scandal, which represent them to men's fancies in a most ugly form; there being never poor persecuted word, since malice against God first seized upon the damned Angels, and the graces of heaven dwelt in the heart of man, that passed through the mouths of all sorts of unregenerate men with more distastfulnesse and gnashing of teeth, than the name of PVRITAN doth at this day: which notwithstanding as it is now commonly meant, and ordinarily proceeds from the spleen and spirit of profaneness and good fellowship, is an honorable nickename of Christianity and grace ; as a worthy reverend Divine observes:) are the very eminentest, choicest, and most gracious forward Christians, let us not think the better, but far worse of Stage-plays, because they all abominate, condemn them, as all good Christians have done before them: and if any have thus persecuted, hated, or reviled them out of ignorance or malice heretofore, let them heartily bewail it, and give over now, because it is not only a kind of sacrilege, but even an high indignity and affront to God himself, to hate, to slander, persecute or wrong his servants, especially for controlling us in our delights of sin, of which these constantly condemned Stage-plays are the chief. And for a close of this Objection, and Scene together, let us all remember that worthy sentence of St. Jerome: Apud Christianos, ut ait quidam, non qui patitur, sed qui facit contumeliam, miser est: and then these maliciou • calumnies against Puritans and Precisians will quickly vanish.

ACTVS PRIMVS.

IF then all popular Stage-plays, be thus sinful hurtful, execrable, unseemly, unlawful unto Christians, as I have at large evinced in the precedent part of this my Histrio-mastix, I shall thence infer these 3. ensuing Corollaries which necessarily issue from it.

First, That the profession of a Play-poet, or the composing [ 1] of Comedies, Tragedies on such like Plays for public Players or Play-houses, is altogether infamous and unlawful.

Secondly, That the very profession of a Stage-player, [ 2] together with the acting of Plays and interludes, either in public theaters or private houses; is infamous, Scandalous, and no ways lawful unto Christians.

Thirdly • That it is an infamous shameful, and unlawful [ 3] practice for Christians to be either spectators or frequenters of Plays or Play-houses.

In brief; the very penning, acting and beholding of Stage-plays, are infamous, unseemly, unlawful unto Christians, since Plays themselves are so.

To begin with the first of these • I shall for the better clearing of its truth and the avoiding of all mistakes, most willingly acknowledge.

First, that as Poetrey it self is an excellent endowmēt, p • culier unto some by a kind of natural Genius ; so it is likewise lawful, yea useful and commendable among Christians, if righly used: as not only the divine hymmes recorded in Scripture, together with the famous ancient Poëms of Tertullian, Arator, Apollinaris, Nazianzen, Prudentius, Prosper, and other Christian worthies, with the moderne Distiques of Dubar • as, Beza, Scaliger, Bucanon, Heinsius, Withars, Hall, Quarles, our late Soveraig • e King James, with infinite others; but likewise the much applauded verses of Homer, Pindarus, Virgil, Statius, Silius Italicus, Lucan, Claudian, Horace, Iuuenall, and some parts of Ovid, where he is not obscene, most plentifully evidence; whose Poëms are both approved, read, & highly magnified of all learned Christians, who both allow & teach them in their public Schools. Yea, were not Poetry and Poets Lawfull, we must then rase out of our Bibles. Acts 17.28. 1 Cor. 15.33. Titus 1.12, 13. where the sentences of Menander, Epimenides, and Aratus, three heathen Poets are not only recited but Canonized too. If any desire any further satisfaction in this point which is so clear, I shall only refer them to Tertullian ad Vxorem lib. 1. to St. Basil, de legendis libris Gentilium Oratio: to Nicephorus Callistus Eccle •• asticae Historae. l. 10. c, 26. to the ancient & moderne Commētators on these texts; to Georg Alley Bishop of Exeter, his poor man's Librarie part 1. Misellanea Praelectionis 4. pag. 165.166. & D. Rainolds Overthrow of Stag •• plays p. 21, 22. who will abundantly satisfy them in this point.

Secondly, that it is lawful to compile: a Poem in nature of a Tragedie, or poetical Dialogue, with several acts and parts, to add life and luster to it, especially, in case of necessity when as truth should else be suffocated. Hence Nicephorus and Cassiodor record of Apolinaris the Elder, that being inhibited by Julian the Apostate to Preach or teach the Gospel, or to train the Christians children to learning and poetrie, he thereupon translated divers Books of Scripture into verse, and composed divers Tragedies in imitation of Euripides, and sundry Comedies and lyricke verses in imitation of Menander and Pindarus, consisting only of divine arguments and Scripture stories; by which he instructed those to whom he could have no liberty to Preach: the like did Gregory Nazianzen and others in the Primitive Church, upon the same occasion, having no other means to defend or propagate religion with approbation or connivance but by such Poëms as these. Hence divers pious Christians likewise in King Henry the 8. and Queen Mary's bloody reign, being restrained by Superior Popish-powers to oppose received errors or propagate the truth and Doctrine of the Gospel in public Sermons, or polemical positive treatises, did covertly ven • and publish sundry truths, yea censure sundry Errors, and interpret divers scriptures in Rimes, in Comedies, Tragaedies, & Poems like to Plays under the names, the persons of others, whom they brought in discoursing of sundry points of true religion, which could not else be Preached but by such Poems as these, which the people gladly heard and read, and the Magistrates and popish Priests conived at at first; till at last King Henry the 8. by the statute of 34. & 35. H. 8. c. 1. and Queen Marie by her express Proclamation in the first year of her reign (which the popish Prelates did most strictly execute) Prohibited the setting forth or penning of any songs, Plays, Rimes, or Interludes, which meddled with interpretations of Scripture, contrary to the doctrine established in their reigns. Wherefore I shall here approve & not condemn, the ancient Tragedy styled, Christus passus falsely attributed to Nazianzen ) wherein Christ's passion is elegantly desc • phered, together with Bernardinus Ochin his Tragedy of Freewil, Plessie Morney his Tragedie of Ieptha his daughter, Edward the 6. his Comedy de meretrice Babilonica, John Bale his Comedies de Christo & de Lazare, Skeltons Comedies, de Virtute, de Magnificentia, & de bono Ordine, Nich • laus Grimoaldus, de Archiprophetae Tragedia, &c. which like Geffry Chaucers & Pierce the Plowmans tales and Dialogues, were penned only to be read, not acted, [ 3] their subjects being all serious, sacred, divine, not scurrilous wanton or prophan, as all modern Play poëms are.

Thirdly, as it is lawful to pen, so likewise to recite, to read such tragical or comical poëms as these, composed only to be read, not acted on the Stage. And in truth the Tragedies, Comedies and Play-poëms of ancient times, as those of Sophocles, Euripedes, AEschylus, Menander, Seneca, and others, were only read or recited by the Poets themselves, or some others of their appointment before the people, not acted on the Stage by Players, as now they are; it being a great disparagement to Poets to have their Poëms acted, as Horace Diodorus • s Siculus and Quintilian testify. That these ancient Comedies and Tragedies were thus read or recited only, not played or acted on the Stage, is evident by the express testimonies of Horace: Sermo: l. 1. Satyr. 4. & 10, Epist. l. 2. Epist. 1. & de Art Po • tica lib. of Iuuenall, Satyr. 1.4. & 8. of Diodorus Siculus. Bibl. hist l. 14. sect. 110. p. 649, 650. of Plutarch, de Audiendis Poetis lib. of Pliny: Epist: l. 1. Epist: 13. Epist: l. 2. Epist. 10. l, 3. Epist: 15.18. l. 5. Epist. 3. l. 7. Epist. 17. l. 8. Epist. 21. l. 9. Epist. 27. Of Suetonius in his Octauius sect. 89. Of Quintilian de Oratoribus Dialogus: 1.6.14. of Polydor Virgil, de Invent. rerum, l. 3. c. 13. of Scaliger Poeticis l. 1. c. 7. of Dr. Reinolds, in his Overthrow of Stageplayes p. 22. of Bul • ngerus de Theatro. l. 2. c. 1. p. 339. A.B. with sundry others, who all give testimony to this truth. Which takes of one grand objection that Players, and Play-poets make to justify the Acting, and penning of Stage-plays; that many good men have compiled Plays and Tragedies in former times, of purpose that they might be acted on the Theatre; when as in truth these Plays of theirs were never acted but recited only, they being composed for Readers, not Spectators, for private studies, not public Play houses, as our present Stageplayes are.

The sole controversy then is this; Not whether it be simply unlawful to pen a Poëm in nature of a Tragedie or Comedy, which may be done without offense, in case it be pious, serious, good and profitable; not wanton amorous, obscene, Profane, or heathenish, as most Plays are now: but, whether the profession of a Playhouse-Poet, or the penning of Plays for public or private Theaters, be warrantable or lawful ? And for my own particular opinion, I hold it altogether unlawful, for these ensuing reasons.

First, to be an inventer, a contriver of evil, scandalous, [ 1] unprofitable or noxious things, is certainly unlawful unto Christians: witness Rom. 1.30, 31. Psal. 31.6. Eccles: 7.29. Prov. 14.22. c. 24.8. and Isaiah. 55.2. But Stage-plays (as I have already manifested at large) are evil, scandalous, unprofitable, noxious pastimes yea intolerable mischiefs both in a Church or State. Therefore the inventing and contriving of them must certainly be unlawful.

Secondly, to be a compiler, an Author of the certain, [ 2] the common occasions of much wickedness, sin and lewdness, can be no ways warrantable or lawful: as is evident by by the 1 Thes. 5.22. 2 Sam. 12.14. and Rom. 1.30. But Stage-plays (as the premises testify) are the certain, the common occasions of much wickedness, vice and lewdness: Yea Play-poets and Play-poëms if Cornelius Agrippa may be credited, are the very greatest enticements to all lecherie, bauderie, vice, and lewdness: Vnde Poetae inter lenones principatum facile obtinuerunt, quo suis lasciuis rithmis alijs{que} fabulis ac amatorijs bucolicis, praeceptiunculis, comaedijsque ex penitissimis Veneris armarijs depromptis laesciuis carminibus, lenocinio functa, pudicitiam omnem subuertit, ac adolescentiae bonam indolem, moresque corrumpit. Therefore to be an Author, a compiler of Stageplayes, can be no ways warrantable or lawful unto Christians.

[ 3] Thirdly; To foment men in their sins and sinful courses, to uphold them in their ungodly professions, is without all scruple sinful and unlawful: witness 1 Tim. 5.22. Hab. 1.15, 16. Ezech. 13.18, 19, 20. But the penning of Plays for Play-houses, foments men in their sins & sinful courses: It fostereth the spectators in their idleness, vanity, wantonness, ribaldry, prodigality, lewdness, and the like; it draws them on to many other sins, which else they might eschew: It supports all public Actors in their graceless, infamous, ungodly, lewd profession of Acting, and others in their sinful practice of beholding Stage-plays: if there were no new Plays to act or see, all Players, all Play-haunters would quickly vanish, the Play-poet being the prime mover in this infernal sphere of lewdness. Therefore the penning of Plays for Play-houses, [ 4] is without all question very unlawful.

Fourthly to be a professed factor for the Devil and his instruments; to maintain his pomps & vanities which we have all renounced in Baptism, is sinful and abominable: as the 1 Pet. 5.8, 10. 1 John. 3.8. Ephes. 2. 1, 2. c. 5.11. & John. 8.44. infalliblie evidence. But Stage-poets are professed factors for the Devil and his instruments who are most honored & delighted with them, now as well as heretofore ) and they maintain (yea forge and pen) the very pomps and works of the Devil which we have all renounced in Baptism; for I have infalliblie proved Stageplays (which they so seriously compile) to be the Devils pomps which we protest against in Baptism: Therefore the profession of a Play-poet even in this respect, is sinful and abominable.

Fif • lie for men to wast their wits, their parts and [ 5] precious time (with which they might and ought to do God and men good service) on amorous, filthy, wanton, ridiculous, vain, profane, unpro • itable, subjects, which tend not to God's glory, to the good of men, or the peace and comfort of their own souls at last; is altogether unlawful, see Isaiah. 55.2. Psal. 7.6. Psal. 4.2. 1 Sam. 12.21. 2 Cor. 5.15. Rom. 12.1, 2. 1 Cor. 6.20. & 10.31, 32, 33. Eccles. 5.16. Luk. 1.74, 75. 2 Pet. 1.10, 11, 12. for proof of this proposition.) But those who pen Plays for the Stage; do wast their wits, their parts and precious time, (with which they ought to do God & men good service) on amarous, filthy, wanton, ridiculous, vain, profane, unprofitable, (yea sometimes on atheistical, blasphemous, sacrilegious, diabolical, detestable ) subjects, (for such for the most part, are all our moderne Plays ) which tend not to God's honor but to his great dishonor, and the Devils advantage: which bring no good at all, but exceeding much hurt and mischief unto others: and no comfort, no peace, but horror and vexation only to the souls of their composers, who have oft been so terrified with the sad consideration of those infinite horid sins which their Stage-plays have produced both in themselves and others, that it hath almost driven them to despair • , and drenched their souls in stoods of brinish tears to wash away their guilt of Play-making: as the memorable example of Steven Gosson, and the Author of the third Blast, of retrait from Plays and Theaters, besides a more bloody fresh example, most fully testify. Therefore the penning of Plays for the Stage is altogether unlawful.

Sixthly; for men to bend their wits like bows for lies, [ 6] and lying fables • to corrupt and misrepresent true histories, and to make their brain a very forge for lying vanities, and old-wives fables; is certainly unlawful among Christians, who must put away lying fables, and speak naught but truth: See Ephes. 4.25, 29. c. 5.3, 4. 1 Tim. 4.2, 7. and part 1. Act 3. Scene 4. p. 106, 107. accordingly. But Play-poets thus rack and bend their wits like bows for lies and lying fables; they corrupt and misrepresent true histories, and make their brains a very forge for lying vanities and old wives Fables: witness Act 3. Scene 4. p. 106, 107. with the Authors there quoted: witness the common proverbial speech Permulta canunt mendacia vates, that Play-poets broach very many lies, that being no Poëm in Socrates his judgment, à qua abesset mendacium, in which there i • not some lie or other couched: witness Solon who prohibited Thespis either to act or teach Tragedies, inutilem ease falsi loquentiam vocans) because they were but unprofitabl • lies • or vain common thridbare fabulous figments of Stage-poets extolling vain & idle things, with many words, as Philo Judaeus phraseth them. witness • the 3. Blast of Retrait from stage-plays, p. 104. which informs us: That the notablest liar is become • the best Poet: • nd that he who can make the most notorious lie, and disguise falsehood in such s • n • , that it may pass unperceived, is hold the best writer, for the strangest Comedy brings greatest delectation and pleasure. Yea witness our own experience, our moderne Plays being naught but amorous ridiculous figments, lies & vanities, or sophisticated stories. The penning therefore of such stories as these must needs be ill.

[ 7] Seventhly: that profession, or action, which hath no good warrant either from the practice of the Saints; or from the word of God, the square of all our lives and ways, and in the prosecution of which a man cannot proceed with faith, or comfort, nor yet • eriously pray for, or expect a blessing from God • must questionless be unwarantabl •• unlawful for a Christian: witness, Gal. 5.16, 17, 18. c. 6.15. Psal. 119.9.104, 105. Rom. 14.23. 1 Cor. 11.1. Ehes. 5.1, 5. Psal. 129.7, 8.9. Phil. 4.6, 7, 8. But the profession of a Play-poet, and the composing of Plays for Theaters, hath no warrant at all either from the practice of the Saints of God among whom we read of no professed Play poets or Players of ancient or moderne times, but such only who upon their true conversion & repentance renounced this their hellish lewd profession: nor yet from the sacred word of God, the square of all our lives and ways; in which I cannot so much as find one title, one syllable to justify either the penning or acting of a Stage-play: so that a man cannot proceed on in them either with faith or comfort, nor yet expect or pray for God's blessing or assistance on his Plays or Studies, which serve only to advance the Divills service, and foment men's lusts and vices. Therefore the very profession of a Play-poet, and the compiling of Plays for Theaters, must questionless be unwarrantable, unlawful for a Christian.

Lastly, that very profession & function which Christians, which heathens, which even relenting Play-poets themselves have censured, renounced, condemned, as sinful and abominable; must undoubtedly be unlawful for a Christian: But Christians, heathens, yea and Play-poets themselves have thus censured, renounced, condemned the profession of a Play poet, and the making of Plays to furnish Play-houses. Witness all the fore-quoted Fathers Councils and Christian Writers, who in condemning Plays, have censured their composers, not only by consequence, but in express terms too. Witness the Athenians, and Solon, who inhibited the penning of Comedies and Tragedies: together with Plato & Tully, who banished all Playpoets out of their Republics, as the effeminaters, the corrupters of men's minds and manners, leading them on to a dissolute, slothful, vicious, voluptuous life : Witness the Lacedemonians, & Massilienses, who would never admit the penning or acting of Comedies or Tragedies ; together with Gorgias Horace and Iuuenall, who condemn the composing of Plays for the Stage, as a base unworthy thing, unfit for eminent Poets: Yea witness the constant practice of all Players and Play-poets in the primitive Church, who upon their true conversion to the faith, renounced these their lewd ungodly professions, and never returned to them more: together with the moderne examples of AEnaeas Sylvius, and Theodorus Beza, who publicly renounced, censured, and bewailed in their riper years those wanton amorous plays and poems which they had compiled in their youth • of M. Stephen Gosson, & the Author of the 3. Blast of retrait from plays and Theaters ; two Eminent English Play • poets Who being deeply wounded in conscie • ce for those Plays they had penned for the Stage, thereupon abandoned this their hellish trade of Play-penning, as incompatible with Christianity or salvation, and by way of holy recompense and revenge, compiled three memorable printed Treatises against penning, acting and frequenting Stage-plays, which now are extant to their eternal praise, and to the just condemnation of all those Play poets which persevere in their relented and reclaimed steps. The penning therefore of Stage-plays for the Theater (which hath no precept, no example for to warrant it in the Scripture or in the Primitive Church) must certainly be sinful and unlawful unto Chr • stians. All which I would wish our moderne Play-poets to consider. Who being oft times men of eminent parts, and choicest wits, able pithily to express what ever they undertake: I shall only say of them and their poëms as Quintilian doth of Seneca & his books, Multae in eo clarae{que} sententiae, multa etiam Elocutionis gratia legenda; sed in eloquendo corrupta plaera{que}, at{que} adeo perniciosissima, quod abundant vitijs. Velles enim suo ingenio dixisse, alieno iudicio, &c. Digna fuit illa naturae quae meliora vellet, quae quod voluit fecit. And thus much for the first conclusion.

ACTVS 2.