The Players Scourge
SCENA SECVNDA.
IN the handling of which subject, I shall first of all briefly evidence, that the profession of a Player, and the acting of Stage-plays are unlawful.
Secondly, I shall lay down the Several grounds and reasons of their unlawfulness.
For the first of these, I shall need to urge no more but these ten Arguments
That which hath ever been infamous, scandalous and of ill report, both among Christians and Pagans to, must questionless be sinful, unlawful unto Christians, who are to follow things only of good report, and to provide things honest in the sight of all men, giving no offense, either to Jew or Gentile, or to the Church of God. 1. Tim. 3, 7. 1. Pet. 2.11.12.15. c, 3.15.16. Phil. 4, 5.8.9. Rom. 13, 13. c. 14.13.19. cap. 15.2. cap. 12.17. 1. Cor. 10.31, 32, 33. Ephes. 4.2.
But the professiō of Stagplayers, & the acting of plays either in public or private, have been ever infamous, scandalous, and of ill report, both among Christians and Pagans, as the foregoing Scene demonstrates.
Therefore it must questionless be sinful, unlawful unto Christians.
If those who have acted Stage-Plays, have all ways been banished, excluded and cast out of the common weal, and made uncapable of any honor, or promotion, by Christian by Pagan Republiques, Emperors, Kings, Magistrates, If they have been excommunicated both from the word, the Sacraments, the society of Christians, & disabled to give any testimony, or to take any Ecclesiastical Orders or promotions upon them, by the solemn resolutions, constitutions and Decrees, of Councils, Fathers, and the whole Primitive Church, even for their very Play-acting; which thus debarred them from all the privileges both of Church and common weal, then certai • ely the profession of a stage-player, together with the acting of plays, is unbeseeming and unlawful unto Christians, See p. 133, 134.
But those who acted plays, have always thus been handled: as being altogether unworthy of any privileges of Church or common weal; witness the examples of Plato, Aristotle, the Massilienses, Lacaedemonians, Jews, ancient Germans, Tiberius, Augustus, Nero, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, Trebonius Rufin • s Henry the third, Philip Augustus, and others forecited; who excluded Players and Play-poets out of their Republics, and banished them their Dominions: (to which I might add Lewis the 9. surnamed the godly, who made divers good Laws against Dice-houses, Players, plays and other en • rmities ) Witness the forealeaged Councils, Fathers and Primitive Church, & Christians who excommunicated all Stage-players & Actors from the word, the Sacraments and all Christian society; disabling them to give any public testimony, or to take any ecclesiastical orders and preferments &c. even for their very acting of Stage-plays: See part 1. Act. 4. Scene 1. Act 6. Scene 5. Act. 7. Scene 2.3, 7. and the next fore going Scene, where all this is largely manifested.
Therefore the profession of a Stage-player, together with the acting of stage-plays, is unbeseeming and unlawful unto Christians.
• he profession, the action of any unlawful scandalous or dishonest sports, cannot but be unlawful, especially unto Christians, who must abstain, not only from all evil things, but likewise from all appearance of evil : 1 Thes. 5.22. See here Part 1. Act. 3. Scene 3. Act. 5. Scene 1, 2, 3. & Act. 6. Scene 4. accordingly.
But Stageplayes as the Premises prove at large, are unlawful, scandalous and dishonest sports.
Therefore their action cannot but be unlawful, especially unto Christians.
That profession which hath neither God's word for its rule, nor his glory for its end, must certainly be unlawful unto Christians; witness, Psal. 119.9.10. Gal. 6.16. 1 Cor. 10.31. c. 6.20. 1 Pet. 4.11. which inform us, that God's people must make his word the square, his glory the chief and only end of all their actions.
But the pro • ession or art of acting Plays, hath neither the word of God for its rule (there being neither precept nor example in all the scripture for to warrant it, but many texts against it: See here p. 547. to 551. & 723. to 730;) nor yet the glory of God for its end, as I have here largely manifested, p. 127. to 133. & f. 5 • 0. to 570.
Therefore it must certainly be unlawful unto Christians.
That art or trade of life, in which men cannot proceed with faith or comfort, & on which men cannot pray for or expect a blessing from God, must questionless be unlawful unto Christians: witness, Rom. 14.23. Psal. 129.7, 8. Phil. 4.6.8.9. 1 John 5.16. Neh. 1.11. c. 2.20. Psal. 90.17.
But in this art or trade of acting Plays, men cannot proceed with faith or comfort, because it hath no warrant from the word, the rule of faith ; nor from the Spirit, the efficient cause of faith ; nor from the Church or Saints of God, the household of faith: neither can men pray for or expect a blessing from God upon their Playacting; it being a calling of the very Devils institution, not of God's appointment; a calling not authorized by the word of God, and therefore no ways intitled to the blessing of God: A profession I dare say, on which the very professors themselves, could never heartily pray as yet for a blessing; Neither do or can those pious Christians which go by whiles they are acting, say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you, we bless you in the name of the Lord. A profession which hath oft times drawn down the very vengeance and curse of God on many who have practiced or beheld it, See here f. 552. to 568.
Therefore, it must questionless be unlawful unto Christians.
That calling or profession in which a man cannot attribute his gains to the blessing and favor of God; so as to say, it is God that hath blessed me in this my honest vocation and made me rich; and for his gains and thriving in which he cannot render any thanks & praise to God; must doutblesse be an ungodly calling and profession, not lawful among Christians: witness Prov: 10.22. Gen. 33.5.11. 2 Chron. 1.12. Eccles. 5.19. Matth. 11.6.33. Psal. 145.1, 2.15, 16. Acts 2.46, 47. 1 Tim. 4.3, 4. & Phil. 4.6.
But Players cannot attribute or ascribe their gains to the blessing and favor of God; it being but turpe lucrum, dishonest filthy gain, much like the hire of an harlot: neither can they render true praise or thanks to God for what they gain by acting, because they have no assura • ce that it proceeds from his good blessing, on this their lewd profession.
Therefore it must doutlesse be an ungodly calling and profession, not lawful among Christians.
That profession towards the maintenance of which, a man cannot contribute without sin, and sacrificing to the Devil himself, must questionless be unlawful unto Christians; See 1 Cor. 10.21, 22, 23. Rom. 1.30, 32. 2 John 10, 11.
But no man can contribute towards the maintenance of Stage-players, as Stageplayers, without sin, without • acrificing to the very Devil himself: For histrionibus dare imman • peccatum est: & histrionibus dare, est daemonibus immolare ; as St Augustine, Raymundus, and sundry others testify: See here p. 324, 325, 326.905.906. & 688.
Therefore it must questionless be unlawful unto Christians.
That calling or profession which altogether indisposeth and unfits men for God's worship & service, and for all religious duties, must necessarily be sinful and unsu • able unto Christians: See Luke 1. 74, 75. Hebr. 12.1. & Matt • . 5.29, 30. Act. 19.18, 19. I am. 1.21. 1 Pet. 2.1, 2.
But the profession of Playacting doth altogether indispose, and unfit men for God's worship, his service, for the hearing of his word, the receiving of his Sacraments, (from which all Players were excomunicated) & from all other religious duties: See here p. 393. to 420. & fol. 522. to 542. & p. 561. to 573.
Therefore it must necessarily be unlawful unto Christians.
That profession which is pernicious and hurtful both to the manners minds and souls of men, and prejudicial to the Church, the State that suffers it must certainly be unlawful, intolerable among Christians: See here p. 447, 448. & John. 10.10.
But the profession of acting Plays is pernicious both to the manners minds and souls of men, of actors & spectators, & preiudicial to the Churches and States that suffer them: witness: page 302. to 568.
Therefore it must certainly be unlawful, intolerable among Christians.
That calling which the very professors of it upō their conversion & repentance have utterly renounced with shame, and highest detestation, as altogether incompatible with Christianity, piety or salvation • must certainly be sinful and utterly unlawful unto Christians: See Rom. 6.20, 21.
But sundry professed Actors and Stage-players both in the Primitive Church and since, upon their true conversion and repentance, have utterly renounced and given over their profession of acting Plays, with soul confounding shame and highest detestation, as altogether incompatible with Christianity, piety, or salvation: See here p. 134. fol. 542.545.566.568. p. 561. to 573.840. & 910.
Therefore it must certainly be sinful and altogether unlawful unto Christians.
And that upon these several grounds which is the second thing.
First, in regard of the parts & persons that are most usually acted on the Stage: which are for the most part Devils, heat • en Idol God's and Goddesses, Satyrs, Syluanes, Furies, Fayries, Fates, Nymphes, Muses, & such like ethnicke idolatrous figments, which Christians should not name or represent: Or else Adulterers, Whoremasters, Adulteresses, Whores, Bauds, Panders, Incestuous persons, Sodomites, Parricides, Tyrants, Traitors, Blasphemers, Cheaters, Drunkards, Parasites, Prodigals, Fantastiques, Ruffians, and all kind of vicious godless persons; whose very wickednesses are the common Subject of those Stageplayes which men so much applaud: And if the persons of any Magistrates Ministers or Professors of Religion are brought upon the Stage (as now too oft they are) it is only to deride and jeer them, for that which most commends them to God and all good men. The parts and persons therefore of Stage-plays being such, the represention of thē on the Stage must needs be ill, as I have largely proved: pag. 88, 89, 94.175. to 178. &c.
Secondly, in respect of the subject matter of Stage-plays which is either profane or heathenish, fraught with the names, the histories, ceremonies, applauses, acts and villainies of Pagan Idols: or ribaldrous, wicked, & obscene, consisting of Adulteries, Whoredomes, Rapes • Incests, Treasons, Murthers, solicitations to lewdness, ribaldrie, bawdrie, treachery, prodigious perjuries, blasphemies, oaths, execrations, and all kinds of wickedness: Or impious and blasphemous, abusing Scripture, God, Religion, Grace, and Goodness: Or Satirical, slanderous, and defamatorie; or vain and frothy at the best, full of amorous, effeminate wanton dalliances, passages • pastorals, or of idle words & actions. All which can neither be uttered nor acted, without sin and shame, as 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 I have more largely proved, Act. 3. & 5. throughout; and as Tertullian Chrysostom Cyprian Lactantius, Saluian, Northbrooke, Gosson, Stubs, Doct. Reynolds, and others witness; because such things as these, ought not to be named, much less then Personated, among Christians : they are evil in their own nature, their representations therefore, being the appearances of evil, which Christians must abstain from, cannot be good.
Thirdly, in regard of the very manner of acting Plays, consisting of sundry particular branches, which I have at large discussed Act. 5. Scene. 1.2.3.4.5, 6.7. &c. on which you may reflect, and therefore shall pass more briefly over them now, reciting only some passages, some authorities that I there omitted.
The first considerable particular in personating of Stage-plays, is the hypocrisy of it, in counterfeiting not only the habits, gestures, offices, vices, words, actions, persons, but even the gestures and passions of others, whose parts are represented; which I have proved hypocrisy, Act. 5. Scene 1. p. 156. to 161 Hence Philo Judaeus compares hypocrites and secret enemies unto Stage-players: tanquam in theatro personatos sub alieno habitu tegentes veram faciem: Hence Athanasius stiles the hypocritical Epicritian heretics, who covered their foul heresy with a fair outside, Stageplayers. Hence also is that passage of Zeno Veronensis an ancient Father. Denique hypocrita ill dicitur, qui in theatro persona vultui superimposita, cum • lius sit, alius esse simulatur; verbi causa, interdum regis persona vtitur, cum sit ipse plebeius, aut etiam Domini cum forte ipse sit servus. Ita ergo in hac vita complurimi hominum tanquam theatro simulatis personis vtuntur et fictis, (as too many likewise do in this our age) et cum sunt extrinsecus aliud, aliud se esse hominibus ostendunt. Parallel to which is that of Paschatius Ratbertus: Nunc autem quia hypocritae vt Mimisecundum tragicam pietatem in theatricis Ludorum, coram hominibus Diabolo astipulante permulcent se, et cupiunt iusti videri, cum rex militum venerit, invenient non se fuisse quorum partes agebant in superficie, sed scenicorum imitatores quorum speciem tenebant in cord. Which being added to that of learned and laborious Mr. Fox, who stiles hypocrites and false teachers, histriones pietatis, (as Dr. Humphries and others call the Mass • Histrionicam fabulam, et theatricum Papismi Spectaculum ) is a sufficient evidence, that Stage-players are hypocrites, and the acting of Plays hypocrisy, therefore unlawful unto Christians.
The second unlawful circumstance in the acting of Plays; is the gross obscenity, amorousnesse, wantonness, and effeminacie that attends it, which he • e I shall but name because I have at large debated it. Act 5. Scene 2, 3, 4, 5. to which I shall refer you.
The third, is the apparent vanity, folly, and fantastique lightness which appears in those ridiculous antique, mimicall, foolish gestures, complements, embracements smiles, nods, motions of the eyes, head, feet, hands, & whole entire body which Players use, of purpose to provoke their Spectators to profuse inordinate laughter, which absurd irrational, unchristian if not inhumane gestures and actions, more fit for skittish goats then men, or sober Christians, • f grave men, if reason or religion may be judges, are intruth naught else but the very extremity of folly, of vanity, if not of Bedlam frenzy. For what greater evidences can there be of vanity, folly. or frenzy, then to see a wise man act the fools or clownes; a sober man the drunkards, bedlams, wantons, fantastiques • a patient man, the furies, murderers, tyrants &c. a chaste man the Sodomites, whoremasters, adulterer, adultresses, whores bauds or Panders; an honest man the theefs or cheaters; yea a reasonable man the horses, Bears, Apes, Lions, &c. or a male the woman's part? What more absurd, then to behold a base notorious Rogue representing not only the person of a Maiestrate minister, Peer, Knight, &c. but even the Majesty, Pomp State, office, of the greatest Monarch; the vanity that Solomon reprehended long ago: when he saw folly set in great dignity; When he beheld Servants to ride on horses, and Princes walking as servants on the earth. Or what can be more impious or profane, then to be hold a Christian who bears the image of God, of Christ engraven on his Soul, cuius • ignum se in front portar • asserit, et de cord perdidit • as St. Augustine speaks) to act the part, the person, to put on the habit, the Image of a pagan, an Idol, yea a heathen-God and Goddess on the Stage, the very recital of whose names, whose rites, the very making of whose images, is gross Idolatry, condemned by the express letter of the second commandment, and infinite other Scripture, as all Christian writers jointly witness. Certainly if the Scriptures be so rigid, as to prohibit, all idle wanton foolish words; all unseemly gestures, and lascivious motions of the body: as the pride the loftines of the countenance, the amorous glances of the eye, the walking with stretched out necks and wanton eyes, the mincing, and tinkling of the feet &c. commanding Christians to put away vanity, folly and madness, with all (a) unseemly things ; and confineing them to gravity, modesty, comeliness and sobriety, both in their actions gestures, apparel hair words, thoughts, & things of smallest moment, the gravity of Christ & Christians being such in former time that they were never seen to laugh seldom to smile, much less to use any light dishonest gestures, or play any wanton Childish pranks, as actors do:) we cannot but from thence conclude, that it condemns these wanton postures, Complements, dalliances, motions, & representations, that always attend the acting of Plays; which in their very best acception are vanity & the appearance of evil, if not impiety and sin it self; & so unlawful unto Christians.
The fourth is the apparel wherein Plays are acted; [ 4] in which two things are considerable, which make the acting of Plays unlawful: First, the abuse; Secondly, the excessive gawdinesse, amorousnesse, and fantastique strangeness of theatrical apparel.
For the first of these; not to insist upon this particular, [ 1] that infamous sordid Actors oft usurp the habits of Ministers, Magistrates, Gentlemen, Citizens, and others; yea, th • robes of Emperors, Princes, Nobles, Bishops, Judges, and those whose parts they act, which are no ways suitable to their condition or profession; I shall only pitch upon this one particular abuse, of men's acting female parts in women's apparel and hair in Interludes; Vbi alius soccis obauratis, indutus serica vest, mundo{que} pretioso, & adtextis capite crinibus, incessu perfluo faeminam mentitur ; as Apuleius expresseth it. Which practice is diametrally contrary to Deut. 22.5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so, are • n abomination to the Lord thy God. Which Scripture, as it condemns women's cutting of their hair like men (as HRabanus Maurus, Nicholaus de Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Junius, and sundry other forequoted Expositors on this text affirm, who couple it with the 1 Cor. 11.4, to 16.) together with their clothing of themselves in man's array: (a mannish whorish practice, of which Pope Ione, a notable strumpet; Theodora, a Roman Matron, who waited on Stephanio the Player, in cut hair, and man's apparel, as his Page ; Tecla, a famous Virgin, Quae pro Paulo quaerendo tonsuram & virilem habitum suscepit ; (even against S. Paul's professed doctrine, 1 Cor. 11.5, 6, 15.) and so repaired thus disguised to his lodging, to be instructed by him. Eugenia a female Romish Saint, who did cut her hair, and clothe her self in man's apparel, and so went disguized to the Monastery of Saint Helenus the Bishop, whether no woman might have excess, where she entered into Religion, and lived many years in man's apparel like a Monk, and was at last elected Abbot of that Monastery, which office she managed with great humility like a man, as all reputed her. Marina, and Eufrosina, who polled their heads, and put on man's apparel, and then entered into Monasteries, where they lived and died professed monkish Votaries, (or rather disguised prostituted Strumpets to their chaste fellow Monks) as sundry others have done of latter times. Gundo, an infamous Virago, Quae comam capitis inscidit, & contra Dei iura virilia sumpsit indumenta; armis{que} accincta, baculo{que} innixa: and thus attyred, resorted to the Monastery of S. Karilephus, who avoided the sight of all women; But no sooner was she entered into the inward parts of the Abbathie, but she was presently struck blind in both her eyes, and possessed with a Devil, vomiting up blood in a horrid manner, for this her unnatural bold attempt: with divers other Romish female Votaries, who have polled their heads, and entered into Monasteries as professed Monks, in man's apparel, the better to satiate their own and other unchaste Monks lusts, have been notoriously guilty. Witness Cornelius Agrippa, who writes thus of these chaste Virgin Nuns and Monks: Quin & plurimae monialium & vestarum & beguinarum domus privatae quaedam meretriculorum fornices sunt, quas etiam monach • s & religiosos (ne diffametur eorum castitas) nonnunquam sub monachali cuculla, ac virili vest in monasterijs aluisse scimus, &c. Habent enim sacerdotes, monachi, fraterculi, moniales, & quas vocant sorores specialem lenociniorum praerogativam, quum illis religions praetextu liberum sit quocunque pervolare, & quibuscunque quantum & quoties libet, subspecie visitationis & consolationis, aut confessionis secreto sine testibus loqui, tam pie personata sunt eorum lenocinia & sunt ex illis quibus pecuniam tet • gisse piaculum est, & nihilillos movent verba Pauli dicentis; Bonum est mulierem non tangere; quas illi non raro impudicis contrectant manibus & clanculum cons • uunt ad lupanaria, stuprant virgins sacras, vitiant viduas, & hospitum suorum adulterantes uxores, nonnunquam etiam, quod ego scio & vidi, Iliaci instar praedonis abducunt, & Platonica lege, cum popularibus suis communes prostituunt, & quarum animas lucraridebent Deo, illarum corpora sacrificant Diabolo; aliaque his multo sceleratiora, & quae nefas est eloqui, insana libidine perpetrant: interim castitatis voto abunde satisfacientes, si libidinem, si luxuriam, si fornicationem, si adulteria, si incestum verbis acerrime incessent detestenturque • & de virtute locuti clunes agitent. Sed & flagitio • issimi lenones scelestissimaeque lenae saepe sub illis religionum pellibus delitescunt. Tales habent aulicae dominae plerum{que} sacrorum suorum mystas, & aulicarum nuptiarum scortationumque consultores. Which passage seconded by divers other Popish and Protestant Authors, I wish our Romish Catholics, who glory of the chastity of these their goatish Votaries, would consider.) So it likewise reprehends men's nourishing of their hair like women, and their putting on of women's attire, (though it be but now and then,) as an abomination to the Lord: And no wonder, that • he putting on of woman's apparel, and the wearing of long hair should make men abominable unto God himself, since it was an abomination even among Heathen men: Witness, not only the forequoted examples of Heliogabalus, Sardanapalus, Nero, Sporus, Gaius Caligula, and others: together with Commodus and Annarus the effeminate governor of Babylon, (all great Sodomites and Adulterers:) whose going clad sometimes in woman's apparel (for none of them went constantly in that array, some of them only once or twice) hath made them forever execrable to all posterity: insomuch that AElius Lampridius writes of Commodus, (qui clava non solum leones in vest muliebri, sed etiam multos homines afflixit) Quod tantae impudentiae fuit, ut cum muliebri vest in Amphitheatro & Theatro sedens publice saepissime biberit. And what accursed fruits this effeminacy of his produced, the same Author witnesseth; Nec irruentium in se iuvenum carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus. It is storied of Ortyges the Tyrant of Erythre and his companions, Qui legibus solutis res administrabant civitatis ; that they grew to that height of effeminacy: Quod per hyemem muliebribus calceis induti ambulabant, comas nutriebant, nodique capillorum erant studiosi, (let our Ruffianly Love-lock wearers mark it:) caput purpureis cotoneisque diadematibus convolventes. Habebant etiam mundum muliebrem totum aureum, sicut habere faeminae consueverunt ; which made them so abominable to the people, that Hippotes the brother of Cnopus invaded them with an army, and slue them. The Samians are taxed for effeminacy by Duris and Athenaeus, Quod circa brachia ornatum muliebrem gestare consueverant, atque cum Iunonium celebrarent comas pexas habentes, atque in tergum reiectas incedebant. Sic illi pexi Iunonis templa petebant Aurea Caesaream contortam vincula nectunt: and the Sybarites are taxed for the selfsame crime; Quod est etiam apud cos consuetudo, ut pueri ad impuberem usque etatem purpuram, capillorumque nodos auro revinctos gestant. Pausanias writes of Leusippus, who went clad in woman's apparel, and wore long effeminate hair like a woman, consecrated to Alpheus, the better to circumvent the chastity of a Virgin whom he loved; that he was slain by Daphne and her Nymphes, who discovered him to be a male in woman's attire, as he was bathing among them: so detestable was this his lewdness to them. Yea, such was the detestation of this effeminate unnatural odious practice of men's putting on women's apparel, even among Ethnics; that the Lycians when they chanced to mourn, did usually put on a woman's garment, (ut deformitate cultus commot • , maturius stultum proijcere maerorem velint, that the very deformity and infamy of that array might move them the sooner to cast of their foolish sorrow: and Charondas the famous Lawgiver, as Diodorus Siculus informs us; is much applaud • d for enacting this law among the Thurians, that whereas other Lawmakers made it capital for any man to forsake his colors in the wars, or to refuse to bear arms for the defense of his Country, he con • ra • iwise e • acted; that such men as these, should sit three days toge • her in the market place, clothed in woman's apparel. Which Constitution (saith Diodorus ) as it exceeds the laws of other places in mildness; so it doth secretly deter such cowardly persons from their effeminate c • ward • ce, (probri magnitudine) with the greatness of the reproachful shame. Siquidem mort • m oppetere longe praestat, quàm tantum ignominiae dedecus in patriâ experiri: For it is far better for a man to be slain, then to undergo so great an ignominy and shame in his own Country. The wearing of woman's apparel, even for a little space in these Pagans judgments being so shameful, so execrable a thing, that a man were better to be put to death, then to p • t on such array; with which Ascanius doth thus upbraide the Troianes.
Nothing being more abominable even among Heathens then effeminacy in long, compt, frizled hair, and womanish apparel, as these examples, and Maffaeus Vegius, De Educatione Puerorum. lib. 5. cap. 4. and Act 5. Scene 6. abundantly testify: on which you may reflect. If then the putting on of woman's apparel were so abominable to Pagans, no marvel is it if this text of Deuteronomy stiles it an abomination to the Lord our God; the grounds and reasons of which, as I have at large insisted on before, so I shall briefly touch upon them now in Gulielmus Parisiensis his words. Causae vero prohibitionis, ne vir utatur vest faeminea, vel e converso, multae fuere. Primo, fuit congruentia ipsius naturae, videlicet, ut quod natura sexu discreverat, discerneret & vestitus. Secundo ut oportunitas auferretur-turpitudinum latibulis; posset e ••• intrare vir ad mulierem sub habitu muliebri, & e converso mulier sub habitu virili, (as the examples of Achilles, who by putting on woman's apparel des •• ured Deidamia King Lycomedes Daughter ; of Clodius, who by this wile abused Pompeia, Julius Caesar's wife; and of Leucippus, who by this stratagem sought to ravish Daphne, with other examples of women clad in man's apparel to satiate the lusts of others, witness:) Ablata est igitur per hanc discretionem vestitus, multa opportunitas slagity. Ter • io, exterminatio sacrorum. Martis & Veneris: in sacris n. Martis, non solum virili vestitu vestiebantur mulieres, sed etiam armabantur, ut in ipsis vestimentis b • llicis, id est armis, ipsum tanquam Deum belli & victoriae datorem colerent. Et Cocogrecus in libro maledicto quem scripsit de stationibus ad cultum Veneris, inter alia sacrilega & Deo odibilia praecepit, ut qui nefandum illum ritum exercct, coronam faemineam habeat in capite suo. Eodem modo in sacris Veneris viri effaeminabantur, videl • cet in vestibus muliebribus sacra Veneris exercentes, propter huiusmodi sacrilegos ritus Veneri se placere credentes at{que} quaerentes. Quarta causa est, ut occasio magna provocationi libidinis auferretur: magna enim est provocatio libidinis viris vestitus muliebris, & e converso: (how much more then when amorous wanton parts are acted in it?) & hoc est quoniam vestis muliebris viro circundata, vehementerrefricat memoriam, & commovet imaginationem mulieris, & e converso: alibi autem didicistis, quia imaginatio rei desiderabilis commovet desiderium. Quinta causa, ut auferretur occasio maleficij quibus gentes illae refertissimae erant, & in ijs nutritae. Consueverant n. malefici & maleficae in vestibus aut de vestibus libidinis, maleficia exercere, & hoc nos in eorum libris saepe legimus. Vt ergo occasio huiusmodi tolleretur, iàm voluit Deus hanc confutationem vestitus esse in viris & mulieribus. Sexta causa, ut tolleretur error periculosus & superstitiosa credulitas, quâ trahi possent ad idololatriam, quibus credebant decepti applicatione vestium muliebrium, maxim in sacris Veneris, coniungi sibi ac conciliari amore fortissimo corda mulierum, propter quas hoc facerent, vel quae postea huiusmodi vestibus uterentur: similiter & deceptae mulieres idipsum credebant de viris, & virilibus vestimentis. Voluit ergo Deus hunc superstitiosum errorem auferri de cordibus eorum per ablationem abusionis istius, ne per illum tandem traherentur ad cultum Veneris. Upon all which several reasons, but especially the 1.2, 4. & 5. Iuo Carnotensis. Decret. pars 11. cap. 64.83. & pars 7. cap. 78.80, 81. Rupertus in Deut. lib. 1. c. 13. fol. 221. Ioannis Wolfius in Deut. lib. 3. Sermo. 52. fol. 114. Dionysius Carthusianus in Deut. 22. fol. 479. Hugo Cardinalis in Deut. 22. Petrus Bertorius. Tropologiarum. lib. 5. in Deut. cap. 22. fol. 47. Conradus Pellicanus in Deut. 22. v. 5. Lucas Osiander in Deut. 22. verse. 5. Tostatus Abulensis in Deut. 22. Quaest. 2. Tom. 3. pars 2. p. 199. B.C. Procopius, Leonardus Marius, & Cornelius à Lapide in Deut. 22. verse. 5. Erasmus Marbachius. Comment. in Deut. 22. pag. 217.218 Ioannis Mariana, Scholia in Deut. 22. verse. 5. p. 99. Paulus Fagius Annotationes Paraph. Onkeli Chaldee. in Deut. Franciscus Junius Analysis in Deut. 22. v. 5. Operum Genevae. 1613. Tom. 5. Col. 572.573. (who makes this text of Deuteronomy, a Precept of honesty, not founded in the Ceremonial or Political law, but in the very law of nature, as do all other Orthodox Writers: ) together with Maphaeus Vegius, De Educatione Puerorum. lib. 5. c. 4. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 15. pag. 882. Angelus De Clavasio, Summa Angelica. Tit. Ornatus. sect. 5. Jacobus De Graffijs Descitionum Aurearum. pars 2. l. 3. c. 26. sect. 5. Hyperius De Ferijs Bacchanalibus. lib. Ioannis Langhecrucius, De Vita & Honestate Ecclesiasticorum. lib. 2. cap. 21.22. pag. 319.321. I. G. his Refutation of the Apology for Actors. pag. 16. with sundry other forequoted Fathers, Councils, and other Authors, have absolutely condemned, even from this very text, not only men's constant wearing, but likewise their very putting on of woman's apparel (especially to act an effeminate amorous woman's part upon the Stage) as an abominable, unnatural, shameful, dishonest, unchaste, unmanly wicked act, which God and nature both detest, for the precedent reasons. Yea, so universally exeorable hath this practice been in all ages, that the • . Council of Bracara, Anno Dom. 610. (as Iuo Carnotensis informs us) enacted this particular Canon against men's acting of Plays in women's, or women's acting or masquing in men's apparel: Si quis balationes ante Ecclesias sanctorum, seu qui faciem suam transmutaverit in habitu muliebri, & mulier in habitu viri, emendatione pollicita, tribu • annis paeniteat: and Baptista Trovomala, discussing this very question; Whether it be a mortal sin for a woman to put on man's, or for a man to wear woman's apparel to act a Masque or Play? maketh this reply. Respondent omnes praedicatores & totus mundus quod sic: all Preachers, and the whole world do answer that it is: and for this (saith he) they allege Gratian Distinctio. 30. cap. Si qua mulier: and Deut. 22.5. The reason why it is a mortal sin is rendered by Angelus De Clavasio, because it is contrary to this text of Deut. 22.5. and inconvenient for the persons who put it on: and by Alexander Alensis, and Aquinas: because it is directly contrary to the decency and virility of nature, and likewise to this text of Deuteronomy; Nec pertinet ad honestatem viri vest muliebri indui: utrique enim sexui diversa indumenta natura dedit. Habet enim & sexus institutam speciem habitus (writes Isiodor Hispalensis ) ut in viris tonsi capilli, in mulieribus redundantia crinium; quod maxim virginibus insigne est, quarum & ornatus ipse proprie sic est, ut concumulatus in verticem ipsam capitis sui arcem ambitu criniū contegat. If then all these several Authors, and Councils, together with Vincentius Belsensis Speculum Historiale. lib. 11. cap. 73. & lib. 21. cap. 44. with others fore-alleged; if all Preachers, and the whole world it self ; or if our own worthy Doctor Rainolds (who hath largely and learnedly debated this particular point in his Overthrow of Stage-plays. pag. 9. to 15. & 82. to 106. &c. ) may be judges, the very putting on of woman's apparel by Players or their Boys to act a Play, and so e converso, is a most execrable abomination to the Lord our God, prohibited by this text of Deuteronomy. Neither will the shortness of the time excuse the fact: For as Nero was truly said to wear his suits, and to put on his apparel, though he never more one garment twice, changing his raiment every day, as Historians relate ; so he who puts on a woman's attire for a day, an hour or two, or any lesser space to act a woman's part, be it but once in all his life, is a putter on of woman's apparel within the very words and meaning of this text • which principally provides as the fore-alleged reasons, Authors, and examples witness, against such temporary occasional wearing and pu • ting on of woman's apparel, which ofttimes happens, rather then against the daily constant wearing of it, which few have been so unnatural as to use. What Tertullian therefore writes of Hercules, attyred by his Mother in woman's apparel, to satiate his lusts. ( Naturam ita{que} concussit Larissaeus heros in virginem mutando, &c. Feras in puero matris sollicitudinem patiens certe iam ustriculas: certe virum alicuius clanculo functus adhuc sustinet, stolam fundere, comam struere, cutem fingere, speculum consulere, collum demulcere, aurem quoque foratu effaeminatus. Ecce itaque mutatio, monstrum equidem geminum, de viro faemina, mox de faemina vir, quando neque veritas negari debuisset, neque fallacia confiteri. Vterque habitus mutandi malus, alter adversus naturam, alter contra salutem. Turpius adhuc libido virum cultu transfiguravit, quàm aliqua maternaformido; tamet si adoratur à vobis qui erubescendus est Scytalo sagittipelliger ill, qui totam epitheti sui sortem cum muliebri cultu compensavit. Tantum Lydiae clanculariae licuit, ut Hercules in Omphale, & Omphale in Hercule prostitueretur, &c. The same may I say of women who impudently cut their hair, or put on men's, or men who effeminately nourish their hair, or put on woman's apparel to act any mummery, Masque, or Stage-play, or for any such like ends; that they sin against nature, their sex, their own salvation, making themselves not only double monsters, but even an abomination to the Lord their God, as all the premises witness. And what Christian, what Mummer, Masquer, or Actor is there so desperately prodigal of his own salvation, as thus to become an Anathema Maranatha, a perpetual unsufferable abomination to his God, by putting on such apparel for an hour, to act a Matrons, perchance a Strumpe • s part, which may make him miserable for all eternity? As therefore this putting on of woman's apparel is an abomination unto God, so let it be an execrable and accursed thing to us; and since there i • so much ingenuity left in most men, rather to go could and naked, yea to expose their lives to hazard, then thus unnaturally to clothe their nakedness, or to walk abroad in woman's vestments; let there not be henceforth so much impudency in any Actors, Mummers, Masquers, as to appear publicly in feminine habits, or attires on the Stage, rather then to forego their lascivious sinful Plays and Interludes, which (if S. Augustine, or others may be credited,) are the very broad way, which leads men down to Hell and endless death, in which many multitudes daily walk and sport themselves. I shall therefore close up this particular (which D. Rainolds hath at large discussed, and I myself more copiously insisted on in the foregoing part ) with the Commentary of Erasmus Marbachius on this text of Deuteronomy. Distinxit Deus in creatione virum à muliere, ut forma corporis, ita quo{que} officio: hanc distinctionem vult Deus conservari, & neutrum sexum habitu & vestitu in alium se transformare, nec quae alterius sunt usurpare. Mulieris est suo vestitu indui, & colum ac lanam tractare, domestic • querei curam ager • . Viri est, suis quo{que} vestibus indui, & quae foris & reipub. curare, &c. Prohibentur ita{que} hac lege larvae, quibus se homines transformant ut agnosci nequeant, quae res occasionem praebet multorum gravissimorum scelerum. Praetereà turpis & inhonestus vestitus, qui nec virilem, nec muliebrem sexum decet; ipsa etiam vestitus novitas, quae animi levis & inconstantis, & vani indicium est: the next particular, which I shall briefly touch.
[ 2] The second unlawful Circumstance of Actors apparel, is its overcostly gawdinesse, amorousnesse, fantastiquenesse, and disguizednesse. For the gaudinesse, lasciviousness, and newfangledness of Players attire, it hath been long since discovered and censured by the Fathers. Hence Philo Judaeus discribing a lascivious painted frizled accurately attyred Strumpet, stiles her; Praestigiatrix splendide ac scenice ornata. Hence Gregory Nazianzen stiles all women, who paint their faces, embroyder or frizle their hair, and wear lascious gaudy apparel; Theatrice comptae & ornatae, ob venustatem invenustae ; as Levenclavius translates it: recording this as none of his Mothers meanest virtues: quod pictum & art quaesitum ornatum, ad ease, quae theatris delectantur ablegabat ; who were all notorious prostituted Strumpets. Hence Chrysostom, declaiming against the compt, glittering, painted, amorous females of his age, writes, that they were nihil à theatralibus faeminis discrepantes: and to beat down all fantastique pride and gawdinesse in apparel, he reasons thus: Sed ornaris & comeris? Verum & equos comptos videre licet, homines vero scenicos omnes. Hence S. Bernard taxing the pride of Prelates and Popish Priests in his time proceeds thus. Vnde hinc est eis quem quotidie • idemus m • retricius nitor, histrionicus habitus? Hence John Sarisbery our Countri-man useth this expression in censuring the effeminate compt fantastique Gallants of his age; interim invident meretrici histrionis habitum. And hence our learned Walter Haddon, phraseth Mass-attire, gaudy Copes, and such like vestments, Histrionicus vestitus: Which several phrases and expressions, with sundry others to the like purpose are frequent in most Greek and Latin Authors. All which being coupled with 22. Henry 8. c. 13. (which speaks of the costliness of Players Robes) and with Act 5. Scene 7. pag. 216. to 220. where I have more largely demonstrated this particular, will be a sufficient evidence, of the gawdinesse, lasciviousness, and newfangledness of Stage apparel, and so by consequence of its unlawfulness too. For the strange disguisednesse of threatricall attires, it is most apparent: For do not all Actors, Mummers, Masquers u • ually put on the Vizards, shapes and habits of Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, M • rcury, Bacchus, Vulcan, Saturn, Venus, Diana, Nep • une, Pan, Ceres, Juno, and such like Pagan Idol-gods and Goddesses: the persons, the representations of Devils, Satyrs, Nymphes, Sylvanes, Fayries, Fates, Furies, Hobgoblin • , Muses, Sirens, Centaures, and such other Pagan Fictions? yea, the por • raitures and forms of Lions, Bears, Apes, Asses, Horses, Fishes, Foules, which in outwar • appearance metamorphose them into Idols, Devils • Monsters, Beasts, whose parts they repre • ent? and can these disguises be lawful, be tolerable among Christians? No verily. For first, the former sort of them, as Josephus, Philo Judaeus, Tertullian, with all ancient and moderne Expositors on the 2. Commandment witness, are merely idolatrous ; the very mentioning of these Idols names, much more then the representation of their parts, the making and wearing of their Vizards, shapes, and Images being wholly condemned by the Scripture; which commands Christians to fly all Idolatry, and not to come near it, lest it should infect them. Secondly, there is no warrant at all in Scripture for any such Stag • -disguises, but very good ground against them. For first it condemns men's disguising of themselves like women, and women's metamorphosing themselves into men either in hair, apparel, offices, or conditions: how much more then men's transfiguring of themselves into the shapes of Idols, Devils, Monsters, Beasts, &c. between which and man there is no Analogy or proportion, as is between men and women. Secondly, it • njoynes men and women, to attire themselves in modest, decent, and honest apparel, suitable to their sexes and degrees, as b • cometh those who profess godliness: But s • ch Vizards and disguises as these, are neither modest, decent, honest, nor yet suitable to their human nature. Thirdly, it requires them, to abandon all wanton, strange, lascivious, vain, fantastique dresses, fashions, vestments: much more then such habits, such disguises as these, which are both inhuman, bestial, and Diabolical. Fourthly, it commands men, not to be like to Horse and Mule, which have no understanding: therefore not to act their parts, or to put on their skins or likeness. It was God's heavy Judgment upon King Nebuchadnezzar, that he was driven from men, and did eat grass as Oxen, and that his body was wet with the dew of Heaven, till his hairs were grown like Eagles feathers, and his nails like Birds claws: yea, it is man's greatest misery, that being in honor he became like to the beasts that perish: And must it not then be man's sin and shame to act a Beast, or bear his image, with which he hath no proportion? What is this but to obliterate that most glorious Image which God himself hath stamped on us, to strip ourselves of all our excellency, and to prove worse then bruits? Certainly, that God who prohibits, the making of the likeness of any beast, or fish, or fowl, or creeping thing, whether male or female, to express or represent his own likeness; condemning the idolatrous Gentiles, for changing the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creep • ng things; with which he hath no similitude or proportion ; must certainly condemn the putting on of such brutish Vizards, the changing of the glory, the shape of reasonable men, into the likeness of unreasonable beasts and creatures, to act a bestial part in a lascivious Enterlude. Fifthly, it enjoins men, not to alter that form which God hath given them by adding or detracting from his work; not to remove the bounds that he hath set them; but to abide in that condition wherein he hath placed them: Upon which grounds, as the Fathers and others aptly censure face-painting, Perewigs, vain fashions, disguises and attires, together with the enchroachments of one sex upon the habits, offices, or duties of the other ; so I may likewise condemn these Play-hou • e Vizards, vestments, images and disguises, which during their usage in outward appearance offer a kind of violence to God's own Image and men's human shapes, metamorphosing them into those idolatrous, those brutish forms, in which God never made them. Sixthly, it censures men's degenerating into beasts, or Devils, either in their minds or manners, be it but for a season; as the marginal Scriptures witness; therefore it cannot approve of these theatrical, bestial, and diabolical transfigurations of their bodies ; which are inconsistent with the rules of piety, gravity, honesty, modesty, civility, right reason, and expedience, by which all Christians actions should be regulated. Seventhly, it informs us, that even Achish King of Gath, a mere Pagan Idolater, when he saw David acting the madman before him, and feining himself distracted, scrabling on the doors of the gate, and letting the spittle fall down upon his beard; said thus unto his servants; Loe you see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? Have I need of mad-men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad-man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house? If then this Heathen King was so impatient to see David act the Bedlam in his presence, even in his ordinary apparel, that he would not suffer him to stay within his Palace; how much more impatient should all Christian Princes and Magistrates be of beholding Christians acting, not only Mad-men's, but eve • Devils, Idols, Furies, Monsters, beasts, and senseless creatures parts upon the Stage in such prodigious deformed habits and disguises, as are unsuitable to their humanity, their Christianity, gravity, sobriety; bewraying naught else but the very vanity, folly, and brutish frenzy of the • r distempered minds? Certainly those who readily censure and detest such habits, such representations in all other places must needs condemn them in the Play-house, whose execrable infamous lewdness may happily make them more unlawful, never commendable or fit for Christians. Lastly, these theatrical habits, vizards, and disguises have been evermore abominated, condemned by the Church and Saints of God: as namely, by the Jewish Church and Nation: who, as they never admitted nor erected any Images of Pictures of God, of Christ, or Saints within their Temple, as Hecataeus Abderita, Cornelius Tacitus, Dion Cassius, Philo Judaeus, and Josephus witness: accounting it a heinous sin contrary to the express words of the second Commandment, to paint or make any Picture, any Image of God; because the invisible incorporiall God, (whom no man hath seen at any time, nor can see; between whom and any Image, Picture, or creature there is no similitude, no proportion,) cannot be expressed by any visible shape or likeness whatsoever, (his Image being only spiritual and invisible like himself,) as not only the Scripture, but even Seneca and Tully inform us: Upon which grounds the Primitive Christians ( who had no Images, no Pictures, no Altars in their Churches, as Arnobius, Origen, Minucius Felix, and Lactantius testify, for which the Pagans blamed them: ) as also Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Origen, Min •• ius Felix, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Gregory Nyssen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine • Eusebius, Epiphanius, Cyrillus Alexandrinus, Damascene, and other Fathers ; together with Constantine the Great, Constantine Caballinus, Nicephorus, Stauratius, Philippicus, Anthemius, Theodosius the second, Leo Armenus, Valence, Theodosius the third, Michael Balbus, Theophilus, Charles the Great, with other Emperors; the Councils of Eliberis, Constantinople, Toledo, and Frankford ; with sundry Popish and Protestant Writers since, our late renowned Sovereign King James, and our own Homilies, against the peril of Idolatry, (established by Act of Parliament, and confirmed by our Articles and Canons, as the undoubted Doctrine of our Church, to which all our Clergy subscribe:) do absolutely condemn, as sinful, idolatrous, and abominable the making of any Image or Picture of God the Father, Son, and holy Ghost, or of the sacred Trinity, & the erecting of them, of Crucifixes, or such like Pictures in Churches, which like the Emperor Adrian’s Temples built for Christ, should be without all Images, or Saints Pictures. So they likewise condemned the very art of making Pictures and Images, as the occasion of Idolatry, together with all Stage-portraitures, Images, Vizards, or representations of Heathen Idols, &c. as gross Idolatry, as Josephus witnesseth: The selfsame censure is passed against these theatrical Pictures, Vizards, Images, and disguises, by Philo Judaeus, De Decalogo. lib. pag. 1037. By Tertul De Spectaculis. lib. cap. 23. De Corona Militis. lib. cap. 8.9. & De Idololatria. lib. By Cyprian Epist. lib. 2. Epist. 2. & lib. 1. Epist. 10. & De Spectac. lib. By Arnobius Adversus Gentes. lib. 7. By Lactantius De Vero Cultu lib. 6. cap. 20. By Augustine, De Civit. Dei. lib. 2. cap. 5. to 14. By the 6. Council of Constantinople. Can. 60.62. (See here pag. 88.69, 583, 584,) By the Synod of Lingres. her • , pag. 600. By the Council of Basil, here pag 601. By the Council of Toledo, here pag. 603.604. by sundry oother for • -quoted Councils and Synods. here pag. 606.625, 633, 635, &c. By our own Statute of 3. Henry 8. cap. 9. against Mummers and Vizards. here pag. 493, 494. By Tostatus in Deut. 22. Quaest. 2. Tom. 2. pars 3. p. 119. B.C. By Polidor Virgil, De Inventoribus Rerum. lib. 5. c. 2. By Ioannis Langhecrucius, De Vita & Honestate Ecclesiasticorum. lib. 2. cap. 22. pag. 321.322, 323. By Doctor Rainolds, in his Overthrow of Stage-plays, and by most others who have written either against Stage-plays, vain fashions, and apparel, or face-painting. Wherefore they are certainly unlawful, as I have formerly proved at large. Act 3. Scene 3. & Act 5. Scene 1.2, 3, 5, 6, 7. on which you may reflect. I shall therefore close this point with that speech of Saint Bernard, in his Apology to William the Abbot, in his passage against the overcostly building and adorning of Temples, and the setting up of vain Images and Pictures in Churches, (a thing much condemned by sundry Fathers, Councils, and Imperial Christian Constitutions ; by all Reformed Churches, and orthodox Protestant Writens, and by the Statutes, Injunctions, Homilies, Canons, ancient and moderne Bishops, & authorized Writers of the Church and State of England, who teach, that all Images and Pictures, especially Crucifixes, with the Images, the Pictures of God the Father, and the sacred Trinity, which to make is gross Idolatry and superstition, ought wholly to be abolished and cast out of Churches, in which some of late erect thē:) where thus he writes. Caeterum in claustris (I may • ay in Spectaculis & theatris ) corā legentibus fratribus quid facit illa ridicula monstruositas, mira deformis formositas, ac formosa deformitas? quid ibi immundae simiae, quid feri leones? quid monstruosi Centauri? quid semi-homines? quid maculosae tigrides? quid milites pugnantes? quid venatores tubicinātes? Videas sub uno capite multa corpora, & in uno corpore capita multa. Cernitur hinc in quadrupede cauda serpentis, illinc in pisce caput quadrupedis. • bib • stia praefert equum, capram trahens retro dimidiam, hic cornutum animal equum gerit posterius. Tam multa deni{que} tam{que} mira diversarum formarum ubi{que} varietas apparet, ut magis legere libeat in marmoribus quam in codicibus, totum{que} diem occupare singula ista mirando, quam in Dei lege meditando. O vanitas vanitatum! sed non vanior quam insanior. Pro Deo si non pudet ineptiarum; cur vel non piget expensarum. And thus much for the manner of acting Stage-plays.
[ 5] THe 5. thing which makes the profession of a Player and the very acting of Plays unlawful, is the end for which they are acted, which is double; profit, or pleasure; the first, the end of all common Players: qui premium incertum petunt certum scelus: the second only of Academical and private Actors. To begin with the first. I say it is altogether unlawful for any to act Plays for gain or profit sake, or to make a trade [ 1] or living of it. First, because the profession of a Player is no lawful warantable trade of life, but a most infamous lewd ungodly profession, condemned by Pagans, by Christians in all ages, as the examples of Plato, Aristotle, the Lacedemonians, Massilienses, and others, who excluded Stage-players their Republics, and of the Primitive Church and Christians who excommunicated and banish • d them the Chu • ch, together with our own Statutes, who brand them all for Vagrant Rogues and sturdy Beggers, most plentifully evidence. That therefore which all ages have thus solemnly censured as infamous, • xecrable and unchristian, can be no lawful calling for men to live or gain by. Besides, the professiō of a Stage-player, had its original institution from Pagan Idols and Idolaters: it was originally devoted to Idolatry, to Bacchus, and Heathen Devil-gods: it tends only to dissoluten • sse and profaneness, to nourish idleness, vice, and all kind of wickedness both in the Actors and Spectators: yea, it makes men professed vassals to the Devil, to maintain his very works and Pompes which they have utterly renounced in their baptism: it tends neither to God's glory, nor the good of men: needs therefore must it be unlawful; and so likewise to get money by it. Secondly, Stage-plays in their very best acception are [ 2] but vanities or idle recreations, which have no price, no worth or value in them: they cannot therefore be vendible because they are not valuable. In every lawful way of gain or trade, there ought to be quid pro quo, some worth or other in the thing that is sold, equivalent to the price the vendees pay, or else the gain is fraudulent and sinful; but there is no value at all in Stage-plays or their action, which are but empty worthless vanities; therefore no price ought to be taken for them. Thirdly, neither the Word or Church of God, nor the Laws and Statutes of any Christian Kingdom (which for the most part condemn all Actors and their lewd profession,) did ever authorize the acting of Plays (no nor yet the Playing at Cards or Dice, or Bowles,) as a lawful trade and means for men to live and gain by. Yea, the acting of Stage-plays can never be made a lawful profession, because Plays themselves are but recreations, which must not be turned into professions; recreations being only to be used rarely, when men are tired out with honest Studies, callings, and employments; (as Stage-plays ought to be were they lawful,) but professions, constantly from day today. Therefore men cannot act them, to gain a living by them. Upon these grounds the Fathers, Schooolemen, and Canonists teach us; that for men to give their money to Stage-players for their playing, is a very great sin: Yea, Guillermus Altissiodorensis, Jerome, Iuo, Vincentius Bellovicensis, Olaus Magnus, Ioannis Bertachinus, Stephanus Costa, and divers other certify us; that, Histrionibus dare est Daemonibus immolare, to give to Stage-players, is naught else but to sacrifice unto Devils: because their profession is unlawful & Diabolical too: it being both a sin for Play-haunters to give, or Players to take any money for their Plays and action. Hence is it that most Divines and Casuists inform us, that money gotten by Dice, by Cards, by acting Plays, or any unlawful profession whatsoever, is plain theft, and that Dicers and Players are bound to restore their gains in case they are able, or else to distribute it to the poor. Hence Saint Cyprian (and out of him Johannes Langhecrucius, and Iuo Carnotensis ) informs us, that Players gains do but separate them from the Society of the Saints in Heaven, and fat them up for Hell: for thus he writes of a Player who pretended poverty and necessity to continue in his acting; Quod si penuriam talis & necessitatem paupertatis obtendit, potest inter caeteros qui alimentis Ecclesiae sustinentur, huius quo{que} necessit as adjuvari, si tamen contentus sit frugalioribus & innocentibus cibis. Nec putet salario se esse redimendum ut à peccatis cesset, quando hoc non nobis sed sibi praestet. Caeterum quando vult inde quaerat. Qualis quaestus est qui de convivio Abrahae, Isaac, & Jacob & homines rapuit, & male ac perniciose in seculo saginatos ad aeternae famis ac sitis supplicia deducit? Et ideo quantum potes, eum à pravitate ac dedecore, ad vitam innocentia, at{que} ad spem vitae suae revoca, ut sit contentus ecclesiae sumptibus parcioribus quidem, sed salutaribus. Quod si illic ecclesia non sufficit ut labor antibus praestentur alimenta, poterit se ad nos transfer, & hic quod sibi ad victum at{que} vestitum necessarium fuerit, accipere, nec alios extra eoclesiam mortalia docere, sed ipse in ecclesia salutaria discere. The acting therefore of Plays for hire, gain, or profit sake (which ought not to be the end of any man's lawful calling, but only God's glory and the good of men, which Plays and Actors never aim at:) must certainly be unlawful; Which I would wish our Players and Play-haunters to consider. Secondly, as it is unlawful to act Plays for profit, so likewise for pleasure sake, because this life is no life of carnal joy and jollity, but of weeping and mourning for our own and other sins, and because carnal pleasures damp, or quite extinguish all spiritual heavenly joys, obdurate men's hearts, stupefy their consciences, withdraw their minds and thoughts from God and better things, lullmen fast a sleep in dangerous security, so that they never seriously think either of their sins or latter ends, as is evident by many Players and Play-haunters lives, who are so intoxicated, so stupefied with these Syrenian Interludes, that they never seriously think of sin, of God, of Heaven, or Hell, or of the means of grace. But because I have been more copious in this theme before, I shall here briefly pass it over now, referring you to Part 1. Act 2. & Act 5. Scene 11. for fuller satis • action.
THe 6. and last ground of the unlawfulness of acting [ 6] Plays is the evil fruits that issue from it, both to the Spectators (of which I have at large discoursed, Part 1. Act 6. throughout, ) and likewise to the Actors, which I shall here only name. As first, it makes the Actors guilty of many sins; to wit, of vain, idle, ribaldrous, and blasphemous words; of light, lascivious, wanton gestures and actions; loss of time, hypocrisy, effeminacy imp • dency, theft, lust, with sundry other sins, which they cannot avoid: Secondly, it ingenerates in them a perpetual habit of vanity, effeminacy, idleness, whoredom adultery, and those other vices which they daily act: Discunt enim facere dum assuescunt agere, & simulatis erudiuntur ad vera, as Lactantius and Cyprian truly write. Whence we see for the most part in all our common Actors the real practice of all those sins, and villainies which they act in sport; they being (as Ludovicus Vives, John Calvin the Civilian, and Jacobus Spielegius write) Perditissimis moribus, & deploratae nequitiei ; men of most lewd, most dissolute behavior, and most deplorable desperate wickedness, as I have elsewhere largely proved. And how can it be otherwise? Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu, being as true as it is ancient. When Children Youthes and others, shall be trained up either in Universities, Schools, or Play-houses, to Play effeminate amorous wanton Strumpets parts; to act the parts of Wooers, Lovers, Bauds, Panders, Whore-masters, Incestuous persons, Sodomites, Adulterers, Cheaters, Roarers, Blaspemers, Paricides, and the like: when they shall be instructed. Magisterio impudicae artis gestus quo{que}, turpes & molles & muliebres exponere, as Saint Cyprian phraseth it, to express effeminate, womanish, wanton, dishonest mimicall gestures, by the tutorship of an unchaste art; to court Whores and Strumpets, to solicit the chastity and circumvent the modesty of others; to contrive, to plot and execute any villainy with greatest secrecy and security; to act any sins or wickedness to the life, as if they were really performed; when they shall have their minds, their memories, and mouths full fraught with amorous ribaldrous panderly Histories, Pastorals, Iests, discourses, and witty, though filthy obscenities from day today; (the case of all our common Actors; especially those who have been trained up to acting from their youth;) no wonder if we discover a whole grove of all these notorious acted sins and villainies budding forth continually in their ungodly lives ; insomuch that those who in their younger days represented other men's vices only, fall shortly after to act their own, the better to enable them to personate other men's of the selfsame kind; he being best able to play the sins of others, who hath ofttimes perpetrated the very selfsame crimes himself. Wh • nce commonly it comes to pass, that the eminen • est Actors are the most lewd companions. Et nonne satis improbata est cujus{que} artis exercitatio, quâ quanto quis{que} doctior tanto nequior? Thirdly, it makes men vain, lascivious, profane and scurrilous in their discourses; fantastical and new-fangled in their hair and apparel; mimicall, antique, histrionical in their gate, their gestures, complements and behaviours: prodigal in their expenses, impudent and shameless in their carriage; false and treacherous in their dealings; malicious, bloody and revengeful in their mi • des; atheistical, graceless, unchaste, deboist and dissolute in their lives; and for the most part impenitent and desperate in their deaths; according to that true rule of the famous Roman Orator; Mors honesta saepe vitam quo{que} turpem exornat; vita turpis ne morti quidem honestae locum relinquit. These and many such like evils are the fruits of Play-acting • as too many ancient and moderne visible examples witness. Fourthly, [ 4] it nourisheth men up in vanity and idleness, in which they waste their precious time which should be husbanded, redeemed to far better purposes. For though our common Players be ever acting, yet they are always idle • and make thousands idle to besides themselves; Horum enim non otiosa vita est dicenda, sed desidiosa occupatio • Nam de illis nemo dubitabit, quin operose nihil agant: as Seneca wittily de • cants. And so great is our popular Stage-players (that I say not our ordinary Play-haunters) idleness; quod totam vitam ordinant adludendum, as Aquinas writes of them: they even spend th • ir whole lives in playing: whence Marcus Aurelius long agone, and our own Statutes since, have ranked Players among the number of idle vagrant Truants, Rogues, and V • gabonds, which ought severely to be punished and then set to some honest work, • o get their livings ; their acting being naught else but idleness in God's, in men's account. And alas what a poor reward must they expect from God at last, when he shall remunerate every man according to his works, who have never wrought, but one • y loytered and played all their days? Lastly, the acting of Stage-plays inthrals the Actors both in the guilt, the punishment of all those sins which their Plays or action occasion in the Spectators. Which being so many in number, so great in quality as experience manifests them to be, what Actors conscience is able to stand under their guilt, their curse and condemnation, either in this life or in the day of judgment, when they shall all be charged on his soul? Lastly, the acting of Stage-plays, as it of right excludes all Actors, both from the privileges of the Common-weal, from the Church, the Sacraments, and society of the faithful here, and draws a perpetual infamy upon their persons ; • o it certainly debars them from entering into Heaven, and brings down an eternal condemnation on their souls and bodies hereafter, if they repent not in time, those being bound over to the judgment of the great general Assizes and eternal torments even in Heaven • who are thus bound and justly censured by the Laws and Edicts of the Church or State on earth. Hence was it, that divers Players and Play-poets in the Primitive Church, and since, renounced their professions, as altogether incompatible either with Christianity or salvation ; yea hence a late English Player some two years since, falling mortally sick at the City of Bathe, whether he came • o act; being deeply wounded in conscience, and almost driven to despair with the sad and serious consideration of his lewd infernal profession, lying upon his death-bed ready to breath out his soul; adjured his son whom he had trained up to Play-acting, with many bitter • tears and imprecations, as he tendered the everlasting happiness of his soul, to abjure and forsake his ungodly profession, which would but enthrall him to the Devils vassalage for the present, and plunge him deeper into Hell at last. Such are the dismal execrable soul-condemning fruits of Play-acting; the profession therefore of a common Player, and the personating of theatrical Interludes, must needs be unlawful even in this respect. And thus much for the second Corolary; That the profession of a Stage-player, and the acting of Stage-plays is infamous, yea sinful and unlawful unto Christians.
ACTVS 3.
I Now proceed to the 3. Consectary; That it is a sinful, [ 3] shameful, and unlawful thing for any Christians to be Spectators, frequenters of Plays or Play-houses. In which I shall be very compendious, because I have so largely manifested it in the first part of this discourse. Now the reasons of the unlawfulness of beholding Stage-plays, are briefly these. First, because [ 1] Plays themselves are evil, and the appearances, the occasions of evil; therefore the beholding of them must be such: Secondly, because it hath always been a scandalous, infamous and dishonest thing both among Christians and Pagans to resort to Stage-plays, and a thing of ill report: Thirdly, because it is contrary to our Christian vow in baptism, to forsake the Devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh, of which Stage-plays are not the meanest: Fourthly, because it gives ill example to others, and maintains, and hardens Stage-players in their ungodly profession, which else they would give over, were there no Spectators to encourage or reward them. Fifthly, because it is an apparent occasion of many great sins and mischiefs; as loss of time, prodigality, effeminacy, whoredom, adultery, unchaste desires, lustful speculations, luxury, drunkenness, profaneness, heathenism, atheism, blasphemy, scurrility, theft, murder, duels, fantastiquenesse, cheating, idle discourses, wanton gestures and complements, vain fashions, hatred of grace, of holiness, and all holy men, acquaintance with lewd companions, the greatest enemies to men's salvation; and a world of such like sins and mischiefs, as I have formerly [ 6] proved at large, Act 6. throughout. Sixthly, because it with-draws men's minds and thoughts from God and from his service unto vanity; and indisposeth them to all holy duties, making all God's holy ordinances ineffectual to [ 7] their souls. Seve • thly, because it tends only to satisfy men's • leshly lusts which war against their so • les; men being carried always to the Play-house by the si • full carnal suggestions of the flesh ; or by the • ollicitations of lewd companions; but never by the Dictate, the guidance of God's holy Spirit or Word, by which all Christians must be wholly guided, even in all their actions. Eighthly, because all Christians ought to turn away their eyes from beholding vanity. Psal. 119.37. (a text applied by the Fathers unto Stage-plays: ) and what greater, what worser vanities can men behold, then th • • cting of lascivious [ 9] Interludes? Ninthly, because Stage-plays are but Pagan Heathenish pastimes, yea the ordinary recreations of Devil-Idols, of Idolatrous voluptuous Pagans, whose pleasures and sports no Christians ought to practice. [ 10] Lastly, because the Primitive Church and Saints of God, together with the very best of Christians, of Pagans in all places, all ages, have constantly abandoned the beholding of Stage-plays themselves, and condemned it in others, the very worst of Pagans only, or men unworthy the name of Christians, and few or none but such alone affording them their presence, as the fore-quoted Authorities plentifully evidence. Act 4. Scene 1.2. Act 6. Scene 3.4, 5. & Act 7. Scene 1.2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Which several reasons with all the rest that I have formerly produced against Stage-plays in the first part of this Play-condemning Treatise, will be a su • ficient conviction of the unlawfulness of beholding, of frequenting Stage-plays, as well in private houses, as in public Theaters: Which should cause all Christians, all Play-haunters to abandon Stage-plays, as all the fore-alleged Fathers, Councils, and Authors do advise them; and that especially upon Lord's-days and Holi-days, on which Stage-plays and dancing are especially prohibited by this pious Decree of Pope Eugenius c. 35. with which I shall cloze up this Act. Ne mulieres festis diebus vanis ludis vacent. Sunt quidem & maxim mulieres, quifestis ac sacris diebus, at{que} sanctorum natalicijs, quibus debent Deo vacare, non delectantur ad ecclesiam venire, sed balando ac verba turpia de • antando, ac choreas ducendo, similitudinem Paganorū peragendo advenire procurant. Tales enim si cum minoribus veniunt ad ecclesiam, cum majoribus peccatis revertuntur. In tali enim facto debet unusquis{que} Sac • rdos diligentissime populum admonere, ut pro sola oratione his diebus ad ecclesiam recurrant, quia ipsi qui talia agunt, non solum se perdunt, sed etiam alios d • perire attendunt. Die autem Dominica nihil aliud àgendum est, nisi Deo vacandum: nulla operatio in die illa honesta comperiatur, nisi tantum hymnis & psalmis, & canticis spiritualibus dies illa transeatur. Which I would wish all gross profaners of this sacred Day now seriously to consider.
ACTVS 4.
SCENA PRIMA.
HAving thus run over these three Corollaries of the unlawfulness of penning, acting and beholding Stage-plays; I come now to answer such Objections as may be made against them; especially against the unlawfulness of acting & beholding Stage-plays. The arguments (or pretences rather) for the acting of Stage-plays (which I shall first reply to) are these:
First, it is lawful to read a Play; therefore to pen, to act, or see it acted.
To this I answer first; that the obscenity, ribaldry, amorousnesse, heathenishnesse, and profaneness of most Play-books, Arcadiaes, and feigned Histories that are now so much in admiration, is such, that it is not lawful for any (especially for Children, Youthes, or those of the female • ex, who take most pleasure in them) so much as once to read them, for fear they should inflame their lusts, and draw them on to actual lewdness, and profaneness. Hence Origen, Jerome and others inform us, that in ancient times Children and Youthes among the Jews were not permitted to read the Book of Canticles before they came to the age of 30. years, for fear they should draw those spiritual love passages to a carnal sense, and make them instruments to inflame their lusts. Upon which ground Origen adviseth all carnal persons, and those who are prone to lust, to forbear the reading of this heavenly Song of Songs. Si enim aliquis accesserit, qui secundum carnem tantummodo vir est, huic tali non parum ex hac Scriptura discriminis periculi{que} nascetur. Audire enim pure & castis auribus amoris nomina nescie • s, ab interiori homine ad exteriorem & carnalem virum, omnem deflectat auditum, & à spiritu convertetur ad carnem: nutriet{que} in semetipso concupiscentias carnales, & • ccasione divinae Scripturae commoveri, & incitari videbitur ad libidinem carnis. Ob hoc ergo m • neo & consilium do, omni qui nondum carnis & sanguinis molestijs caret, ne{que} ab affectu naturae materialis abscedit, ut à lection libelli hujus, eorum{que} quae in eo dicentur, penitus temperet. Aiunt enim observari etiā apud Hebraeos, quod nisi quis ad aetatem perfectam maturam{que} pervenerit, libellum hunc ne quidem in manibus tenere permittatur. If Children, young men, and carnal persons then upon this ground, are thus advised to refrain the reading of this sacred canonical Book of Spiritual love expressions between Christ and his beloved Church: Ne sub recordatione sanctarum faeminarum, &c. qu • ibi nominantur, noxiae titulationis stimulus excitaretur, &c. How much more then ought they to forbear the reading of lascivious amorous scurrilous Play-books, Histories, and Arcadiaes; there being no women, no youthes so exactly chaste, which may not easily be corrupted by them, and even inflamed unto fury with strange and monstrous lusts; since there is no stronger engine to assault and vanquish the chastity of • ny Maetron, Girle or Widow, of any male or female whatsoever, then these amo • o • s Play-poets Poems and Histories, as Agrippa in his discourse of Bawdery, hath truly informed us. At{que} tamen (writes he) quae in his libris plurimum edocta puella est, quae{que} horum s • it jacere dicteria, & ex horum disciplina cum procis in multas horas facunde confabulari, haec demum est probe aulica. Hence Clemens Romanus Constit. Apostol lib. 1. cap. 8. & Carolus Bovius in his Scholia upon the same place. Ib. p. 125. Nazianzen de Recta Educatione ad Selucum. pag. 1063. Basil, de Legendis libris Gentilium Oratio. Tertullian De Idololatria. lib. cap. 18. to 20. Ambrose in Evangelium Lucae. lib. 1. verse. 1. Jerome. Epist. 22. cap 13. & Epist. 146. to Damasus. Lactantius de Falsa Religioue. cap. 12.15. Augustine De Civit. Dei. lib. 2. cap. 1.8. & Confessionum. lib. 1. cap. 15.16. Isiodor Hispalensis De Summo bono. lib. 3. cap. 13. Prosper Aquittanicus, De Vita Contemplativa. c. 6. Theodoret in Cant. Cantic. Tom. 1. pag 215. Isiodor Pelusiota. Epist. lib. 1. Epist. 62.63. Gregory the first. Epist. l. 9. Epist. 48. Iuo Carnotensis. Decret. pars 4. cap. 160. to 169. Gratian Distin • tio. 86. The 4. Council of Carthage. C • n. 16. The Council of Colen under Adolphus. Anno • 1549. Synodus Mechlinienses apud Ioannem Langhecrucium, De Vita & Honestate Ecclesiast • lib. 2. cap. 22. pag. 321. De Institution. Iuventutis. Can. 3. The Council of Triers. Anno • 1540. Cap. De Sc • olis. Surius. Tom. 4. Council. pag. 838.890. The Synod of Towres. Anno 1583. The Council of Burdeaux. 1582. The Synod of Rothomagium. An. 1581. Franciscus Z • phyrus in his Epistle to Simon and Nicholas prefixed to Tertullian's Apology. G • orgius Fabritius, his Epistle to the Duke of Saxony. Agrippa De Vanitate Scientiarum. lib. cap. 64. & 71. Lodovicus Vives, De Tradendis Disciplinis. lib. 3. pag. 288.289. Episcopus Chemnensis, Onus Ecclesiae. cap. 18. sect. 8.9, 10, 11. Osorius De Regum Instit. lib. 4. pag. 120.121 Mapheus Vegius De Educatione Liberorum. lib. 2. cap. 18. lib. 3 • cap. 1.2. & De Perseverantia Religions. lib. 5. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 15. pag. 929.930. D. Humphries of true Nobility. Book 2. D. Rainolds Overthrow of Stage-plays. pag. 122.123. Thomas Beacon, BB. Babington, BB. Hooper, Ioannis Nyder, M. Perkins, Dod, Elton, Lake, Downeham, Williams, and all other Expositors on the 7. Commandment, together with most Commentators on Ephes. 5.2, 3, 4. have expressly condemned and prohibited Christians to pen, to print, to sell, to read, or School-masters and others to teach any amorous wanton Play-books, Histories, or Heathen Authors, especially Ovid's wanton Epistles and Books of love; Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Martial, the Comedies of Plautus, Terence, and other such amorous Books savoring either of Pagan God's, of ethnicke rites and ceremonies, or of scurrility, amorousnesse & profaneness; as their alleged places will most amply testify to such who shall peruse them at their leisure: the reason of which is thus expressed by Isiodor Hispalensis, Iuo Carnotensis, & Gratian, Ideo prohibetur Christianis legere figmenta poetarum, quia per oblectamenta fabularum mentem nimis excitent ad incentiva libidinum. Non enim thura solum offerendo daemonibus immolatur, sed etiam eorum dicta libentius capiendo. The penning and reading of all amorous Books was so execrable in the Primitive times, how ever they are much admired now, that Heli • dorus Bishop of Trica was deprived of his Bishopric by a Provincial Synod, for those wanton amorous Books he had written in his youth, his books being likewis • awarded to the fire to be burnt (though they are yet applauded and read by many amorous persons) quia lection eorum juvenes multi in periculū conijcerentur: because divers young men by reading of them might be corrupted and enticed unto lewdness; answerable to which memorable pious act are these Constitutions of the Council of Burdeaux. An. 1582. and of the Synod of Towres. Anno 1583. well worth our observation. Quia multi à vera fide aberrantes contra professionem, etiam consulto gravius peccant, &c. Prohibet haec Synodus, ne libri magicae artis, vel ad lasciviam & luxum provocantes imprimantur, vendantur, legantur, aut retineantur omnino; jubet{que} sicut repertifu • rint comburantur, sub ejusdem Anathematis paena quam ipso facto incurrunt, qui minime paruerint. Moneantur etiam saepissime fideles Christiani à suis Parochis & confessarijs ut fugiant, tanquam virus mortiferum, lectionem librorum quorumcum{que}, qui vel ad arts magicas pertinent, vel obscaenas & impias narrationes continent: eos{que} ut olim tempore Apostolorum factum legimus, comburant. Yea, Ignatius Loyola, the Father of the Jesuits, was so precise in this particular; That he forbade the reading of Terence in Schools to Children and Youthes, before his obscenities were expunged, lest he should more corrupt their manners by his wantonness, then by his Latin help their wits. And AEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius the second, in his Tractat • , De Liberorum Educatione, Dedicated to L • dislaus King of Hungary and Bohemia ; discoursing what Authors and Poets are to be red to Children; resolves it thus. Ovidius ubi{que} tristis, ubi{que} dulcis est, in pleris{que} tamen locis nimium lascivus. Horatius sive fuit multae eloquentiae, &c. sunt tamen in eo quaedam quae tibi nec legere voluerim nec interpraetari. Martialis perniciosus, quamvis floridus & ornatus, ita tamen spinis densus est, ut legi rosas abs{que} punctione non sinat. Elegiam qui scribunt omnes puero negari debent; nimium enim sunt molles Tibullus, Propertius, Ca • ullus, & quae translata est apud nos, Sapho, raro nam{que} non amatoria scribunt, desertos{que} conqueruntur amores. Amoveantur igitur, &c. Animadvertere etiam praeceptorem op • rtet dum tibi comaedos tragaedos{que} legit, ne quid vitij persuadere videatur. And in his 359. Epi • tle pag. 869.870, Where he repents him seriously of that amorous Treatise which he had penned in his youth, he writes thus to our present purpose. Tractatum de amore olim sensu pariter{que} aetate juvenes cum nos scripsisse recolimus, paenitentia immodica pudor{que} ac maeror animum nostrum vehementer excruciant: quippe qui sciamus qui{que} protestati express fuimus, duo contineri in eo libello, • pertam videlicet, sed heu lasciviam nimis prurientem{que} amoris historiam, & morale quod eam consequitur, edificans dogma. Quorum primum fatuos at{que} errantes video sectari quam plurimos, Alterum heu dolor, pene nullos. Ita impravatum est at{que} obfuscatum infaelix mortalium genus. De amore igitur quae scripsimus olim juvenes, contemnite ô mortals at{que} respuite; sequimini quae nunc dicimus, & seni magi • quam juven • credit. Nec privatum hominem plures facite quàm Pontificem: AEneam reijcite, Pium suscipite, &c. A passage which plainly informs us, that amorous Plays and Poems though intermixed with grave Sentences and Morals, are dangerous to be read or penned, because more will be corrupted by their amorousnesse, then instructed or edified by their Morals, as daily experience too well proves. If these authorities of Christians will not sufficiently convince us of the danger, t • e unlawfulness of reading amorous Books and Plays, the most assiduous studies of this our idle wanton age; consider then that Plato, a Heathen Philosopher, banished all Play-poets, and their Poems out of his Common-wealth; that the Lacedemonians, Massilienses, and at last the Athenians to, prohibited and suppressed all Plays and Play-poems, not suffering them to be read or acted: that Aristotle, Plutarch, and Quintilian expressly condemned the reading of wanton, amorous, fabulous, obscene lascivious Poems and Writers; that Augustus banished Ovid for his obscene, and p • nderly Books of love; and that Ovid himself dissuaded men very seriously from re • ding his own or other men's wanton Books and Poems, as being apt to inflame men's lusts, and to draw them on to whoredom, adultery, effeminacy, scurrility, and all kind of beastly lewdness. And can Christians then approve or justify the delightful reading and revolving (that I say not the penning, studying, printing and venting) of such lewd amorous Books and Plays, which these very Heathen Authors have condemned, and so prove far worse then Pagans? I shall therefore cloze up this first Reply to this Objection with the words of learned reverend George Alley, ( Bishop of Exeter, in the second year of Queen Elizabeth's Rain,) against the reading, writing, and Printing of wanton Books and Plays. It is to be lamented, that not only in the time of the idolatrous and superstitious Church, but even in this time also lascivious impur • , wanton Books, pierce into many men's houses and hands. Alas what doth such kind of Books work and bring with them? Forsooth nothing else but fire, even the burning flames of an unchaste mind, the brands of pleasure, the coles of filthiness; the fire I say, that doth consume, devour, and root out all the nourishments of virtue, the fire I say, which is a proeme and entrance into the eternal fire of Hell. What is so expedient unto a Common-wealth as not to suffer witches to live? for so the Lord commanded by his servant Moses. And (I pray you) be not they worse then an hundred Witches, which take men's senses from them? not with magical delusions, but with the enchantments of dame Venus, and as it were to give them Circes cup to drink of, and so of men to make them beasts. What punishment deserve they as either make or print such unsavory Books; truly I would wish them the same reward wherewith Alexander Severus recompensed his very familiar Vetronius Turinus, ut fumo videlicet pereant qui fumum vendunt, that they perish with smoke who sell smoke. And what other things do these set forth to sale, but smoke, ready to break out into flame? For, that certain persons bequeath themselves wholly to the reading of such lascivious and wanton Books, who knoweth not, that thereof cometh the first preparative of the mind, that when any one spark of fire (be it never so little) falls into the tinder of Lady Venus, suddenly it is set on fire as towe or flax. Many do read the verses which Lycoris the Strumpet, the Paramour of Gallus the Poet did read, and the verses which Corynna mentioned in Ovid, and which Neaera did read. It will perchance be replied, that they do read them, either for the increase of knowledge, or to drive away idleness. I answer, If any do salute Venus, but a limine, as they say, that is, a far off, as it wer • in the entry, what kindling and flames, I pray you, will ensue thereof when the coles be once stirred? It is to be feared that no small number of them who profess Christianity, be in this respect a great deal worse then the Heathen. The people called Massilienses, before they knew Christ, yea, or heard whether there were a Christ, but were very Pagans, and sacrificers to Idols, yet were known to all the world to be of such pure and unc • rrupt manners, that the manners of the Massilienses (as Plautus testifieth) are commonly counted the best and most approved manners of all others. These among many other good orders of their well nurtured City made a severe law, that there should be no Comedy played within their City, for the argument for the most part of such Plays, did contain the acts of dissolute and wanton love. They had also within their City (about 613. years before the birth of Christ) a Sword of execution wherewith the guilty and offenders should be slain; but the uprightness of their living was such, that the Sword not being used was eaten with rust, and nothing meet to serve that turn: And alas are not almost all places in these days replenished with Jugglers,, Scoffers, Iesters, Players, which may say and do what they lust be it never so fleshly and filthy? and yet suffered with laughing and clapping of hands? Hiero Syracusanus, did punish Epicharmus the Poet, because he rehearsed certain wanton verses in the presence of his wife, for he would that in his house not only other parts of the body should be chaste, but the ears also, which be unto other members of the body instead of a tunnel, to be kept, sartas tectas, that is, defended and covered, as the proverb saith, and to be shut from all uncomely and ribaldry talk. Unto which fact of Hiero, the worthy sentence of Pericles is much consonant and agreeable. Sophocles, who was joint fellow with Pericles in the Pr • torship, beholding and greatly praising the well favored beauty of a certain Boy passing by him, was rebuked of Pericles his companion after this sort: Not only the hands of him that is a Pretor ought to refrain from lucre of money, but also th • eyes to be continent from wanton looks. The Athenians provided very well for the integrity of their Judges, that it should not be lawful for any of the Areopagites to write any Comedy or Play: and Epicharmus suffered punishment at the hands of Hiero for the rehearsal of certain unchaste verses. But I speak it with sorrow of heart; to our vicious Ballad-makers, and indictors of lewd Songs and Plays, no revengment, but rewards are largely paid and given: Gerardas a very ancient man of Lacedemonia, being demanded of his Hoste, what pain adulterers suffered at Sparta, made this answer: O mine Hoste, there is no adulterer among us neither can there be: (prey mark the reason:) For this was the manner among them, that they were never present • t any Comedy, nor any other Plays, fearing lest they should hear and see those things which were repugnant to their laws. But to revert to our purpose: Wanton Books, can be no other thing but the fruits of wanton men, who although they write any one good sentence in their Works, yet for the unwor • hinesse of the person the sentence is rejected. The Sen • te of Lacedemonia would have refused a very worthy and apt saying of one Demosthenes, for the unworthiness of the Author, if certain men of authority called among them Ephori, had not come between, and caused another of the Senators to have pronounced the sentence again, as his own saying. Plutarch writeth, that there was a law among the Grecians, that even the good Books of ill men should be destroyed, that the memory of the Authors also, should thereby utterly be blotted out and clean put away, Gerson; sometimes Chancellor of Paris, speaking of a certain Book made by Johannes Meldinensis, the title whereof is the Romant of the Rose, writeth of that Book two things. First, he saith, if I had the Romant of the Rose, and that there were but one of them to be had, and might have for it 500. Crowns, I would rather burn it then sell it. Again, saith he, if I did understand that Johannes Meldinensis did not repent with true sorrow of mind, for the making and setting forth of this Book, I would pray no more for him, then I would for Judas Iscariot, of whose damnation I am most certain. And they also which reading this Book, do apply it unto wicked and wanton manners, are the Authors of his great pain and punishment. The like Johannes Raulius said of the Book and Fables of one Operius Danus, that he was a most damned man, unless he repented and acknowledged his fault, for the setting forth of that Book. I would God they heard these things whom it delighteth to write or read such shameless and lascivious works. Let them remember the saying of Saint Paul; A man shall reap that which he hath sown. Chrysostom, a great enhaunser of Paul's praises, writeth; that so long shall the rewards of Paul rise more and more, how long there shall remain such, which shall either by his life or doctrine be brought unto the Lord God. The same may we say of all such, who while they lived have sown ill seed, either by doing, saying, writing, or reading, that unless they repented, the more persons that are made ill by them, the more sharp and greater growth their pain, as Saint Augustine wrote of Arius. God save every Christian heart, from either the delighting or reading of such miserable monuments. Thus concludes this reverend Bishop, and so shall I this first reply. Secondly, admit it [ 2] be lawful to read Plays or Comedies now and then for recreation sake, yet the frequent constant reading of Play-books, of other profane lascivious amorous Poems, Histories, and discourses, (which many now make their daily study;) to read more Plays then Sermons, then Books of piety and devotion, then Books or Chapters of the Bible, then Authors that should enable men in their callings, or fit them for the public good, must needs be sinful, as all the forequoted authorities witness, because it avocates men's minds from better and more sacred studies, on which they should spend their time, and fraughts them only with empty words and vanities, which corrupt them for the present, and bind them over to damnation for the future. The Scripture we know commands men, not to delight in vanity, in old wives tales, in fabulous poetical discourses, or other empty studies which tend not to our spiritual goo •• Not to lay out our money for that which is not bread, and our labor for that which satisfieth not: but to redeem the time, because the days are evil. Yea, it commands men to be fruitful and abundant in all good works • to be holy in all manner of conversation; to be always doing and receiving good, and finishing that work which God hath given them to do, growing every day more and more in grace, and in the knowledge of God and Christ, laying up a good foundation against the time to come, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God, giving all diligence to mak • their calling and election sure: doing all they do to the praise and glory of God. Now the ordinary reading of Comedies, Tragedies, Arcadiaes, Amorous Histories, Poets, and other profane Discourses, is altogether inconsistent with all and every of these sacred Precepts, therefore it cannot be lawful. Besides the Scripture commands men even wholly to abandon all idle words, all vain unprofitable discourses, thought • and actions. If then it gives us no liberty so much as to think a vain thought, or to utter an idle word, certainly it alots us no vacant time for the reading of such vain wanton Plays or Books. Again, God enjoins us, that our speech should be always • s profitable and gracious, seasoned with salt, that so it may administer grace to the hearers, and build them up in their most holy faith: Therefore our writings, our studies, our reading must not be unedifying, amorous and profane, which ought to be as holy as serious, and profitable as our disco • rses. Moreover, it is the express precept of the Apostle Paul, (whom many profane ones will here tax of Puritanism) Eph. 4.29. &c. 5.3, 4. But fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh Saints: neither filt • inesse, nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, &c. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouths but that which is good to edify profitably, that it may mini • ter grace to the hearers, &c. And may we then read or write these sins and vices which we ought not to name? or study or peruse such wanton Plays and Pamplets, which can administer naught but gracelessness, lust, profaneness to the Readers? Lastly, we are commanded to search the Scriptures daily: to meditate in the Law of God day and night, and to read therein all the days of our lives, that we may learn to fear the Lord, and to keep and do all the works and Statutes of his Law; which was King David's study all the day long, yea, in the night season to: And because no time should be left for any vain studies or discourses; we are further enjoined, to have the Word of God always in our hearts; to teach it diligently to our children, and to talk of it when we are sitting in our houses, and when we are walking by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up: Which for any man now conscionably to perform, is no less then arrant Puritanism, in the worlds account. If then we believe these sacred precepts (to which I might add two more; Pray continually. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice ) to be the Word of God, and so to bind us to obedience; there are certainly no vacant times allotted unto Christians, to read any idle Books or Play-house Pamphlets, which are altogether incompatible with these precepts, and the serious pious study of the sacred Scripture, as S. Jerome writes. Quae enim (quoth he) cōmunicatio luci ad tenebras? • ui consensus Christo cum Belial? quid facit cum Psalterio Horatius? cum Evangelijs Maro? cum Apostolis Cicero? Et licet omnia munda mundis & nihil reijciend • m quod cum gra • iarum action percipitur; tamen simul non debemus bibere calicem Christi, & calicem Daemoniorum ; as he there proves by his own example, which I would wish all such as make profane Plays and human Authors their chiefest studies, even seriously to consider; For saith he, when ever I fell to read the Prophets after I had been reading Tully and Plautus, Sermo horrebat incultus, their uncompt style became irksome to me; & quia lumen caecis oculis non videbam, non oculorum putabam culpam e • se, sed solis. Whiles the old Serpent did thus delude me, a strong fever shed into my bones, invaded my weak body, and brought me even to deaths door: at which time I was suddenly wrapped in • pirit unto the Tribunal of a Judge, where there was such a great and glorious light as cast me down upon my face, that I durst not look up. And being then demanded what I was, I answered, I am a Christian: whereupon the Judge replied, thou liest: Ciceronianus es, non Christianus: thou art a Ciceronian, not a Christian: for where thy treasure is, there also is thy heart; whereupon I grew speechless, and being beaten by the Judges command, and tortured with the fire of conscience; I began to cry out and say, Lord have mercy upon me. Whereupon those who stood by falling down at the Judges feet, entreated that he would give pardon to my youth, and give place of repentance to my error: exact • rus deinde cruciatum si gentilium litterarum libr • s aliq • ando legiss • m. I being then in so great a strait, that I could be content to promise greater things, began to swear and protest by his Name, saying, Domine si unquam habuero • odices seculares, si legero, te negavi. And being dismissed upon this my oath I returned to myself again, and opened my eyes, drenched with such a shower of tears, that the very extremity of my grief would even cause the incredulous to believe this tr • nce, which was no slumbe • or vain dream, but a thing really acted • my very shoulders being black and blue with stripes, the pain of which remained after I awaked. Since which time saith he; Fateor me tanto dehinc studio divina legisse, quanto non ante mortalia leg • ram. And from hence this Father exhorts all Christians to give over the reading of all profane Books, all wanton Poems, which in his 146. Epistle to Damasus, he most aptly compares to the Huskes with which the Prodigal in the Gospel was fed ; where he writes thus fitly to our purpose. Possumus & aliter siliquas interpraetari. Daemonum cibus est carmina poetarum, saecularis sapientia, rhetoricorum pompa verborum. Haec sua omnes suavitate delectant, & dum aures versibus dulci modulatione currentibus capiuntur, animam quo{que} penetrant, & pectoris interna devinciunt. Verum, ubi cum summo studio fu • rint, & labor perlect • , nihil aliud nisi inanem sonum, & sermonum strepitum suis lectoribus tribuunt, nulla ibi saturitas veritatis, nulla re • ectio justitiae reperitur: studiosi • arum in fame veri, in virtutum penuria perseverant. Vnde & Apostolus prohibit; ne in Idolio quis recumbat, &c. Nonne tibi videtur sub alijs verbis di • ere, ne legas Philosop • os, Orato • es, Poetas, nec in illorum le • tione requiescas? Nec nobis blandiamur, si in eis, quae sunt scripta, non credimus, cum aliorum conscientia vulneretur, & putemur probare, quae dum legimus, non repr • bamus. Absit ut de ore Christiano sonet, Jupiter omnipoten • , & me Hercule, & me Castor, & caetera magis portenta quam numina. At nunc etiam Sacerdotes Dei (and is not as tr • e of our times?) omissis Evangelijs & Prophetis, videmus Comaedias legere, amatoria Bucolicorum verse • um verba canere, ten • re Virgilium, & id, quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se fa • ere voluptatis. Cavendum igitur si captivam velimus habere uxorem, ne in idolio recumbamus: aut si certe fuerimus ejus amore decepti, mundemus eam, & omni sordium error purgemus, ne scandalum patiatur frater pro quo Christus mortuus, cum in ore Christiani carmina, in idolorum laudem composita, audierit personare. Since therefore all these idle Play-books and such like amorous Pastorals are but empty husks, which yield no nourishment but to Swine, or such as wallow in their beastly lusts and carnal pleasures; since they are incompatible with the pious study and diligent reading of God's sacred Word, ( the gold, the honey, the milk, the marrow, the heavenly Manna, feast and sweatest nourishment of our souls, ) with the serious hearing, reading, meditation, thoughts and study whereof we should always constantly feed, refresh, rejoice, and feast our spirits, which commonly starve and pine away whiles we are too much taken up with other studies or employments, especially with Plays and idle amorous Pamphlets: (the very reading of which S. Augustine, repented and condemned: ) let us hencefore lay aside such unprofitable, unchristian studies, betaking ourselves wholly at leastwise principally to God's sacred Word, which is only able to make us wise unto salvation, and to nourish our souls unto eternal life: & since Christianity is our general profession, let not Paganism, scurrility, profanes, wantonness, amorousnesse, Plays, or lewd Poetical Figments or Histories, but God's Word alone, which as Sūmula Raymundi saith, transcends all other Books & Sciences ; be our chiefest study, at all such vacant times as are not occupied in our lawful callings, or other pious duties. I shall therefore cloze up this 2. reply, with that Apostolical Constitution recorded by Clemens Romanus, (if the Book be his) which I would wish all Papists who deny the reading of the Scripture unto Lay-men, to whō this good precept is directed as the very Title and first Chapter proves, even seriously to consider. Sed sive ad fideles & ejusdem sententiae homines accedis, conferens cum ijs vitali • verba loquere: sin minus accedis, intus sedens percurre legem, Reges, Prophetas: Psalle hymnos David, lege diligenter Evangelium, quod est horū complementū. Abstine ab omnibus Gentiliū libris. Quid enim tibi cum externis libris, vel legibus, vel Prophetis? quae quidem leves à fide abducunt. Nam quid tibi deest in lege Dei, ut ad illâs gentium fabulas confugias? Nam si historica percurrere cupis, habes Reges: si sophistica & Prophetica, habes Prophetas, & Job, & Proverbiorum authorem, in quibus omnis poeticae, & sapientiae accuratam rationem invenies; quoniam Domini Dei, qui solus est sapiens, voces sunt. Quod si cantilenas cupis, habes Psalmos: si rerum origines nosse desideras, habes Genesim: si leges & praecepta, gloriosam Dei legem. Ab omnibus igitur exteris & diabolicis libris vehementer te contine • quoniam in ipso verbo sunt omnia. Ibi remedium vulnerum, ibi subsidia necessitatum, ibi resarcitus defectuum, ibi profectuum copiae, ibi deni{que} quicquid accipere vel habere hominibus expedit, quicquid decet, quicquid oportet. Sine causa ergo aliud à verbo petitur, cum ipsum sit omnia. Thirdly, admit a man may lawfully read a Play-book, yet it will not follow, that therefore he may pen, or act a Play, or see it acted. For first, a man may lawfully read such things, as he cannot pen, or act, or behold without offending God. A man perchance may lawfully read a Mass-book, but yet he cannot write a Mass-book, nor yet act, or say, or see a Mass without committing sin. Some men may lawfully read an Alcoran, or any heretical Book, ut magis judicent quàm sequantur ; rather to confute then follow it; but no man can pen, or print, or publish it with delight, (no nor yet read it out of love and liking, as men read Play-books) but he must transgress. A man may safely read the stories of the Sodomites sins, of the Canaanites and Israelites Idolatries ; but yet to act, or see them acted cannot be less then sinful. A man may and must daily read the sacred Scriptures, the Passion of our Savior, the Histories of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Job, and others recited in the Bible; yet none may Play or see them Played without sin, yea highest blasphemy and profaneness ; though some graceless wretches as well in private as in popular Stage-plays much profane them, bringing not only Ministers, preaching and praying, but even the very sacred Bible and the stories in it on the Stage, as some late notorious damnable (if not damned) precedents witness ; when as not only our own pious Statute of 3. Iacobi. cap. 21. but likewise Concilium Rhemense, Anno 1583. which decrees thus: Vt ea vitent fideles quibus cultus divinus impediri potest, statuimus, ne quis Scripturae sacrae verba ad scurriliae, detrectationes, superstitiones, incantationes, sortes, libellos famosos audeat usurpare. Si quis contra fecerit, juris & arbitrij paenis coerceatur: And Concilium Bituriense. Anno 1554. which thus ordains. Non liceat cuiquam verba & sententias sacrae Scripturae ad scurrilia, fabulosa, vana, adulationes, detractiones, superstitiones, & diabolicas incantationes, divinationes, sortes, libellos famosos, & alias ejusmodi impietates usurpare: Qui in eo peccaverint, ab Episcopis legitimis paenis coercētur: together with the Synod of Rochell. An. 1571. (here p. 636.) & BB. Gardener have long since prohibited and condemned this atheistical horrid profaneness, which no Christian can so much as think off, but with highest detestation. Since therefore many things may be lawfully read, which cannot honestly be penned, acted, heard or seen, the argument is but a mere inconsequent. Secondly, though a man perchance may in some cases lawfully read a Play-book, yet it will not follow, that he may compose, or act, or see a Stage-play: For first, a man may read a Play with detestation both of its vanity, ribaldry and profaneness; but he can neither pen, nor play, nor yet very willingly behold it, as all Play-haunters do, without approbation [ 2] and delight. Secondly, a man may read a Play without any prodigal vain expense of money, or over-great loss of time: but none can compile, or act, or see a Stage-play without loss of time, of money, which [ 3] should be better employed: Thirdly, Stage-plays may be privately read over without any danger of infection by ill company, without any public infamy or scandal, without giving any ill example, without any encouraging or maintaining of Players in their ungodly profession, or without participating with them in their sins; but they can neither be compiled, beheld, or acted, without these several unlawful circumstances which cannot be avoided.
[ 4] Fourthly, Stageplayes may be read without using or beholding any effeminate amorous, lustful gestures, complements, kisses, dalliances, or embracements; any whorish, immodest, fantastique, womanish apparel, Vizards, disguises; any lively representations of Venery, whoredom, adultery, and the like, which are apt to enrage men's lusts: without hypocrisy, feining, cheats, lascivious tunes and dances, with such other unlawful Stage ingredients or concomitants: but they can neither be seen nor acted, without all, or most of these. Fifthly, he that reads a Stage-play may pass by all obscene or amorous passages, all profane or [ 5] scurrill Iests, all heathenish oaths and execrations even with detestation; but he who makes, who acts, who hears, or views a Stage-play acted, hath no such liberty left him, but he must act, recite, behold and hear them all. Yea sometimes such who act the Clowne or amorous person, add many obscene lascivious jests and passages of their own, by way of appendix, to delight the auditors, which were not in [ 6] their parts before. Lastly, when a man reads a Play, he ever wants that viva vox, that flexanimous rhetorical Stage-elocution, that lively action and representation of the Players themselves which put life and vigor into these their Interludes, and make them pierce more deeply into the Spectators eyes, their ears and lewd affections, precipitating them on to lust: yea, the eyes, the ears of Play-readers want all those lust-enraging objects, which Actors and Spectators meet with in the Play-house: Therefore though the reading of Stage-plays may be lawful, yet the composing, acting, or seeing of them in all these several regards, cannot be so. So that this first Objection is both false and frivolous.
The second Objection for the composing and acting of Plays is this. The penning and acting of Plays doth whet & exercise men's wits and poetry, embolden youth, confirm their voices, help their memories, action and elocution; and make them perfect Orators. Therefore it is both lawful, yea and useful to.
To this I answer first: that this Objection makes only for academicall and private, but naught for popular Interludes. Secondly, academicall Stage-plays are seldom acted or penned for any of the ends, the uses here recorded, but only for entertainment, for mirth and pleasure sake. Thirdly, men must not do [ 2] evil that good may come of it: therefore they may not [ 3] exercise their wits, their inventions about lascivious amorous Play-house Poems; they may not strengthen or stuff their memories with such vain lewd empty froth as Plays now are; nor embolden themselves by acting effeminate, scurrile, whorish, impudent, or immodes • parts: nor yet help their action, their elocution by uttering, by personating any unlawful things, which may either draw or tempt them unto lewdness. We know that frequenting of Taverns and Brothels; courting of impudent Strumpets, keeping of deboist company, reading of amorous Books and Pastorals, add spirit and boldness unto men, yea oft improve their elocution, carriage, and amorous fond discourse, as much or more then Plays, yet none may use these wicked courses to obtain these petty benefits; no more then he may oppress, or steal, or cheat, or perjure himself to augment his wealth, or [ 4] use charms and sorceries to recover health. Fourthly, Melius est aliquid nescire, quàm cum periculo discere. The hurt, the danger that accrues to men by penning, by acting Plays, is evermore far greater then the good, the benefits here alleged: the evil is certain, the good, uncertain: it is no wisdom, no safety therefore to plung men into sundry great and certain evils, [ 5] to achieve some probable mean emoluments. Fifthly, the good that comes by penning or acting Plays, is only temporal; the hurt, the mischief is eternal; the good extends no further then men's bodies; the damage reacheth to their souls, yea oft unto their bodies, goods and names: it is no discretion then for men to hazard the loss, the damage of their souls, for [ 6] such petty improvements of their bodies. Sixthly, there is little or no analogy between the action, the elocution of Players, of Orators and Divines: The principal praise of Actors is a lively counterfeiting and representation of the parts, the persons they sustain, by corporal gestures rather then by words: the chiefest praise of Orators is to express, to describe the things they speak of in an elegant flexanimous phrase, and grave elocution: the duty of the one being to represent things to the eye, whereas the other speaks only to the ear. Which diversity is warranted both by the story of Cicero the Orator, and Roscius the Actor, who, as Macrobius writes, did use to contend together; Vtrum ill s •• pius • andem • ententiā varijs gestibus efficeret, an ipse p • r eloquentiae copiam sermon divers • pronunciaret: by the very stiles of Actor, and Orator, the first, importing only corporal gestures, and representations; the other, verbal expressions • and by the usual phrases of seeing a Stage-play, and hearing an Oration. Now what proportion is there between gestures and words? between acting and speaking well, that one should be such a help or furtherance to the other? Alas what profit, what advantage can an Orator gain by acting an amorous females, a Bauds, a Panders, a Ru •• ians, Drunkards, Murderers, Lovers, Soldiers, Kings, Tyrants, Fayries, Furies, Devils or Pagan Idols part with suitable gestures and speeches? tell me I beseech you, what furtherances these are to make a perfect Orator, who though he may plead or speak for others, must act no other man but himself alone, whereas Players must never act themselves but other parts? Certainly if we believe Quintilian, or a late famous Orator of our own, the acting of Plays, which is full of wantonness, of light, of lewd, of foolish gestures and speeches, is the next way to mar an Orator, whose speech, action and deportment mu • t be grave and serious. Hence Quintilian (as eminent an Orator as most now extant) in his directions how an Orator should frame his speech, his voice and gesture, expressly forbids him • to imitate the voice or gestures of Players, or to express or act the slaves, the drunkards, lovers, penni-fathers, cowards, or any such Play-house part, because as they were no ways necessary for an Orator, so they will rather corrupt his mind and manners, then any ways help his elocution or action. The acting therefore of Plays is no ways necessary or useful for an Orator, it being no furtherance but an apparent obstacle to true oratory, action, elocution; there being no analogy between the wanton amorous gestures, speeches, Pastorals, jests, and florishes of a Poet, an Actor; and the sad, grave, serious elocution or action of an Orator. And as Play-acting is no ways useful for an Orator, so much less for a Minister, or Divine, there being no Analogy between Preachers and Players, Sermons and Plays, Theaters and Churches, between the sacred, sober, chaste, and modest gestures, the soul-saving speeches of the one, and the lascivious, scurrill, profane, ungodly action and discourses of the other. Hence the forementioned Councils, Fathers and Canonists, together with Concilium Foro-juliense, Can. 6. which I before omitted, have inhibited Ministers and Clergy men from penning, acting and beholding Stage-plays, as being no ways suitable, but altogether incompatible with their most holy and grave profession: Hence also they excluded all common Actors, (and likewise academicall to, till they had done public penance) from the Ministerial function; the acting of Plays being so far from making men fit for the ministry, that it made them both unfit, and likewise uncapable to receive it. What therefore Agis junior replied to a wicked fellow who oft demanded of him, Quis esset Spartanorum optimus? Quitui est dissimilimus ; the same may I say of Ministers; that he is the best Minister who is most unlike a Player both in his gesture, habit, speech and elocution. Hence Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Millaine, refused to give Ecclesiastical Orders to one who sued for them, and likewise deprived another (who afterwards fell to the Arian heresy) Quia lucebat in eorum incessu species quaedam scurrarum percursantium: condemning not only all those Clergy men, but also Laymen to, who used Playerly gestures, qui sensim ambulando imitantur histrionicos gestus, & quasi quaedam fercula pomparum, & statuarum motus nutantium, ut quotiescun{que} gradum transferunt modulos quosdam servare videantur: avice too common in this our antique wanton age. We that know that all Christians, and more especially Ministers, ought to be sober, modest, grave, chaste, both in their gesture and deportment ; Hence Concilium Senonense. An. 1528. Decreta Morum. cap. 25. decrees thus. Clerici in incessu quo{que} honestatem exhibeant, ut gravitate itineris, mentis maturitatem ostendant. Incompositio enim corporis, risus dissolutus, indece • s • culorum vagatio, inaequalitatem indicant mentis. And then it proceeds thus. Non in scenam velut histriones prodeant, non comaedias vernaculas agant; non spectaculum corporis sui faciant in publico privatove loco (pray mark it:) Quae omnia cum omnibus sacerdotibus sunt indec • ra, & ordini clericali multum detrahentia, tum illis praecipue, quibus animarum cura est commissa. An infallible evidence that histrionical gestures, and t • e acting of Stage-plays either in public or private, are no wise useful, but altogether scandalous, and unseemly for a Minister; and that the acting, the beholding of Plays, will make men amorous, wanton, light and Playerlike in their gestures, as Saint Chrysostom with others largely testi • ie. And as Theatricall gestures are altogether unseemly in a Minister, (whence Protestants condemn all Mass-priests gestures, crouchings and noddings in the celebrating or acting of their Masses, which they compare to Plays, ) So likewi • e are all poetical Play-house phrases, Clinches, and strong lines, as now some style them; (too frequent in our Sermons; which in respect of their Divisions, language, action, style, and subject matter, consisting either of wanton flashes of luxurious wits, or mere quotations of human Authors, Poets, Orators, Histories, Philosophers, and Popish School-men; or sesquipedalia verba, great empty swelling words of vanity and estimation more fitter for the Stage, from whence they are ofttimes borrowed, (then the Pulpet,) unsuitable for Mini • ters qui dum indecēter elegantes videre volunt, passim jam turpibus verbis impude •• er insaniunt. Ministers are God's Ambassadors, therefore they must speak nothing in the Pulpit but those words which God shall put into their mouths; they must deliver God's message in his own dialect ; not in the language of Poets, and other human Authors, in which God's spirit never breathes. They are Christ's Under-shepherds, therefore they must speak unto their Flocks in Christ's own voice, which they must only know and hear, and follow, not in the voice of strangers, whose voice they will not, yea they must not hear: They are the Ministers, the mouth of Christ, therefo • e they must only preach and speak his language: They have no other Commission, but to go and preach the Gospel, (not Histories and Poets) unto men: They are the Stewards of the mysteries, and manifold graces of the Gospel, of the milk and bread of God's holy Word; and these alone they must dispence: They are sent out by God for no other purpose, but only to open men's eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified through faith that is in Christ Jesus: therefore they must come unto them, not with the dim lights of human learning, but with the light, the brightness of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ: not with enticing words of man's wisdom (which never yet converted or saved any one soul,) but in demonstration of the spirit and of power: not with the wisdom of this world, which human Authors teach, but with the wisdom of God in a mistery, which the holy Ghost teacheth: not with philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: but with the Word and Gospel of Christ, the mighty power of God unto salvation, which is able (yea only able) to save men's souls. Hence Saint Jerome writes thu • to Nepotianus, Docente te in Ecclesia non clamor populi, sed gemitus suscitetur. Lachrymae auditorū laudes tuae sint. Sermo Presbyteri Scripturarum lection conditus sit. Nolo te declamatorem esse & rabulam, garrulum{que} sine ration, sed mysteriorum peritum, & sacramentorum Dei tui peritissimum. Verba voluere, & celeritate dicendi apud imperitum vulgus admirationem facere, indoctorum hominum est, &c. Hence Prosper Aquitanicus positively affirms, Quod non se debeat Ecclesiae doctor de accura • i sermonis ostentatione jactare, ne videatur Ecclesiam Deinon velle aedificare, sed magis se quantae sit eruditionis ostendere. Non igitur in verborum splendore, sed in operum virtute totam praedicandi fiduciam ponat: non vocibus delectetur populi acclamantis sibi, sed fletibus, nec plausum à populo studeat expectare sed gemitum. Hoc specialiter doctor Ecclesiasticus elaboret, quo fiunt qui audiunt • um sanis disputationibus meliores, n • n vana assentatione fautores. Lachrymas quas vult à suis auditoribus fundi, ipse primitus fundat, & sic e • s compunctione sui cordis accendat. Tam simplex & apertus, etiam si minus Latinus, disciplinatus tamen & gravis sermo debet esse Pontificis ut ab intelligentia sui nullos, quamvis imperitos, excludat: sed in omnium audientium pectus cum quadam delectation descendat. De • i{que} alia est ratio declamatorum, & alia debet esse doctorum. Illi elucubratae declamationis pompam totis facundiae suae viribus concupiscunt: isti sobrio usitato{que} sermon Christi gloriam quaerunt. Illi rebus inanibus pretiosa verborum induunt ornamenta, isti veracibus sententijs or • ant, & commendant verba simplicia. Illi affectant suorum sensuum deformitatem tanquam velamine quodam phaleràti sermonis abscondere; isti eloquiorum suorum rusticitatem student pretiosis sensibus venustare. Illi totam laudem suam infavore vulgi, isti in virtute Dei constituunt. Illi plausibiliter dicunt, & nihil auditoribus suis declamando proficiunt: isti usitatis sermonibus docent, & imitatores svos instituunt; quia rationem suam nulla fucatae compositionis affectatione corrumpunt. Isti sunt ministri verbi, adjutores Dei, oraculum Spiritus sancti. Per tales Deus placatur populo, populus instruitur Deo. Hence Isiodor Pelusiota writes thus sharply to Theopompus and Talelaeus two preaching Monks. Quis te comicis salibus non perstringat? Quis te non commiseretur, qui cum in • hilosophiae discipulorum Domini tranquillitate sedeas, Gentilium historicorum & poetarum tumultum at{que} aestum tecum trahas? Quid enim dic quaeso, apud illos est, quod religioni nostrae sit praeferendum? Quid non mendacio ac risu scatet ex ijs quae magno studio consectantur? An non divinitates ex vi • iosis affectionibus? An non fortia facinora pro vitiosis affectionibus? An non certamina pro vitiosis affectionibus? Quamobrem ipsam quo{que} faeditatis & obscaenitatis lectionem fuge (nam & • a miram ad aperienda vulnera jam cicatrice obducta vim habet:) ne alioqui vehementiori cum impetu spiritus improbus revertatur, ac deteriorem ac perniciosiorem tibi priore ignorantia aut negligentia clad • m inferat. Sermo, qui ad audientium utilitatem habetur, potens sermo est, qui{que} optimo jure sermo appelletur, imitationem{que} ad Deum habeat. At qui voluptate sola ac plausu terminatur, aeris sonitus est, magno strepitu aurem personans. Quare aut sermonem tuam gravitate moderare, ac sermonis fastui ac pompae mediocritatem antepone, aut te cymbalum theatrorum scenae accomodum esse scito. And hence is that lamentable complaint of Episcopus Chemnensis: Modernis autem temporibus in academijs publicis scientia duntaxit mun • ana invaluit, scientia Dei non est in terra. Sacrarum literarum doctrina ubi{que} prorsus perijt, doctores scientia inslati docent suum chere, circumferuntur omni v • nto doctrinae. Sicut gentes, ambulant in vanitate sensus sui, tenebris haebentes obscuratum intellectum, propter caecitatem cordis ipsorum. Caeci speculatores educunt discipulos caecos in viam quam nesciunt, ponunt tenebras in lucem, & prava in recta, & nox nocti indicat scientiam. Et sic ubi{que} suos seducunt oratores. Extollunt doctrinam Aristotelis, Averrois, & aliorum Gentilium Scribarum, ad excogitandum profunda & voraginosa dogmata, obscurantia solemn sapientiae Christianae ac Evangelicae vitae, ac purum aerem religiosi status suis fastuosis verbis, acutis{que} disputationibus, ac sophisticis garrulitatibus maculantia. Modo equidem cernimus omnia fere gymnasia ubi olim tradebatur theologica doctrina, poeticis figmentis, vanis nugis, ac fabulosis portentis esse impleta. Vbi est literatus? Vbi legis verba ponderans? ubi est doctor parvulorum? videbis populum alti sermonis, ita ut non possis intelligere disertitudinem linguae ejus, in qu • nulla est s • pientia. Atqui praedicatores concionary student, non ut syncero affectu, sed gratia propriae laudis & verbis ornatis & politis aures auditorum demulceant. Meliores autem s • nt sermons veriores quàm disertiores. De talibus doctoribus disertis inquit Salvator. In van • m m • colunt, docentes doctrinas & praecepta hominum: relinquentes enim mand • ta Dei, tenetis traditions hominum. All which recited passages, are sufficient testimonies, that poetical streines of wit and Playerly eloquence • are no ways tolerable, much less then commendable in a preaching Minister. Therefore the acting, the penning of Plays, is no ways necessary or useful for Clergy men to further them in their ministry. All the benefit that Scholars reap by acting Plays, is this; that it makes them histrionical, antique, unprofitable verbal, Preachers, more fit for a Play-house then a Pulpit. The acting and penning therefore of Stage-plays is no ways helpful either for an Orator or a Preacher, as the Objectors dream, Lastly, men may learn boldness, eloquence, action, elocution by far readier, easier, and and more laudable means then the penning or acting Plays; as by frequent Declamations, and often repetitions of eloquent Orations, and the like; the only means Quintilian prescribes, and the ordinary method that all School-masters & Tutors use, to make men perfect Orators: no need therefore of penning, of acting Plays, for these pretended ends, which it cannot effect. We never read that the Apostles, Prophets, and elegant Fathers of old, (as Cyprian, Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Leo, Gregory the Great, Chrysologus, Bernard, and such other unparaleld Christian Preachers; that Demosthenes, Cicero, or Quintilian, the most accomplished Heathen Orators for action, phrase, and elocution that the world hath known,) did ever attain to their perfectiō of Oratory by acting Plays: neither have we heard of any Orators of latter times who hve trod this unknown path to elocution, to perfect rhetoric by acting Plays; yea I have not read to my remembrance of any one common Actor or Play-poet, that was an exquisite Orator: The acting therefore of Plays is but a preposterous Spurious course, to train up youthes to an oratoricall grave comely action or elocution, who should rather be educated in the fear and nurture of the Lord, in the Grounds and Principles of Religion, in the knowledge and study of the Scriptures ; in honest callings, Sciences, Arts, employments, which might benefit themselves and others, then in penning or acting Stage-plays, which hath always been condemned as infamous, both by Christians and Pagans too.
The 3. Objection for the composing and acting of Plays, is this: That they dilucidate and well explain many dark obscure Histories, imprinting them in men's minds in such indelible Characters, that they can hardly be oblitterated: Therefore they are useful and commendable.
To this I answer first, that this Objection extends not unto feigned Comedies or Tragedies, which are now most in use, but unto such real tragical Histories only as are brought upon the Stage, which Play-poets and Players mangle, falsify, if not obscure with many additional circumstances and poetical fictions; they do not therefore explain, but sophisticate, and deform good Histories, with many false varnishes and Play-house fooleries. Secondly, these Histories are more fully, more truly expressed, more readily and acurately learned in the original Authors who record them, then in derivative Play-house Pamphlets, which corrupt them; all circumstances both of the persons, time, occasion, place, cause, manner, end, &c. being commonly truly registered in the story, which are either altered or omitted in the Play. Thirdly, if this Objection be true, Historians which we so much magnify would be of little use or worth; we might then make waste paper of their voluminous works, and turn all the applauded Histories both of former and future ages into Plays, which better express them then our stories, and more deeply imprint them in men's minds. Lastly, admit the Objection • rue; yet the Histories Plays explain would not do the Actors or Spectators half the good, nor yet stick by them half so long, as the corruptions that accompany them; that being a true rule of Aulus Gellius. Adolescentium indolem non tam juvant quae been dicta sunt, quàm inficiunt quae pessime. Since then the good they bring to men is no way equivalent to the hurt, as S. Augustine himself long since a • firmed, the penning and acting of them cannot be lawful. Id enim magis est eligendum, cui majus bonum, vel minus malum est consequence, as a very Heathen hath truly taught us.
The 4. Objection for the penning and acting of Plays is this: That both our Universities, and long continued custom approve them: therefore they are good.
To this I answer first; that the Objection it self is false, since both our Universities condemn all popular Interludes, and the best, the gravest in our Universities, all academicall Stage-plays too: as I have already proved: Act 6. Scene 5. pag. 489.490, 491. Secondly, though the dissoluter & younger sort in our Universities, ( being but Youthes or Children, who are apt to dote on spectacles of vanity, and unable to judge of good or evil) approve perchance of Stage-plays in their practice; yet the holiest, the gravest in our Universities condemn them in their judgments, if not their practice to. And here by the way, in case of examples, we must ever learn to judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of things, not so much by the actions, as by the judgments and self-condemning consciences of men, by which they shall at last be judged. There is never a Drunkard, Whore-maste • , Liar, Hypocrite, Thief, that lives or wallows in these sins approving them as lawful by his continual practice, but doth secretly pass sentence against them in his conscience; As therefore we must not argue, that drunkenness, whoredom, adultery, lying, hypocrisy and theft are lawful, because they are commonly committed, & sometimes applauded, since the very committers do condemn them, no more may we argue, that the acting or beholding of Stage-plays is lawful, because Scholars and University men do sometimes act and see them; since if they will but seriously examine their checking consciences, they shall • inde them passing a secret doom of cōdamnation against them, what ever [ 3] their practice be. Thirdly, Christians must not live by examples, but by precepts: if therefore the rules of Religion and Christianity allow them not, no matter though the whole world approve them ; they will be evil & unlawful still, and so much the worse because so many justify them. Lastly, admit the Objection true; yet Si auctoritas quaeritur, orbis major est urbe: The authority of the whole Church of God from age to age, of 71. Fathers, 55. Councils, above 150. moderne Christian Authors, of diverse Christian & Heathen Nations, Magistrates, Emperors, States, &c. of 40. Heathen Writers, and of our own Church and State, who condemn the penning, acting, and seeing of Stage-plays, is far greater then the custom or exemplary Authority (not the sad and serious resolution after full debate, which Stageplayes never had as yet) of both our Universities: This Objection therefore is too light to sway the balance of this present controversy; Consuetudo enim si ex eo quod plures faciunt nomen accipiat, periculosum dabit exemplū, non orationi modo, sed (quod majus est) vita. Ergo consuetudinem vivendi vocabo consensum bonorum, sicut sermonis, consensum eruditorum. And thus much for the chief Objections, both for the compiling and acting of Stage-plays.
SCENA SECVNDA.
I now come to answer the Objections, the pretences for seeing and frequenting Stage-plays. The first of them is this. We go to Play-houses (say all our Play-haunters) with no evil intent at all: for recreation sake alone, and for no sinister purpose: therefore our resort to Plays cannot be evil, because our intentions, our purposes are not so.
To this I might here reply as Saint Cyprian did to those lascivious Virgins who ran to wanton Bathes, as some do to our Bathes, to see & to be seen, or to bathe with naked men; and made this very objection. Videris, inquis, qua illuc mente quis veniat, mihi tantum reficiendi corpusculi cura est & lavandi: To which he gives this answer: Non te purgat ista defensio, nec lasciviae & petulantiae crimen excusat. Sordidat lavatio ista, non abluit, nec emundat membra sed maculat. Impudice tu neminem conspicis, sed ipsa conspiceris impudice. Oculos tuos turpi oblectatione non polluis, sed dum oblectas alios pollueris. Spectaculum de lavacro facis, &c. Theatra sunt faediora quo convenis, verecundia illic omnis exuitur, &c. but I answer, first; that men cannot run to Plays and Play-houses with any good intent: For every intention is regulated by its object, and if that be ill, the intention it self cannot be good. If a man intend to murder another for any good or public end, the intent cannot be good because the thing intended, to wit the murder, is evil. Uzzah no doubt had a good intent (far better then any Play-haunters have in flocking to Plays or Play-houses) when as he put forth his hand to stay the Ark, which was shaken and like to fall: and yet God presently •• ew him for it, because God had forbidden any to touch it but the Priests. The Bethsheemites had questionless a good intention, when they took down the Ark and pried into it upon its unexpected return from the Philistines: and yet God slew fifty thousand threescore and ten men for it; because he had prohibited all but the Priests and Levites to look into it. Men must not do evil that good may come of it: therefore they must not, they cannot go to Stage-plays, (whose sinfulness and unlawfulness I have sufficiently discovered • ) with any good intent; These Plays themselves being ill their good intentions cannot make either them, or your resort unto them, good & lawful. [ 2] Secondly, I answer, that the intētions, the aims of most who resort to Plays, are merely ill. For to what end do our Common Strumpets, Bauds, Panders, Adulteresses, Adulterers, Whore-masters, &c. frequent either Plays or Play-houses, but for lewd and sinister purposes; to conclude of times, of places for their shameful works of darkness, to draw others on to sin, and to sa • iate their own ungodly lusts? And why do most other Spectators flock unto them; but either to gratify such lewd companions who entice them thither • or to spend and pass their time which might be better employed: to see and to be seen: to learn some apish fashions, or antique complements: to behold such or such an obscene or Satirical Comedy acted: to laugh excessively in a profuse unchristian childish manner; to satisfy some secret carnal lust or other, which pricks them on to Stage-plays; or some strange fantastique humor of novalty, vanity, ridiculous mirth and jollity ; and the like? These I dareboldly say are the chief, if not the only ends why men repair to Stage-plays; and these all are sinful: therefore their intention in resorting unto Stage-plays is not good. Thirdly, no man when he goes to see a Stage-play, propounds God's glory (which ough to be the utmost end of all men's actions) for his end; nor yet the good, the peace, the comfort of his own and others souls: his intentions therefore cannot be warrantable. Fourthly, [ 4] admit the Objection true; that your meanings and minds are good when you run to Plays; yet Bonus animus in malare dimidium est mali ; as even Plautus the Comedian writes: your good intentions make your ill actions far the worse, because you commit them with greater greediness, and less remorse, as if they were truly good, at least not ill. Fifthly, admit [ 5] that you go to Stage-plays only for recreation sake: yet it will not follow, that your resort to Plays is lawful, because Plays themselves are no lawful recreations. And if the consequent of this Objection be now admitted: then men might by the selfsame reason run to Brothels, Whore-houses, Dice-houses, Taverns, Alehouses, to whore, to drab, to drink themselves drunk, and cast away all their estates at one desperate throw, as too many do, without offense, under pretence of recreation. The Scripture therefore is express, that we must not make a sport or mock of sin, it being the object only of our godly sorrow, and deepest grief, not of our carnal joy: that we may not recreate ourselves with scurrility, ribaldry, lascivious, profane or amorous Interludes, but only with good and lawful things, which are no ways scandalous, or of ill report: therefore we may not make Plays the object of our Recreation, which were ever infamous and unlawful too. Sixthly, I answer, that men's pretence of going to Stage-plays merely for their honest recreation, is but a false surmise, which will be most apparent, if we shall truly weight, what it is to do a thing, only for honest Recreation, and what necessary ingredients and circumstances all lawful recreations must have, Every honest lawful Recreation must have these conditions: First the object, the subject of it must be lawful, Christian, and commendable, not sinful, not infamous, or prohibited by the Magistrate. Secondly, it must be bounded with due circumstances of place and persons, both of them must be honest, & of good report: in which all Stage-plays (especially in Play-houses,) are defective. Thirdly, it must have all these circumstances of time: First, It must not be on Lord's-days, on times devoted to God's more special service, on times either of public or private fasting and solemn humiliations: nor yet in times designed for our honest studies, callings, or any necessary public inployments: Secondly, it must not be in the night season when men by God's appointment, and the ordinary course of nature ought to take their rest, to enable them the better to the duties of the ensuing day: and so much the rather because such night-recreations are occasions, if not provocations unto works of darkness. Thirdly, it must be only at such times when we stand in need of recreations to refresh our bodies or spirits: It must be always either after sicknesses, or natural infirmities, or distempers of body or mind, to recover strength, health and vigor: or else after honest labors, studies, and employments, in our lawful callings, to repair the decays, to refresh the weariness of our bodies, or to whet the blunted edge of our over-wearied minds: Fourthly, It must be rare and seldom, not quotidian. Fifthly, the recreation must not be overlong, not time-consuming ; it must be only as a bait to a traviler, a whetting to a Mower or Carpenter, or as an hours sleep in the day time to a wearied man; we must not spend whole weeks, whole days, half days or nights on recreations, as now too many do, abundance of idleness in this kind, being one of Sodom’s heinous sins: Fourthly, they must not be over-costly or expensive; but cheap and obvious, with as little expense as may be. Fifthly, they must be such as are suitable to men's callings, ages, places, sexes, conditions, tempers of body, &c. that being not lawful or convenient in these regards to one, which yet are and may be commendable in, or suitable to another. The recreations of Princes being not meet for Peasants; and so • converso; nor all the pastimes of the Laity agreeable to the Clergy. Sixthly, they must be all directed to a lawful end, even to the strengthening, quickening and refreshing both of our bodies and spirits, that so we may go on with greater cheerfulness in the duties of our callings, and in the worship and service of God, whose glory must be the utmost aim of all our recreations. If our recreations fail in all or any of these circumstances, or if we use profane Plays or sports in Churches, in other sacred places devoted to God's service, they presently cease to be lawful or honest, and so prove sinful pleasures. Now Stage-plays, & those who resort unto them under the pretence of recreation, are defective or peccant in all or many of these parti • ulars. Therefore they are not used, not frequented only for honest recreation • ache. Lastly, admit men go to Stage-plays only to recreate their minds, and to refresh their spirits; I answer, that this is so far frow justifying or extenuating, that it doth highly aggravate the execrable viciousness of this their action, and proclaim them sinners in an high degree. For what men or women are there who can make a play, a sport, a recreation of sin and sinful things; of ribaldry, profane and scurrill Iests, Adulteries, Rapes, Incests, Blasphemies, and such other notorious abominations, that are usually acted on the Stage, ( which vex every righteous soul from day today, and grieves it to the heart, ) but such who are void of grace, of sin-abhorring, vice-lamenting repentance, and wholly enthralled to the love, the service of these sinful lusts and pleasures, which will plunge them over head and ears into eternal torments at the la • t; this being one of the highest degrees of lewdness, for men to take joy and pleasure even in sinful things.
If any here reply in the second place, that they delight not in the scurrilous sinful passages, speeches, gestures, representations or parts in Stage-plays, which they altogether abhor, but only in the action, & in those honest Spectacles and discourses, which no man can condemn.
To this I answer first, That commonly the more obscene and scurrilous the Play, the more lascivious the Players action is, the more it exhilerates, and delights the Auditors, the Spectators; no Plays, no Actors giving less content, then those that are most free from lascivious, amorous, profane, effeminate jests, and gestures, as experience and the premises witness. This very [ 2] suggestion therefore is untrue. Secondly, those wh • delight in the appearances of evil, in the lively representations of sin, or sinful things, can never cordially abhor the evils, the sins themselves: for he that truly loathes a Man, a Toade, a Devil, a Serpent, (and so by consequent, a sin, will abhor their very pictures, and resemblances. Hence is it that a Christian who detests all sin, hates the very thoughts and imaginations, and absteines from all the appearances of it too. Since therefore Play-haunters delight thus in the representations of whoredom, adultery, and such like execrable crimes, needs must they take pleasure in the sins themselves. For, if men did cordially detest these sins as they pretend, the nearer the representations came unto the sins (as they ofttimes come too near in Stage-plays, even to the actual commission of the very abominations acted: ) the more they would abhor them, by reason of that near similitude they bear unto the sins: but the more lively the resemblances of these Stage-lewdnesses are, the greater vicinity they have unto the sins themselves, the more they are applauded, admired & actor • o peritior quo turpior judicatur: therefore they do not hate, but love these sins themselves, what ever they pretend. Thirdly, that which most Play-haunters deem nothing else but the representation of sin in the acting of Plays, is even the sin it self in God's repute: the acting of an effeminate whorish part upon the Stage in woman's apparel, with amorous, womanish speeches, gestures, kisses, cōplements, dalliances & embracements, with wanton, unchaste, lascivious glances, nods, and solicitations unto lewdness, yea the very expressions of the acts of Venery on the Stage, are naught else but effeminacy, scurrility, wantonness, whoredom and adultery it self in God's esteem: the personating of a fools part in jest, is folly and vanity in good earnest: the speaking of vain words, the swearing by the names of Pagan Idols, and the very uttering of their names, much more the acting of their parts: the very naming of fornication and adultery, together with foolish talking and jesting on the Stage, are naught else but actual sins in God's account, not only in the Actors, but the Spectators too ; who give consent unto them: Those therefore who take pleasure in all or any of these, delight not in the representations only of sin, but even in sin it self, which should be their greatest sorrow. Fifthly, these [ 5] Play-house sh • dowes, and counterfeit resemblances of evil, are a ready means to enamour men with, to inscare them in the very sins themselves, as the Fathers and premises witness: If then Play-haunters detest these sins, why do they not likewise hate the very repres • ntations of them, which are a beaten rode, a strong all • rement to these sins themselves? Certainly, their little care to avoid the one, bewrays their love, their little detestation of the other. Sixthly, whereas [ 6] some object, that they hate all scurrilous, filthy, amorous parts, discourses, passages, Pastorals, jests, and gestures in the Plays they go to, approving none but chaste, but modest representations, passages, speeches: To this I answer • That as few Play-haunters, I dare say, can speak this seriously from his hearts: so it is but an [ 1] idle false surmise. For first, every man who resorts to Plays, comes with a resolution to hear and see the whole Play acted, not one particular Scene or Act: he resolves, not this before hand with himself, I will only see and heat this Act, this Scene, this Part; but I will debar mine ears, mine eyes from all the rest, because I de • est their lewdness: no man goes thus pre-resolved to a Play; he comes not therefore with an intention to abhor its lewdness, but to approve the [ 2] whole. Secondly, few Play-haunters (that I say not any, I mean in point of conscience, though many do it out of lasciviousness and lust) inquire before hand of the Play, whether it be scurrilous or obscene? whether there be any profaneness, any lewd parts or passages in it? whether it be such a one as they may behold with a safe conscience? whether there be any lewd ungodly persons who resort unto it, &c. but they run head-long to it without these premised Queries: Those therefore who make no such conscionable inquiries of the unlawful parts and passages of Plays before they resort unto them, can hardly detest them [ 3] when they come. Thirdly, he who truly abhors the lewd scurrill parts and sinful passages of Plays, will choose rather to avoid the whole Play for the evil parts and particles which defile the whole; (as every man is apt to fly those Cities that are but in part infected with the plague, and to eschew those sweet conserves and wholesome potions that are contempered with a little poison,) then to behold the evil parts though with detestation, that he may enjoy the pleasure of the good; there being more danger of • inne, of corruption by the one, then hope of any real benefit or contentment from the other. Lastly, every Play-haunters [ 4] presence at the whole entire Play, and his contribution to the Actors for playing of the whole, is a notorious approbation of, an unavoidable assent unto the whole, in God's, if not in men's esteem, who will thence conclude that they consented to and took pleasure in the whole. Let no Play-haunters therefore any longer cheat thenselves or others with these dilusory false pretences, which have neither truth nor substance in them: but quite abandon Plays and Play-houses, notwithstanding these evasions which will not help them in the day of Judgment. And thus much for the first Objection.
The 2. Objection or pretence for seeing Stage-plays is this: That it serves to pa • se away men's idle time, which would else perchance be worse employed.
To this I answer first; That therefore it is evil because it thus consumes men's precious time which should be better employed, either in public or private duties of piety and devotion, or else in some honest studies, callings, or employments for the public good. Secondly, there is no man [ 2] who hath so much vacant time, that he needs to run to Plays, to Play-houses, to waste, to poast away his idle hours. Alas, we all complain with Seneca and others, Ars longa, vita brevis ; that our studies, our professions are long, our lives exceeding short and swift; and shall we then add wings, add spurs of life-consuming pleasures of sin to our few winged days, to make them fly away with greatest haste and worser speed, as if we had too much life? Our time is too too swift already; it runs whiles we sit still; it is always flying more swift then any poast, whiles we are eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and think not of its haste: yea so swift winged is it ubi per luxum ac negligentiam def • uit, ubi nullae rei bon • impenditur, ut quod ire non intelleximus praeterijsse sentimus ; that whiles we waste it thus on Plays and sports, it is past and gone before we discern it move. And shall we then be so desperately prodigal of our lives, our rich and peerless hours, as to plot, to study how to pass them qui • e away with mo • e celerity, and far lesser fruit? Certainly if we would but seriously consider and peruse that elegant Treatise of an Heathen, Of the shortness of life, or this memorable speech of his Quotidie morimur, quotidie enim demitu • aliqua pars vitae, & tunc quo{que} cum • escimus vita decrescit. Infantiam amisimus, deinde pueritiam • deinde adolescentiam, us{que} ad hesternum quicquid transijt temporis perit. Hunc ipsum quem agimus diem, etiam cum morte dividimus, &c. If we would with all remember the end for which God made us; to wit, to do his service; to finish the work which he hath given us to do; and to pass the time of our pilgrimage here in his fear: Or the cause for which our blessed Savior redeemed us, That we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives: that we should no longer live to ourselves but unto him alone, and that living and dying we might • e hi • . If we w • uld further seriou • lie ponder how many holy duties we have every day to perform towards God; how many graces, and degrees of grace we want; how many daily sins and lusts we have to lament and mortify; how many offices of piety, of charity, of courtesy, duty and civility we have to exercise towards ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, our families, our enemies, as we are men, or Christians, in all those several relations wherein we stand to others: considering withal what time we ought to spend upon our lawful callings, upon the care and culture of our souls which are then most neglected, when as our bodies are most pampered, most adorned ; all which are su • ficient to monopolize even all our idle days & more. And if we would add to this; these strict commands of God: Exod. 20.9. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; Gen. 3.19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground: (a curse, a precept laid on all mankind.) Ephes. 5.15, 16. See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil: 2. Thes. 3.10, 11, 12, 13, 14. For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear there are some (and O that we did not now hear of many • uch among us) which walk among you disorderly, not working at all, but are buste-bodies. Now them that are such we • command and exhort by our Lord Jesus, that with quie • nesse they work and eat their own bread, not being weary in well doing. And if any obey not our Word by this Epistle note that man, and have no communion with him, that he may be ashamed, Did we, I say, consider all this, or did we remember, how narrow, steep, and difficult the way is unto Heaven, and what pains all those must take who mean to climb up thither ; We should then speedily discover, how little cause men have to run to Stage-plays to pass away their idle hours, which fly away so speedily of themselves. But suppose there are any such (as alas our idle age hath too too many,) who though they are loath to die, ( as all men should be willing to depart who have finished or survived their work, or else want good employments,) yet they have so much idle time, that they know not how to spend, standing all the day idle, like those lazy Loyterers, Matth. 20.1. to 8. even for want of work; or loytring abroad like our common Vagrant Sturdy-beggars, not so much because they cannot, but because they will not work; let all such idle Bees know, that Christ Jesus their Lord and Master hath a Vineyard in which they may and ought to spend their time ; he hath store of employments for them though themselves have none, even enough to take up all the vacant hours of their lives. When therefore any Play-haunters or others have so much idle time that they know not how to bestow it, let them presently step into the Lord's Vineyard; let them repair to Sermons, and such other public exercises of Religion ; calling upon one another and saying, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: or else betake themselves to their own private prayers and devotions: Let them read the Scriptures, or some other pious Books, which may instruct them in the ways of godliness: or sing Psalms • and Hymns, and spiritual Songs to God • let them seriously examine their own consciences, hearts and lives, by the sacred Touch-stone of God's Word ; let them bewail their own original corruption, with all their actual transgressions, and sue earnestly to God for pardon for them ; let them labor after all the graces and degrees of grace which yet they want, and be ever adding to those graces which they have: let them renew their vows and covenants with God, and walk more closely, more exactly with him every day: let them muse and meditate on God, on all his great and glorious works and attributes ; on Christ and all his sufferings; on the holy Ghost and all his graces; on the Word of God and all its precepts, promises, threatenings; on Heaven and everlasting happiness: on Hell and all its torments ; on sin and all the miseries that attend it: on their own frailty and mortality ; on the vanity of all earthly things ; on the day of death and judgment, which should be always in their thoughts ; and on a thousand such like particulars, on which they should employ their minds and vacant hours. If men will but thus improve their idle time which now they waste on Plays and such like vanities (which only treasure up wrath unto their souls against the day of wrath, and plunge them deeper into Hell at last,) what benefit, what comfort might they reap? their idle vacant seasons would then prove the comfortablest, the profitablest of all others, and bring them in a large return of grace here, of glory hereafter. Let us therefore henceforth labor to improve our cast, our leisure times to our eternal advantage; & ab hoc exiguo • & caduco temporis transitu, in illa nos toto demus animo, quae immensa quae aeterna sunt, quae cum melioribus communia: Haec nobis dabunt ad aeternitatem iter, & nos in illum locum ex quo nemo eijciet, sublenabunt: haec una ratio est extendendae mortalitatis, imo, in immortalitatem vertendae: and then we need not run to Masques, to Plays, or Play-houses to pass away our time. Lastly, I answer, That men cannot be worse employed then in hearing or beholding Stage-plays, Nihil enim tam damnosum bonis moribus, quàm in aliquo Spectaculo desidere: tunc enim per voluptatem facilius vitia surrepunt. It was Seneca his resolution to his friend Lucilius, when he requested his advice, what thing he would have him principally to avoid ; and it may be a satisfactory answer to this Objection. For how can men be worse employed, then in hearing, seeing, learning all kind of vice, of villainy, and lewdness whatsoever? then in depraving both their minds and manners, and treasuring up damnation to their souls? This is the only good employment, that our Play-haunters have at Plays, which is the worst of any. This Objection therefore is but idle.
The 3. Objection which Play-frequenters make for the seeing of Plays, is this. That the frequenting of Stage-plays (as their own experience witnesseth,) doth men no hurt at all: it neither indisposeth them to holy duties, nor enticeth them to lust or lewdness: therefore it is not ill. An Objection made in Chrysostom's time, as well as now.
To this I answer first; that Play-haunters are no meet judges in this case, because most of them being yet in the state of sin and death, are altogether senseless of the growth and progress of their corruptions, of which they take no notice. Excellent to this purpose is that speech of Seneca Quare vitia sua nemo confitetur? Quia etiam nunc in illis est. Somnium narrare, vigilantis est; & vitia sua confireri, sanitatis indicium est Expergiscamur ergo, ut errores nostros coarguere possimus. Stage-haunters are for the most part lulled asleep in the Dalilaes lap of these sinful pleasures, yea they are quite dead in sins and trespasses; their eyes are so blinded that they will not see, their hearts so hardened that they cannot discern, their consciences so cauterized that they never seriously behold nor yet examine the execrable filthiness, greatness, multitude, growth, or daily increase of their beloved sins and lusts; no marvel therefore if they affirm this falsehood; that [ 2] they receive no hurt at all from Stage-plays. Secondly, every man (especially those who were never thoroughly humbled for their sins, as few Play-frequenters are,) is a corrupt, a partial, and so an unfitting • udge, in his own cause. As therefore men in ordinary differences, refer the censure and determination of their own causes to indifferent Arbitrators who are no ways engaged in their suits, declining their own particular discitions to avoid all partiality; it being against reason (as M r . Littleton and our Law-books teach us, ) that any man should be the Judge of his own cause. Or as Aristotle writes of Physicians, that they use the help of other Physicians in their own sickness, because they cannot discern the true touch of their own diseases by reason of their distemper: the same should our Play-haunters do in this particular; refer the examination of the hurt they receive from Plays and Play-houses unto others, who are impartial judges; but not unto themselves, whom self-love makes too [ 3] partial. Thirdly, I answer with S. Jerome ; Tunc maxim oppugnaris, si te oppugnari nescis. Adversarius noster, tanquam leo rugiens, aliquem devorare quaerens circumit; & tu pacem putas? Sedet in insidijs; insidiatur in occulto; & tu frondosae arboris tectus umbraoulo, molles somnos futurus praeda, carpis? Inde me persequitur luxuria, inde compellit libido, ut habitantem in me Spiritum sanctum fugem, ut templum ejus violem: persequitur, inquam, me hostis, cui nomina mille, mille nocendi arts • & ego infaelix victorem me putabo, dum capior? In illo aestu Charybdis luxuriae salutem vorat. Ibi ore virgineo ad pudicitiae perpetranda naufragia, Scylla seu renidens, libido blanditur. Hic barbarum litus, hic Diabolus pyrata cum socijs portat vincula capiendis. Nolite credere, nolite esse securi. Licet in modum stagni fusum aequor arrideat; licet vix summa jacentis elementi spiritu terga crispentur: magnos hic campus montes habet; intus inclusum est periculum, intus est hostis, expedite rudentes, vela suspendite; tranquillitas ista tempesta • est. Stage-players and Play-haunters are commonly most dangerously corrupted by the Plays they act and see, when as they are least sensible of their hurt; yea their oft resort to Plays and Play-houses which perchance did somewhat gall their consciences at the first, hath made them senseless of their mischief at the last. Vulnere vetusto & neglecto callus obducitur, & eo insanabile quo insensibile fit. Solum est cordurum quod semetipsum non exhorret quia nec sentit. I shall therefore shut up this reply with that of Bernard, which I would wish all unlamenting Play-haunters & sinners to consider. Scio, longius à salute absistere membrum quod obstupuit, & aegrum sese non sentientem, periculosius laborare. Fourthly, the hurt men receive from Stage-plays, is [ 4] like the growth of their bodies, it increaseth by certain insensible degrees, so that it is hardly discerned whiles it is growing, till time hath brought it to maturity. Nemo repent fit tu pissimus: is as true as ancient. No man becomes extremely vicious on a sudden, but by unsensible gradations, and so do Play-haunters too, even by those seeds of vice which Stage-plays sow and nourish in them. What Seneca writes of the discourses of lewd companions; Horum sermo multum nocet; Nametiam si non statim officit, semina in animo relinquit; sequitur{que} nos etiam cum ab illis discesserimus resurrecturum posteà malum. The same may I truly write of Plays; whose evil fruits, like tares that are buried under ground, are oft concealed for a time, till at last they bud forth by degrees, and come to perfect ripeness; and then they are abvious unto all men's view. No wonder therefore if Play-haunters discover not the hurt they receive from Plays, because it creeps thus on them by imperceptible gradations, though faster upon some then others. But albeit Play-haunters feel no hurt at first, (no more then those who drink down poison in a sugered cup, which yet proves fatal to rhem at the last, though it were sweet and luscious for the present,) yet when terrors of conscience, death, and judgments, when crosses and afflictions shall thoroughly awaken them; when God shall set all their sins in order before them, or bring them by his grace and mercy to sincere repentance, then they shall find and know it to their grief (as sundry penitent Players and Play-haunters have done before them, ) that Stage-plays have done them hurt indeed. Fifthly, [ 5] Stage-plays have exceedingly depraved, corrupted many Spectators from time to time, and drawn them on to divers sins, which have even sunk their souls to Hell ; as the premises largely testify: And can any then think to escape all danger, even where they have seen so many perish? Can any man rest secure where multitudes have miscarried? What S. Cyprian therefore writes in a like case, that shall I here commend to Stage-haunters. Ad vos nunc mea exhortatio convertitur, quos nolumus experiri talia praecipitia ruinarum. Metuite quantum potestis ejusmodi casus exitia. Et in ista subversione labentium vos experimenta perterreant. Nimium praeceps est quitransire contendit, ubi alium conspexerit cecidisse, & vehementer infrenis est cui non incutitur timor alio pereunte. Amator vero est salutis suae qui evitat alienae mortis incursum, & ipse est providus qui solicitus fit cladibus caeterorum. Adversa est confidentia quae periculis vitam suam pro certo commendat; & lubrica spes est quae inter fomen • a peccati salvari se sperat. Incerta victoria est, inter hostilia arma pugnare; & impossibilis liberatio est • lammis circundari, nec ardere; quod Solomon non negat, dicens. Quis alligabit in sinu suo ignem, vestimenta autem sua non comburet? Credite quaeso vos, credit divinae fidei quinimo plu • quàm nostrae. Difficile quis venenum bibet & vivet: verendum est dormienti in ripa, ne cadat, cum dicat Apostolus, Qui se putat stare videat ne cadat. In h • c parte expedit plus been timere, quàm male fidere. Et utilius est infirmum se homo cognoscat, ut fortis existat; quàm fortis videri velit, ut infirmus emergat. Sixthly, [ 6] all Play-haunters receive much hurt from Stage-plays what ever they pretend: For first, these Plays enflame their lusts, ingender unchaste affections in their souls; misspend their money and time, indispose them to God's service & sincere repentance, by inthralling them in the guilt of sundry other mischiefs, as I have elsewhere largely proved. Secondly, it makes them guilty of all the sins that are either acted or committed at the Play-house; of all the Play-poets, all the Actors wickedness which they maintain and cherish both with their purses and presence. A fearful mischief. Nam qui alios peccare fecerit, multos secum praecipitat in mortem, & necesse est ut sit pro tantis reus, quantos secum traxerit in ruinam ; as Salvian well observes. Thirdly, your very contribution unto Players for their Plays and action if Saint Augustine and others may be credited, is a very great and heinous sin; of which every Play-haunter is guilty • And is it not the greatest hurt that can be, to be guilty of an heinous sin, which subjects men to God's curse and vengeance here, and to [ 4] eternal torments hereafter? Fourthly, your very example in frequenting Plays and Play-houses, as it is scandalous and offensive to God's Church, God's Saints, and u • beseeming the Gospel of Christ, so it is a means to harden vicious Play-haunters, to encourage and draw on many Spectators unto Stage-plays, who are polluted, vitiated, and made worse by them: whose