The Players Scourge

SCENA PRIMA.

FIftly, Stage-play • must needs be abominable, unlawful unto Christians, both in regard of their manner of Action, and of all those several parts, concomitants and circumstances that attend them. From whence I raise this fifteenth Argument.

The Major needs no confirmation; because such as the form, the parts and circumstances are, such questionless is the whole. The Minor I shall evidence by a particular discussion.

First, of the very manner of acting Stage-plays: [ 1] wherein I shall examine: First, the hypocrisy; Secondly, the obscenitie and lasciviousness; Thirdly, the gross effeminacy; Fourthly, the extreme vanity and folly, which necessarily attends the acting of Plays.

Secondly, of the several parts that are usually acted in [ 2] Stage-plays; which are as sinful as various.

Thirdly, of the ordinary apparel wherein Plays are [ 3] acted: which is, First of all, womanish, belonging • o the female Sex: Secondly, costly, fantastical, strange, lascivious, whorish, provoking unto lewdness.

Fourthly, of the several concomitants or circumstances [ 4] of Stage-plays: which I shall reduce to these four Heads. Lascivious da • cing. Amorous obscene songs: Effeminate lu • t-exciting Music. Pro • ufe, inordinate lascivious laughter, and vain theatrical applauses: omitting all other adjuncts, shows, and circumstances of Plays, which Horace, and some others mention, as not so pertinent to our present purpose.

To begin, with the first branch of the first particular, to wit, the hypocrisy, feigning, or dissimulation that is exercised in acting Stage-plays. If we seriously consider the very form of acting Plays, we must needs acknowledge it to be naught else but gross hypocrisy. All things are counterfeited, feigned, dissembled; nothing really or sincerely acted. Players are always counterf • iting, representing the persons, habits, offices, callings parts, conditions, speeches, actions, lives • ; the passions, the affections, the anger, hatred, cruelty, love, revenge, dissensions; yea, the very vices, sins, and lusts; the adulteries, incests, rapes, murders, tyrannies, thefis, and such like crimes of other men, of other sexes, of other creature • ; yea, ofttimes of the Devil himself, and Pagan Divellgods. They are always acting others, not themselves • they vent notorious lying fables, as undoubted truths: they put false glosses upon Histories, persons, virtues, vices, all things that they act, representing them in feigned colors: the whole action of Plays is naught else but feining, but counterfeiting, but palpable hypocrisy and dissimulation which God, which men abhor • : there • ore it must needs be sinful.

If any here object: That the acting of Plays is no hypocrysie, no dissimulation, it being only done in sport, in imitation, with no sinister intent at all, to hurt, to cheat, or circumvent men.

I answer; First, that admit it be but a mere • mitation of other men's persons, parts and vices, yet it must needs be sinful: because the very imitation of wicked men, of Pagans, of Idols, of Idolaters, especially in their lewdest wickednesses (the most usual subject of our Interludes) is without all question evil, as the Scriptures plainly teach us. Secondly, I answer, that by the • eining used in our Stage-plays, many of our Spectators are deceived, all cheated. Deceived, with forged fabulous histories instead of truths; with false represen • ations of true stories: with palliated vices in lei • of virtues : with virtues vizarded under the names of vice; with bad Plays ofttimes which all dislike, instead of good, as some in some respects account them. Cheated, with shadows instead of substance: with sinful, heathenish, unchristian spectacles, in place of honest recreations. These Stage-hypocrisies, which at the very best, are pure vanity, and so not valuable; do cheat many of their hon • sty, their civility, their chastity, their estates, their reputation, their virtues, their salvation • most, of their money • all, of their time: too dear a price for so fruitless, so reckless a purchase. Besides, they involve men in the guilt of sundry sins, which they little feared or suspected, to the eternal hazard o • their souls, which is a great deceit. Yea, the very end why Players act their Interludes, is only to cheat men's money out of their purses by dishonest means, not giving quid pro quo : The very ground-work therefore of this objection, is but forged. Thirdly, admit that no man were cheated, or prejudiced by that counterfeiting, which accompanies the acting of all Stage-plays; yet the mere acting of the persons, parts, gestures, offices, actions, passions; especially of the Sexes, Vices, Anger, Furie, Love, Revenge and Villanies of other men, be it in sport, in representation only, is hypocri • i • . For what else is hypocrisy in the proper signification of the word, but the acting of another's part or person on the Stage : or what else is an hypoc • ite, in his true • etimologie, but a Stage-player, or one who acts another's part : as sundry Authors and Gramarians teach us. Hence that common epithet in our Latin Authors: Histrionica hypocrisis: And hence is it, that not only divers moderne English and Latin Writers, but likewise sundry Fathers here quoted in the Margent, s • ile Stage-players hypocrites; Hypocrites, Stage-players, as being • ne and the same in substance: there being nothing more familiar with them, then to describe an hypocrite by a Stage-player; and a Stage-player by an hypocrite. If therefore we give any credit to the Fathers, or Authors here alleged; we must needs acknowledge, the very acting of Stage-plays to be hypocrisy; and Players themselves to be mere hypocrites, ( their very profession being nothing else, but an artificial hypocrisy, ) and so an abominable, and unchristian exercise. For God, who is truth it self, in whom there is no variableness, no shadow of change no feining, no hypocrisy ; as he hath given a uniform distinct and proper being to every creature, the bounds of which may not be exceeded: so he requires that the actions of every creature should be honest and sincere, devoyde of all hypocrisy, as all his actions, and their na • ures are. Hence he enjoys all men at all times, to be such in show, as they are in truth: to seem that o • twardly which they are inwardly ; to act themselves, not others: to imitate those men, those graces which his word prescribes them; not those accurs • d villainies, which wicked men (who are now in hell) have left behind them. God requires truth in the inward parts ; in the soul, the affections; yea, in the habit, speeches, gestures, in the whole inti • e man. Now this counterfeiting of persons, affections, manners, vices, sexes, and the like, which is inseparably incident to the acting of Plays; as it transforms the Actors into what they are not; so it in • useth falsehood into ev • ry part of soul and body, as all hypocrisy doth ; in causing them to seem that in outward • ppearance which they a • e not in truth: therefore it must needs be • odious to the God of truth; as well as the common accursed hellish art of face-painting, which t • e Fathers, with others much condemn, even from this very ground; because it sophisticates and perver • s the works of God, in putping a false gloss upon his creatures. And this the personating of Stage-plays always doth, as much, nay more then it. Neither will this qualify the matter, that this Stage-hypocrisy is only in merriment. For if David's counterfeiting of himself to be mad before Achish King of Gath, for the safe-gard of his life ; or Joseph's jesting dissimulation with his brethren, were sinful, as good Divines repute it; because there was a li • involved in it. Much more must this wanton acting hypocrisy be abominably sinful, because it is merely voluntary, there being no impulsive cause to move men to it. If the damnation of those who do evil, that good may come of it, be just : much more must their condemnation be righteous, their sin exceeding great, who commit hypocrisy ( a great, a double iniquity ) on the open Theater, to no other end, but to make others sinful sport to pass away their precious time. Since then it is evident by the premises, that the very acting of Stage-plays is hypocrisy, as Tertullian and Cyprian, together with Irenaeus, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Tatianus, Pascatius Ratbertus, and the other fore-quoted Author largely teach us: we may hence conclude them to be odious unto God. Wherefore I shall here close up this Scene, with this sixteenth Play-condemning Argument.

SCENA SECVNDA.

SEcondly, as the hypocrisy, even so the lasciviousness of acting Stage-plays, doth draw an inexpiable guilt upon them, as this seventeenth Argument will demonstrate.

The Major is without all controversy, since God himself enjoins all Christians, to live chastely, soberly, holily, and godly in this present world, as becometh Saints; not walking in lasciviousness, lusts, or wantonness, as the Gentiles, or other carnal persons do: but abstaining from these and all other fleshly lusts which war against the soul • Lasciviousnesse (together with all amourous wanton gestures, complements and embracements which issue from it) is a fruit of the flesh; an evil that proceeds from within, and so defiles the heart of man from which it springs. It is a sin of which God takes especial notice, and will certainly charge it on men's consciences at the last. A sin to be seriously rep • nted of. A sin to which the Gentiles and other wicked men were given over. A sin • e, for which God threatens to punish the daughters of Zion. A sin which disinherits and shuts men out of heaven. A sin which sundry Fathers have plentifully condemned, as mis-beseeming Christians, whose very outward gestures and deportment ought to be modest, chaste, and holy, as becometh the Gospel of Christ. The Major therefore is unquestionable.

The Minor is abundantly ratified; First, by the concurrent testimony of sundry Fathers and moderne Authors, who from hence condemn all Stage-plays, because the acting of them is obscene, and amorous. Witness Tertullian. Despectaculis lib. cap. 17. ^o We are commanded (writes he) to put away all wantonness and incontinency • by this means therefore we are divorced from the Theater, the private consistory of uncleanness, where nothing is approved, but what in all other places is disapproved. Yea, its greatest praise is for the most part conci • nated of that lasciviousness, that filthiness which the Stage-player acteth; which the Actor likewise representeth by women, who have banished the modesty of their sex, that so they may more easily blush at home, than • n the Stage. Which finally the Patomimus doth suffer in his body from his childhood, that so h • may be expert in his profession. Yea, the very Stews themselves, the sacrifices of public lust, are brought forth upon the Stage, they being more miserable in the presence of women, from whom alone they were concealed; and before the eyes of every age, of every degree, the place, the hire, the testimonial are represented, yea, published unto those to whom there is no need I forbear to mention more, it being meet they should lie obscured in darkness, in their dungeons, lest they should defile the light. Let the Senate blush, let all degrees blush at this, since those very murderers of their own chastity, fearing their actions should be manifested to the people, blush once a year. Now if all unclearnesse must be execrable to us, why should it be lawful to hear those things which it is unlawful to speak? for since we may know that all scurrillity, and every vain word is condemned by God, how can it be lawful to hear those things which are a wickedness to commit? Why should those things which defile a man being uttered only with his mouth, not seem to pollute him, when they pass through his eyes and ears by his consent? since the eyes and ears, lie open to the soul: neither can he be made or reputed, clean, whose appariters are defiled. Thou hast therefore an interdiction of the Theater, from the interdiction of uncleanness. Thus Tertullian. Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Tatianus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint Basil, Gregory Nyssen, declaim much against the lasciviousness, the lewdness which attends the acting of Plays; especially the Floralian Interludes, whose transcendent filthiness, was so execrably odious, as I dare not to relate it. Gregory Nazianzen, considering the filthiness that accompanies Plays; doth from thence style Play-houses, the lascivious shops of all filthiness and impurity Plays ; the petulancies of Players, fraught with all incontinency: the dishonest and unseemly disciplines of lascivious men, who repute nothing filthy but modesty: and Players the servants of filthiness, the counterfeiters of ridiculous things, who are ready in the open view of all men, to suffer or act all detestable things whatsoever. Eusebius Pamphilus from the self-same ground, calls Stage-players, men of waton and lewd-gestures, who did wonderfully delight the Spectators, and made Maximinus the tyrant sport. Saint Chrysostom writes, That all things which are acted on the Stage, are most filthy and lascivious: the words, the apparel, the gestures, the tonsure, the music, the glances of the eyes, the ditties, the pipes, the very arguments of the Plays themselves; All things, I say, are full of filthy lasciviousness. Whence they infuse so great lasciviousness into the hearers and spectators minds, that all of them may seem to endeavor, even with one consent to eradicate all modesty out of their hearts, and to satisfy their lusts with pernicious pleasure, Saint Augustine, as he much declaimes against the obscenity of acting of Plays, in sundry places ; so he informs us from his own experience; That on the solemn day of the lotion of Berecynthea, the mother of the God's, such things were publicly chanted by most wicked Stage-players; as did not beseem, I say not, the mother of the God's to hear; but even the mother of any of the Senators, or of any honest men; yea, the mothers of the Stage-players themselves. For human modesty hath such a respect towards parents which wickedness it self cannot wholly take away. The Players themselves might blush, to act in private at their own houses for exercise sake before their own mothers, that filthiness of obscene words and deeds, which they did publicly act before the mother of the gods, in the sight and hearing of a most numerous multitude of both sexes: which if • he being enticed by curiosity could be circumfusedly present at these Plays, she ought at l • ast to depart ashamed from them, her chastity being offended with them. What things are sacrileges, if these were sacrifices? or what is pollution if this were lotion? And these were called dishes, as if some feast were cel • brated, wherewith the unclean Devils might be fed, as with their banquets. For who may not disc • rne what spirits they are which are delighted with such obsceniti • s? unless • e be ignorant whether there be at all any unclean spirits deceiving men under the name of God's, or unless • e lead such a life, in which • e may rather desire th • favor and fear the wrath of these, than the true God. Thus he. That pious Father Salvian, records the obscenity of acting Stage plays to be such, that no chaste, no modest face could once behold it, no gracious tongue relate it, without sin or shame. If then we will give any credit to these recited Fathers, with sundry other here recited in the ensuing Scene. Or to the third Blast of Retrait from Plays and Theaters; to Master Northbrooke against vain-Plays and En • erludes; To Master Gosson his Plays confuted, to Master Stubs in his Ano • omie of Abuses, p. 101. to 107. To Doctor Reinolds in his Overthrow of Stage-plays, to Barnabas • Brissonius, Ioannis Mariana, or Bulengerus, De Spectaculis & Ludis Sc • nicis l. 1. c. 50, 51, 52. or to Bishop Babington, Bishop Andrew's, Osmund Lak • , Master Perkins, Master Elton, Master Dod, Master Downham ; with sundry others on the seventh Commandment, who concur with the alleged Fathers in the lacivious filthiness of Play-acting; We must needs acknowledge the very acting of Stage-plays, to be necessarily obscene, and so unlawful unto Christians, as they all conclude. Secondly, those several • eretricious amorous passages, ditties, parts, and complements which we meet with both in ancient and moderne Play-poems, (which can neither be acted nor uttered without much obscenity,) will evidently evince the very acting of Plays to be lascivious. And doth not daily experience testify as much? Survay we but a whiles, those venomous unchaste, incestuo • s kisses, (as the Fathers • tile them:) those wanton dalliances, those meretricious embracements, complements; those enchanting, powerful, overcoming solicitations unto lewdness; those immodest gestures, speeches, attires, which inseparably accompany the acting of our Stage-plays; especially where the Bauds, the Panders, the Lovers, the Wooers, the Adulterers, the Woman's, or Love-sick persons parts are lively represented, (whose poisonous filthiness, I dare not fully anatomize, for fear it should infect, not mend the Reader, ) must needs at first acknowledge, the very action of our Stage-plays to be execrably obscene; to be such as none but persons desparately lewd, unchaste, immodest, can seriously affect, much less approve or act. Therefore Stage-plays themselves must questionless be abominable unto Christians, even in this regard:

SCENA TERTIA.

THirdly, as the hypocrisy, and obscenity, even so the eff • minacy of acting Stage-plays, doth manifestly evince them to be evil; as this eighteenth Argument will demonstrate.

The Major is evident, by the authority of Scriptures, Fathers, and other Authors who condemn effeminacie, as an unnatural, odious, shameful sin, which not only mis-beseems all Christians, all persons whatsoever, making them vile and detestable unto others, but likewise s • uts men out of heaven, and without repentance damns their souls.

The Minor is ratified by the concurrent suffrages of sundry Fath • rs, who for this very cause among divers others, condemn all Stage-plays. Witness Clemens Alexandrinus, Padagogi lib. 2. cap. 10. Where he stiles Players effeminate enervated dancers, & Padagogi lib. 3. cap. 3. where he writes thus. Now verily the intemperanc • of life is grown so excessive, in • quity insulting and sporting it self, that whatsoever is lascivious and unchaste, is diffused into Cities. •• yes being taught to deny nature, do counterfeit the female Sex, &c. O miserable spectacle! O horrible wicked exercise! O how g • e • t is this iniquity! &c. Witness Philo Iudaeu • . De Vita Contemplativa, p. 1209, 1210. Those (writes he) who only please with scurrilous jests to recreate men's minds, transform yo • thes into the very habit and order of Strumpets, to the great injury and dishonor of their age and sex: a thing which Moses doth much condemn. Witness Tertullian De Spectaculis, lib. c. 10. p. 17. Together with Isiodor Hispalensis. Originum lib. 18. cap. 51. In all scenicall arts (say they) there is plainly the patronage of Bacchus and Venus which are peculiarly proper to the Stage. From the gesture and flexure of the body, they sacrifice effeminacy to Venus and Bacchus; the one of them being effeminate by her sex, the other by his f • nx, &c. Witness Saint Cyprian, De spectaculis lib. where he writes thus. To this vile shameful deed, another equal wickedness is super-added. A man enfeebled in all his joints, resolved into a more than womanish effeminacy, whose art it is to speak with his hands and gestures, comes forth upon the Stage: and for this one • I know not whom, nei • her man nor woman, the whole City flock together, that so the fabulous lusts of antiquity may be acted. Yea, men (writes he in another place) are unmanned on the Stage: all the honor and vigor of their sex is effeminated with the shame, the dishonesty of an unsin • ed body. He who is most womanish and best resembles the female sex, gives best content. The more criminous, the more applauded is he; and by how much the more obsene he is, the more skillful is he accounted. What cannot he persuade who is such a one? &c. And in another Epistle of his, he writes to Eucratius, to Excommunicate a Player, who did train up Boys for the Stage, for that he taught them against the express instruction of God himself, how a male might be effeminated into a female, how their sex might be changed by Art, that so the devil who defiles God's workmanship, might be pleased by the offenses of ae depraved and effeminated body. I think it will not stand with the Majesty of God, nor the discipline of the Gospel, that the modesty and honor of the Church should be polluted with such a filthy and infamous contagion. For since men are prohibited in the Law to put on a woman's garment, and such who do it are adjudged accursed. How much more greater a sin is it, not only to put on woman's apparel, but likewise to express obscene, effeminate womanish gestures, by the skill or tutorship of an unchaste Art? The most unchaste gestures and actions of Stage-players (writes Lactantius ) what else do they but teach and provoke lust? whose enervated bodies, effeminated into an womanish pace and habit, resemble unchaste women by their dishonest gestures, &c. One being a Youth (writes Saint Chrysostom ) combes back his hair, and effeminating nature with his visage, his apparel, his gesture, and the like, strives to represent the person of a tender virgin : which he condemns as a most abominable effeminate act: There is another sort of Actors (writes Nazianzen ) more unhappy then these, to wit, those who lose the glory of men, and by unchaste infections of their members • effeminate their manly nature, being both effeminate men and women, yea, being neither men nor women, if we will speak truly. For they continue not men, and that they should become women, they attain not. For what they are by nature, that they continue not, in regard of manners: and that which they wickedly desire to be, that they are not by nature. By which it cometh to pass, that they are certain riddles of luxury, and intricacies of vices, being men among women, and women among men. Whether do these things rather deserve applauses, aspections and mirth, or tears and sighs? Verily laughter reigns in these; Nature is vitiated and adulterated, and a various flame of pleasures is kindled.

To these I might acumulate the parallel testimony of Athanasius Contra Gentes Oratio p. 10. A. B. of Theophylus Antiochenus ad Autolicum, lib. 3. of Tatianu • Oratio adversus Graecos. Of Minucius Felix. Octauius, p. 70. 101.223. Of Augustine De Civitate Dei lib. 2. cap. 3. to 14. and lib. 7. c. 24. Of Salvian. lib. 6. De Gubernatione Dei. Of Jerome. Epist • 2. cap. 6.7. Epist. 9. cap. 5. Epist. 10. c. 4. Epist. 13. c. 2. Epist. 48. c. 2. Epist. 88. cap. 4. Of Eusebius apud Damascenum parallelorum lib. 3. cap. 47. Of Cassiodorus Variarum, lib. 1. cap. 27.30. lib. 3. cap. 51. and lib. 7. cap. 16. Of Damascene Parallelorum lib. 3. cap. 47. Of John Salisbury, De Nugis Curialium lib. 1. cap. 8. together with the concurrent suffrages of Ludovicus Vives De Causis Corrupt • Artium lib. 2. p. 82.83. & Notae in Augustinum De Civit. Dei. lib. 2 cap. 3. to 14. Of Radolphus Gualther Homilie 11. in Nahum. 3. p. 214.215. Of Francis Petrarcha De Remedio vtriusque fortunae lib. 1. Diologus 30. Of Agrippa, de Vanitate Scientiarum. cap. 20.59 • 64.71. Of Peter Martyr, Locorum Communium Classis. 2. cap. 11. sect. 62.66. cap. 12. s • ct. 15.19. and Commentary on Judges. page 310.311. Of Bodine, De Republica. lib. 6 • cap. • . Of Ioannis Mariana, Barnabas Brissonius, and Bulengerus, De T • eatris, spectaculis & ludis scenicis; of the third Blast of Retrait from Plays and Theaters, page 110, 111, 112. of Master Northbrooke, Master Stubs, Master Gosson, and Doctor Reinolds in their several Treatises against Stage-plays. Of Bishop Babington, Master Perkins, Master Dod, Master Lakes, Master Downeham, and sundry other on the seventh Commandment. Yea, of Plato, Cicero, Senica, Tacitus, Iuvenall, Marcus Aurelius Pliny, and other Pagan Authors; who all with one consent, not only testify, but likewise positively condemn the gross, the execrable effeminacy which attends the acting of all Stageplayes; which the very Cynicke himself would blush for to behold. And must not our own experience bear witness of the invirillity of Play-acting? May we not daily see our Players metamorphosed into women on the Stage, not only by putting on the female robes, but likewise the effeminate gestures, speeches, pace, behavior, attire, delicacy, passions, manners, arts and wiles of the female sex, yea, of the most petulant, unchaste, insinuating Strumpets, that either Italy or the world affords ? What wantonness, what effeminacy parallel to that which our men-women actors, in all their feminine, (yea, sometime in their masculine parts) express upon the Theater? was ever the invirility of Nero, Heliogabalus, or Sardanapalus, those Monsters, if not shames of Men and Nature: was ever the effeminate lewdness of Flora or Thais, comparable unto that which our artificial Stage-players (trained up to all lasciviousness from their Cradles) continually practice on the Stage, without blush of face, or sorrow of heart, not only in the open view of men, but even of that all-eyed God, who will one day arraign them for this their gross effeminacie? And dare we men, we Christians yet applaud it? Pitty is it to consider, how many ingenuous, witty, comely youthes, devoted unto God in baptism, to whom they owe themselves, their service; are ofttimes by their graceless Parents, even wholly consecrated to the Stage, (the Devils Chapel, as the Fathers phrase it) where they a • e trained up in the School of Vice, the Play-house, (as if their natures were not prone enough to sin, unless • they had the help of art to back them) to the very excess of all effeminacy, to act those womanish, whorish parts, which Pagans would even blush to personate. And is this a laudable, as many; a trivial, venial, harmless thing, as most repute it ? Is this a light, a despicable effeminacie, for men, for Christians, thus to adulterate, emasculate, metamorphose, and debase their noble sex? thus purposely, yea, affectedly, to vnman, unchristian, vncreate themselves, if I may so speak, and to make themselves, as it were, neither men nor women, but Monsters, ( a sin as bad, nay worse than any adultery, offering a kind of viol • nce to God's own work, ) and all to no other end but this; to exhilerate a confluence of unchaste, effeminate, vain companions, or to become competent Actors on a Stage; the greatest infamy that could befall an ancient Pagan Roman, or a Christian ? Is this a mean, a pardonable wickedness, to violate the Laws of God, of Nature? to educate those in the very discipline and school of Satan, who should be trained up in the admonition, fear, and nurture of the Lord ? that so they may be more deeply enthralled to the Devils bondage all their days, ( since custom is another nature, it being as difficult a thing for such who are accustomed to evil, to do good, as for an AEthiopian to change his skin, or a Leopard his spots, ) and be made more sure partakers with him in his eternal torments at their deaths? O therefore let us now at last consider with ourselves, the execrable effeminacy which attends the very acting of our Stage-plays; together with the danger accompanying this sin, (which is no less, without repentance, then the eternal loss of heavens ;) and then we shall, we cannot but abhor all Stage-plays, even in this regard.

SCENA QVARTA.

FOurthly, as the gross effeminacie, even so the palpable vanity, the ridiculous folly of acting Plays; doth manifest them to be evil; as this nineteenth Play-affronting Argument will evince.

The Major is evident: First, because the Scriptures condemn all vanity, and folly ; together with all vain, all foolish actions, persons, speeches, words, gestures, as dangerous, and pernicious evils, which draw men by degrees to greater sins, to serious mischiefs ; commanding men with all not to return again to folly, there being wickedness and madness in it, to abandon-folly and vanities, which promote not the eternal beatitude of their soul • s: to depart from the presence of a foolish man, when as they perceive not in him the lips of knowledge. Secondly, because vanity and folly are the very matter, seminaries, and seeds of sin, of wickedness, there being nothing worse then they.

The Minor, as it is evident by the concurrent testimony of the fore-quoted Fathers, Acts 3. Scene 7. so it is such an experimental known truth, that it were lost labor for to prove it. For what else is the personating of the Clownes, the Fools, the Fantastickes, the Lovers, the Distracted, discontented, lascivious, furious, angry persons part, but professed vanity, or ridiculous affected folly? Yea, what else is the whole action of Plays, but well personated vanity, artificial folly, or a less Bedlam frenzy? He who shall seriously survey the ridiculous, childish, inconfiderate, yea, mad and beastly actions, gestures, speeches, habits, pranks and fooleries of Actors on the Stage, (if he be not childish, foolish, or frentique himself) must needs deem all Stage-players children, fools, or Bedlams ; since they act such parts, such pranks, yea, use such gestures, speeches, raiment, complements, and behavior in Iest, which none but children, fools, or mad-men, do act, or use in earnest. There is • o difference at all between a fool • , a fantastique, a Bedlam, a Whore, a Pander, a Cheater, a Tyrant, a Drunkard, a Murderer, a Devil on the Stage (for his part is ofttimes acted) and those who are such in truth, but that the former are far worse, far more inexcusable than the latter, because they willfully make themselves that in sport, to foment the more then childish folly, of some vain Spectators, which these others are, perchance from natural necessity, or at least from colorable grounds? Flendas dixerim, an ridendas ineptias? The foolery, the ridiculousnesse of acting Plays is such, that I know not whether men should more bewail it, or deride it. Sure I am, though • ew Spectators can find tears to deplore the sin • ulnesse, yet most of them can afford laughter to deride the vanity, the folly of acting Plays. Since therefore vanity and folly are the genuine proper objects of derision, and men's voluptuous smiles ; the laughter Plays occasion, (which is their chie • est end,) is a sufficient evidence of their excessive folly; and so ground enough for Christians, for all men to condemn them as vanities, as fooleries, as Clemens Alexandrinus, and other Fathers do at large declare.

And thus much for the first considerable thing in the manner of acting Stage-plays.

SCENA QVINTA.

THe second circumstance considerable in the form of acting Plays, is the several parts and persons sustained in them: which suggests this twentieth Play-oppugning Argument.

The Major is irrefragable, because such as the parts are, such is the whole, which is composed of them: If the parts then be evil, the intiretie that springs out of them must be such.

The Minor I shall evidence by this Induction. In all our Stage-plays, we have most usually the parts and persons of Devil-gods and Goddesses; of Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Vulcan, Saturn, Cupid, Neptune, Mercury, Esculapius, Hercules, Pluto, Bacchus, Ceres, Minerva, Diana, Juno, Proserpina, Flora, Priapus, and others: yea, sometimes the very part and person of the Devil himself ; whose works, whose pomps and vanities all Christians have renounced in their Baptism: Add we to these, the parts and representations of Satires, Silvanes, Muses, Nymphes, F • ries, Hobgoblins, Fairies, Fates, with such other heathen vanities, which Christians should not name, much less resemble ; Together with the parts, the persons, of Whores, Whoremasters, Adulterers, Bauds, Panders, Tyrants, Traitors, Thieves, Murderers, Paricides, Drunkards, Parasites, Prodigals, Hypocrites, Fools, Ruffians, Wooers, Epicures, Fantastiques, Pennie-Fathers, Usurers, Scolds, Drabbes, Ravishers, Wantons, Bedlams, Turks, Infidels, and all other desperate wicked persons whatsoever. There is sca • c • one Devil in Hell, hardly a notorious sin or sinner upon earth, either of moderne or ancient times, but hath some part or other in Stage-plays. And can they then be lawful, be tolerable unto Christians, being consarcinated of such polluted parts and persons as these? Doubtless, he who will but cordially, but Christianly survey those filthy Pagan Devil-gods and Goddesses; those outrageous beastly lusts, unparalleled abominations, and execrable sinners, which have their Acts, their Scenes, their Parts, in Stage-plays; must necessarily abandon Plays, ( as all ancient Christians did ) as pastimes more fit for Devils than for Christians: else he must needs justify, not only sin and sinners, but even Hell it self • which abounds not with more polluted Devils, and Devil-Idols ; with more prodigious Monsters of impiety, with more stupendous matchless villainies, than the Stage, whose wickedness ofttimes, transcends even that of the infernal Lake. For there, men only suffer and bewail with tears, the eternal tortures which their sins occasion: Whereas men in Theaters, are so far from sin-lamenting sorrow, that they even delight themselves with the representations of those wickednesses, which the original Authors of them now deplore in Hell. And is not this a desperate matchless madness, for men, for Christians, to sport themselves with those individual sins upon the Stage, which the parties acted in the very bitterness of their souls, are condoling now in Hell? To make that their chiefest earthly pleasure, which is now the damned acted parties greatest pain, and without repentance may prove theirs too? To raise up damned souls or Devils out of Hell; with all those horrid sins that sunk them thither, to no other end but this, to play them on the Stage for laughter-sake: and yet never cordially to consider the doleful condition of the persons, nor seriously to lamen • the damnablenesse, the eternal punishment of the sins thus acted in their sight? O that our Playe • s, our Play-haunters would now seriously consider, that the persons whose parts, whose sins they act and see, are even then ye • ing in the eternal flames of hell, for these particular sins of theirs, even then whiles they are playing of these sins, these parts of theirs on the Stage! O that they would now remember the sighs, the groans, the tears, the anguish, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, the cries, and shreekes, that these wickedness • es cause in Hell, whiles they are acting, applauding, committing and laughing at them in the Play-house! And this, if there be any Sparke of humanity, of Christianity; any fear of God, of Sin, of Hell, remaining in them; would soon embitter the most Sugred Stage-plays to their souls, and engage them to detest them (unless they are marked ou • for Hell) for such like torments as these now sustain. Certainly, he can never have a share in Heaven, that makes a mock, a Play, a Pastime of the Parts, the Sins of those Devils, Pagans, and flagitious persons who are now in Hell. He who can thus make Sin, or Hell, or Devils, his earthly solace here, shall undoubtedly enjoy no other Heaven but Hell hereafter. Let the consideration therefore of these parts, these persons sustained in our Stage-plays, persuade us to renounce them, as mis-beseeming Christians to sport themselves withal ; From whose hearts they should rather draw mournful tears, than foolish laughter.

SCENA SEXTA.

[ 3] THe third thing considerable in the very action of Stage-plays, is the apparel in which they are acted, which is first of all womanish and effeminate, belonging properly to to the female sex; therefore unlawful, yea, abominable unto men. From whence this twenty one Argument is deducible.

The Minor is a notorious experimental truth which all Players, all Play-haunters must acknowledge: which sundry Fathers, and approved moderne Auth • rs testify.

The Major is undeniably confirmed by Deuteronomy 22. verse 5. The Woman shall not wear that which pertaineth • nto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so, are abomination to the Lord thy God. God himself doth here expressly inhibit men to put on woman's apparel, because it is an abomination to him: therefore it must certainly be unlawful, yea abominable for Players to put on such apparel to act a woman's part.

If any here object (as some Play-patrons do ) that this Scripture extends to those alone, who usually clothe themselves in woman's array from day today; or to those who put it on with a lewd inten • to circumvent or inamor others: or to satisfy their lusts: in which case the Synod of Augusta inhibits women, who put on man's apparel, from the Sacrament, till they have repented: not to such who only wear it now and then to act a woman's part, or in case of necessity to save their lives, as some have done.

To this I answer; First, that sundry common Actors do usually once a day, at leastwise twice or thrice a week, attire themselves in women's array to act their female parts; yea, they make a daily practice of it to put on women's attire, it being inseparably incident to their lewd profession: therefore they are within the express condemnation of this Scripture, and their own most favorable gloss upon it, as the objection it self doth evidence.

Secondly, the very putting on of woman's apparel to act a Play, though it be but now and then for an hour or two, is directly condemned by this Scripture: which prohibits, not only the frequent wearing, but the very putting on of women's apparel, for the words are not: A man shall not ordinarily or frequently put on a woman's garment, nor yet wear it now and then to a lewd intent, as the Obiectors gloss it: but, Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. The original word Iilbosch, which signifieth to put on: is the very same (as two Worthies of our Church observe ) with that of the 1 Sam. 17.38, 39. where it is written; that SAVL clothed DAVID with his Armor, and put an Helmet of brass upon his head, &c. If then David in the Scripture phrase, were said to put on SAVLS Armor, though he put it off immediately, because he had it once upon him, though for a little space; then he who puts on a woman's raiment but to act a part, though it be but once, is doubtless a putter on of women's apparel, within the very literal meaning of this Scripture; and so a ground delinqvent against God: because the very putting on of a woman's garment, not the frequent or long wearing of it, is the thing this text condemns, as the word put on imports.

Thirdly, the very reason of this precept expressed in the text, will take off this evasion: The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment : mark the reason. For all that do so, are abomination to the Lord thy God. That which makes a man an abomination to the Lord his God, must be such a thing as is sinful and abominable in its own nature, not in its abuse or circumstances only, as the Scriptures, and Alexander Alesius testify: If a man's putting on of woman's apparel were not simply evil in it self, the frequent wearing of it, or the putting of it on to a sinister intent, could not make him an abomination unto God. For the use of apparel being to clothe and adorn the body ; if the putting on of it were not unlawful, the frequent putting on of it, being the true use of it, could not be sinful, and so not abominable; there being nothing odious unto God but sin, and sinful things. Since then this putting on of woman's apparel is an abomination to the Lord: not only the frequent wearing of it, or the putting of it on to lewd intents, but even the bare putting of it on to act a vicious Play, though it be but once, must needs be within the verge of this sacred inhibition.

Fourthly, this precept; Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, as it is a branch of the moral law, having a relation to the 7. Commandment, and to several Scriptures in the New Testament, concerning modesty and decency in apparel: as good Divines observe. So it is a universal negative, which by the rules of Theology binds all men, in all cases, in all places, both Semper & ad Semper; always, and at all times whatsoever: therefore a man putting on of women's apparel at any time upon any occasion (yea in case of saving life, as some affirm ) but especially to act a Bauds, a Sorceresses, Whores, or any other lewd females part upon the Stage; must undoubtedly be within the express letter of this universal negative text; and so an abomination to the Lord. Neither will this poor evasion of acting in woman's apparel but now and then, take off its guilt; For since men's putting on of such array is here prohibited by a negative precept, which binds at all times, as an abomination to the Lord, and a thing that is sinful in its own nature; the rarity of it can no ways expiate the sinfulness that is in it. That which is sinful in it self, is nowhere, no time lawful upon no occasion. It is no justification, no excuse at all for a Murderer, an Adulterer, Swearer, Liar, Thief, Drunkard, or the like, to plead, that he commits these sins but seldom upon some special causes, because God's precepts are so st • ict, that they allow no place, no time for any sin. The infrequency, the rareness then of wearing woman's apparel (suppose it were as rare upon the Stage as now it is common) adds nothing to its lawfulness, it still continues an abomination to the Lord.

Fifthly, admit it were lawful for a man to put on womans apparel to save his life, or to avoid some imminent danger, as Achilles, Euclis, William Bp. of Eli, with some few others, & The Tyrrheneans are recorded to have done, though S. Augustine himself makes a Quaere of its lawfulness even in case of life, and others determine it to be unlawful, it being a negative moral precept which admits no qualifications ; yet it follows not hence, that therefore it is lawful for M • n-actors to put on women's array to act a Play: For doubtless if it be abominable in any case, or in case of daily use, as all acknowledge; it must necessarily be so in case of acting Plays, which are but a mere abuse. For first, Plays themselves, at leastwise the personating of the Bauds, Adulteresses. Whores, or Sorceresses part, which savor of naught else but lewdness and effeminacy, are evil: therefore the very putting on of woman's apparel to act such parts, cannot be good. Secondly, Plays, and female parts in Plays, admit they be not simply evil, yet they are but mere super • luous vanities ; or Abuses, as some rightly style them, there is no necessary use of Plays, of women's parts in Plays, or of acting female parts in woman's apparel. For men therefore to put on woman's attire contrary to this sacred precept, to act a lewd lascivious woman's part out of a mere effeminate, vain, lascivious humor, there being no urgent necessity, no warrantable occasion so to do, must needs be a great abomination, a most apparent violation of this ample precept; which being in it self exceeding broad, as all God's precepts are, must always be taken in its utmost latitude, without any human restrictions of our own; since God himself (who can only make exceptions out of his own general rules) hath left us no evasion from it in his Word.

Sixthly, the concurrent testimony of sundry Councils, Fathers, & moderne Authors, do absolutely condemn men's putting on of woman's apparel, (and so e conuerso ) especially to act a part upon the Stage, as an abominable, unnatural, effeminate and dishonest thing. Hence the ancient Council of Eliberis, Canon 57. decreed, That Ma • rons, or their Husbands should not lend their clothes to set forth any sicular Plays or Shewes; and if any did it, that they should be excommunicated for three years space. If then the very lending of women's apparel to act a Play in, were so great a crime as to demerit 3. years excommunication, what doth a Players personating of a woman's part in such array deserve? The Council of Gangra in the year of our Lord 324. Can. 13. & 17. decreed; That if any woman under pretence of chastity, or piety, as was supposed, should change her habit, and put on man's apparel; or clip and poll her hair (as our shorn English Viragoes do of late) which God had given her as a badge of her subjection; she should be ana • hematized, as a dissolver of the pr • cept of obedience: it being directly contrary to this text of Deuteronomy: The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to the man, &c. and to the 1 Cor. 10.6, 15. It is a shame for a woman to be shaven or shorn: but if she have long hair, it is a glory unto her, for her hair is given her for a covering. Indeed I find some precedents of women, who have been peccant in this kind: As namely, some seduced female disciples of Eustatius, who polled their heads, and clad themselves in man's apparel, under a pretext of piety; for the redress of whose enormous mannish courses this very Council was assembled. A Virgin, of whom S. Ambrose speaks, who clothed her self in man's array to save her chastity, and so escaped. Laschonia and Axiothea, who resorted unto Plato his School in man's attire. Empona the renowned wife of Julius Sabinus, who polled her hair, and disguised her self in man's apparel, and so went to Rome, the better to conceal her Husband, whose life was then endangered. Euphrosina, a famous Virgin of Alexandria, who under a pretence of chastity, did cut her hair, and put on man's array, and so entered into a Monastery, where she continued thus disguised for 38. years space. The famous Maid of Burgundy, in the year 1225. who polling her head, and apparelling her self in masculine garments, of purpose to preserve her virginity, her Father being desirous to bestow her in m • rriage, entered into religion in a Monastery of the Friers Minorities, where she lived thus metamorphosed into a Monk, for divers years. Pope Ione that masculine Roman Strumpet of known infamy, who transforming her self into the habit and ton • ure of a man, repaired in this her disguize unto the University, where she lived many years; and at last she aspired into the very Popes unerring Throne, by this her masculine habit and tonsure, as a man; till her unexpected delivery of a base-borne issue in the very midst of her solemn procession, discried her to be a woman. A notable Damsel of Corinth, together with Metania and Marina, who under pretext of vowing virginity, and preserving their chastity, disguised themselves in man's apparel, and so entered into Monasteries, as professed Monks, the better to satisfy their lusts among those Gotish shavelings. Puell de Dieu, that notable French Virag • , who arrayed her self like a man, and turned a great Commander • in the Wars, till at last she was taken prisoner by the English in the field, attired and armed like a man; for which unnatural act of hers, she was condemned and burnt at Roan. The Whore apprehended in Suffolk, in King Henry the VIII. his Rain, by M. Wharton, who being disguised in man's apparel, was taken in the company of four Popish shaveling Priests, good Curates; who one after another had bestowed their chastity upon her. All which for this their mannish immodest attyring themselves in man's accoutrements, incur the execration of this text and Council. If then a woman's putting on, or wearing of man's apparel, or the imitation of his tonsure incurres an Anathema by this Councils doom, though chastity, learning, and devotion were pretended for it: doth not a man's att • ring himself in woman's vestments, of purpose to act an • ffeminate lascivious, amorous Strumpets part upon the Stage, much more demerit it, since there can be no good pretext at all for it? But to come punctually to our purpose. The 6. general Council of Constantinople, Canon 62. expressly prohibits and abandons all dances and mysteries made in the names of those who were falsely styled gods among the Grecians, or in the name of men or women, after the ancient manner, far differing from the life of Christians: ordaining, that no man should from thence-forth put on a woman's garment, nor no woman a man's apparel; and that • o man should put on the person or visard of a Comedian, a Satirist, or a Tr • gaedian, under pain of deposition, if a Clergy-man; of excommunication, if a La • cke. This is punctual. Philo, a learned Jew, records; That the law doth study to exercise and confirm men's minds to fortitude with so great earnestness, that it also gives precepts what garments must be used, expressly prohibiting, that the man should not take unto him woman's apparel, lest the shadow or footsteps of effeminacy, should stamp some blemish on the masculine sex. For by following nature, he doth always observe what is seemly even in the smallest things, which might seem to be below the care of a Law-giver. For when he considered that the bodies of men and women were deformed, and that both of them had their distinct offices; that to the one of them the care of domestic businesses was committed to the other the managing of public affairs, and that by nature her self they were not both made for the same employments, and that a good mind ought to follow the instructions of nature, he thought it fit to determine of these things also, to wit, of food and raiment, and other things of this nature: For he would that a man in these things should so demean himself as a man ought to do, especially in apparel; which since he carrieth it about with him night and day, it ought to be such as may always admonish him both of comliness and honesty: S • also adorning the woman according to her degree, he forbids her to wear a man's garment; removing far both effeminate men, and women more manly then is fit. Clemens Alexandrinus, as he condemns the putting on of woman's apparel as a great iniquity; so he demands this question; Why the law in this very text of Deuteronomy did inhibit a man to put on a woman's garment? and he resolves it thus; Because the law would have us to be men, and not to be effeminate neither in body, nor in de • ds, nor in mind, nor in words. Which reason doth more especially hold in case of Plays, where our Men-women Actors are most effeminate, both in apparel, body, words, and works. Tertullian observes: that no kind of raiment as he could find was accursed of God, but women's apparel worn by men; for God saith, Cursed is every man who is clad in woman's array. Therefore (writes he) when as God prescribes in his law, that he is accursed who is clothed in woman's apparel; what will he judge of the Stage-player, Clowne or Fool in the Play, who is attired in woman's apparel? Shall this Crafts-master, this cheating Companion, think you, go unpunished? S. C • prian writes expressly in his Epistle to Everatius; That men in the law are prohibited to put on a woman's garment, and those who do it are adjudged accursed: how much greater a crime is it then, not only to put on woman's apparel, but likewise to express dishonest, effeminate, womanish gestures, by the tutorship or direction of an unchaste art? Which passage he particularly applies to Stage-plays. Lactantius, among other things, taxeth Players, for putting on womanish gestures, and apparel, to act the parts of infamous females: having an eye, no question, to this text of Deutronomy. Epiphanius Contra Heresies. lib. 2. Tom. 2. Haeresis 66. Col. 543. B. informs us: That it is a shameful and dishonest thing for a man to become a woman, and to appear in the form of a woman. And that it is again a most abominable thing for women to become men, (as many of hair-clipping moderne impudent Viragoes do) and to wear the apparel of a man. Whence he condemns the Seres for Heretics; among whom the men did use to nourish and plaite their hair into knots like women, (as our moderne Love-lock wearers do) sitting all the day idly at home, perfumes with ointments, effeminate, and prepared for their wives; whereas their women on the other side, did cut the hair of their heads, (as our English Man-women monsters do of late) and gird themselves about with a man's girdle : both which are condemned by this text of Deuteronomy: and by the 1 Cor. 11. v. 3. to 15. which I would our moderne Ru • fians, and Mad-dames would consider. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio. 1. ad Eunomianos, together with Elias, Metropolitan of Crete, in his Commentary on that Oration; affirm, That it is an unnatural and disorderly thing to see flowers in winter, or women clothed in man's, or men attired in women's apparel. For (as Elias comments) the first of these disturbes the times; the other yields an inconvenient form to nature, the ornament both of the man and woman being changed, and the order which nature hath prescribed to them, being confounded. Upon which ground they both condemn the Cynicke Maximus, and his sect, for nourishing and wearing their hair long, out of a perverse affection: as being an effeminate, and unnatural thing. S. Jerome writes expressly; That he shall eternally perish, who being effeminated in womannish feebleness, doth nourish his hair, pollish his skin, and trim himself by the glass, which is the proper passion and madness of women. S. Cyprian records, That they are in the Devils House and Palace, who with womanish hair transfigure themselves into women, and disgrace their masculine dignity, not without the injury of nature. Clemens Romanus, Constit. Apost. l. 1. c. 4. Clemens Alexandrinus, Paedag. l. 2. c. 10.3. & l. c. 2.3.11. Philo Judaeus. De vita Contemplativa. pag. 1208. & De Specialibus Legibus. p. 1059. Origen in Job. lib. 1. Tom. 2. Fol. 18. l. Epiphanius, Contra Heresies, lib. 3. Tom. 2. Haeresis 80. Col. 894.895. & 922. A. Julius Firmicus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum. cap. 4. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 4. p. 108. Paulinus, Epistola 4. ad Seuerum. Augustine. De Opere Monachorum. lib. c. 31.32, 33. Tom. 3. p. 1067. B. Cyrillus Alexandrinus, De Spiritualibus Oblationibus. lib. 2. Tom. 2. p. 534. E. Isichius in Lovit. lib. 4. cap. 13. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 7 p 51. C. & lib. 6. c. 19. p. 85. E. Bernard. Oratio ad Milites Templi. cap. 2. & 4. Amalarius Fortunatus. De Ecclesiasticis Officijs, lib. 3. cap. 2. together with Ambrose, Chrysostom, Sedulius, Primasius, Oecumenius, Beda, Anselm Remigius, Theophylact, in their Expositions and Commentaries on the 1 Cor. 11.14, 15. Doth not nature it self teach you, that if a man hath long hair (in which our Ruffians glory) it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, (Of which our English Ladies, who have cast off God and nature, shame and modesty, religion and subjection, are now ashamed, as being out of fashion) it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for a covering:) do copiously censure and condemn the frizling, nourishing, and wearing of long effeminate hair, as an unnatural, womanish, irreligious, and unmanly practice condemned, not only by the Law of God and nature, in the 1 Cor. 11.14. Ezech. 44.20. Levite. 19.27. & 21.5. Dan. 4.33. Rev. 9.7, 8. 1 Tim. 2.9. 1 Pet. 3.3. Isaiah 3.24 (which Scriptures I wou • d our overgrown Lock-wearers, and frizle-pated men-women would well consider) But even by this text of Deuteronomy, which inhibits men to put on a woman's garment, or attire ; of which long hair ( the proper ornament of women ) as well as woman's raiment is a part. If then the very nourishing of long effeminate hair be a putting on of woman's apparel within this Scriptures sense, as the woman's cutting of her hair (as Good Expositors testify) is a wearing of that which pertaineth to a man, to whom the clipping of hair is proper, he being in this distinguished from a woman: and so an abomination in God's sight, though our men and women in these licentious times believe the contrary; Much more must a Players putting on of women's apparel, gesture, speech, and manners to act a Play, be a putting on of woman's apparel, and so an abomination to the Lord our God, within the very literal meaning of this text, if these fore-quoted Fathers may be judged. S. Ambrose in his Annotations upon Deuteronomy. cap. 22. dedicated to Irenaeus: Wherein he examines at large the cause, why the law should prohibit women to wear a man's garment, and men to put on woman's apparel ; will make this point most clear. I shall recite his words at large. Thou hast informed me (writes he) as a son, that some have demanded of thee, what is the reason, that the law should so severely call them unclean, who use the garments of another sex, be they men or women. For thus it is written, The apparel of the man shall not be put upon the woman, n • ither shall a man be arrayed in a woman's garment; because everyone who shall do these things, is an abomination to the Lord thy God. And if thou mayest truly discuss it; that is incongruous, which even nature her self abhorreth. For why being a man, wilt thou not seem to be that which thou art borne? Why dost thou take unto thyself a different form? Why dost thou feine thyself a woman, or thou woman thyself to be a man? Nature hath clothed every sex with its own garments. Finally, there is a diverse use, a different color, motion, pa • e, an unequal strength, a different voice in a man and in a woman. Yea likewise in living creatures of another kind, there is one form of a Lion, another of a Lioness, yea another strength, another sound: one of a Bull, another of a Heifer. In Deere also, so much as the sex doth differ, so much doth the form, so as thou mayest distinguish them afar off. In Birds likewise there may be a proper comparison, in regard of apparel between them and man. For in them the very induments themselves do by nature distinguish the sex. The male Peacockes are beautiful; the females are not adorned with so various a beauty of feathers. The Phesants also have a different color, which may distinguish the difference of the sex. What difference is there in Poultry? How shrill is the crowing of the Cock, a solemn gift to stir up and sing, in the several watches of the night? Do these things change their shape • or habit? Why then do we desire to change? And verily the custom of the Grecians hath flown in among us, that women wear short coats, as being shorter then their own. Well, be it so now, that these may seem to imitate the nature of the better sex; why will men counterfeit the habit of the inferior sex? A lie even in word is dishonest: much more in apparel. Finally, in Temples, where there is a counterfeiting of faith, there is a counterfeiting of nature: For men there to take unto them woman's apparel, and a womanish behavior, is thought an holy thing. Whence the Law saith: Because everyone, who shall do these things, is an abomination to the Lord thy God: that is, a man who shall put on a woman's garment. But I suppose, that it speaks this, not so much of clothes, as of manners, or of our customs and actions, wherein one act may become a man, another a woman. Whence also the Apostle saith, as an interpreter of the Law, Let the woman keep silence in the Church: For it is not permitted to them to speak, but to be in subjection, as the Law saith. But if they will learn anything, they may ask their Husbands at home. And to Timothy, Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection: for I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to domineer over her Husband. But how unseemly a thing is it for a man to do womanish works? Therefore also may they bring forth children, therefore may they • ravell of child-birth, who crispe their hair like women. And yet those are veiled, these make war. But they may have an excuse who follow the customs of their Country, which yet are barbarous, as the Persians, as the Goathes, as the Armenians. Verily nature is greater then our Country. What do we speak of others, who add this to their luxury, that they keep in their service men wearing frizled hair, and golden chains, themselves having long beards, their servants long shag hair? Deservedly chastity is not there kept, where a distinction of six is not observed. In which the evidences of nature, are so many tutorships; the Apostle himself saying: Is it a seemly thing, that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not nature it self teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. These are the things which thou mayest answer to those who inquire of thee. Farewell. Thus doth this Father descant on this Scripture. S. Augustine resolves us; That those are rightly accounted infamous, and unable to bear witness, who show themselves in woman's apparel, whom I know not whether I should rather call, false women, or false men. Yet we may style them true Stage-players, and true infamous persons without any doubt. And withal he informs us, that it is a great Questiō, whether a man may put on woman's apparel, to deceive an enemy with it, for the delivery, or safety of his Country, because in this he becomes a woman, perchance to appear a truer man. And whether a wise man, who hath some kind of assurance that his life will be necessary for the good of men, would rather die with cold, then clothe himself in woman's apparel, if he can ge • no other. But of this (saith he) we shall consider more in another place. For verily thou seest how much examination it requires, to consider how far these things ought to be proceeded in, lest men fall into certain inexcusable uncleannesses. And so he leaves the Question undecided. Julius Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum, lib. c. 4. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 4. p. 108.109. writing of the effeminate Sodomitical Male-Priests of Venus, who clad themselves in woman's apparel, and were afterwards put to death by Constantine the Great for their unnatural lewdness, as Eusebius ( De Vita Constantini, lib. 3. cap. 53. & lib. 4. cap. 25.) records: hath this notable passage. The Assyrians, who worship the Air under the name of Venus, have verily effeminated this Element, being moved I know not with what Veneration. Whether because the Air is interposed between the Sea and Heaven, do they worship it with the effeminate voices of their Priests? Tell me, is this the cause that they seek a woman in a man, whom the Choir of their Priests cannot otherwise serve, unless they effeminate their countenance, polish their skin, and disgrace their masculine sex with womanish attire, &c? They effeminately adorn their long nourished hair, and being clothed in delicate garments, they scarce support their head with their wearied neck. Afterwards, when they have thus estranged themselves from being men, ravished with the music of Pipes the • call upon their Goddess, &c. What Monster, or what Prodigy is this? They deny themselves to be men, and yet are such: They would be reputed women, but the quality of their body confesseth the contrary. Consider what deity it is which is thus delighted with the entertainment of an impure body, which adheres to unchaste members, which is atoned with the filthy pollution of the body. Blush O ye wretches, at your sottishness: another God hath made you! When your company shall appear before the Tribunal of God who judgeth, you shall bring nothing along with you, which God, who hath made you, may acknowledge. Cast away this error of so great calamity, and now at last relinquish the practices of a profane mind. Do not ye damn that body which God hath given you, with the wicked law of the Devil. So pathetically inveighed he against men's putting on of women's apparel. S. Chrysostom, as he expressly condemns the putting on of woman's array to act a Play ; a thing too common in his days: So in his 26. Homil. in Epist. 1. ad Corinthios, cap. 11. Tom 4. Col. 453. B.C. (where he recites this Text of Deuteronomy, and notably censures men for nourishing, & women for cutting, and laying out their hair ;) he hath this excellent speech. There are certain signs given both to a man and woman; to him verily of command and principality; to her truly of subjection: and among these this also; that the woman should have her head covered; but the man his head uncovered and bare. If these therefore are signs, both of them sin, when as they confound this good order, and the constitution of God, and transgress their limits; he, in falling down to the humility and dejection of the woman; she, in rising up against the man, by her apparel and shape. For if it be not lawful for them to interchange their garments, neither for a woman to be clad in a man's Gowne; nor for a man to be attired in a woman's Gowne, or Vail; For he saith ; Neither shall the ornament of the man be put upon the woman; neither shall the man be clad in woman's apparel, Deut. 22.5. much more are not these things to be changed, &c. To pass by Damascene. Paralellorum. lib. 2. cap. 65. together with Beda Expositio in Deuteronom. c. 22. Operum. Tom. 4. p. 164 • who condemn men's putting on of women's apparel from this Text, which they recite: that elegant Bishop of Marcelles, Salvian, doth exceedingly tax the Romans for permitting men to wear woman's apparel, not only in ordinary converse; but even upon the Stage. Who (writes he) could believe or hear, that men should have turned into a womanish patience, not only their use and nature; but even their countenance, pace, habit, and all whatsoever is in the sex, or in the use of a man: all things were so turned upside down, that whereas nothing ought to be more shameful to men, then that they should seem to have any womanish thing in them; there nothing did seem more dishonest to certain men, then that they should seem to be men in anything, &c • This therefore is more to be lamented and pitied, that this so great a wickedness did seem the crime of the whole Common-wealth; and the whole dignity of the Roman name was branded with the infamy of this prodigious wickedness. For when men should clothe themselves in woman's apparel, and become more effeminate then women, and cover their heads with feminine attires, and this publicly in a Roman City, yea, in the most • famous and chief City there; what else was it, but the shame of the Roman Empire, that in the midst of the Commonwealth this most execrable wickedness should be tolerated without control? Asterius Bishop of Amasea, who flourished about the year of our Lord, 390. in his Homily, In Festum Kalendarum. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 4. p. 705. C.D. writes thus: That in this feast, the people did learn the infamous and dishonest arts and studies of Stage-players, from whence effeminacy and dissolution of manners did proceed. Doth not that valiant man, that man of courage, who is admirable in his arms, and formidable to his enemies, degenerate into a woman with his veiled face? he lets his coat hang down to his ankles, he twists a girdle about his breast, he puts on women's shoes, and after the manner of women, he puts a cawle upon his head; moreover, he carries about a distaff with wool, and draws out a thread with his right hand, wherewith • e hath formerly borne a trophie, and he extenuateth his spirit and voice into a shriller and womanish sound. These are the profits of this solenmnity: these are the commodities and fruits of this days public feast. O folly! O blindness! &c. So vehement is this godly Bishop against this unmanly practice, even in case of Stage-plays, which he much condemns • Our learned Country-man, Aleb • vinus, writing, of the practices of the Pagan Romans on the Kalends of January, now our New-years day; informs us; that divers of them did transform themselves into monstrous shapes, and into the habit of wild beasts. Others (saith he) changed in a feminine gesture, did effeminate their manly countenance: neither unworth • lie have not they a manly fort • tude, who have changed themselves into a woman's habit, or have put on a woman's attire. Now because the whole world was replenished with these and other miseries, the whole universal Church hath appointed a public fast to be kept on this day (which fast it seems is now forgotten) in as much as the Author of life should put an end to • hese calamities: so doth he style these effeminate practices. To these recited Fathers and Councils I might add Aste • anus De Casibus, lib. 2. Tit • lus 54. Aquinas prima secundae. Quaest. 102. Artic. 6. 6 ^m . & secunda secundae. Quaest. 169. Artic. 2. 3 ^m . Alexander Alensis. Theology summa. pars 2. Quaest. 135. Memb. 2. pag. 617.618. Glossa Ordinaris, Lyra, Tostatus, Pellicanus, Cornelius à Lapide, Rabanus Maurus, Calvin, Junius, Dionysius, Carthusianus, Ferus, Osiander, & Ainsworth on Deut. 22. v. 5. Bishop Babington, M. Perkins, M. Dod, M. Downham, M Elton, Osmond Lake, M. John Brinsly, Calvin, Bishop Andrew's, D. Griffith Williams, D. Ames, with sundry others upon the 7. Commandment. Peter Martyr, Locorum Communium Classis. 2. cap. 11. sect. 68.79. Bullinger & Marlorat in 1 Cor. 11.6. Gulielmus Parisiensis, De Fide & L • gibus, cap. 13. Danaus Ethicae Christianae • l. 2. c. 14. Polanus Syntagma Theology. lib. 10. cap. 26. p. 665. The rich Cabinet, London 1616. p. 116.117, 118. Maphaeus Vegius Laudensis. De Educatione Liberorum. lib. 5. c. 5. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 15. p. 882. E. A short Treatise against Stage-plays by an Anonymous Author, tendered to the Parliament. Anno 1625. p. 17. W. T. In his Absolom's fall. fol. 9. Stephen Gosson his Plays confuted. Action 2. The third Blast of Retrait from Plays and Theaters: M. Northbrook, his Treatise against Vain Plays and Interludes. fol. 36. and D. Reinolds, in his Overthrow of Stage-plays. p. 8. to 20. & p. 85. to 103. where this point is largely and learnedly debated. All these, with infinite others in their Treatises against Stage-plays, do utterly condemn the putting on of woman's apparel, especially out of wantonness to act a Play, as a violation of this text of Deuteronomy, and an abomination to the Lord our God: neither was there ever any one Divine that I have met with, who did contradict this truth; therefore we need not doubt or question it, but submit unto it without anymore disputes.

Lastly, the very reasons alleged against the putting [ 7] on of woman's apparel on men, will evidently evince it to be sinful to put it on to act a Play. For first, the very [ 1] putting on of woman's apparel (much more to act a lewd lascivious Enterlude) is an unnatural, and so a detestable and shameful act: as not only Ambrose, and the fore-quoted Christian Authors, but even Seneca and Statius, with other Pagans testify. For since nature hath made a difference, not only between the sex, but even betwixt the habit and apparel of men and women, as well among the most barbarous, as the civilest Nations, in so much that they are visibly distinguished by the diversity of their raiment one from the other: it must needs be a violation of the very dictates of nature, for a man to clothe himself in that apparel which nature and custom have prescribed to another sex, as mis-becoming his. As nature it self doth teach men, that it is a shame for them to wear long hair (though our moderne Ruffians glory in it) because it is naturally proper unto women, to whom it is given for a veil, a covering : so much more doth it teach men, that it is a detestable, unnatural, shameful thing for them, to put on woman's attire to act a Strumpets part. Hence men in women's, and women in men's apparel have been ever odious. Witness Heliogabalus, Sporus, Sardanapalus, Nero, Caligula, (Suetonij Calig. sect. 52.54. & others; together with the Male-priests of Venus, the Roman Galli or Cinaedi, the passive Sodomites in Florida, Gayra, and Peru; who clothing themselves sometimes, not always in woman's apparel (as did also William Bishop of Eli to his shame,) are for this, recorded to posterity, as the very monsters of nature, and the shame, the scum of men. Witness the Inkeepers of • ez at this day, who attyring themselves like women, shaving their beards, and becoming effeminate in their speech, are so odious to these very Infidels, (some base villains only excepted who resort unto them,) that the better sort of people will not so much as speak to them, neither will they suffer them to come within their Temples. If men in women's apparel be thus execrable unto Pagans, how much more detestable should they be to Christians, who are taught not only by the light of nature, but of the Gospel too, to hate such beastly male-monsters in the shapes of women? And as the verdict of human nature condemns men's degenerating into women; so from the very selfsame grounds, it deeply censures the aspiring of women above the limits of their female sex, & their metamorphosis into the shapes of men, either in hair, or apparel. As nature dictates to men, that it is a shame for them to wear long hair, or woman's raiment, so it instructeth women, that it is a shame, a sin for them, to put on man's apparel, or to clip or cut their hair their feminine glory (as our Viragoes do) because it is given them as a natural covering to distinguish them from men: as the Apostle plainly teacheth, in the 1 Cor. 11.5, 6, 15. the 1 Tim. 2.9. & Deut. 22.5. Hence the Council of Gangra did anathematize those women, as infringers of the law of nature, and of the precept of subjection, who did either cut their hair, or clothe themselves in man's apparel, though it were under pre • ence of Religion, as Theodora (who lived a penitentiary life in man's apparel for her adultery in a Monastery for sundry years together) is recorded to have done, and as some preposterous Nuns in Egypt did: Hence Gratian Distinctio 30. Summa Angelic • . Tit. Faemina. together with Calvin, Bullinger, Marlorat, Lyra, & Glossa Ordinaris, with sundry others on 1 Cor. 11.5, 6. & Deut. 22.5. & Synodus Turonica, Anno 1583. apud Bochellum. Decreta. Ecclesiae. Gallicanae. lib. 6. Tit. 9. cap. 1 • . (whose word I would our man-women English Gallants would consider) expressly teach us; that even nature herself abhors to see a woman shorn or polled; that a woman with cut hair is a filthy spectacle, and much like a monster; and that all repute it a very great absurdity for a woman to walk abroad with shorn hair; for this is all one as if she should take upon her the form or person of a man, to whom short cut hair is proper, it being natural and comely to women to nourish their hair, which even God and nature have given them for a covering, a token of subjection, and a natural badge to distinguish them from men. Yet notwithstanding, as our English Russians are metamorphosed into women in their deformed frizled locks and hair, so our English Gentlewomen, (as if they all intended, to tu • ne men outright and wear the Breeches, or to become Popish Nuns) are now grown so far past shame, past modesty, grace and nature, as to clip their hair like men with locks and foretops, and to ma • e this Whorish cut, the very guise and fashion of the times, to the eternal infamy of their sex, their Nation, and the great scandal of religion. Yea, the unnatural shameless Papists, bidding as it were professed defiance both to God, to nature, Moses, and S. Paul, have made this a solemn Ceremony at the admission of all their Nuns into their unholy orders, to poll their heads, and cut their hair, in token that they are now immediately espoused unto Christ, and so are freed from all subjection to men, or to their husbands, (as I presume those English women think they are, who cut their hair.) An unnatural unchristian shameful practice, derived (as themselves acknowledge ) from the Pagan Roman Vestales (a fit pattern of imitation for all Popish Nuns) who entering into that idolatrous order did use to poll their heads and consecrate their hair to the Goddess Lucina, hanging it for a monument on a sacred Lote-tree. Well, let the Romanists and their Nuns who give a reason for polling their religious Virgins that its a token of their freedom from all subjection to men, &c. (whereas they should rather plead they are men indeed, not women, and so are not bound to nourish their hair) much like the reason of those foolish Ruffianly Friers, or Crinitifratres, whom S. Augustine reproving for wearing long hair against the Apostles precept. 1 Cor. 11.14. to the scandal of religion, replied, that the Apostle prohibits men only to wear long hair, and they were no men (as our effeminate hairy men-monsters hardly are) because they had made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, and so were exempted from the Apostles text, as the Papists say these Nuns of theirs are, though all other women wha • soever are included :) or let our English shorn Blowses, think what they will of this vile practice; yet sure I am that God, that Scripture, Nature, modesty, Religion and all ingenious persons, who have any sparks of nature in them much condemn it, as an abominable guise, unfit for any but lewd Adulter • sses and notorious Whores, (as many polled Nuns and shorn-frizled English Maddames are.) Hence the ancient Germans and others, did use to shame and punish notorious Adulteresses and Whores, by shaving off their hair, as the most ignominious punishment that could befall them. Hence the ancient Roman Emperors did usually punish Adulteresses by cutting their hair, and then thrusting them into a Monastery, to do penance there, the true original of this Popish custom. And hence the French Synod under Pope Zachery, in the year 742. decreed. That if any Nuns and holy Virgins did fall into adultery (as many did) they should be thrice whipped, then cast into prison for an whole year, and have all the hair of their head shaven quite away; to make them odious forever after, yet Romanists glory in this their feminine tonsure of their Nuns; Whereas the Counc • ll of Ariminum under Constantius (as if it had been purposely somoned to convict the Papists of heresy in this very Ceremony of installing Nuns) together with the Council of Gangra, condemned Eustatius for an heretic; Quod mulieres comam detondere monuisset: for that he had persuaded women out of a pretext of holiness, to cut their hair, against the very Laws of God and nature. Now as women's clipping of their hair like men is thus execrable in it self, because unnatural; so is their putting on of man's apparel, or men of theirs, especially for merriment. To pass by Dom • a, who clad her self in man's apparel to avoid the rage of the Tyrant Maximinian ; together with that mirror of conjugal fidelity, Empona, who cut her hair, and wore man's apparel lest she should betray her Husband Julius Sabinus, being discovered, with whom she lived 9 years in a vault, as Tacitus relates; with some other women formerly mentioned, who have cut their hair and put on man's apparel for learning, danger, or religion sake, whose practice I cannot approve, since God and nature both condemn it: I shall only remember two Stories more, very pertinent to this purpose. The first is of the Argi • ae, or Graecian women of Argos, who driving Cleomenes King of Sparta from their besieged City under the conduct of Telesilla, the most of the Argivi being slain before the siege; in remembrance of this their victory, ordained a feast on the seventh day of the fourth month, wherein they exercised their, Hibristica sacra, or contumelious solemnities, in which they clothed women in man's apparel, and men with women's hair-laces, veils, and head attires: (inverting the very course of nature both in the male and female sex:) And withal that they might seem to contemn and disgrace their Husbands, they enacted this law (which our English shorn Viragoes might do well to put in practice) that all married women should put on beards, when ever they should lie with their Husbands : which puts me in mind, not only of bearded Venus ( to whom men sacrificed in women's, and women in men's apparel, as Macrobius hath recorded) whom they pictured like a man from the girdle upward, and like a woman only from the girdle downwards, because they deemed her both a man and a woman: (a lively emblem of our half-men-women monsters:) but likewise of the Winnili or Lombards wives, who going to Goddanus with their Husbands to desire of him the victory against the Vandals with their hair hanging loose below their cheeks in form of a beard ; Goddanus seeing them out of his window, and taking them to be men with very long beards, demanded • Qui sunt isti Longobardi? from whence they were after called, Lombards, quasi Long-beards, as some, or as other Historians have recorded, because their Husbands to increase the number of their Army at their first eruption, that so they might be more terrible to their enemies, did untie their wives long hair and fashion it to their faces like a beard, deceiving their enemies with this Stratagem. which if our English polled females (who may do well to make them beards of the hair they have shorn from their Lockes and Foretops) will but imitate, they may then seem bearded men in earnest, and fall to wearing breeches to, (as they have lately taken up men's Tonsure, Lockes and Dublets, if not more :) and so be like these mannish Argivae, over-ruling nature and their Husbands both at once. The second History is that of Aristodemus the Tyrant, surnamed effeminate, because he wore long womanish hair, for which the very Barbarians did condemn him. This unnatural Tyrant endevoring to effeminate the Cumaeans, commanded and taught their Youths to nourish thei • hair like women, to color it yellow, to curle and embroyder it, and bind it up in phillets; and to wear painted and embroidered Gownes and garments until they were past 20. years of age. And withal he compelled their women to cut their hair round, and to put on m • ns apparel. Which invertion of the course of nature in both sexes (condemned by Plutarch, as a tyranny beyond all his other wickednesses) did make him so execrably odious to the Cumaeans, that they rose up with one accord against him and slew him, together with all his posterity, as detestable and worthy ruin both with God and man. It is evident then by all these premises: that the putting on of woman's apparel, and so e converso ; is an unnatural, and so a shameful, an abominable act: therefore to put it on to act a Play, must needs be such.

[ 2] Secondly, as it is an unnatural, so likewise it is an effeminate act to put on woman's apparel, especially to play a woman's part. This all the fore-quoted Authors, together with Act 5. Scene 3. abundantly testify: This Plutarch, and Dionysius Hallicarnasseus in the now recited History of Aristodemus the Cumaean Tyrant ; together with Orosius, Suetonius, Philo Iudaevs, Diodorus, Siculus, Athenaeus, Justin, Lampridius, Juvenal, Eusebius, Purchas, and the fore-quoted Historians, who condemn Sardanapolus, Heliogabalus, Nero, Sporus, the M • le-priests of Venus, the Roman Galli, Cinaedi and others formerly mentioned for so many Monsters of unparalled effeminacy, for putting on woman's attire, together with the very grounds of common reason, fully evidence. For what higher strain of invirility can any Christian name, then for a man to put on a woman's raiment, gesture, countenance and behavior, to act a Whores, a Bauds, or some other lewd, lascivious females part? If this be not effeminacy in the suparlative degree, I know not yet what effeminacy means. But if it be effeminate, as all must grant, then it must needs be sinful, yea abominable, since effeminacy is both an odious and a condemning sin, as both Scriptures and Fathers do proclaim it.

Thirdly, a man's putting on of woman's apparel, be it to act a Play, is a dishonest, immodest, and unseemly thing, which becomes not Christians or religion: it is a thing of ill, not good report ; a thing not honest, but vile and filthy in the sight of all men, as the fore-alleged Authors, and Act 5. Scene 3. together with every ingenious man's conscience and experience testify. Therefore it must needs be sinful, as the recited Fathers, and Marginall Texts of Scripture will more fully evidence.

Fourthly, a man's clothing himself in Maides attire, [ 4] is not only an imitation of effeminate idolatrous Priests and Pagans, who arrayed themselves in woman's apparel when they sacrificed to their Idols, and their Venus, and celebrated Plays unto them ; which as Lyra, Aquinas, and Alensis well observe, was one chief reason, why this Text of Deuteronomy prohibits, men's putting on of women's apparel, as an abomination to the Lord: but a manifest approbation and revivall of this their idolatrous practice. Therefore it must certainly be abominable, and within the very scope and letter of this inviolable Scripture, even in this regard.

Fifthly, this putting on of woman's raiment, is a mere abuse of it. The end why God ordained apparel at the first, was only to cover nakedness; to fence the body against [ 5] cold, wind, rain, and other annoyances: to put men in mind of their penury, their mortality, their spiritual clothing from Heaven, and the like; and to distinguish one Sex, one Nation, one dignity, office, calling, profession from another. Now a man's attyring himself in woman's array, as it serves for neither of these good ends for which garments were at first ordained; which proves it a mere abuse: so it perverts one principal use of garments, to difference men from women ; by confounding, interchanging, transforming these two sexes for the present, as long as the Play or part doth last. If therefore men's ordinary wearing of women's garments, if the put • ing of them on in any other place but in a Play-house, or the wearing of them in the streets for an hour or two, and that but seldom ; be within • he malediction of this text, or an unlawful thing (as our very Antagonists in this case of Plays, confess ) because it transforms the male in outward appearance into the more ignoble female sex, and nullifies that external difference between them, which it ought to make: Then questionless men's arraying themselves in woman's vestments to act a part in Masques, in Plays, or other Interludes, must needs be much more abominable, within the meaning of this Scripture: because it not only inverts these Sexes which God and nature have distinguished: but also abuseth apparel, not to any good or necessary purpose which is evil ; but to an unnecessary, lewd, lascivious end, from whence no good at all proceeds.

Lastly, this putting on of woman's array (especially to act a lascivious, amorous, whorish, Love-sick Play upon the Stage, must needs be sinful, yea abominable; because it not only excites many adulterous filthy lusts, both in the Actors and Spectators; and draws them on both to contemplative and actual lewdness, (as the marginal Authors testify) which is evil; but likewise instigates them to self-pollution, ( a sin for which Onan was destroyed: ) and to that unnatural Sodomitical sin of uncleanness, to which the reprobate Gentiles were given over ; (a sin not once to be named, much less then practiced among Christians ;) which is worse, This the detestable examples of Heliogabalus, Sardanapalus, Nero & Sporus, the Male-Priests of Venus, with the passive beastly Sodomites in Florida, Gayra, and Peru, evidence; who went clad in woman's apparel, the better to elliciate, countenance, act, and color their unnatural execrable uncleanness, which I abhor to think off. This the usual practice of other ancient Incubi, who clothed their Galli, Succubi Ganymedes and Cynadi in woman's attire, whose virilities they did ofttimes dissect, to make them more effeminate, transforming them as near as might be into women, both in apparel, gesture, speech, behavior. And more especially in long unshorne womannish, frizled, lust-provoking hair and Love-locks, (grown now too much in fashion with comely Pages, Youthes, and lewd effeminate ruffianly persons; as they were with these unnatural Pagans, I dare not write, to amorous beastly purposes, to which they are strong allectives, of which they were ancient Symptoms, as sundry profane and Christian Writers testify: Which should cause all chaste ingenious Christians forever to detest them, the better to avoid the s • ares, the badges, the suspicions of incontinency, and this most filthy sin:) the more to extenuate this their unnatural wickedness, or rather the more freely to embolden, to allure and provoke them to the undaunted, u • lamented practice of it, by reducing it as near to natural lewdness as they could devise: since few of them were so prodigiously impudent, so immeasurably outrageous at the first, as desperately to rush upon this unnatural filthiness in its suparlative native vileness, without some extenuating varnishes cast into it, to charm their consciences, and inflame their lusts. Yea this the execrable Precedents of ancient, of moderne Play-poets and Players witness, who have been deeply plunged in this abominable wickedness, which my Inke is not black enough to discypher. Witness the example of Sophocles, that famous Greek Tragaedian, whom Athenaeus Dipnos. lib. 13. cap. 27. Plutarch, in his Amatorius; Soudas in the word Sophocles; Caelius Rhodiginus, Antiqu. Lect. lib. 15 cap. 9.10. Agrippa De Vanitate Scientiarum. c. 63.64. have stigmatized for this sin. Witnes Saint Cyprian, who writes thus of the womanish Pantomimes and Players in his times. Epist. lib. 2. Epist. 2. Donato. Libidinibus insanis in viros viri proruunt, &c. See Act 4. Scene 1. Witnes Saint Chrysost. Hom. 12. in Epist. 1. ad Corinth. Theatra congregant & meretricum choros illic inducentes, & pueros pat • icos qui iniuria ipsam naturam afficiunt. Quid ergo illos inducis cynaedos, & exoletos, &c. Yea witness Caligu • a. Suetonij. Calig. sect. 55. with M. Stubs, his Anatomy of Abuses p. 105. where he a • firmes, • hat Players and Play-haunters in their secret conclaves pla • the Sodomites: together with some moderne examples of such, who have been desperately enamored with Players Boys thus clad in woman's apparel, so far as to solicit them by words, by Letters, even actually to abuse them. All which give doleful testimony to this experimental reason, which should make this very putting on of woman's apparel on Boys, to act a Play, forever execrable to all chaste Christian hearts. Hence is it, that sundry learned Divines annex this text of Deuteronomy to the 7. Commandment, as a moral precept sounded upon the very Law of nature; because men's putting on of woman's raiment is a temptation, an inducement not only to adultery, but to the beastly sin of Sodom, which (saith Lactantius ) is most properly called adultery, because it is unnatural. Yea hence (as some have truly observed ) those women who put on men's, and men who put on women's apparel, are said in this text, not only to be abominable, but even, to be an abomination, in the abstract, to the Lord their God; because it is an occasion off, a violent provocation to that monstrous unparalleled sin of Sodomy, ( Cuius defecit interpretatio erubuit ratio, conticuit oratio: ) which the following chapter, with several other Scriptures, expressly style; an abomination to the Lord our God. Since then it is abundantly evident by all these premises, (and I suppose by many Players and Play-haunters particular experience) that men's putting on of woman's apparel ( especially to act a Whores, a Baudes, or Sweet-hearts womanish wanton part upon the Stage, where all the solicitations, and inescating allectives to uncleanness do accompany it,) is a preparative, an incendiary, not only to sundry noisome lusts, to speculative, to practical adultery, whoredom, and the like: but even to the most abominable unnatural sin of Sodom, to which men's imbred corruption, (as good Authors testify) is over-prone ; as the detestable examples of the flagitious Sodomites, Canaanites, Jews, Gentiles, Corinthians, Italians, Turks, Per • ians, Grecians, Tartars, Chinoyes, Cel • ae, Peguans, Floridians, ancient Romans, Moors in Barbary, Gayrians, Peru • ians, Jupiter and his Ganymedes, the ancient Priests of Venus, Sardanapalus, Nero and his Sporus, He •• ogabalus, and many others: yea the frequent Sodomitical wickednesses of sundry unholy-Popes, Cardinals, Popish Bishops, Abbots, Priests, Friers, Monks, (such are the unchaste fruits of their vowed and much-admired chastity:) together with the frequent inhibi • ions, Laws & Edicts against this prodigious villainy in Scriptures, Councils Heathen States, and in our English Statutes, ( which have made it capital, as a late example of a memorable act of justice on an English Peer can witness) do more then testify; it cannot but be inexcusably sinful, both in the eyes of God, who literally prohibits it; and in the sight of natural, much more of Christian men, who cannot but detest it. And so by consequence the Plays themselves which are acted in such apparel (as all our Masques and Stage-plays for the most part are) must questionless be sinful, yea abominable, as men's putting on of woman's apparel is. Thus all the fore-alleged Councils, Fathers, Authors, do from hence conclude, & so must I from all the premises.

If any now object, that it is far better, far more commendable for Boys to act in woman's attire, then to bring women-Actors on the Stage to personate female parts; a practice much in use in former times among the Greeks, and Romans ; who had their Mimae, their Sceni • ae mulieres, or women-Actors (who were all notorious impudent, prostituted Strumpets, ) especially i • their Floralian Interludes ; as they have now their female-Players in Italy, and other foreign parts, and as they had such French-women Actors, in a Play not long since per • onated in Black-friers Play-house, to which there was great resort.

I an • wer first, that the very ground of this objection is false, unless the objectors can manifest it to be a greater abomination, a more detestable damning sin, for a woman to act a females part upon the Stage, then for a Boy to put on a woman's apparel, person and behavior, to act a feminine part; which the Scr • pture expressly prohibits, as an abomination to the Lord our God: or unless they can prove an irritation, an inducement to Sodomy, to self-pollution (in thought at least if not in act,) a lesser sin, a more tolerable evil, then mannish impudency, or a temptation to whoredom, and adultery: which none can evidence.

Secondly, admit men-Actors in women's attire, are not altogether so bad, so discommendable as women Stage-players; yet since both of them are • vill, yea extremely vicious, neither of them necessary, both superfluous as all Plays and Players a • e; the superabundant sinfulness of the one, can neither justify t •• lawfulness, nor extenuate the wickedness of the other. It is no good argument to say, Adultery is worse then simple Fornication: Sodomy with such other unnatural wickednesses are far more abominable then adultery: therefore fornication and adultery are lawful and may still be tolerated, ( as they are in b •• stly Rome, the very Sinke, the Stews and Nursery of all such uncleanness ; which should cause all Christians to detest this Whore, together with her head, her Pope, her supreme Pander: ) because the transcendent badness of the one, doth neither expiate nor extenuate the sinfulness of the other. Yet this is the present objection in effect • Female-Actors, are worse then male-Actors arrayed in woman's apparel; therefore they are tolerable, if not lawful. Whereas this should rather be the conclusion (with which I will close up this Scene;) both of them are abominable both intolerable, neither of them laudable or necessary; therefore both of them to be abandoned, neither of them to be henceforth tolerated among Christians.

SCENA SEPTIMA.

[ 2] SEcondly, as Stage-plays are thus unlawful, in regard of the womannishnesse, so likewise are they in respect of the costly gawdinesse, the immodest lasciviousness, the fantastiqu • strangeness, the meretricious, effeminate lust-provoking fashions of that apparel wherein they are commonly acted and frequented: from whence I shall deduce this 22. Argument against Stage-plays.

The Major is warranted not only by Deut. 22.5. Isaiah 3.16. to 24. Zeph. 1.8. 2 King. 9.30. Prov. 7.10. Ier. 4.30. Ezech. 23.40, 41. Luk. 7.25. 1 Tim. 2.4, 10. 1 Pet. 3.3. which condemn all such apparel, as unbeseeming Christians: But likewise by Tertullian, De Habitu Muliebri, & De Cultu Faeminarum. lib. Philo Judaeus, De Fortitudine, lib. pag. 1005.1006. & De Mercede Meretricis non accipienda in • acrarium. lib p. 1161.1162. By Clemens Alexandrinus Paedag. lib. 2. c. 10.12. & lib. 3. cap. 1. to 9.11. By Cyprian De Habitu Virginum. lib. By Ambrose. De Instit. Virginis, & De Virginibus. lib. 3. By Basil. Ascetica. cap. 12. & Comment. in Isaiah. c. 3. By Nazienzen Oratio 27. p. 460. & Adversus Mulieres ambitiosius sese ornantes. p. 992, &c. which I would our plastered pompous Iezeb • ls would peruse. By Cyrillus Alexandrinus in Hesaiam. lib. 1. c. 3. By Jerome. Epist. 7. c. 3. Epist. 8. c. 5.10. Epist. 10. c. 2.3. Epist. 16. c. 2. Epist. 23. & Adversus Iovinianum. c 9. By Chrysostom Hom. 31. in Matth. & Hom. 8. in 1 Tim. 2. By Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. l. 4. c. 21. & Epist. 73. By Fulgentius Epist. 3. ad Probam. By Bernard, De Modo Vivendi Sermo 9. By Primasius, Ambrose, Sedulius, Remigius, Theodoret, Deda, Haymo, Rabanus Maurus, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Anselm, Glossa Ordinaris, Lyra, Master John Calvin, Marlorat, Aretius, Danaus, Mayer, Byfield, and most other Commentators, on the 1 Tim. 2.9. and on the 1 Pet. 3.3. By Alexander Alensis, Theology Sūma, pars 4. Quaest. 11. Artic. 2. sect. 4. Alexander Fabritius Destructorium vitiorum pars 6. c. 2. P. Q. Alvarus Pelagius De Planctu Ecslesiae. lib. 2. Artic. 76. fol. 250. Lydij Waldensia, pars 2. pag. 358. AEneas Sylvius. Epist. lib. 1. Epist. 166. Johannes Fredericus, De Luxu Vestium. lib. By. Bishop Hooper, Bishop Babington • Master Calvin, Perkins, Dod, Downbam, Brinsly, Lake, Elton, Williams, on the 7. Commandment, and sundry other Divines in their Treatises of Apparel, Pride and Luxury, and in their Expositions on Isaiah 3 and the fore-quoted Scriptures; who absolutely censure, the very • se and wearing of such apparel (much more the ordinary abuse of it in lascivious Interludes) as being the incendiary of lust, the fomentation of pride, the occasion of adultery, the badge of incontinency: concluding it, to be altogether unlawful for chaste, for sober Christians, and fit for none but Strumpets, who are commonly most compt in their attires, most gaudy and new-fangled in their clothes. Whence they applaud the Lacedemonians law; that none but common prostituted Strumpets should wear any costly or glorious apparel; the better to deter all chaste and sober persons from it. A law which would well befit our Nation, our times, which Proteus -like are always changing shape and fashion, and like the Moon, appear from day today in different forms.

The Minor is evident by experience; which finds an whole Wardrobe of all gaudy, pompous vestments; a confluence of all whorish, immodest, lust-provoking attires; a strange variety of all effeminate, lewd, fantastique, outlandish apish fashions, (or disguises rather) at the Play-house; sufficient to excite a very hell of noisome lusts in the most mortified Actors and Spectators bowels: To this we may add the verdict of the Fathers, who censured the Plays in their times, even from the quality of the apparel in which they were acted. Witnes Clemens Alexandrinus; who as he rejects all costly immodest apparel, as fit for no place but the Stews, or S • age: so he condemns, not only Plays themselves; but even the delicacy, the effeminacy, the costliness and lust • ulnesse of that apparel wherein they were acted. Witnes Tertullian, who writes; That in all Interludes there is nothing more scandalous, more pernicious, then the over-curious attire of men and women (both Actors and Spectators) which did blow up sparks of lust. Witnes S. Chrysostom, who informs us, That the apparel used in Play-houses is most lewd, lascivious, filthy ; whence he stiles it, Vestitus Satani • us, Satanical array. Witnes Synesius who gives the title of Scenicus ornatus, to gawdie, new-fangled, swaggering apparel, because Players array was such. Witnes Theophilact, Oecumenius, Chrysostom, on the 1 Tim. 2.9. viz. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel; not with broidered hair, or gold, or costly attire ; (a text which our English Ladies have long since forgotten, if not rejected, as savoring of Puritanism and over-strict preciseness;) where thus they write: That women must come to Church (and I would our frizled, pouldred, shorn, swaggering Lasses, who are never gawdier or compter then in Churches, would remember it) not with broidered hair, or gold, or costly attire; for they come there, to pray, not to dance. They come to crave the forgiveness of their sins, and shall they then adorn themselves like comical women, as if they were entering into a Play-house to act a part? Cut therefore from thee all this counterfeiting, circumcise from thee all this demeanour of the Stage and Players: for God is not mocked. These things are to be left to Players and Dancers, and to those who are conversant in the Play-house: no such thing is suitable to a chaste and sober woman. An unanswerable Argument, that lascivious dresses, and rich immodest, new-fangled apparel misbeseeming Christians, were much in use in Plays and Play-houses. This Theodoret, Vopiscus, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, with sundry others testify, of which you may read more largely in the third and sixth Scene of this present Act. All which sufficiently evidence the truth of the Assumption; and so by consequence of the Conclusion too; which needs no further proof to back it.

SCENA OCTAVA.

THe fourth thing considerable in the manner of acting Stage-plays, is the adjuncts, the Cōcomitants which usually attend it, the first whereof, is, lascivious mixed, effeminate Dancing on the Stage, not men with women only, or rather with Whores or persons more infamous, (for such are all those females in Saint Chrysostom's judgment, who dare dance publicly on a Theater ;) but even men with boys in woman's attire, representing the persons of lewd notorious Strumpets: whence I assume this 23. Argument against our public Interludes.

The Major is irrefragable, because all mixed effeminate, lascivious, amorous dancing, ( especially with beautiful women, or boys most exquisitely adorned in an inescating womanish Dresse on the open Stage, where are swarms of lustful Spectators, whose unchaste unruly lusts are apt to be enflamed with every wanton gesture, smile or pace, much more with amorous dances ;) is utterly unlawful unto Christians, to chaste and sober persons; as sundry Councils, Fathers, moderne Christian, with ancient Pagan Authors and Nations have resolved; though it be now so much in use, in fashion and request among us, that many spend more hours (more days and nights) in dancing, then in praying, I might add working too. If we survey the several Councils of former ages, we shall find, Council. Laodicenum. Can. 53. Aphricanum. Can. 27. Agathense Can. 39. Arelatense 3. apud Surium. Council. Tom. 1. pag. 727. Veneticum. cap. 11. Ilerdense Can. ult. Toletanum. 3. Can 23. Antisidorense. Can. 9.40. Cabilonense 1. Can. 19. Constantinopolitanum 6. in Trullo. Can. 51.62.65. Basiliense Sessio 21. Surius. Tom. 4. pag 62. & Appendix Council. Basil. Ibid. pag. 223. Council. Senonense, cap. 25. Ibid. pag. 742.743. Coloniense. Anno Dom. 1535. pars 2. cap. 25. & pars 9. cap. 10. Ibid. pag. 786. Synodus Moguntina. Anno Dom. 1540. cap. 60.61. Ibid. p. 870. Council. Bituriense, 1584. & T • ronicum 1583. Synodus Carnotensis • 1526. & Lingonensis, 1404. Concilium Burdigense, 1582. Apud Bochellum. Decreta Ecclesiae Gallicanae. lib. 6. Tit. 19. & Titulus, 10. cap. 6.7. & 19. We shall find, I say, these 19. Councils, expressly censuring under the penalty of excommunication, all mixed, effeminate, lascivious, amorous dancing; especially at Mariages, (at which they are now most frequent, though not in former times, as Chrysostom well observeth ;) or on Lord's-days, and Holy-days, especially in Church-yards streets, or public places; (a daemnable custom taken from the Pagans, as Saint Ambrose writes:) from the very beholding of which dancing all Clergy-men (who are now too frequent Spectators of, and sometimes Actors in such dances) are inhibited by these Councils under pain of suspension, lest they should pollute their eyes, and glut their souls with lust, and so unfit them for all holy duties. If we peruse the Fathers, (who are all rank Puritans in this point of Plays and Dancing;) we shall find, not only Philo Judaeus, De Agricultura. lib. p. 271. & De Vita Contemplativa. lib. p. 1215.1216. but likewise Ignatius, Epist. 6. ad Magnesianos. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 1. pag. 81. D. Justin Martyr Explic. Qu • st. à Gentibus Christianis positarum. Quaest. 107. Clemens Alexandrinus Paedagogi. l. 2. c 4.5. & l. 3. c. 11. Tertullian De Spectaculis. lib. Tatianus Cont. Graecos Oratio. Bibl, Patrum. Tom. 2. pag. 180. G. Cyprianus De Spectaculis. lib. Arnobius adverse. Gentes. lib. 2. p. 75. lib. 4. p. 149.150. l. 7. p. 230. to 242. Lactantius De Vero Cultu. l. 6. c. 20. & Div • narum Instit. Epitome. c. 20. Basil. Hexaëmeron. Hom. 1. T. 1. p. 27. & Hom. 4. p. 45. De Ieiunio. Sermo. 2. p. 329. De Ebr • etate & Lux • Sermo. p. 332.336. Comment. in Isaiam. cap. 5. Tom. 3. p. 419 420, 421. &, c. 14. p. 468.469. Nazienzen Oratio. 48. p. 796.797. Oratio. 38. p. 583. & Nicet as Ibid. Oratio. adversus Mulieres. p. 994. & ad Selucum, De Recta Educatione. p. 1063. Ambrose De Paenitentia. lib. 2. c. 6. De Virginibus. lib. 3. Tom. 4. p. 226.227. De Elia & Ieiunio. c. 18. Epistolarum, lib. 4. Epist. 30. Sermo 33. & Comment. l. 6. in Luc. 7 v. 32. Tom. 3. p. 47. F. Cyrillus Hierusolomitanus Chatechesis Mystagogica 1. Eusebius Pamphilus, De Praeparatione Evangel. l. 2. c. 2. p. 32. & apud Damascenum. Parallel. l. 3. c. 47. S. Asterij Oratio in Festum Kalendarum. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 4. pag. 706. Jerome. Epist. 10. c. 4. & Comment. l. 2. in Matth. 14. Tom. 6. p. 28 Epiphanius Contr. Heresies. l. 3. Tom. 2. Compendiaria Doctrina: &c • Ecclesiae Catholicae. Col. 922. E. Chrysostom Hom. 56. in Geneseos. c. 29. Tom. 1. Col. 367. A.B. Hom. in Psal. 41. Hom. 49. & 74. in Matth. Hom. 12. in 1 Cor. 4. Hom • 42. in Acta. Hom. 10. in Coloss. Hom. 8. in 1 Tim. 2.9. & Hom. 62. ad Pop • lum Antiochiae. Augustine Enarratio in Psal. 32. De Rectitudine Catholicae Conversationis Tractatus, & Contra Parmenianum. lib. 3. c. 6. Tom. 7. pars 1. p. 88.89. Cyrillus Alexandrinus in Hesaiam. l. 1. c. 4. Tom. 1. p. 134. D. & in Ioannis Evang. l. 8. c. 5. p. 595. A. B. Theodoret, Adversus Graecos I • fideles. lib. 7. Tom. 2. p. 382.383. Socrates Eccles. Historiae. l. 7. c. 13. Gaudentius Brixiae Episc. De Lection • Evangelij. Sermo 8. Bibl. P. Tom. 4. p. 8.13. Remigius Explanatio in 1 Cor. 10.7. Bibl. P. Tom. 5. pars 3. p. 833. C. Fulgentius, Super Audivit Herodes Tetrarcha, &c. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 6. pars 1. p. 148. Salvian De Gubernatione Dei. l. 6. Olympiodorus Enar • in Ecclesiast. c. 3. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. • 1. p. 401. Gregorius Magnus Moralium. l. 13. c. 18. f • l. 78. D. Chrysologus Sermo 127. Isiodor Hispalensis Originum. lib. 18. c. 48.50. Beda lib. 1. in Marci Evang. c. 25. Tom. 5. Col. 133.134. & lib. 2. in Lucae Evangelium. c. 7. Tom. 5. Col. 300. Damascene Paralellorum. lib. 1. c. 76. & lib. 3. c. 47. Christianus Druthmarus Expositio in Matth • um. c. 35. Bibl. Pat • um. Tom. 9. pars 1. p. 901. F. H. Theophylactus. Enarrat. in Matth. 14. pag 34. & in Marc. 6. pag. 89. Bernardus, Parabola de Nup • ijs Filij Regis. Col. 1725. A. Edmundus Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis Speculum Ecclesiae, c. 11. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 13. p. 359. E. Hippolitus Martyr, De Consumm • tione Mundi & Anti-Christo Oratio. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 3. pag. 17. A. B. Paschaetius R • t • ertus in Matthaei Evangelium. l. 7. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 9. pars 2. pag. 1070. C.D.G. Victor Antiochenus, in Evang. Marci. c. 6. Bibl. Patrum. Tom. 4. pag. 308. E. Anselmus, Enarrat. in Matth. c. 14. Tom. 1. p. 67 H. Raban • s Maurus, Exposit. in Matth. l. 5. c. 14. Operum. Tom. 5. p. 87. F. H. We shall find, I say, these 40. Fathers, and ancient Writers, in these their several Works, inhibiting, condemning, all amorous, mixed, effeminate, lascivious lust-exciting Dancing, be it of men, or women, either on the Stage or elsewhere; as a dangerous ince •• iary of lust; an ordinary occasion off, a preparative to much 〈◊〉 me, adultery, wanto • nes, and such effeminate lewdness: a Diabolical, at least a Pagan practice, misbeseeming all chaste, all sober Christians, especially in their Christian Festivals and Solemnities; from which the Primitive Christians (as Gregory Nazienzen at large informs us) did wholly abandon, not only Drunkenness, Luxury, Plays, and ribaldry Songs; but even Fiddlers and Dancing too; as being fit for none but Ethnic Festivals, and Herodian Banq • ets: which I would our English Nation would now at last consider: who for the most part spend the Christmas season, with other solemn Festivals, in amorous, mixed, voluptuous, unchristian, that I say not, Pagan dancing, to God's • to Christ's dishonor, Religions scandal, Chastities shipwreck, Sins advantage, and the eternal ruin of many precious souls, who like those wicked ones, Job 21.11, 12, 13. do spend their days in pleasure, music, mirt • , and dancing, and in a moment go down to Hell, to dance with Devils, with infernal frisking Satyrs, in eternal flames. If we will once again turn over the Divines and Christian Authors of p •• ier times, we shall discover Alexander Alensis, Summa Theology. pars 4. Quaest. 11. Memb. 2. Artic. 11. sect 4. Quaest. 8. pag. 392.393. Ioaennis De Burgo, Pupilla Oculi. pars 10. c. 5. X. Alexander Fabritius, Destructorium Vitiorum. pars 4. c. 23. Angelus De Clavasio, Summa Angelica. fol. 44. b. Tit. Chorea-Bonaventure, in lib. 4. Sentent. Distinctio 16. N. 13. Astexanus De Casibus, lib. 2. Tit. 53. Ioannis Langhecrucius De Vita & Honestate Clericorum lib. 2. c. 21.22. Maffaeus Vegius, De Educatione Liberorum. l. 1. c. 14. & l. 3. c. 7.12. Petrarcha De Remedio utriusque Fortunae. l. 1 Dialog. 24. Ludovicus Vives, De Eruditione Christianae Mulieris. c. 13.14. Erasmus, De Contemptu Mundi. lib. c. 7. Agrippa De Vanitate Scientiarum. c. 18.63, 64, 71. Polidor Virgil. De Inventoribus Rerum. lib. 5. c. 2. AEneas Sylvius. Epist. l. 1. Epist. 166. p. 727. M. Calvin. Sermo 70.79, & 80. in Job. Peter Martyr, Locorum Communium Classis. 2. c. 11. sect. 63. to 68. & Comment. in Iudicum. lib. c. 21. Flaccus Illyricus, with the other Century Writers. Centuria 5. Col. 724. M. Gualther in Marc 6. Homil. 51. fol. 74.75. & Hom. 186. in Math fol. 349.350. Martin Bucer, De Regno Christi Sempiterno. l. 2 c. 54. B • da, Victor Antiochenus, Glossa Ordinaris, Lyra, Calvin, Pellicanus, Bullinger, Musculus & Marlorat. Exposit. in Matth. c. 11. ver. 17. &, c. 14. v • 6.7 & on Marc. 6. v. 22. Hiperius De Ferijs Bacchanalibus, Aretius Problematum. Theolog. Tom. 1. Locus. 14. Puteani Comus, Piscator in Matth. 11. Observatio 20. pag. 120. Polanus Syntagma Theology Genevae. 1617. l. 10. c. 25.26. p. 665. & l. 9. c. 35. pag. 646. Simlerus in Exodus. lib. cap. • 2. The Waldenses and Albigenses in France, Hungary, and Bohemia, whose censure of dancing is recorded in Lydij Waldensia. pars 2. p. 358. and in the History of the Waldenses and Albigenses, London 1624. part 3. Book 2. chap. 9. p. 63.64, 65, 66. To whom I shall add these ensuing English Authors. Sebastian Brant, his Navis Stultifer • , or Ship of Fools. Christopher Fetherston, his Dialogue against light, lewd, and lascivious Dancing. printed by Thomas Dawson 1582. An Anonymous Treatise of Dances, printed 1581. showing that they are as it were accessories or appendaxis, or things annexed unto whoredom. Thomas Lovell, his Dialogue between Custom and Verity, concer • ing the use and Abuse of Dancing, in verse. The Church of evil men and women whereof Lucifer is the head, printed by Richard Pinso • . M. John Northbrooke, his Treatise against Vain-plays, Interludes, and Danceing. fol. 55. to 72. M. Stephen Gosson, his School • of Abuses, M. Stubs, his Anatomy of Abuses • pag. 133. to 138. (in all which, the unlawfulness of Dancing is both copiously, learnedly, and purposely debated; which Treatises our English Dancers may do well to read, for their fuller satisfaction in this point.) D. Humfryes in his 2. Book of Nobility, against excess and overmuch magnificence. D. Reinolds, his Overthrow of Stage-plays. pag. 13.14 • 17, 130. to 139. Reverend Bishop Babington, M. Perkins, M. Elton, M. Dod, M. Downham, M. Osmund Lake, M. Brinsly, Bishop Andrew's, D. Griffith Williams, and others on the 7. Commandment. M. John Downeham, his Christian Warfare, l. 3. c. 21. sect. 5. and on the 7. Commandment, in his Sum of Divinity; D. Ames, De Iure Conscie • t. l. 5. c. 39. p. 270.271. All these, with sundry others, unanimously condemn all mixed, effeminate, lasc • vious, amorous dancing, (the epidemical pastime of our dancing, loytring age) as sinful, hurtful, unlawful to all chaste, all sober Christians, as the reasons they allege against it will more plainly evidence. For first, (say they ) as there is no allowance, no approved example of any such dancing in the Scriptures, the Primitive Church, the Fathers, or in the lives and practice of the Saints of God in former ages, (who as appears by the fore-quoted Councils and Fathers have always censured and exploded Dancing:) so the 7. Commandment (as all the now recited Expositors of it jointly suffragate) together with Exod. 32.18, 19. Judge. 21.21, 23. 1 Sam. 30.16. Job. 21.11, 12. &c. 31. Isa. 3.16. c. 5.12. c. 13.21. Ier. 31.13. Zeph. 1.9. Eccles. 9.4, 8, 9. Math. 14.6.7. Mark 6.12. Rom. 13.12, 13. 1 Cor. 6.9, 10 • 11. c. 10.7, 3 • , 32. Gal. 5.19, 21. Ephes. 2.2, 3. c. 4.17, 18, 19. c. 5.3, 4, 11. Phil 4.5, 8. Hebr. 11.24, 25. I am. 1.13, 14, 15, 27. c. 4.9. c. 5.13 • Col. 2.20, 21, 22. &c. 3.5, 6, 17. 1 Thes. 5.15, 22, 23. 1 Tim. 2.9 c. 5 • 6, 13 • 2 Tim. 3.5, 6. Tit. 2.4, 5, 6. c. 3.3. 1 Pet. 1.14, 15, 16, 17, 18. c. 2.9, 11, 12. c. 3.16. c. 4.2, 3, 4. 2 Pet. 2.13, 14, 18, 19. 1 John. 2.6, 15, 16, 17. Jude 3.7, 12, 13, 16, 23. & Revel. 18.7. do either absolutely in express terms, or else by way of necessary consequence, condemn such dancing as Idolatrous, Heathenish, carnal, worldly, sensual, and misbeseeming Christians. Secondly, the very Devil himself (write they) who danced in the Daughter of Herodias. Math. 14.6.7 (as Chrysostom, Fulgentius, Theophylact. and others write) was the original Author of this dancing, the only instrument who excites men to it; the only person that is present at it, that is honored, pleased, and delighted with it ; (he being ever- more present and president where such dancing is ) as Chrysostom, Basil, with the other Marginall Authors have plentifully recorded. The Waldenses and Albigenses in their Censure of Dancing, have unanimo • sly professed and published this truth to all the World; whose words because they are notable and punctual to this purpose, I shall here transcribe at large, quoting some sayings of the Fathers in the Margent, to back and evidence what they write. A Dance (as I find their words in their Treatise against Dancing ) is the Devils procession, and be that entereth into a Dance, entereth into his possession. The Devil is the guide, the middle, and end of the Dance. As many paces as a man maketh in Dancing, so many paces doth he make to Hell. A man sinneth in Dancing divers ways; as in his pace, for all his steps are numbered: in his touch, in his ornaments, in his hearing, sight, speech, and other vanities. And therefore we will prove, first, by the Scripture, and afterwards by divers other Reasons, how wicked a thing it is to Dance. The first testimony we will produce, is that we read in the Gospel, Mark 6. It pleased Herod so well, that it cost John the Baptist his life. The second is in Exodus 32. When Moses coming near to the Congregation saw the Calf, he cast the Tables from him, and brake them at the foot of the Mountain, and afterwards • it cost three and twenty thousand their lives. Besides, the ornaments which women wear, are as crowns for many victories which the Devil hath gotten against the Children of God. For the Devil hath not only one sword in the Dance, but as many as there are beautiful and well-adorned persons in the Dance. For the words of a woman are a glittering sword. And therefore that place is much to be feared, wherein the enemy hath so many swords, since that one only sword of his may be feared. Again, the Devil in this place strikes with a sharpened sword: for the women come not willingly to the Dance, if they be not painted and adorned: the which painting and ornament, is as a Grindstone upon which the Devil sharpeneth his sword. They that decke and adorn their Daughters, are like those who put dry wood to the fire, to the end it may burn the better: for such women kindle the fire of luxury in the hearts of men: as Samsons Foxes fired the Philistines corn; so these women have fire in their faces, in their gestures and actions, their glances and wanton words, by which they consume the goods of men. Again, the Devil in the Dance useth the strongest armor that he hath, for his most powerful arms are women; which is made plain unto us, in that the Devil made choice of the woman to dec •• ve the first man. So did Balaam that the Children of Israel might be rejected. By a woman he made Samson, David and Solomon to sin. The Devil tempteth men by women three manner of ways; that is to say, by the touch, by the eye, by the ear. By these three means, he tempteth foolish men to Dancings, by touching their hands, beholding their beauty, hearing their songs and music. Again, they that dance, break that promise and agreement, which they have made to God in Baptism, when their God-fathers promise for them, that they shall renounce the Devil and all his pomp; for dancing is the pomp of the Devil, and he that danceth, maintaineth his pomp, and singeth his Mass. For the woman that singeth in the dance is the Prioresse of the Devil, and those that a • swer are Clerks, and the beholders are the Parishioners, and the music are the Bells, and the Fiddlers, the Ministers of the Devil. For as when Hogs are strayed, if the Hog heard call one, all assemble themselves together. So the Devil causeth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some instrument, and presently all the Dancers gather together. Again, in a dance a man breaks the ten Commandemen • s of God. As first, though • shalt have to other gods but me, &c. For in dancing a man serves that person whom he most d • sires to serve; and therefore saith S. Jerome, Every man's god is that he serves and loves best. He sins against the second Commandment, when he make an Idol of that he loves. Against the third, in that oaths are frequent amongst Dancers. Against the fourth, for by dancing the Sabbath day is profaned. Against the fifth, for • in the dance, the Parents are ofttimes disho • ored, when many bargains are made without their counsel. Against • h • • ixt. A man kills in dancing; for everyone that standeth to please another, he kills the soul as oft as he persuadeth unto lust. Against the seventh, for • the party that danceth, be he male or female committeth adultery with the party they lust after; For he that looketh on a woman, and lusteth after her, hath already committed adultery in his heart. Against the eight Commandment, a man sins in dancing, when he with-draweth the heart of another from God. Against the ninth, wh • n in dancing he speaks falsely against the truth • Against the tenth, when women affect the ornaments of others, and men covet the wives, daughters, and servants of their neighbors. Again, a man may prove how great an evil dancing is, by the multitude of sins that accompany those that dance • for they dance without measure or number. And therefore faith S. Augustine, the miserable Dancer knows not, that as many paces as he makes in dancing, so many leaps he makes to Hell. They sin in their or • aments after a five-fold manner. First, in being proud thereof. Secondly, by i • flaming the hearts of those who behold them. Thirdly, when they make those ashamed tha • have not the like ornaments giving them occasion to cov •• the like. Fourthly, by making women importunate, in demanding the like ornaments of their Husbands. And fifthly, wh •• they cannot obtain them of their Husbands, they seek to get them elsewhere by sin. They sin by singing and playing o • instruments, for their songs bewitch the hearts of those that hear them, with temporal delight; forgetting God, uttering nothing in their songs but lie • and vanities. And the very motion of the body which is used in dancing, g • ves testimony e • ough of evil. Thus you see, that dancing is the Devils procession, and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into the Devils possession. Of dancing the Devil is the guide, the middle, the end, and he that entereth a good and wise man into the dance, cometh forth a corrupt and wicked man. Sarah, that holy woman was none of these. Thus far the Waldenses and Albigenses, whose words I would the dancing, wanton, (that I say not whorish ) Herodiasses, the effeminate sinqua-pace Caranto-frisquing Gallants of our age, together with our rustique hobling Satyrs, Nymphes, and dancing Fairies, who spend their strength, their time, (especially, the Easter, Whitson, Midsommer, and Christmas season) in lewd lascivious dancing, would now seriously consider. And this would teach them, not only to abandon all such dancing themselves, but likewise to withdraw their children, especially their daughters, from the Dancing-school, (as S. Ambrose long since advised all holy women, all godly Parents for to do; admonishing them, to teach their daughters religion, not dancing, (as now alas too many do) that so they might keep • them chaste and honest; leaving lust-provoking dancing unto Adulteresses and their Daughters only, as well beseeming none but such: in whose roundes the Devil for the most part leads, continues, ends the Dance, as the Waldenses, and fore-quoted Fathers largely write. Thirdly, they condemn all dancing, as being, not only a common recreation of lascivious drunken Pagans & Idolaters, in their Festivals and times of public mirth, as Ovid, Horace, Iuvenall, Virg • ll, Catullus, Tibullos, Propertius, Homer, Odysseae. lib. 1. pag. 8. lib. 8. p. 214. Iliados. l. 18. p. 694.700. Dionys. H • lli • ar. Antiqu. Rom. l. 7. sect. 9. & others cited by Bulingerus, De Theatro l. 1. c. 52. together with He • iodi Ascraei, Scutum. pag. 62.64. Arnobius adversus Gentes. lib. 2. pag. 75. & l. 4. p. 147 Chrysostom, Hom. 6.49. & 74. in Matth. Concilium Arelatense. 3. Surius. Tom. 1. p 727. Council. Aphricanum, Canon 27. Council. Constantinop. 6. Can. 62.65. Isiodor. Hisp. Originum. l. 18. c. 50. Polydor Virgil. De Inventoribus rerum. l. 5. c. 2. Agrippa De Vanitate Scientiarum, c. 18. and infinite others testify: but likewise a part of that solemn worship wherewith they courted and honored their Devil-Idols, whose Festivals and Solemnities, were for the most part spent in Plays and Dancing, as our Christian Holy-days o • t-times are. Witness, Exod. 32.6.19. 1 Sam. 30.16. Job 21.11. Isaiah 13.21. Mat. 14.6. Mar. 6.22. Council. Aphricanum. Can. 27. Council. Arelatense 3. Surius Tom. 1. p. 727. Council. Constant. 6. Can. 62. 65. Augustine, De Civit. Dei. lib. 2. c. 20. Theophylact. Enarrat. in Marc. 6. Christianus Grammaticus Expositio in Matth. c. 35. Bibl. Patr. Tom. 9. pars 1. pag. 901. F.G.H. Sebastianus Brant, in his Navis Stutifera, Calvin and Marlorat, in 1 Cor. 10. v. 7. together with Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Vergil, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Bulinger, Arnobius, Chrysostom, Polydor Virgil, Agrippa, with others, in their for • -named places, and Polybius, Historiae. l. 4. p. 340. Homer Odysseae, l. 8. p. 214. who all testify as much. Witness their Corybantes, Curetes, Salij, and such like dancing Priests, who on the solemn festival days of Cybele, Bacchus, Mars, and other Pagan-deities, danced about the streets and Mark • t place with Cymbales in their hands, in nature of our Morric • -dances, (which were derived from them) th • whole multitude accompanying them in these their dancing Morrices, with which they honored these their Devil-Idols. Yea, witness the common practice of most Idolatrous Pagans, who never honored, saluted, or offered any public sacrifice to their Idols but with music, songs, and dances; dancing about their Temples and Altars, to their honor ; as Virgil, Ovid, Plato, Strabo, Zenophon, Horace, Juvenal, Catullus, •• bullus, Aristotle, Ath • naeus, Alexander ab Alexandro. Genialium. Dierum. l. 4. c. 13. Caelius Rhodiginus Antiqu Lectionum l. 5. c. 3. Agrippa De Vanitate Scientiarum. cap. 18. Purchas Pilgr. Book 5. chap. 1. Bulingerus De Theatro. lib. 1. cap. 52. Euripidis Bacchae, throughout, and sundry others testify: from which practice, our dancing at Wakes, (a name, an abuse • derived from the ancient Vigils) or Church-a • es, and our late crouching and ducking unto new-erected Altars ( a Ceremony much in use with Idolatrous Pagans heretofor • ) have been originally derived. Since therefore its evident by all these testimonies, that dancing had its o • iginall from • dolatry, and Idolatrous drunken Pagans, who consecrated dances to their Idols, and went dancing to their Temples, their Altars, when they sacrificed to them in their solemn Festivals • and days of mirth, they hence conclude them, to be unlawful unto Christians; who must not imitate them in their Idolatrous Pagan customs, as I have here largely proved, in the