The Players Scourge

SCENA TERTIA.

THe third effect or fruit of Stage-plays, is the irritation, [ 3] the inflamation, the fomentation of divers sinful lusts, of many lewd, unchaste adulterous affections, both in the Actors and Spectators hearts: From whence this 29. Play-oppugning Argument will ebulliate.

The Major is irr • fragable; because all polluting objects, all unchaste affections, and unruly carnal lusts, (which are no less then adultery, then uncleanness it self in God's account, ) do not only contaminate, and war against men's souls ; but likewise deprive them of God's favor, disable them to every holy duty, enthrall them unto Satan; exclude them out of Heaven ; and without repentance plunge them into Hell for all eternity. Since therefore the Scripture calls upon us; to cleanse ourselves from all pollution of flesh and spirit; to mor • ifie our carnal lusts and earthly members: to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof ; the fruit of which is eternal death: to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul ; and to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof: Since it expressly informs us; that none but Idola • rous Heathen Gentiles, in whom the Devil reigns; none but unregenerate, carnal, graceless persons, who have no part in Christ, do wallow with delight; do foster, harbor, or take pleasure in such lusts as these. And that all who are Christ's, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof: because the carnal mind is enmity against God, neither is it, nor can it be subject to his law: There are none but Whores and Panders, or foul incarnate Devils, who dare control my Minors truth; which all Christians must subscribe to; because they are no longer debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh ; but sworn Servants and Spouses unto Christ alone, to whom they have resigned both their souls and bodies, to be at none but his disposal.

The Minor is notoriously evident, not only by experience; but likewise by the concurring suffrages of sundry Fathers, Councils, and Authors of all sorts: Who as they style, Play-houses; The Temples of Venery; the Schools of Bawdry; the De • s of Lewdnesse; the Si • kes of Filthiness: and Stage-plays; the Lectures of Ribaldry; the Meditations of Adultery; the Nurseries of Vncleanesse: the Fomentations of Lechery: the Fuell, the Incendiaries of lust: and the very Devils Forge or Bellows, to excite and blow up flames of carnal Concupi • cence, both in the Actors and Spectators hearts: a su • ficient ratification of our present Assumption. So they likewise positively a • firm, and copiously testify the truth of this proposition in express words: Witness Clemens Alexandrinus ; who informs us; that Comedies and amorous moderne Poems teach men adultery: that they defile men's ears with incests, and fornications: therefore he tells the Gentiles, that not only the use, the sight and hearing, but likewise the very memory of Stage-plays, yea of the fabulous Poems, pictures, and representations of their uncha • te, libidinous Idol-gods, ought utterly to be abolished; because their ears had committed whoredom, their eyes had played the harlots with them: and which is more strange, that their very sight had committed adultery before any actual embracement, by reason of these obscene Pictures • and filthy Interludes. Hence he instructeth Christians; that his Paedagoge must not lead them unto Plays or Theaters, which may not be unfitly called, the Chair of Pestilence: because these Conventicles where men and women meet promise • uously together to behold one another, are the occasion of lewdness: here they give, or plot wicked counsel: For while their eyes are lasciviously occupied, their lusts wax warm, and their eyes being accustomed to glance more impudently on those who sit next them, having liberty and leisure granted to them, intend their lusts. These Spectacles therefore (saith he) which are fraught with wickedness, with obscene, and vain speeches; with the representations of filthy deeds; with impudent and unchaste discourses which provoke laughter, the Idaeaes of which men carry away with them to their houses, & there more deeply imprint them in their minds; are utterly to he prohibited. Witness Tertullian ; who records; that Tragedies and Comedies, are the augmenters of villainies and lusts; being both cruel and lascivious, impious and prodigal. That they defile men's eyes and ears with uncleanness: and blow up the sparkles of their Lusts. Hence he stiles the Play-house: the Chapel of Venery: the House of Lechery: the Consistory of Incontinency: Hence he informs us; that all the Christians in the Primitive Church, had utterly relinquished the uncleanness of the Theater. Hence he comforts the close imprisoned Martyrs of his time with this consideration; that by means of their imprisonment; their eyes were kept from the sight of Theaters, the places of public lust, and lechery. Neither were their ears o • fended with the clamors or uncleanness of Stage-players. And hence he doubles this Assertion. That Stage-plays are absolutely prohibited, by the inhibition of incontinency. Witness Origen ; who instructeth us: that Christians must not lift up their eyes to Stage-plays, the pleasurable delights of polluted eyes (as he there stiles them) lest their lusts should be inflamed by them. What then (writes he in another place) shall we say of these who with the troops of the Gentiles make haste to Stage-plays, and defile their eyes and ears with unchaste words and motions? It is not our part • o pass sentence upon such, for they themselves may perceive and see what part they have chosen to themselves. Thou therefore who hearest these things. Be ye holy, for I am holy: Wisely understand what is spoken: separate thyself from terrene actions; separate thyself from the lusts of the world, and from the contagion of every sin. Witness Saint Cyprian, who stiles Theaters ^b The Stews of public chastity, and Mastership of obscaenity: which teach those sins in public, that men may more usually commit them in private. What doth a faithful Christian (writes he) do amidest these things, who may not so much as think upon any vice? Why is he delighted with these Images of lusts; that so having deposited his modesty in them, he may be made more bold to commit the crimes themselves? He learns to commit, who accustometh himself to behold the Theatricall representations of uncleanness. Those common whores whose misfortune hath prostituted them to the slavery of the public Stews, conceal the place where their filthiness is committed, taking comfort in their disgrace from the secrecy of their Cells: Those Adulterers also who have sold their chastity, are ashamed to be seen in public: But this our public lewdness is acted in the open view of all men: the obs • aenity of common Whores is surpassed, and men have found out how they may commit adultery be • ore the eyes of others. Thus whatsoever is prohibited, is affected. Now I say, (I pray observe it well good Reader,) it is NOT LAWFVLL FOR FAITHFVLL CHRISTIANS, yea, IT IS ALTOGETHER VNLAWFVLL FOR THEM TO BE PRESENT AT THESE PLAYES. These so vain, so pernicious, so sachrilegious Stage-plays, AS I HAVE NOW OFTEN AFFIRMED, ARE WHOLLY TO BEE AVOYDED BY ALL FAITHFVLL CHRISTIANS; because we soon accustom ourselves to the practice of that wickedness, which we hear and see: For since the mind of man is easily led on to these vices of it self; what will it do when it is presented with unchaste examples both of body and nature? she who thus falls of her own accord, what will she do if she be precipitated? The mind therefore is wholly to be avotated from these lascivious Interludes. Add we to this another speech of his to the same purpose. Turn (saith he) thine eyes to the no-less sinful contagions of a different show: thou mayest also behold in Theaters, that which m • y affect thee both with grief and shame. It is a Tragedians part, to rela • e ancient wickednesses in verse: the ancient horror of Paricides and Incestuou • persons is represented by him to the life; lest those wickednesses which were committed in former ages, should grow obsolete in aftertimes. Every age is admonished, that whatever villainy was actually committed in former times, may be committed still. Those things are now made examples, which have ceased to be si • nes. Then you may please to know from Stage-players, what filthiness any man hath committed in secret, or to hear what he might have done. Thus is adultery learned whiles it is beheld, and the evil of public authority playing the Pander to these vices, she who at first came perchance a chaste Matron to the Play, returns a Strumpet from the Play-house. Moreover, what a great corruption of men's manners, what fomentations of reproachful actions, what a fuel of vices is it, to be polluted with histrionical gestures, to see filthy Incest elaborately acted, against the very covenant and right of man's nativity? Men are emasculated; all the honor and vigor of their Sex is abated by the filthiness of an effeminated body; and he there gives best consent, who doth most dissolve himself into a woman: his sin adds to his applause, and he is reputed the more skillful, by how much the more filthy he is. What then cannot be persuade who is such a one? he moves the senses, he soothes the affections, he expugnes the stronger conscience of an upright heart; neither wants there the authority of flattering reproach, that so destruction may creep upon men by a more delicate hearing. They represent unchaste Venus, adulterous Mars, yea, their great love, not more a Prince in dominion, then in vices; burning with his very Thunderbolts into terrene loves; sometimes waxing white in the feathers of a Swan; otherwhiles descending in a golden shoure; anon coming forth attended with Birds to ravish and snach away young Youthes, Examine now whether those who behold these Spectacles can be sincere or chaste, whiles they imitate the gods they worship? Even sins themselves are made religious to these wretches: O if thou couldest standing in that sublime watch-tower insert thine eyes into their secrets, open the closed doors of their bed-chambers, and bring all their hidden inmost rooms unto the conscience or the light, thou mightest see that done by these unchaste persons, which is a sin to see: thou mightest see that, which they sighing under the fury of their vices deny themselves to have done, and yet they hasten for to do it. Men rush upon men with mad unruly lusts, &c. A sufficient adequate testimony of my Minors truth. Add we to these irrefragable Witnesses some others of no less validity: Tatianus, stiles Stage-players, the Promoters of Adultery the Tutors of effeminate Dancers, and Sodomites; the authors of damnable practices; the teachers of adultery, who utter obscene words with a loud voyee, and use lascivious motions promulgating all nocturnal abominations, and uttering all obscenities that might delight the Auditors. Theophylus Antiochenus, writes: That the Christians in his time durst not behold Stage-plays, lest their eyes should be defiled with the adulteries of those Devil-gods and men, that were there personated; and lest their ears should suck in those profane verses that were there recited. To pass by Arnobius, who declaimes much against the obscenity of Stage-plays, which did adulterate the minds, inflame the lusts of the Spectators, by reason of those lewd adulterous villainies of Idol-gods that were represented in them, which he at larges discyphers: Lactantius, his Scholar, writes thus of Stage-plays. In Stage-plays also, I know not whether there be a more dangerous corruption. For Comicall fables treat of the rapes of Virgins, or of the loves of Harlots, and by how much the more eloquent the Poets are who have feigned these wickednesses, by so much the more do they persuade by their elegant sentences, and the more easily do their well-composed and adorned verses stick in the memory of the Hearers. Likewise Trapicall Histories present unto men's eyes the Paricides, the Incests of evil Kings, and they demonstrate tragical wickednesses. The most unchaste motions likewise of Stage-players, what else do they but teach and provoke lusts? whose enervated bodies dissolved into a woman's pace and habit, personate unchaste women with dishonest gestures. What shall I speak of mimicall Actors, who carry along with them even in outward show, the discipline of depraving corruptions? who teach adulteries whiles they feine them, and by counterfeit representations instruct men how to commit even real uncleanness. What may young Men, or Virgins do, when as they perceive these things to be acted without shame, and willingly to be beheld of all? Verily they are admonished what they may do, and they are inflamed with lust, which is most of all excited by the sight: and everyone according to his Sex doth prefigure himself in these Images; yea, they approve them whiles they laugh at them, and they return more corrupt to their Chambers by reason of the vices which adhere unto them. And not only Children who ought not to be seasoned with premature vices, but even old men, for whom it is unseemly now to sin, stray aside into this path of vices. THEREFORE ALL SPECTACLES AND STAGE-PLAYES (I pray observe it well) ARE WHOLY TO BE AVOYDED, not on • lie lest any vices should harbor in our hearts, which ought to be calm and quiet; but likewise lest the custom of any pleasure should delight us, and so TVRNE VS FROM GOD AND FROM GOOD WORKES. Yea these Interludes with which men are delighted, and at which they are willingly present; because they are THE GREATEST INSTIGATIONS VNTO VICE, (pray mark it) AND THE MOST POWERFVLL INSTRVMENTS TO CORRVPT MENS MINDES, ARE WHOLY TO BE ABOLISHED FROM AMONG VS; Since they do not only, not contribute anything to an happy life, but likewise do much hurt. In another work of his he writes thus. What is the Play-house? is it more holy then these Sw • rd-plays? in which a Comedy treats of Rapes, and Loves • a Tragedy of Incests, and Murthers. Moreover unchaste Histrionicall gestures, with which they imitate infamous Women, do teach those lusts which they express by dancing: And is not then a Player the corruption of d • scipline, in whom those things that are done are acted by representation, that so th • se things which are truly real, may be perpetrated without any shame. Yong men behold these things, whose slippery age, which should be bridled and governed, is instructed to commit sins and vices by these representations. THEREFORE ALL PLAYES ARE TO BEE AVOYDED, THAT WE MAY enjoy a serene state of mind. THESE NOXIOVS PLEASVRES ARE TO BE RENOVNCED, lest we being delighted with their pestiferous sweetness, should fall into the snares of death. Virtue alone, whose reward is immortal, will then content us, when she hath overcome these pleasures. Thus far Lactantius, most elegantly, most truly. Add we to him Minucius Felix, that eminent Christian Lawyer, whom Lactantius himself commends: who writes thus of Stage-plays. Your Comedies and Tragedies glory in incestuous persons, and yet you will • lingly both read and hear them: and so you worship In •• stuous gods, who have coupled with their own Mothers, Daughters, Sist • rs: Worthily therefore (such was the fruit of these their Stage-plays) is Incest ofttimes deprehended among you, always is it tolerated and committed. We therefore who are valued according to our manners and modesty, deservedly abstain from your evil pleasures, your shows, and Stage-plays, whom we know to have taken their original from your Idol-worship, and whose noxious flattering enticements we condemn. For in your Chariot-plays, who would not abhor the madness of th • people brawling among themselves? the discipline or art of murder in Sword-plays? in Stage-plays likewise there is no less fury, more prolix obscenity: For one while the testing Actor, doth either expound adulteries, or personate them. Another while, THE EFFEMINATE STAGE-PLAYER WHILES HE FEINES LOVE, DOTH VIOLENTLY INFLICT IT. The same by personating wh • redomes, sighs, hatreds, disgraceth your gods: The same w •• h feigned griefs provokes your tears with his vain gestures and nods. Thus you desire true murder, you bewail feigned, &c. Thus he. Saint Basil the Great, informs us: That the very beholding and hearing of Stage-plays engenders overmuch lust in the minds of men; That Stage-plays abounding with lascivious Spectacles are the common Shops of all wickedness: that they stick fast in the minds of the Auditors: and serve to no other purpose but to persuade all men unto filthiness. Gregory Nyssen records; That lascivious Spectacles; and filthy Pictures engraven or painted either in Walls, in Halls, or Plate, (to satisfy the luxury of the mind) do proclaim lewdness: the though • s are recalled to their lusts, by the sight of these blame-worthy Spectacles, whose inflammation pierceth even to the affections, lest verily the heat of men's lusts should be quenched. If that thou couldest dive, I say, not into the Vessels and Caskets (for they are manifest unto many, neither are they different from their filthiness of life) but into the retired hidden secrets of the mind and soul of a man delighted with these Spectacles, thou shouldest verily there find a sti • king rottenness of many accumulated Frogs; that is (as he there expresseth himself in a former passage) of filthy lusts and vices. But even the eye of a chaste man is clean, and refuseth these Spectacles which incite men unto luxury, or carnal pleasure. Our common Play-haunters and lascivious Picture-masters therefore, by this Fathers verdict, (whatever they may deem themselves,) are no chaste, no modest persons; yea rather beasts, then men ; as he there terms them. Gregory Nazienzen, stiles Stage-players; the servants of lewdness: Play-houses, the lascivious shops of all filthiness and impurity: Stage-plays: the dishonest unseemly instructions of lascivious men, who repute nothing filthy, but modesty; by which nature is vitiated, and made adulterous, and several flames of different lusts are kindled. Theaters likewise are seasoned with most filthy things; lest that these diseases should practice their lewdness only in secret; Rewards are promised to these dishonest, and wicked instructions: But do thou have these things in execration: Suffer not thy female pupils to be defiled with them; but cause them to avoid all corruptions of their eyes, that so they may contin • e Virgins to me, by thy care: Intimating hereby, that resort to Stage-plays, would soon defloure their Virginity, and make them Strumpets. Saint Hilary informs us, That he who will ascend up in • o the Hill of the Lord must keep himself unspotted from corruption; his body must not be defiled with whoredom; his eyes must not be polluted with Stage-plays: which he there couples with whoredom, because they ingender unchaste affections in men's hearts, and ofttimes allure them to actual lewdness. Therefore in his Commentary on the 118. alias the 119. Psalm, verse 37. ( Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity ) he paraphraseth thus: That the Prophet prays to have bot • the ey • s of his body and mind turned away from Stage-plays, and the obscene fables of dishonest Interludes; which did formerly occupy and defile them. Cyril of Jerusalem affirms; That Play-house meetings, and Plays, which are the Devils Pompes, were fraught with all lewdness, contumely, and incontinency; Whence he persuades all Christians to avoid them. Saint Ambrose stiles Stage-plays Spectacles of Vanities, by which the Devil convayes incentives of pleasures into men's hearts. Let us therefore (saith he) turn away our eyes from these vanities, and Stage-plays, lest our minds should affect that which our eyes behold, & let us come to God that he would do it for us. In the s • ip of thy body there is a tempest of lusts raised, and yet thou turnest not away the eyes of thy soul that they should not see the sink of lusts, nor behold the filth of this world: Such are Stage-plays in this Fathers repute. S. Jerome in his Epistle to Salvina, writes thus unto her. The fame of chastity in women is a tender thing; like a most beautiful flower it is quickly blasted with a small wind, and corrupted with an easy breath: especially where both age consents to vice, and the authority of an Husband is wanting, whose shadow is the shelter of the Wife. Wherefore let no frizeld-pated Steward, no effeminate Stage-player accompany thee; let not the venomous sweetness of a Diabolical Singer come near thee, nor a compt and beautiful Youth. Ha • e thou nothing to do with Stage-plays: because they are the pleasing incendiaries of men's lusts and vices: because they draw men's souls by their flattering enticements to deadly pleasures, (which Christians should extinguish with the love of Christ, and curb with fasting:) and cause them to violate the vow and bond of Chastity, of Widdowhood, of Virginity. So in his Commentary on Ezekiel. lib. 6. cap 20. he certifieth us. That we also when as we depart out of Egypt, are commanded to cast away all those things which offend our eyes, that so we may not be delighted with those things with which we were formerly affected in the world; to wit, with the inventions of Philosophers and Heretics, which are rightly styled Idols. We must likewise remove our eyes from all the Spectacles, yea rather, the offenses of Egypt, as Sword-plays, Cirque-plays, and Stage-plays; which defile the purity of the soul; and by the senses gain entrance to the mind: and so that is fulfilled, which is written; Death hath entered by your windows: By this grave learned Fathers verdict then, it is most evident; that Stage-plays devirginate unmarried persons, especially beautiful tender Virgins who resort unto them, (which I would our female Play-haunters; and their Parents would consider:) that they defile their souls with impure carnal lusts; and so let in eternal death upon them. Saint Augustine brands all Stage-plays with this stigmaticall Impresse. That they are the Sp • ctacles of filthiness: The overturners of goodness and honesty: The chasers away of all modesty and chastity: Meretricious shows. The unchaste, the filthy gestures of Actors: The art of mischievous villainies, which even modest Pagans did blush to behold: The invitations to lewdness, by which the Devil useth to gain innumerable companies of evil men unto himsefe. Hence he stiles Theaters; The Cages of uncleanness, the public professions of wickedness, of wicked men : and Stage-plays; The most petulant, the most impure, impudent, wicked, unclean; the most shameful and detestable attonements of filthy Devil-gods; which to true Religion are most ex • crable: whose Actors the laudable towardness of Roman virtue had deprive • d of all honor, disfranchised their tribe, acknowledged as filthy, made infamous: because the people were instructed, encouraged by the sight and hearing of St • ge-plays, to imitate, to practice those alluring criminous fictions; those ignominious facts of Pagan-gods, that were either wickedly and filthily forged of them, or more wickedly and filthily committed by them. Hence is it that this godly Father, doth oft dissuade all Christians from acting, seeing, or frequenting Stage-plays, and Cirque-plays, because they are but P • nders, but allectives to uncleanness, incendiaries and fomentations unto carnal lusts. Hence he speaks thus to Christian Parents (which I would to God those graceless Parents who either accompany, send, encourage, or else permit their Children to run to filthy, lewd, lascivious Stage-plays, which vitiate, which deprave them ever after, would seriously consider:) As oft, dear Brethren, as you know that any of your Children resor • either to furious, bloody, or filthy Interludes, with a vain perswation, and pestiferous love • as if it were to some good work, you who now by the grace of God contemn, not only these luxurious, but also cruel recreations, and disports, ought diligently to chastise them, and to pray more abundantly to the Lord for them, because you know that they run unto vanity, and lying follies, neglecting that place to which they are called. These if they chance to be affrighted in the Play-house by any sudden accident, (I would our Popish Stage-haunters, who think to scare away the Devil from them by their crossings, would well consider it,) do presently cross themselves, and they stand there carrying that in their foreheds, from whence they would depart if they carried it in their hearts. For everyone who runs to any evil work, if he chance but to stumble, doth forth-with cross his face, and knoweth not, that he doth rather include, then exclude the Devil. For then should he cross himself well, and repel the Devil out of his heart, if he recalled himsefe from that wicked work. Wherefore I entreat you, dear Brethren, agai • e and again, that you would supplicate for them with all your might, that so they may receive understanding to condemn these damnable things; desire, to avoid them; mercy, to acknowledge them. We may likewise speak unto those whom voluptuous Stage-plays ofttimes draw from the assemblies of the Church. Notwithstanding I entreat you, dear Brethren, that as often as you shall see them to do any such thing, you would in our stead most severely correct them: Let them hear our voice, your remembrance: correct them by reproving them, comfort them by conferring with them, give them an ensample by living well: Then he will be present with them, who hath been present with you. Thus Saint Augustine, by whose words you may easily discover, not only the truth of our present Assumption: but likewise the sinfulness, the unlawfulness of Plays themselves, as also of acting, hearing, seeing and frequenting Stage-plays: Which he likewise seconds in some other passages: as namely in his 2. Book, De Moribus Manichaeorum, where he writes thus against them. Finally, we have ofttimes found in Theaters divers of their choice men, who were grave both in age, and as they seemed, even in manners too, with an old Presbyter. I omit young men whom we were likewise wont to find brawling for Stage-players and Wagoners: which thing is no small argument after what manner they can contain themselves from secret adulteries, and villainies, since they cannot overcome that lust, which may uphold them in the eyes of their Auditors, and makes them even to blush and run away for shame. In his Book, De Catechizandis Rudibus. cap. 16. He informs us: That there are certain men who seek not to be rich, nor yet to aspire to the vain pomps of honors, but desire only to be merry and to rest quietly in Ale-houses, in Brothel-houses, in Theaters, and in the spectacles of vanity, which are had gratis in great Cities. But these through their luxury consume their mean estate, and from poverty they fall to Burglaries, Thefts, and Robberies, and are suddenly filled with many and great fears: and these who a little before did sing in an Ale-house, now dream of the mourning of a prison. But by the study and sight of Stage-plays they are made like to Devils, &c. To pass by his sundry notable passages against Players and Stage-plays, in his 1.2, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8. Books, De Civitate Dei, which I shall touch upon in some other Scenes: in his 17. Sermon • De Verbis Apostoli. Tom. 10. pag. 442. he writes. That of those things which delight the senses of the body, some are lawful; others unlawful. For these great spectacles of nature, as I have said, delight the eyes; and the spectacles of Play-houses delight the eyes likewise: these are lawful, those unlawful. An holy Psalm sung sweetly delights the hearing, and so do the songs of Stage-players delight the hearing too: This lawfully, the other unlawfully. So that if this Father may be Judge: the very seeing and hearing of Stage-plays is unlawful. Hear him but once more for all: De Symbolo ad Catechumenos. lib. 2. cap. 1.2. Tom. 9. pars 1. pag. 1393.1394, 1395. There are two sorts of Weapons with which the Devil fights against men's souls; pleasures, and fear. Yet beloved, you must know, that the Devil takes more by pleasures, then by fear. For why doth he daily set the Mouse-trap of Stage-plays, the madness of filthy studies and pleasures, but that he might take those whom he hath lost with these delights, and rejoice that he hath found that again which he had lost? What need we run thorough many things? You are briefly to be admonished, what you ought to reject, and what to love. Fly Stage-plays, my best beloved, • lie (Play-houses) the most filthy Dens of the Devil, lest the Chaines of that wicked one hold you captive. But if the mind be to be exhilerated, and delights to behold, the holy Mother the Church will exhibit you those venerable and wholesome spectacles, which will delight your minds with their pleasure, and will not corrupt • but keep faith in you. Is any of you a lover of the Cirque? What doth • e delight in in the Circus? To see the Coachmen striving, the people breathing out frantique furies, every swift one going before breaking the horse of his Adversary. This is all the pleasure to shout, because he hath overcome whom the Devil hath overcome: to rejoice and insult, that the adverse part hath lost an horse, when as he who is delighted with such a spectacle, hath already lost his soul. See on the other side our holy, h • lesome, and most sweet spectacles. Behold in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, a lame man never walking from his birth, whom Peter hath made running: see one suddenly whole, whom before thou didest behold infirm: and if there be any soundness of mind in thee, if the reason of equity, and the pleasure of salvation shine forth in thee; see what thou oughtest to behold, consider where thou oughtest to shout: there, where sound horses are broken in pieces, or here where bruised men are made whole? But if that pomp; that color of the horses, that composition of the Chariots, those ornaments of the Coachman standing above governing the horses, and desiring to overcome; if this pomp, as I have said, delight thee; neither hath he denied this to thee, who hath commanded thee, to renounce the pomps of the Devil: we also have our spiritual Horseman the holy Prophet Elijas, who being set upon a fiery Chariot, hath run so much, that he hath taken the very limits, (or won the goal) of Heaven. And if thou desirest to see the adversaries, which even true virtue hath overcome • and whom he by •• ring hath • ut-gone • , and from whose victory he hath received the reward of supernal greatness; he hath cast the Chariots of Pharaoh and all • his strength into the Sea: Another, perchance a lover of the Theater, is to be admonished, what he must avoid • and with what he may be delighted, and so may not lose the desire of beholding, but change it. In Play-house • there is a contagion of manners, where people use to learn filthy things, to hear dishonest things, to s • e pernicious things? But the Lord assisting we may strongly repel these things out of our hearts, if we compare one thing with another. There the Spectators behold I know not what propounded counterfeit god Jove, both committing adultery, and thundering: here, we may again behold the true God Christ, teaching chastity, destroying • ilthinesse, preaching wholesome things. There, it is feigned, that the same Jove may have Juno both for his sister and wi • e: here, we preach holy Mary a Virgin and a Mother together. There, amazement is struck into the sight, that a man through use should walk upon a rope: here, a great miracle, Peter passing over the Sea on his feet. There, chastity is violated throu • h mimicall fil • hinesse; here by chaste Susanna, and chaste Joseph, lust is suppressed, death despised, God loved • chastity exalted. There the quier and singing of the Stage-player allureth the hearing, but conquereth the wholesome affection: and what such thing may be compared to our song, in which he who loveth and singeth, saith, Sinners have rela • ed unto me their delights, but not so as thy Law O Lord • all thy Commandments are truth? For there vanity feineth all things. Doth any one perchance admire the skill of Climebers or Vaulters, to see little Children playing in th • air, expressing divers Histories? but look upon the plays of our Infants; In the womb of Rebecca two Infaunts s • rive, the elder coming forth, the • oote of the other is seised upon by the hand of the younger thrust forth of the womb. In whose combat the figure of a great mystery is declared, that the • onger should supplant the elder, and should afterwards take away the birth-right and blessing from him. In which little ones as it were playing, and exhibiting a great sacrament, as I have said, both the repr • bate Jews are demonstrated in Esau, and the predestinated Christians appear in Jacob. For that Jacob one little one so prattling, did also manifest, that many little Infants likewise were predestinated in himself; who are rece • ved out of the Mothers womb, with the hands of the faithful; neither do they so shake them off, that they may hang in the air, but that being regenerated they may live in Heaven. The mind therefore may be recreated, and the Christian soul fed with these delights, and keeping this sobriety, it may avoid the drunk • nnesse of the Devil. Neither may the combats of the amphitheater seduce or draw any Christians to them, unto which verily men run so much the more greedily, by how much the more slowly they are exhibited. But even there what not dangerous, what not bloody thing is not iniected into men's eyes? where, as most blessed S. Cyp • ian saith, a noxious will cond • mnes men to wild beasts, without an offense. Therefore my beloved, that cruel spectacle may not invite you to behold two Hunters contending with nine • ea • es, but let it delight you to see our one Daniel by prayer overcoming seven Lions. Distinguish combats spiritual lover; see two guilty in will, look upon one innocent, and full of • aith: behold th • se for an earthly reward to have offered their souls to beasts; behold this man crying in prayer, Deliver not to beasts the souls that confess to thee. In that spectacle, he who sets it forth is sorrowful if the Hunter escape without harm who hath slain him many wild beasts; but in this our combat, there is a fight without Iron, neither is Daniel hurt, nor the wild beast slain, and yet he is so overcome, that the King wonders and is changed, and the people fear, and the enemies despair. O admirable spectacle of ours, truly admirable! in which God assists, faith impetrates strength, innocence fights, holiness overcome • , and such a reward is obtained, that both thou and he who shall overcome may receive it, and he who shall give it loseth nothing. Desire these spiritual gifts, come together cheerfully to the Church to behold these things, and to wait for them with all security: recall the purpose of your heart from all carnal lust, commit all your care to be governed by God, that the adversary may fear, finding nothing of his own in you; and you rejecting him and renouncing his Pompes, after that your liberty shall be rescued from his snares and waylayings, lest that wicked one should find you empty, whom we have known desirous to hold those fast who are not his own; believe faithfully in God the Father Almighty, &c. By which excellent passage of this judicious Father, (parallel to which he hath another of the same nature, in his E • arration on the 39. Psalm, where he seriously bewails the vanity and madness of those who delight in Stage-plays and such like Spectacles, desiring all Christians to pity their condition and to pray earnestly to God for their conversion, that so they might see the vanity, and sinfulness of this world, and behold the excellency of these many heavenly Spectacles which he there musters up at large, on which Christians should fix their eyes and hearts ;) it is most apparent, that Stage-plays in his judgment, are very dangerous, obscene, pernicious Spectacles, invented by the Devil to conquer and en • rap men's souls ; and that no Christians ought for to behold them, since they have so many other heavenly Spectacles to contemplate. Which me thinks should cause all Christians to renounce them. Not to remember Nile an ancient Abbot, about the year of our Lord 410. who informs us. That he who is conversant in a multitude (especially at Stage-plays) is affected with daily wounds; for the countenance of women is a Dart anointed with poison, which wounds the soul and sends in venom, and by how much the longer it continueth by so much the more the wound doth putrefy. He w • o desires to avoid these wounds (pray mark it well) will abstain from public Plays and Spectacles, neither will he be conversant in such Assemblies. For it i • better that thou abide at home, then that thou fall into the hands of the enemy, whiles thou thinkest to honor such Solemnities. Which comes punctual to our purpose. Nor yet to mention, either Primasius in Romanos. cap. 10. fol. 53. Or Remigius, Explanatio in Galat. 5.19. Or Mac • rius AEgytius, Homil. 27. pag. 212. Or Isiodor Hispalensis. Originum. lib. 18. cap. 27.42. to 69. & De Ecclesiasticis Officijs. lib. 2. cap. 2. Or Haymo & Anselm. Exeg • sis in Ephe • ios 5.3. who rank Players with Whores, and couple Play-houses, and Brothel-houses together: (whose words I shall at large recite in the ensuing Scene. ) Which proves, that Plays, and Play-houses in their opinion are but Panders to men's lusts, yea, the beaten rodes to whoredom, adultery, and unchafte desires. Nor yet to remember Prosper his verdict, who stiles Stage-plays, mimicall uncleanness ; not only in regard of their matter, or manner of action, but likewise of their lewd unchaste effects: Or Damascene, or Eusebius; who call the Stage, the public School of lust; and Plays the instruments which persuade men to nothing else, but lewd behavior, &c. a pregnant testimony for our present purpose. Not to record S. Bernard ; who calls Stage-plays, childish sports, provoking lusts with their feminine and filthy turnings, and representing sordid actions: a punctual evidence for us: Or Cassiodorus ; who stiles Stage-plays, the expellers of gravity; the exhausters of honesty, &c. Nor yet to register our own learned Country-man John Saresbury, flourishing about the year of our Lord • 1140. who informs us; That Stage-plays are • he fomentations of vices, the apprentiships of vanity. That Stage-players, (whose error had then so prevailed, that they could not be expelled great m • ns houses) did with their obscene actions, infuse such filthiness into the eyes of all men, as the Cynicke himself might blush to see. And that which was more wonderful, neither were they then cast out, when as the people making a tumult below, defiled the air with their frequent noise, which being filthily shut in, they more filthily uttered. After which he breaks out into these passages. Can he seem to thee to be a wise man, who opens either his eyes, or ears to these things? It is verily a pleasant thing, and not dishonest, for an honest man to be sometimes delighted with honest modest mirth; but it is an ignominious thing, for gravity to be often recreated with such wantonness. From these Spectacles therefore, but especially from obscene ones, the eye of an honest man is to be kept back, lest the incontinency of it, bewray likewise the uncleanes of his mind. Parides the Colleage of Sophocles the Pretor reproving him, saith very excellently ; (I would to God all Nobles and Magistrates would remember it) It becomes Pretor Sophocles, not only to have chaste hands, but eyes. Yea, a man, to whom much might be lawful in regard of the great Majesty of his Kingdom, saith; Turn away mine eyes lest they behold vanity; knowing that to be true which another lamenteth: because mine eye hath preyed upon my soul. To pass by (I say) these ancient Writers which are punctual; I shall only remember two Fathers more with whom I will conclude. The first of them, is Golden-tongued Saint Chrysostom, who writes thus of Stage-plays: that they are the introduction of sinful lust; the Meditation of Adultery; the School of Fornication; the Exhortation of Vncleanesse; the Examples of Dishonesty; the Incendiarus of men • lustful Affections; the polluters of their eyes, their ears, their souls: yea the very original causes of much actual whoredom, filthiness, and adultery; as I shall more largely prove in the ensuing Scene out of his own Records, which I shall there recite at large. The second, is vice-rebuking Salvian, Bishop of Massilia, who thus discyphers Stage-plays: Such things are committed at Plays and Theaters, as cannot be thought upon, much less uttered without sin. For other vices challenge their several portions within us: as filthy cogitations, the mind; unchaste aspects, the eyes: wicked speeches, the ears; so that when one of these doth offend, the other may be without fault. But at Theaters, not one of these but sinneth: for b • th the mind with lust; and the eyes with shows, and the ears with hearing are there polluted: all which are so bad, that no man can well report or declare them with honesty. For who without passing the bounds of modesty, can utter those imitations of dishonest things; those filthy spectacles, those lewd motions; those obscene gestures that are used there? the extraordinary sinfulness of which may be gathered even from this, that it is unlawful for to name them. For s • me sins, though most heinous, may well and honestly both be named, and blamed too; as murder, theft, adultery, sacrilege, and such like: only the impurities of Theaters are such, as may not honestly be, no not so much as blamed. Such new matter ariseth against the reprover in finding fault with their most horrible filthiness; that albeit he be a most perfect honest man that would speak against it, yet can he not so do, and keep his honesty Again, all other evils pollute the doers only, not the beholders or the hearers: for a man may hear a blasphemer and not be partaker of his sacrilege, in as much as be dissenteth from him in mind. And if one come while a robbery is doing, he is not actually guilty of it, because he abhors the fact. Only the filthiness of Plays and Spectacles is such, as makes the Actors and Spectators guilty alike. For whiles they gladly look on, and so approve them by beholding them, they all become Actors of them by sight and assent: so as that of the Apostle may be properly applied to them. How that not only those who commit such things, are worthy of death, but they also who favor those that do them. So that in these representations of whoredom, all the people, do altogether in mind play the Harlots. And such as happily come chaste to Stage-plays, return adulterers from the Theater: For they play the fornicators not then only when they go away, but also when they come to Plays. For as soon as one lusteth after a filthy thing, whiles he hasteneth to that which is unclean, he becometh unclean. And so he proceeds. It is therefore abundantly evident by the concurrent punctual testimonies of these 30. Fathers, whose words I have here transcribed; to whom I might have added, Clemens Romanus, Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Philo Judaeus, Cyrillus Alexandri • us, Theodoret, Beda, Alchuvinus, Anexagoras, Olympiodorus, Orosius, Julius Firmicus, Grattan, with others, whom I shall quote hereafter in their more proper Scenes; That Stage-plays pollute the eyes, the ears, the minds, both of their Actors and Spectators, by ingendring unchaste, adulterous lewd affections in their hearts, by their obscene words, and lascivious gestures. That they irritate, inflame, foment those beastly carnal lusts, which draw them on to actual uncleanness, to their eternal ruin: and so by necessary consequence, that they are utterly unlawful for Christians, to act, to see, to hear, or resort to even in this regard, as they all from hence conclude. And dare any Play-patron then reject these grave Authorities, in justifying, in frequenting Stage-plays, as innoxious, honest, chaste, or useful recreations, after all these Fathers censures? If any Stage-frequenting • Play-adoring Christian be so incredulous, as not to give credit to these alleged Fathers: let him then listen to some Councils, some moderne Christian Authors ; some ancient Pagans, who aver the selfsame truth, whose joint concurrent Authorities he cannot deny. If we cast our eyes upon Councils; we shall find, these several Councils in several Countries and ages; to wit, Concilium Laodicenum. Can. 54. Eliberinum. Can. 62.67. Arelatense. 1. Can. 4.5 & 2. Can. 20. Carthaginense. 3. Can. 11. & 35. Carthaginense. 4. Can. 86. & 88. Aphricanum. Can. 27.28, 30. Agathense. Can. 39. in S • rius, but 28. in Carranza. Vene • ic • m. Can. 11. Constantinopolitanum. 6. in Trullo. Can. 24 51, 62.66. & 71. Turonense. 3. Can. 7.8. Cabilonense. 2. Can. 9. Moguntinum. Anno Dom. 813. Can. 10.14. Rhemense. Anno. 813. Can. 17. Synodus Francica sub Zacharia Papa. Anno Dom. 742. Aquisgranense Concilium. sub Ludovico Pio. Canon. 83.100, 145. Council. Parisiense 1. Can. 28. Moguntinum sub Rabano Archiepiscopo. Can. 13. Synodus 8. Oecumenica. Can. 16. Capitula Graecarum Synodorum. Can. 59. Concilium Lateranense. 1. Can. 16. Council. Basiliense. Sessio. 21. & Appendix •• usde • Concilij. Council. Senonense. Can. 25. Nicaenum. 2. Can. 22. Mediolanense. 1. De Mimis & Circulatoribus. cap. Council. Carolo Magnum. Can. 5. Coloniense. Anno. 1536. pars 2. cap. 25. pars 3. cap. 26. pars 9. cap. 10. Synodus Augustensis. Can. 19. Council. Coloniense. sub Adolpho. Anno. 1549. Can. 17. Synodus Moguntina. Anno. 1549. sub Sebastiano. cap. 61. & 75. together with Concilium Lingonense. Anno. 1404. Senonense. Anno. 1524. Carnotense. Anno. 1526. Burdigense. 1582. Bituriense. 1584. Turonicum. 1583. cap. 23. Senonense. 1585. cap. 13. we shall find, I say, these 37. several Councils, together with sundry other Canonical Constitutions ; prohibiting not only Players, under the penalty of excommunication, from acting; but even all other Christian • (especially Clergy-men) under the selfsame penalty from hearing, seeing, and frequenting Stage-plays ; as for sundry other reasons, so especially for this; because Stage-plays, would contaminate their eyes, their ears, their minds, their hearts; effeminate, yea deprave their spirits; exasperate and foment their lusts; indispose them, disable them to the religious performance of every holy duty, and usher in by their eyes, and ears, the whole troop of vices, into their souls. An irrefragable confirmation of our present Assumption. If we survey again those moderne Christian Authors, who have written against Stage-plays, we shall find them all concurring with us in this truth • I shall only recite some few of them, by which you may easily conjecture of the rest Cirques and Theaters (writes Francis Petrarcha ) are the two places which have been known to be always most opposite to good manners, whether if any bad man go; he will return much worse: For this journey (pray observe it) is altogether unknown to good men; who if they ignorantly chance to go unto them by any accident, are sure not to want defilement. Stage-plays which thou willingly beholdest, are such things, as can neither be honestly acted, nor honestly seen; neither is it easy to tell, whether the Actor or the Spectator be more infamous; or whether the Stage be more filthy then the Scaffold; unless it be, that poverty oft • times draws m • n into the one • but va • ity always into the other. N • ither is there a greater co • sumption of Patrimonies at Stage-plays, then of manners; where lust is learned, humanity forgotten. What you might expect from Stage-plays, even from the very beginning, the first of your Kings, Romulus, may give you a guess, who by these circumvented that riged, rough unpleasant chastity of the Sabin • Virgins; albeit the honor of matrimony, hath in some sort covered that offense. But to how many since this have Stage-plays been the way, not to wedlock, but to whoredom, and disorderly liberty? I will that thou remember this as the sum of all; that chastity hath been ofttimes overthrown by Stage-plays, always assaulted. And that I may not speak of men, the • ury of whose wickedness is such, that they do now well nigh even glory in adultery: the good name, and chastity of many women hath there perished: many have thence returned home unchaste, more ambiguous, but not one more honest: These are the events, these the fruits of Stage-plays: (And are they then desirable, or true Christian pleasures?) Now who would willingly stretch out his throat to receive the sword that cuts it? who will pour out more blood out of his bleeding wound? who will become less fearful at the sight of death? What doth it avail you to run to the School of lust and cruelty? You need no Masters; you are naturally too docible of evil things. You learn more at home by yourselves, then is needful: What will you learn if these Artificers of wickedness, and the Mistress of errors, the multitude, should be added to such ready wits? Many, whom nature had made meek, and chaste, have Stage-plays taught cruelty, and incontinency. The mind of man which is naturally prone to vices is not therefore to be instigated, but bridled: if it be left to it self, it will hardly stand; if it be violently driven forward, it will fall down hedlong. Much evil is conveyed into us by the ears, but much more by the eyes: by them, as by two open windows doth death break in upon the soul: Nothing more powerfully sinks into the memory, then that which is apprehended by the eye: things that are only heard do easily pass away; the images of the things we see stick fast in our minds even against our wills: yet notwithstanding, they do not offer themselves undesired, but to such who willingly behold them, unless it be very seldom, and that in • transitory manner to pass soon away. Whether goest thou therefore? what impetus or gust doth violently drag thee? that thou shouldest rejoice but for an hour, in that which thou mayest chance eternally to lament: that thou shouldest run to see that once, the very sight of which thou mayest a thousand times repent off. I know not what pleasant, or rather what not bitter, or sorrowful thing, you perceive in Stage-plays: neither do I discern any other greater argument of madness in you, then that I see you daily allured unto death by miserable enticements, and as if you were drowned in an infernal slumber, a bitter sweetness, and an unpleasant pleasure, precipitates you. For there is one rule almost of all things to you; Whatever you desire, whatever you endeaver, whatever you do, is against yourselves. Thus Petrarcha, most elegantly, most divinely. To him I might add the concurrent suffrages of Alexander Fabritius, in his Destructorium Vitiorum. pars 4. cap. 23. B. Mapheus Vegius, De Educatione Liberorum. lib. 1. cap. 14. & lib. 3. cap. 7. & 12. Ludovicus Vives in Augustinum De Civitate De • . lib. 1. cap. 31.32, 33. & lib. 2. cap. 3. to 15, cap. 26.27, 28, 29. & De Causis Corrupt. Artium. lib. 2. pag. 81.83. Agippa De Vanitate Scientiarum. cap. 20.59, 64 71. Peter Martyr Locorum Communium Classis. 2. cap. 12. sect. 62.66. cap. 12. sect. 15.19. & Commentary upon Judges p. 220 221. Master Gualther. Hom. 11 in Nahum. 3. Bodinus De Republica. lib. 6. cap. 1. Johannes De Burgo. Pupilla Oculi. pars 10. cap. 5. V. Danaus Ethicae Christianae. lib. 2. cap. 8. Polydor Virgil, De Invent. Rerum. lib. 5. cap. 2. Franciscus Z • phyrus. Comment in Tertislliani Apologiam. adverse Gentes, P • ter De Prima • day, in his French Achademy. c. 20. pag. 205. A stexanus De Casibus. lib. 2. Titulus 5 • lib. 4. Titulus • 7 Artic. 4. Theodorus Balsamon in Phocij Nom • canonis. Titulus 13. cap. 21. Bochellus, Decreta Ecclesia Gallicanae. lib. 6. Titulus 19. c. 11. Johannes Mariana, & Barnabas Brissonius, in their Books, De Spectaculis. together with Bul • ngerus, De Theatro. lib. 1. c. 50.51. where he confesseth, that all Authors, both sacred and profane, have declaimed against the filthiness and lewdness of the Stage, not only because of the obscenity of their Plays, but likewise because their motions and gestures also are unchaste, in so much that the very Stews themselves were ofttimes brought upon the Stage, and prosti • uted under it. Whence Varro writes, that that is obscene which is not spoken openly but only on the Stage &c. Doctor Reinolds, in his Preface to his 6. Theses, and in his Overthrow of Stage-plays throughout. Printed 1599. and now reprinted, 1629. Doctor Sparkes, in his R • hearsall Sermon at Paul's Cross, April 29, 1579. Master Perkins, in his Treatise of Conscience. c. 3. and on the 7. Commandment. Ma •• er Stubs, in his Anatomy of Abuses pag. 101. to 107. Master Northbrooke, in his Treatise against Vain Plays and Interludes. pag. 57. to 77. A Book entitled, The Church of evil Men and Women, whereof Lucifer is the head • and the members, are all dissolute Players, and Sinners. Printed by Richard Pinson in 8 ^o . A Treatise of Dances, printed in 8 ^o . 1581. wherein it is shown, that Dances are as it were acc • ssaries, or dependants, or things annexed unto whoredom: where also by the way is proved; that Plays are joined and k • it together in a rank with them. The second and third Blast of Retrait from Plays and Theaters. pag. 1.2, 3, 4, 43, 44, 53, 54, 55, 56, 89, 92, 96 98, to 103. (all pregnant places to our purpose) printed by Authority. London, 1580. Mast • r Gosson, in his School of Abuse. Two Books, the one in • i • uled, The Myrror for Magistrates of C • ties ; the other, The Counter-blast to Stage-plays, by an uncertain Author • John Field, in his Declaration of God's Judgment shown at Paris Garden. January the 13. 1587. Printed by Henry Carre, 1588. I. G. in his Refutation of Haywoods Apology for Actors. Master Thomas Beard, in his Theater of God's Judgments. cap. 34. Master Elton, and Master Dod, on the 7. Commandment. Bishop Ba • lie, in his Preface to the Practice of Piety. Bishop Hall, in his Epistles. Decad. 6. Epist. 6. I. P. Minister of Feversha • , in his Book entitled, The Covenant between God and man. Exposition on the 7. Commandment. Doctor Layton, in his Speculum Bellisacr • . cap. 45. Master Brinsl • , in his True Watch. part 3. Abomination 19. p. 73.74. Master John Downham, i • his Guide to Godliness. lib. 3. cap. 21. sect. 5. and in his Sum of Divinity. lib. 1. cap. 11. pag. 203. and Richard Rawledge, in his Scourging of Tiplers. pag. 2.3.4. who all with one unanimous Vote condemn all Stage-plays, as altogether abominable unto Christians, from this very reason among sundry others; that they irritate and foment men's carnal lusts: pollute their souls with adulterous affections, defile their eyes, their ears, their hearts with filthiness; and allure, ye precipitate both their Actors and Spectators to all actual lewdness, and execrable uncleanness; being as so many Panders, Bellows, and Firebrands to their vile luscivious desires. But passing by all these with a brief quotation of their names and works, to which you may resort, as being too tedious to recite at large; I shall only relate unto you what 4. other Authors of our own have written, concerning the lewd effects of Stage-plays. The first of them is reverend Bishop Babington, who writes thus of Plays. These profane and wanton Stage-plays or Interludes, what an occasion they are of adultery and uncleanness by gesture, by speech, by convayances, by devices to attain to so ungodly desires, the world knoweth by too much hurt, by long experience. Vanities they are if we make the best of them, and the Prophet prayeth to have his eyes turned away by the Lord from beholding such matter. Evil words corrupt good manners, & they have abundance. There is in them, ever many dangerous • ights, and we must abstain from all appearance of evil. They corrupt the eyes with alluring gestures; the eyes, the heart; and the heart the body, till all be horrible before the Lord. Histrionicis Gestibus inquinantur omnia (saith Chrysostom.) These Players behavior polluteth all things: And of their Plays he saith; they are the feasts of Satan, the inventions of the Devil, &c. Councils have decreed very sharply against them, and polluted bodies by these filthy occasions have on their death-beds confessed the danger of them, lamented their own foul and grievous faults, and left their warning forever with us to beware of them. But I refer you to them, that upon good knowledge of the abominations of them, have written largely and well against them. If they be dangerous in the day time, more dangerous are they in the night certainly: if on a Stage, and in open Courts, much more in Chambers and private houses. For there are many rooms besides that where the Play is; and peradventure the strangeness of the place, and lack of light to guide them, causeth error in their way, more then good Christians should in their houses suffer. Thus this right godly Prelate of our Church, who makes Stage-plays a breach of the 7. Commandment, because they are the frequent occasions both of contemplative, and actual fornication, and the inducements to it. The second, is one Master Stephen Gosson, (once a professed Play-poet ; yea a great Patron, and admirer of Plays and Players, as himself confesseth, till God had called him to repentance, and opened his eyes to see their abominableness: ) who among other things, writeth thus of Stage-plays. As I have already discovered the corruption of Plays, by the corruption of their causes; the Efficient, the Matter, the Form, the End; so will I conclude the effects, that this poison works among us. The Devil is not ignorant how mightily these outward Spectacles effeminate and soften the hearts of men; vice is learned with beholding; sin is tickled, desire pricked, and those impressions of mind are secretly conveyed over to the gazers, which the Players counterfeit on the Stage. As long as we know ourselves to be flesh beholding those examples in Theaters that are incident to flesh, we are taught by other men's examples how to fall. And they that come honest to a Pl • y, may •• part infected. Lactantius doub • eth, whether any corruption can be greater, th • n that which is daily bred by Plays, because th • expr • ssi • g of vice by imi • atien, brings us by • he shadow, to the substance of the same. Whereupon he affirmeth t •• m necessary to be banished, les • wickedness be learned, or with the custom of pleasure by little and little we forget God. What force th • re • s in the gestures of Players, may be gathered by the tale of Bacchus and Ariadne, which Xenophon reporteth to be • laid at a banquet, by a Syracusian, his Boy, and his dancing Tru •• . In came the Syracusian, not unlike to the Prologue o • our Plays, discoursing the argument of the fable: then • ntred Ariadn • , gorgeously attired like a bride, and sat in the pr • sense of them all: after came Bacchus, dancing to the Pipe: Ariadne p • rceiving him, though she neither rose to meet • him, nor stirred from the place to welcome him, yet she shown by her gesture that she sat upon th • r • es. When Bacchus beheld her, expressing in his dance the passions of love, he placed hims • lfe somewhat near to her, and embraced her: she with an amorous kind of fear and strangeness, as though she would thr • st him away with the little finger, and pull him again with bo • h •• r hands, somewhat t ••• rously and doubtfully entertained him. At this the beholders began to shout, when Bacchus rose up, tenderl • li • ting Ariadne from her seat; no small store of courtesy passing between them, the beholders rose up, every man stood on tiptoe, and seemed to h • ver over the prey: when they sware, the company sware: when they departed to bed, the company presently was set on fire: they that were married posted home to their wives: those that were single vowed solemnly to be wedded. (A very notable History for our present purpose, especially as Xenophon hath related it:) As the stinge of Phalangion spredeth her poison thorough every vain, when no hurt is seen, so amorous gesture sticks to the heart when no • kin is raced. Therefore Cupid is painted wi • h Bow and Arrows, because it is the property of lust to wound alo • ffe, which being well weighed; Saint Cyprian had very good cause to complain; that Players are spots to our manners, nourishers of vice, and corrupters of all things by their gestures. The godly Father, knowing the practice of Playing to be so evil, and the inconveniences so monstrous that grew thereby ; thinks the Majesty o God to be stained, the honor of his Church defaced, when Players are admitted to the Table of the Lord. Ne • there was this the opinion of Saint Cyprian alone, but of the whole assembly of godly Fathers in the Council held under Constantius the Emperor. Great then is the hardness of our hearts when neither Fathers, nor Councils • nor God himself strikes us with any shame of that, which every good man is ashamed to remember. Mine eyes thoroughly beheld the manner of Theaters when I wrote Plays myself, and found them to be THE VERY MARKETS OF BAWDERY; where choice without shame hath been as free, as it is for your money in the Royal Exchange, to take a short stock or a long; a falling Band, or a French Ruffe. The first building of Theaters was to ravish the Sabines, and that they were continued in whoredom ever after, Ovid con • esseth in these words:

You see then, how all the fore-recited Fathers, Councils, moderne Christian Writers, and ancient Pagan Authors give punctual t • stimony to my Minors truth, which no one A • thor to my knowledge • whether anci • nt or moderne, Christian or Pagan, did ever yet gainsay: therefore we may resolve upon it without any further scruple; and thereupon reject, reno • nce all Stage-plays, as the defilements of men's eyes, men's ears, men's souls: the incendiaries, the fomenters of filthy lusts: the very Pand • rs • allurements, and provocations to contemplative, to actual uncleanness, whoredom, adultery, and the like, which bring destruction to me • s souls. And indeed, how can they choose but irritate men's lusts and draw them on to lewd unchaste affections, and meretricious filthy practices. For when a man shall delightfully behold adulteries, whoredoms, incests, together with all other obscene abominations, even lively personated, emphatically expressed before his face; When • e shall hear these beastly sins appla • ded, varnished and set o • t to sale with the most elegant expressions; the most rhetorical, pathetical, flexanimous, encomiums: the most insinuating Love-compl • ments, and amorous streines of wit, of eloquence, that either the oratory of H • ll, or lust can reach to: when he shall seriously con •• mplate those lascivious gestures, dances, complements, embracements: those meretricious kisses, claspings and da •• ••• es: those wanton smiles, those petulant nods, th • se unchaste s • gnes, those lust-irritating motions which pass between amorous Love-sick Actors. When he shall hear such scurrilous Pastorals, such ribaldrous Ditties, such inescating Love-sonnets; such effeminate, overcoming, heart-resolving Music, which prepare the Auditors to uncleanness, & subject them as so many Captives to their enraged lusts. When both his eyes, his ears, affections, heart, and all his senses shall be wholly taken up, with such amorous, beautiful lust-provoking objects as are able to reviue the most mortified carnal affections; to fire, the most frozen benumbed lusts ; to overcome the most chaste and continent heart; (all which concur at once in Stage-plays:) how can it but ingender, not only a spark or two, but an whole fl • me, an Hell of filthy lusts within his soul ; and carry him on to all uncleanness even with a full carere? We all know by woeful experience, that all men (but especially young men and women, who are the most assiduous Play-haunters) are exceeding prone by nature to unchaste adulterous desires, to fleshly lusts which war against their souls: no sins so consonant to their depraved natures as these. Hence is it, that those who live the m • st retired lives; who keep the most constant watch over their own deceitful hearts: who most mortify and keep under their rebellious carnal lusts by prayer and fasting; by subtracting all that • ewell, that provision which should nourish them: who abstain from all appearance of evil; from all those lascivious lust-enflaming objects, which might either steine their souls with unchaste desires, or defile their bodies with adulterous copulaetions, are oft-tim •• vexed and assaulted; yea sometimes vanquished, and foiled 〈◊〉 their carnal lusts: as the examples of Lot, David, Saint Paul, Saint Jerome, and some others • estifie. And if these men ofttimes fall into these lustful passions of their own accord, even then when as they have kept watch and ward against them, by avoiding all occasions which might provoke them to them: how much more then must our common Actors and Play-haunters, who add fire, spurs, and fuel to their enraged, unbrideled lusts in Stage-plays, be much more conquered and subdued by them. If he who keeps the farthest distance from lascivious lust-enraging Stage-plays, can ha • dly keep his affections, his body within the bounds of chastity; how then can they be chaste in mind, in body, who live and wallow in them with delight. Alas, how can the weak • st stand, when the strongest fall? How can the careless be secure, where the most vigilant are surprised? H • w can unmortified graceless Yongsters continue chaste, untainted, unpolluted, either in thought, in soul, in body, in the very midst of all the temptations, the defilements of lust-irritating polluted objects; in the very Stews and Brothel-house of lust; the very School and Shop of Venery, Lechery, and Lewdnesse ; (for so some style the Play-house • ) when as the most mortified gracious Christians, who have retired themselves wholly from all carnal objects ; who have with-drawn their eyes, their ears, their thoughts from all lust-fomenting pleasures of sin, have yet been desteined with unclean affections, in the very midst of holy duties in their private Closets? Since therefore the very dearest of God's Saints, who always war against their lusts, are ofttimes foiled, vexed, or disturbed by them, even then when as there are no external objects to tempt them: much more then must common Actors and Play-haunters, who yield themselves over as slaves, as vassals to their untamed carnal lusts, be steined, conquered, and controlled by them. And here I appeal unto the consciences of Players, of Play-haunters for proof of this effect. Do not your own hearts experimentally inform you, that there are many sinful swarms and flames of lust, many lewd unchaste affections oft kindled in your breasts by the very acting, sight, and hearing of lascivious Stage-plays? Do not the wanton gestures; the amorous kisses, complements, and salutes; the meretricious songs and speeches; the lascivious whorish Actions; the beautiful faces; the ravishing Music, the flexanimous enticements, the witty obscenities, the rhetorical passages, the adulterous representations, with all the other fomentations of uncleanness in the Play-house, ( which are as so many fiery darts of Satan to wound our souls with lust; as so many Conduict-pipes, or Chariots to usher concupiscence into our hearts, thorough the doors, the portals of our eyes and ears ;) even raise a tempest of unchaste affections; yea kindle a very hell of lusts within your souls? Do not they strongly instigate & enrage your carn • ll minds adding much fuel unto your lewd desires? Do not they fraught your eyes, your ears, your hearts with filthy objects, so that they cannot cease from sin? Have they not ca • s • d you to look upon Whores and Strumpets, upon b • autifull comely women with a lustful eye, and so to commit, if not actual, yet contemplative adultery with th • m in your hearts, either more or less? If you deny all this, your own consciences, together with all the fore-recited Fathers, Councils, Christian and Pagan Authors will presently convince you of a lie. If you acknowledge it; as needs you must; since your own consciences, with all the premises will force you to confess it ; you must certainly join hands, join hearts, and judgments with me in censuring, in condemning Stage-plays, because they contaminate and defile both their Actors, their Spectators souls and bodies; because they thus instigate, nourish, and enflame their inseparable sinful fleshly lusts which war against their souls; which should be mortefied, and subdued; not fostered, not fomented, as they are.

SCENA QVARTA.

[ 4] THe fourth effect or fruit of Stage-plays, is actual adultery, whoredom, and uncleanness, which are no ways tolerable among Christians: From whence this 30. Argument doth arise.

My Minor must be yielded, because adultery, fornication, whoredom, with all other actual uncleanness, (how ever men may chance to • light them as mere trivial, venial sins) are most damnable soul-murthering abominations. which God, which Christian men abhor. The sinfulness, the damnablenesse, of these foul crying sins, (which, alas; are now so frequent in the world, that the commonness of them hath made them tolerable, if not commendable and lawful in the eyes of many, who are so far from being ashamed of, that they even boast and glory in th • se lascivious wickednesses ;) will easily appear by these particulars: First, they are sins against the express letter of the 7. Commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery: as all ancient, and moderne Expositors of this Commandment testify. Secondly, they are sins, abundantly condemned throughout the Old and New Testament, as abominable and highly displeasing unto God ; whose wrath none can stand under. Thirdly, they are the very works and products of the flesh; issuing always from a polluted heart devoyd of grace. Fourthly, they are those execrable sins, those abominable pollutions wherein the Idolatrous Pagan Gentiles lived, whose lewdness Christians must not imitate. Fifthly, they are those shameful, desperate filthy works of darkness which the most audacious miscreants are afraid, yea utterly ashamed to commit in the daytime, in the face and view of others, out of a self-guiltiness, an inward consciousness of their vileness; in the act of which if any are deprehended, they are in the very terrors of the shadow of death; like men distracted they know not what to do, nor whether to fly, the very foulness of the fact amazing them, and the least noise affrighting them. Sixthly, they are sins which most abominably pollute the bodies and souls of men, making them • dious both in the eyes of God, and men. Seventhly, they are sins which bring abundance of shame, of dishonor upon the persons, families, and posterities of those who are guilty of them, and even quite deprive them of their glory: a wound, a dishonor shall they get, and their reproach shall not be wiped away ; as the very wisest of men informs us. Sixthly, they are sins which wholly infatuate and steal away men's hearts; so that they are as an Ox that goeth to the slaughter; or as a fool who is led to the correction of the stocks; till a dart shrike thorough their liver; or as a Bird that hasteneth to the snare, not knowing that it is for his life. Yea these sins do so besot men, that they can neither consider the danger of them; nor yet use means for to escape them. Ninthly, they consume, they putrefy, not only the souls, the spirits, but the very bodies, and estates of men, bringing them even to a morselt of bread. Tenthly, they ingenerate many filthy loathsome diseases, which ofttimes so putrefy the bodies of lewd adulterous persons, that they even stink above ground, becoming odious, yea intolerable to themselves and others: which made S. Chrysostom to affirm, that an adulterer even in this life, before he goes to Hell, is the most miserable, the most wre • ched of all men. Eleventhly, they are such sins, as are not so much as once to be named (much less then practiced) among Christians, whom they do not become ; those therefore are no true Christians who take pleasure in them. Twefely, they are such sins, as exclude men, both from the society of God's Children here, who are not so much as to converse, or eat with fornicators, or adulterers: and likewise from the Word, the Sacraments, the public Assemblies of the Saints; from which all Fornicators, Adulterers, Strumpets, and unchaste persons are ipso facto by the very Law of God, and man, to be excommunicated; that so they may be delivered up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, till they shall give some outward actual testimony of their sincere repentance for these sin • . Thirteenthly, they are such sins, as make a man exceeding guilty in God's sight. A man may as well take fire in his bosom, and his cl • athes not be burnt; or go upon coles, and his feet not be scorched, as go into his neighbors wife, and yet be innocent: Whence Solomon informs us; that a strange woman increaseth transgressions amongst men. Fourteenthly, they are sins which oft times shorten and cut off the lives of men: and draw on murder after them: For as the Ad • itresse will hunt for the precious life of a man: so jealousy is the rage of a man; there • ore he will not spare in the day of vengeance: he will not regard an • ransom, neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifes. These sins were the cause that the Sons of Jacob slew the Shechemites and spoiled their City, for ravishing and using their Sister Dinah as an Whore. These were the death of all those Israelites who committed whoredom with the Daughters of Moab, whom God himself commanded te be slain. These occasioned the war between the Bexiamites and the other Tribes of the Children of Israel, in which there were threescore and five thousand men and upwards slain; yea, the whole Tribe of Benjamin where the Levites Concubine was ravished, (which occasioned this war,) were almost utterly destroyed, there being 600. men of them only left alive by means of these men-slaying sins. These sins caused David, to destroy Uriah: Absalom to murder his Brother Ammon for ravishing his Sister Tamar. These have been always accompanied with much murder and bloodshed in all ages: these have caused the Husband, to murder his Wife; the Wife, to poison her Husband: one Whore-master to murder his Corrivals to the self-same Strumpet: yea these have caused unnatural Mothers to murder their own spuri • us Issues, to conceal their l • wdnesse ; as Authors, as our own Statutes, and experience teach us: therefore they must needs be crying • because they are bloody sins. Fiftenthly, they are such sins which offer an high indignity to the whole Trinity. First, to God the Father, not only in taking those bodies that are his, which were made for himself alone, not for fornication; and giving them up as prof • ssed instruments of sin, to lust, to lewdness, to Satan, to all uncleanness: but likewise in contaminating, oblitterating, and casting dirt, yea sin, upon his most holy Image stamped on them. Secondly, to Jesus Christ our Lord, in taking those bodies which are his members, purchased with his most precious blood, that they might be preserved pure and chaste to him; and making them the members of an Harlot. Thirdly, to God the holy Ghost; in defiling those bodies, which are the Temples of the holy Ghost, which is in us; who cannot endure any pollution, especially in his Temples, which should be always holy, as he is holy. And who is there so desperately wicked, that dares thus affront the whole Trinity it self by these cursed filthy sins? Sixteenthly, they are sins of which men very seldom repent. A Whore ( saith Solomon) is a deep Ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow Pit ; (out of which men can hardly recover themselves:) None that go into her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of Life: And who then would engage his soul upon such irrecoverable irrepenitable sins as these? Seventeenthly, these sins are the very high-way to Hell, the beaten rode to eternal death: the end of them is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Wherefore Solomon exhorts his Son; to remove his way far from a strange woman, and not to come nigh the door of her house ; (a place well worthy their observation, who fear not for to run to Whore-houses,, or to cast themselves upon the temptations, the enticements of Strumpets, as too many do,) For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead: her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of hell: her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death: None that go into her return again, neither take they hold of the path of Life. Eighteenthly, they are sins against the very bodies and souls of men. Against the bodies of men; as the Apostle witnesseth. Flee fornication; every sin that a man doth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body: that is, in defiling it ; in dishonoring it; in impairing it; in destroying it. Against the souls of men, as Solomon testifieth: Who so (saith he) committeth adultery with an woman lacketh understanding; he that doeth it, destroyeth his own soul. And who would be so inhumanely, so atheistically desperate, as to destroy both soul and body forever, to enjoy the momentary bitter-sweetness of these filthy sins? Nineteenthly; they are sins, which disable men to perform any holy duty acceptable to God. Sins, into which few fall, but such as are abhorred of the Lord, and given up to a reprobate sense, to work all wickedness even with gre • dinesse. Sins, which devour to destruction, and root out all a man's increase. Sins, which cause the earth to rise up against men, and the fire not blown to devo • re them. Sins, which draw down the temporal, the eternal wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. These were the sins that destroyed the old worldwith water: which consumed the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven; Which caused three and twenty thousand of the Israelites to fall in one day. These were the sins, that caused God, in the year of our Lord, 1583. even in our Citty of London; to destroy with • ire from Heaven two Citizens, the one leaving his Wife, the other her own Husband, whiles they were in the very act of adultery on the Lord's day; their bodies being left dead, and half burnt up, for a Spectacle of God's avenging Justice unto others. These are the sins (but adultery and incest mor • especially) which God himself hath commanded to be punished with death, yea with stoning to death ; the most vile and shamefulest death of all others: Yea these are such sins, that not only the Jews in ancient times ; but even mere Pagans from the very light of nature, did punish with death it self. Hence Drac • enacted; that the adulterer taken in adultery, might without any danger to the party, be lawfully killed. The self-same Law was enacted by Solon and Plato. Hence Romulus, among those laws which he wrote in brass and placed in the Capitol, enacted; That the convicted adulteress should be put to death according as her husband, or his friends should think meet. Which act was afterwards confirmed by the Julian Law. Hence, among the Lacedemonians, it was lawful for a man to kill him, who was taken in adultery with his wife. Hence the Corinthians used to drown those who prostituted themselves to the lust of others. The Vestel Virgins among the Romans b • ing convicted of fornication were buried alive. In ancient Ti • es among the Turks, the adulterer and adulteress were both stoned to death: and at this day they are both most ignominiously punished. The Arabians, and Tenedians punish adultery with death, reputing it a far greater crime, then perjury, or sacrilege; and therefore worthy of a severer punishment. The AEthiopians account adultery treason, and therefore they make it capital. In Peru whoredom is punished with the death of both parties. The Brazilians prosecute adultery with capital hatred, in so much that he whose wife is taken in adultery may lawfully kill her, if he please. The Indian Bramanes may lawfully poison their unc • aste wives. In old Saxony, women who were convicted of adultery, and ravishers of maids were first hanged, and then burned. In S • a • adultery is death, the Fathers of the Malefactors, or the next Kinsmen being the Executioners. In Palmaria adulterous Priests are punished with cruel death. In Hispaniola unchaste Priests are either drowned, or burnt. I • Bantam, Mexico, and China adultery is punished with death. The Tartars taken in adultery are put to present death, for fear of which they live very chaste. If then the very judicial Law of Moses, together with these Heathens and Pagan Nations have deemed these sins capital: punishing adulterers and adulteresses with death, as being the public enemies of mankind: needs must these sins be execrable, yea dangerous unto Christians. Twentiethly, these sins are prejudicial both to the Church and State, in defileing, polluting, dishonoring, and troubling them with an unclean, degenerated, spurious, if not accursed offspring, who are no other but the very blemishes, shames, and infamy of Church, of State, of nature: which all Laws disinherit: who were not to enter into the Congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation. Lastly, these sins exclude men out of Heaven, none that die in the guilt of them shall ever inherit the Kingdom of God or of Christ: They cause God to judge men in a more special manner: Who • e-mongers and Adulterer • God will judge: They bind men over to the great Assizes at the last day: The Lord knoweth how to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chie • lie them, that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness : And if all this be not enough: they plunge men's souls deep in Hell for all eternity. For the abominable, and Whore-m • ngers, and all unclean persons, shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone forever; which is the second death. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, for these sins of theirs. O then consider this all ye incontinent, unclean, adulterous persons, who forget God; who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk • in the ways of darkness; lest he tear you in pieces; lest he eternally condemn you to the endless flames of Hell for these your flames of lust; and there be none to deliver you. Since then it is evident by all these premises to the hearts, the consciences of all men, that adultery, fornication, uncleanness, are such abominable, capital, deep-died pernicious sins; those Stage-plays which instigate, or entice men to them, foment men in them, must needs be execrably sinful; yea utterly unlawful unto Christians: so that my Major needs no further proof.

For the Minor; that Stage-plays are the immediate occasions, the fomentations of much actual adultery, whoredom, and unclenesse; it is most apparently evident: First, from their subject matter: which being for the most part amorous, scurrilous, or obscene, consisting of adulteries, rapes, incests, whoredoms, love-pranks, solicitations to incontinency, meretricious ribaldrous songs and jests, (as I have already proved ;) must needs inflame men's lusts, and draw them on to actual uncleanness: Since evil word, which corrupt good manners, are but a way, a passage unto evil deeds; a fire, a fuel to adulterous lusts; yea, the very Chariot of whoredom, of uncleanness ; as the Fathers style them. Hence is it, that Agrippa reputeth amorous Poets, lascivious Historians, the chiefest Panders in the world; yea the very original Fathers, Tutors, and chief Promoters of baudery, and whoredom; because their ribaldrous Poems; their true, their fabulous Histories of the adulteries, loves, and beastly lewdnesses of Idol-gods, or lustful men, are but as so many Lectures to instruct; so many allurements to entice; so many guides to lead, so many arg • me • ts to persuade men to lechery, and all actual uncleanness whatsoever. Hence all ancient, all moderne Expositors on the Commandments that ever I have leene, have reduced scurrility, ribaldry; together with all amorous lascivious Poems, speeches, jests, Histories, Books, and Stage-plays, to the 7. Commandment, as being the fire, fuel, f • mentations, occasions of whoredom and adultery. Yea hence is it, that God himself prohibits, all •• lthy communications, all corrupt speeches; all foolish talking and jesting, which are not convenient, together with the very naming of fornication and all uncleanness; as unbecoming Saints; because they draw men on to these shameful works of darkness, with which Christian are to have no fellowship. If then obscene, adulterous Poems, fables, Histories, Ditties, jests, or speeches have such an attractive, such a depraving power in them to draw men on to actual lewdness, much more must Stage-plays, (wherein the quintessence, the confluence of all obscenity is pithily contracted, emphatically expressed, elegantly adorned, rhetorically pronounced) be more prevalently powerful to draw men on to these gross lecherous sins. Whence Nile an ancient Abbot, adviseth all such who would avoid the wounds of lust, to abstain from public Stage-plays, and to keep themselves from them, lest they should fall into their enemies hands, and be drawn • n to actual lewdness. Secondly, my Minors truth is most evident, from the very manner of acting Stage-plays, and those whoredoms, those adulteries personated in them. He who shall but seriously consider those amorous smiles, and wanton gestures; those lascivious complements, those lewd adulterous kisses and enbracements; those lustful dalliances; those impudent, immodest, panderly passages; those effeminate, whorish, lust-inflaming solicitations; those several concurrences, combinations, conspirations, of artificial, studied, and more then Brothel-house obscenities: those real lively representations of the acts of venery, which attend and set out Stage-plays; must needs acknowledge; that they are the very School • s of bauder • ; the Tutors, the occasions of real whoredoms, incests, adulteries, &c. whence they were at the first • onsecrated to Venus (the Goddess of whoredom and adultery) the very Roman Theater being styled, THE TEMPLE OF VENVS, as Tertullian writes: in which whoredom and adultery were freely practiced without control. The 6. Council of Constantinople, Can. 100. the Sy • od • of Augusta, Anno 1548. cap. 28. together with Clemens Alexandrinus. Oratio Adhort. ad Gentes. fol. 8.9. Gregory Nyssen, in his Vitae Moseos E • arratio. p. 503. Theodoret, Contra Graecos Infideles. lib. 3. De Angels De{que} Dijs, ac Daemonibus malis. Tom. 2. pag. 362.363. Mapheus Vegius, De Liberorum Educatione. lib. 1. cap. 15. with sundry moderne Divines in their Expositions on the 7. Commandment; condemn all amorous wanton pictures, of Courtesans, and others, (which now are too to common) as incendiaries to men's unruly lusts, which draw them on to actual lewdness. Certainly, if these lifeless pictures are so apt to ingenerate unchaste affections, or to prick men o • to whoredom and ad • ltery: much more will these amorous actions, complements, kisses, and embracements; these lively pictures, these real representations of adultery and uncleanness in our Stage-plays, do it. It is storied of Tiberius, (a monster of more then beastly obscenity,) that as he adorned his houses with lascivi • us pictures, the better to excite his l • sts ; (a practice much in use with many incontinent persons now of late;) so he caused others to defile one another before his face ; ut adspectu deficientes libidines excitaret; that by this lewd beastly sight he might stir up his own decayed lusts. The like I find recorded of Tamerlan the great Scythian Warrior. It is registered likewise of that man-monster, Heliogabalus; that he commanded Stage-players to commit those adulteries upon the Stage in truth, which they formerly personated but in show ; to quicken up his lusts to whoredom. If then the very beholding of lewd adulterous acts, were the only incentives these prodigious Whore-masters used to enrage their wearied, spent, allayed lusts; and to enable them to the actual committing of these beastly sins; we cannot but from hence conclude; that the personating of incests, rapes, adulteries, whoredoms, and the like upon the Stage, set out with all the art that either bawdery, or lechery have as yet achieved. should much more instigate if not precipitate men to the self-same wickednesses, to which their own depraved natures are too prone.

Thirdly, my Minors truth is fully evident, by the qualities of the Penners, the Actors, the Spectators of these Stage-plays; who have for the most part, been notoriously unchaste in all ages: Such were the Play-po • ts, such the Actors, the Stage-haunters, in Ovid's, Athenaeus, Tiberius, Clemen • Alexandrinus, Tertullian's, Cyprians, Lactantius, Basils, Nazienzens, Jerome's, Augustine • s, Chrysostom's, Salvians, Isiodores, Damascens, Bernard's, Aquinas, Fabricius, Petrarkes, Polydor Virgil's, Agrippaes, Gualt • ers days, and other times, as their fore-quoted testimonies, with sundry others in the precedent Acts abundantly testify. Such were they not long since among us, as Master Northbrooke, Gosson, BB. Babington, Master Stubs, with others of our own domestic moderne Authors write; and such are they still. What our common Play-poets and Actors chastity and demeanor is; what mod • st mortified persons they are, is so well known to all who are acquainted with their persons or Plays, that I need not defile my paper to proclaim it. What the most of our assiduous Play-haunters are; how chaste their lives, their carriages, are, their own consciences can best in • orme themselves ; experience and public fame best testify unto others: Sure I am, there is little chastity or modesty in their clothes and gestures, less in their speeches, least in their lives, if public fame or common experience prove but true. It is too well known to divers Stage-customers; that the most notorious Panders, Bauds, and Strumpets, (the • a • e of many a Yongsters body, soul, estate, credit:) the most branded Adulteresses, Adulterers, Whore-masters, Brothel-house-haunters, and the like, are the chiefest Admirers, Patrons, Spectators, Supporters of; the most beneficial Customers and Contributors to our Stage-plays. It is storied of Heliogabalus, that when he erected a public Stews, he sent to the Cirqu • s and Theaters (the common Marts or Receptacles in those days for whores) to stock and furnish i • . Certainly, if such a common Brothel or Nunnery of adulterous lecherous persons were now to be erected, (which God forbid:) the best Storehouse to furnish it, were our Play-houses, where such lewd creatures harbor, and have most resort, as Justinian, Chrysostom, Statius, Plautus, & Bulengerus witness • . Since therefore Play-poets, Actors, Stage-haunters, are thus generally adulterous and unchaste; yea commonly more excessive in these sins then others: Since Adulterers, Whore-masters, Whores, &c. are the greatest Patriots, applauders, frequenters, upholders of these lascivious Stage-plays; needs must they pamper and promote their filthy sins and lusts; if not ingender adultery, and lewdness in their hearts: since such creatures live not, delight not, but in elements, in pleasure like themselves; nor yet spread their n • ts, their bai • es, but in such filthy troubled streams, where they are always sure for to catch their prey, which they seldom miss at Stage-plays; where many adulterous ma • ches, many Panderly Whorish Brothel-house bargains are concluded: the common rode from the Play-house, being either with an adulteress to a Tavern; or with a Whore to a Bawdy-house; where many young Gallants, to God's dishonor, and their Parents grief; do even spend their Patrimonies, wast their bodies, damn their souls • being far more precious then the world itself • . It was the use of ancient times among the Gre • kes and Romans, after their Plays were ended, for whores to prostitute themselves to the lusts of others, either on, or under the Theaters where their Plays were acted; the same place being both a Play-house, and a Stews: whence both the Brothel-house and • h • word Fornication, derive their etimology and original from the Play-house, where Whores were harboured and trained up at first, till they were confined to the Stews. How far this usage yet continues I cannot positively determine; yet this I have heard by good intelligence; that our common Strumpets and Adulteresses after our Stage-plays ended, are ofttimes prostituted near our Play-houses, if not in them: that our Theaters if they are not Bawdy-houses (as they may easily be, since many Players, if reports be true, are common Panders, ) yet they are Cosin-germanes, at leastwise neighbors to them: Witness the Cock-pit, and Drury-lane: Black-friers Play-house, and Duke-humfries ; the Red-bull, and Turnballstreet : the Globe, and Bank-side Brothel-houses, with others of this nature: Such is the virtue of our Plays, our Play-houses, not only to instruct, and make, but likewise to draw Panders, Bauds, Whores, and Whore-masters to them, supplying them both with custom and revenue, as lamentable experience too evidently informs us. Therefore we need not doubt my Minors truth.

Fourthly, if there be any yet uncredulous of this verity, that memorable act of P. Sempronius Sophus, a worthy Roman; who gave his wife a Bill of Divorce, for no other cause at all, but that she frequented Stage-plays without his privity, the very sight of which might make her an adulteress and cause her to defile his bed: which Divorce of his the whole Roman Senate did approve, (though it were the very first that happened in the Roman State,) as being a means to keep women chaste: Together with the Constitution of Justinian, grounded upon this precedent example: That a man may lawfully put away his wife if she resort to Cirques, to Play houses, or Stage-plays without his privity and consent, because she cannot be temperate or chaste at home, who desires to be incontinent, unchaste, and to take pleasure in Play-houses abroad: will put this out of question. For if it be lawful for a man to put away his wife for resorting unto Stage-plays; because it is a ready way to make her an adulteress, if not a probable Argument that she is such a one already, since she dares resort to such lewd suspicious places: (which I would those who have Play-haunting Wives or Daughters would consider:) then Stage-plays are doubtless an apparent cause of actual adultery, and such like filthy sins. But if any man be yet unsatisfied with these evidences, let him reflect on all the several Fathers, Councils, Authors in the former Scene, and withal cast his eyes upon some pregnāt witnesses which I shall here produce; and then he cannot but subscribe unto it even with full consent. To pass by S. Cyprians testimony, who informs us; that many Virgins by frequenting Play-houses, did blast the flower of their virginity, make shipwreck of their chastity, and degenerate into common Strumpets, being Widdowes before they were Wives, and Mothers before they had Husbands; whose miserable falls the Church did much lament. An experimental evidence of this most known truth. My first witness to testify these adulterous lewd effects of Stage-plays, is Saint Chrysostom, who is exceeding copious in this Theame: his words and elegant passages against Plays, (which being dismembered into fractions will lose much of their elegance, vigor, and persuasive power,) I shall here faithfully transcribe at large, as being very pertinent to this particular Scene & purpose, though most pregnant against Stage-plays in the gross, to which we will here apply them likewise. In his 3. Homily of David and Saul ; the Title of which runs thus. That it is dangerous to go to Stage-plays, and that it makes men complete adulterers, &c. he writes thus of Stage-plays. I verily believe that many of those who left us yesterday, and departed to the Spectacles of iniquity, are this day present. I could wish I might apparently know who they are, that so I might excommunicate them the Church; not that they should always continue without, but that being chastised, they might return again. For as much as Fathers also ofttimes turn their offending children out of doors, and remove them from their table, not that they might be always exiled thence, but that being meliorated by this chastisement, they may return again into their Fathers house with due praise. The same truly do Pastors likewise whiles they separate the scabbed sheep from the whole, that being eased of their wretched disease, they may again return safely to the whole, rather then the sick should fill the whole flock with that their disease. For these reasons we did desire to know those men: but albeit we are not abl • to discrie them with our eyes, yet the Word, the Son of God will know them thoroughly, and their consciences being checked, he will easily persuade them to return willingly of their own accord; teaching them that he only is within the Church, who brings a mind • worthy this exercise: as on the contrary, he who living corrup ••• i • a partaker of this congregation, although he stand here in pe • s • n, 〈◊〉 yet cast out, and is mor • truly excluded, then those who are so shut out, that it is not lawful for them to be pa • takers of the holy Table. For they being expelled according to God's Laws, and continuing without, are yet of good hope, if so be they will amend their faults. They are cast out by the Church, that they may return again with a pure conscience. But those who defile themselves, and being admonished not to enter in before they shall have purged away the spot contracted by their •• nnes, are afterwards ashamed to repent, and so make the wound of the • r mind, both sharper and greater. For it is not so heinous a thing to offend, as after an offense to be ashamed of the remedy, and not to obey the Ministers who enjoin such things. But what so great wickedness is there here committed, say they, that men should be driven from these holy limits? Yea what offense canst thou find greater then this? when as they have manifestly defiled themselves with adultery, impudently, after the manner of mad Dogs, they rush in to this holy Table. If so be you desire to know the kind of the adultery, I will not rehearse my own words to you, but his who is to judge of the whole life of man: that man saith he, who shall look upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery in his heart. If thon a woman met casually in the street, being but carelessly attyred, hath ofttimes taken him who hath more curiously beheld her with the very aspect of her countenance: with what face can those, who not simply, nor casually, but purposely, (yea with so great affection and desire, that they likewise forsake the Church, and run to the Play-house for this very end, and sit there an whole day together idle, having their eyes fixed on the faces of those noble women,) say, that they have not looked upon them to lust after them? where effeminate and lascivious words are likewise added; where there are whorish songs; where there are voices vehemently exciting unto pleasure, where are painted eyes, where are coloured cheeks; where the attire of the whole body, is full of deceitful dies and painting, besides many other garnished enticements to deceive and inescate the beholders: where is the idleness of the Spectators, very great confusion, with the exhortation to lasciviousness, arising from thence, both from those who were present at the Plays, as also from those who afterward relate to others what things they have seen in Stage-plays. To these are added the allurements of Flutes and Pipes, and such like music enticing to deceit, effeminating the fortitude of the mind, preparing the minds of those that • it there with delight for the traps of Harlots, and causing them to be more easily ensnared. For if here were there are Psa • mes, where there is preaching of God's Word, where there is the fear of God, and much reverence, concupiscence doth ofttimes creep in privily like a crafty thief; how can those who sit idle in the Play-house; who neither see, nor hear any goodness, whose ears and eyes are bese • on every side, overcome this concupiscence? Again, if they cannot overcome it, how can they ever be absolved from the crime of adultery? Then how can those who are not yet free from the sin of adultery, come to these sacred Temples without repentance, and be partakers of this excellent Assembly? Wherefore I do earnestly exhort and entreat them, that they would first cleanse themselves by confession, repentanc • , and all other remedies, from the sin they have contr • cted from Stage-plays, and so they may hear God's Word. Neither do we here commit a small sin, as any one may easily discern by examples. For if a servant should put his servile apparel, that is fraught with filth and many lice, into a cabinet where his Masters rich, his golden robes and garments are laid up; I pray tell me, wouldest thou easily • ro • ke such a contempt? But what if one should cast dung and d • rt into a golden vessel in which precious ointments have been always usually kept; wouldest thou not cudgle him who committed this notorious villainy? And after all this shall we be so carefully solicitous of our caskets, and vessels, of our clothes and unguents, and yet estimate our souls more base then any of these? Shall we there where the spirit is an oyn • meant poured out, cast in the Devils pomps? Shall we there lay up the fables of Satan, or songs that are full of whorish filthiness? Go too, tell me with what mind can God endure this? D • ubtlesse there is not so great a difference between ointment and dirt, between the Masters and the Servants clothes, as there is between the grace of the Spirit, and this perverse action. Doest thou not fear, doest thou not tremble, whiles thou beholdest this holy Table where dreadful mysteries are administered, with the selfsame eyes that thou diddest behold the bed on the Stage; where the detestable fables of adultery are acted? whiles with the same ears thou hearest an adulterer speaking obscenely, and a Prophet and an Apostle leading thee into the mysteries of the Scripture? whiles with the same heart thou receivest deadly poison, and this holy and dreadful Sacrament? Are not these Plays the subversion of life, the corruption, the destruction of marriages, the cause of wars, of fightings, and brawls in houses? For when thou shalt return home from these Stage-plays more dissolute, effeminate and wanton, being made an enemy of all chastity, the sight of thy wife will be less pleasing to thee, let her be what she will. For being inflamed with that concupiscence which thou hast drunk in at Stage-plays, and being taken with that new sight which hath besotted thee, thou despisest thy sober modest wife, who is contented with ordinary diet, and upbraidest her with innumerable reproaches; not because thou findest anything blame-worthy in her, but because thou blushest to confess thy disease, because thou art ashamed to discover that wound, with which thou hast returned home maimed from Stage-plays: Thou framest other excuses, seeking unjust occasions of displeasure, loathing all those things that are to be done at home, gaping after that wicked and unclean concupiscence from which thou hast received an wound: and whiles thou carriest in thine ears a ringing sound of a voice, and with these, the face, the motion, briefly all those images of whorish lust, thou beholdest nothing of that thou hast at • ome with pleasure. And what do I speak of a wife or family, when as afterwards, thou wilt be less willing to visit the very Church it self, when as thou wilt hear a Sermon of chastity, and of modesty with irkesomnesse? Neither are these things which are now spoken to thee, for instruction, but for accusation; and they will bring thee by little and little to despair; yea at last thou wilt suddenly sever thyself from the discipline administered for the public good of all. Wherefore I entreat you all, that you would avoid the wicked commemorations in Stage-plays yourselves, and likewise draw back others from them, who have been led unto them. For whatever is there done, is not delight or recreation, but destruction, but torment, but punishment. What good doth this temporary pleasure do, whiles everlasting torment issu • s from it, and whiles being pricked night and day with concupiscence, thou art troublesome and hateful unto all? Wherefore rouse up thyself, and consider what a one thou art made returning from the Church: again, what a one thou art, coming from Stage-plays, and compare these days with those: if thou wilt do thus, there will be no need of my speech. For it will be sufficient to have compared this day with that, to show what great profit comes from the one side, and how great hurt from • he other. These things I thought good to speak to your charity at this time, neither will I ever cease to speak. For so we shall both admonish those who are obnoxious to this disease; and we shall confirm those who are now whole: for this oration will be profitable to both; to the one that they may desist; to the other, that they may not fall into it. So in his first Homily upon the 50. Psalm, he is very punctual to our purpose. David (writes he) as he was walking upon the top of his Palace after dinner, saw a woman washing her self, and the woman was very fair and beautiful to look upon. He saw her, I say, and he is wounded in his eye, and receiveth a dart. Let curious persons hear this who contemplate the beauty of others. Let those hear this, who are possessed with the unruly delight or desire of Stage-plays. Who say: we do in truth behold them; but without detriment. What hear I? David is hurt? and art not thou hurt? He is wounded; and can I trust to th • strength? He who had so great a measure of the spirit received a dart; and doest thou deny that thou art pierced? And yet he beheld not an harlot, but an honest, chaste woman; and that not in the Theater, but at home: but thou beholdest an harlot in the Play-house, where even the very place it self, makes the soul liable to punishment: neither doest thou only see, but thou likewise hearest dishonest words, and meritricious obscene songs, and thy mind is wounded on every side: to wit, by the sight, with those things which thou seest; by the ear, with those things which thou hearest: by the smell, with those things which thou sm • llest. And when as there are so many precipices, so many corruptions, how can I believe thee to be free from the biting • of wild beasts? Art thou a stone? art thou iron? Thou art a man subject to the common fra • lty of nature. Doest thou behold the fire, and yet art not burned? Whether is this agreeable to reason? Put a candle into straw, and then dare thou to deny that the straw will be burnt. That verily which stubble is, even that is our nature. Let our Play-haunters then consider this, and give this godly Father an answer to these his pithy interrogations. The like passage we find in this 17. Homely upon the 5. of Matthew: upon these words, If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out, &c. Let those (writes he) hear these words who so often hasten to the Theater, and do there almost daily defile themselves with the filthiness of adultery. For if the Law command even him who is bound unto thee by familiarity, if he scandalize thee, to be cut off and cast away; with what satisfaction now at last can they be defended, who by their conversation and stay at Play-houses, do daily get the acquaintance of those lewd ones who were not formerly known to them; & also administer a thousand occasions of destruction to themselves. Again, in his Homily upon the 118. alias the 119. Psalm. verse. 151.152. he writes thus. Let none account his life vile, let none cleave fast to vanity. We cannot serve two Masters; he serves two masters, who goes to Church one day, and to Stage-plays another day. Such a one hath two coats; he is far from that Coat which cannot be divided, far from the Wedding garment; because, that is a Wedding garment which hath no spot. For he who goes one day to the Church, another day to Plays, wears a defiled garment. Every Servant standing with a blemish at his Masters Table, is cast out, and chastised with stripes: keep your garment pure as you received it in baptism. Let no man defile i • with his manners, let no man rend so beautiful a vestment with the wickedness of his heart. You have received such a Garment in baptism as the Angels had who attended the Lord in his Sepulcher, whose ra • meant was as white as snow; A • d you have received such a gift of grace • keep that you have received. He that defiles this garment, let him wash it with tears, let him separate himself from the wicked, let him confess his sins to God, and having reformed his life, let him not return as a Dog to his vomit. What fellowship hath light with darkness, or what part hath he that believeth with an Infidel. You who are the Sons of the Church ought not to be depraved in the vanities of Stage-plays. The Church will not endure you stink, she cannot be defiled with your entrance; she mou • nes and sighs to God because she seeth her Sons to be such. Tremble every day, lest God wax angry, and so you perish from the right way. Acknowledge the very signs of his displeasure, because the Heaven is made Brasse, and the Earth Iron; The very Elements proclaim the wrath of God. O ye Sons of Men how long will you be slow of heart? why do you love vanity in Stage-plays, and seek after leasing in Stage-players? Know ye that the Lord hath made admirable the soul of all such who depart not out of the Church. The soul is heard when she cries unto God, whiles she departs not from God. Be not ye luke-warm lest ye be spewed out of the heart of God. He himself hath spoken by his Prophet: Because thou art neither cold, nor hot, and I would thou wert either cold or hot; but because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. We perform our duty who speak true things of the truth. You if you have entered into the Physicians house, that you might cure your wounds, lament your wounds. The medicines being laid on, let the corruptions be purged out; let h • alth increase, that so the Church seeing your • mendment, may rejoice o • her Sons; because • where sin hath abounded, grace hath superabounded. In his Homily upon the 140. Psalm ; (an excellent dissuasive from ill company who keep men from repentance, and harden them in their sins) he hath this passage. Many are captivated of fornication, and have kindled a fire of lust, whiles they have followed feasts, and Theaters, having much iniquity in them: A pregnant evidence for our present purpose. In his first Homily on Isaiah 6.1. I saw also the Lord sitting upon a Throne high and lifted up, &c. he descants thus of Play-haunters, and the fruits of Stage-plays, which I would our Players, and Play-frequenters would consider. There are among those here present, whom I think are not unknown to your charity, who contemning God, and accounting the oracles of the Spirit as vulgar and profane, utter confused word, and carry themselves no better then mad men, keeping a stir, and turning about with their whole body, demeaning themselves so, as misbeseemes a Spiritual meeting. O miserable and unhappy wretch! Thou oughtest to sing the Angelical glorification or Hymn with trembling and reverence, and to confess to the Creator with fear, and by this to crave pardon of thy sins. But thou (here comes the fruit of Stage-plays in,) bringest in hither the manners of Players and Dancers; whiles thus evidently throwest about thine hands, skippests about with thy feet, and whirlests about with thy whole body. And how comes it to pass that thou fearest, that thou tremblest not whiles thou darest do thus, against such sacred oracles? Doest not thou think that the Lord himself is here invisibly present, who measureth every ones motion, and takes an account of his conscience? Doest thou not think that, the Angels stand round about his dreadful Table, and compass it about with r • verence? But thou thinkest not of these things. and why? pray mark it: because those things which thou hast heard and seen at Stage-plays have clouded thy mind: and therefore those things which are done there, thou bringest in among the rites of the Church; therefore thou doest utter thy incomposed mind in insignificant clamors. How then wilt thou ask pardon for thy sins? how wilt thou receive the Lord into thy house, when as thou prayest to him so contemptuously? Thou sayest, God have mercy upon me; and yet thou declarest such manners as are contrary to mercy. Thou criest, save me; and yet expressest such a gesture, as is a stranger to salvation. Why doest thou stretch out thine hands to pray, which are always tossed up on high, which are wheeled up and down unseemly, and make a confused noise with their veh • meant clapping and beating? Are not these things verily, partly the practices of common Bauds and Strumpets; partly the examples of those who cry out aloud in Play-houses? How then dost thou dare to mix the sports of Devils, with the Hymns of Angels praising God? Yea why dost thou not fear this speech which there thou utterest, saying • Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto him with trembling. Is this to serve with fear, to be so loud and clamorous, that thou thyself knowest not what thou speakest with the confused bellowing of thy voice? This verily savors of contempt, not of fear: of arrogancy, not of modesty: this is rather a part of such who are playing then confessing, &c. The Prophet saith, Rejoice in the Lord all the earth; make a joyful noise unto God all ye lands. Neither do we prohibit the voice of praise; but the voice of absurdity, and confusion, the vain and rash lifting up of the hands into the air, the tinkling of the feet, unseemly and effeminate songs, which are the proper sports of those who sit idle in Play-houses, From thence these pernicious ensamples are brought in among us; from thence are irreligious and vulgar voices, from thence the absurdity of the hands, contentious combats, disorderly manners. For nothing doth bring the oracles of God into so great contempt, as the admiration of those Stage-plays and Spectacles which are there proposed. Wherefore I have oft exhorted you, that not one of those who come hither, and enjoy the divine doctrine, and are likewise partakers of the dreadful and mystical Sacrament, should go unto these Stage-plays, nor yet entermixt these divine mysteries with demoniacall. Notwithstanding some have grown so mad, that even then when they carry about a show of Religion, and are grown very white with extreme old age, they run to them notwithstanding, neither regarding our words, nor respecting their own outward show. But as oft as we inculcate this speech unto them, and exhort them to respect their old age and religion, how great then is their coldness? how ridiculous their speech? They say, that these things are an example of the victory and crowns which shall be in the world to come, and we reap much profit from thence. What sayest thou man? This is a rotten speech, and full of deceit. From whence canst thou reap any profit thence? From innumerable contentions? from the rash oaths of evil speakers? Or from t • e abuses, the revilings, the scoffs with which the Spectators besprincle one another? But from these there is no good reaped; therefore thou altogether reapest benefit from confused voices, insignificant clamors, as well from him who is cast down upon the arena, as from those who cast him down, who offer vio • ence, who are mad or foolish and dissemble before women. But here verily all the Prophets and teachers do show the very Lord of Angels upon an high and elevated Throne, and distribute to those who are worthy, rewards and crowns, but to the unworthy they assign Hell: and even the Lord himself doth ratify this. Besides thou doest verily contemn these things, in which there is likewise terror of conscience, redargution of thy deeds, fear of punishments and accusations, and inevitable torments. But yet that thou mayest find a certain excuse of thy Stage-plays on which thou earnestly gazest, thou sayest, thou reapost profit from them by whom thou sufferest irrecoverable loss. I entreat, and beseech again and again, that we excuse not our excuses in sins: for these are but pretences and deceits by which we procure damage to ourselves. In his 6. Homily upon Matthew, he writes thus of laughter and Stage-plays. If thou therefore power out such tears thou becomest a follower of thy Lord: for he wept when he raised up Lazarus, and when he looked back upon Jerusalem that was to be sacked. He was likewise troubled with the treason and destruction of Judas. So verily thou mayest ofttimes find him weeping, but never laughing, no nor yet so much as slightly rejoicing with a smile. Truly no Evangelist hath made mention of any such thing. That Paul likewise wept night and day for 3. years together, both others testify of him, and he likewise of himself: but tha • • he ever laughed, neither doth he himself show anywhere nor any other for him. Yea not one of all the Saints hath ever signified any such thing either of himself or of any other. We read of none but Sarah only in the Scripture that laughed, (yea she is presently reproved by the voice of God) and of the Son of Noah: but for that laughter, of a Free-man he was made a slave. And this I speak not to take away laughter altogether, but that I might quite extingush all dissoluteness of life. Our Christ therefore speaks many things to us concerning mourning • both by blessing those that mourn, and by pronouncing those miserable that laugh. For we do not come into a Play-house, that is, where laughter may be moved; neither do we therefore ofttimes meet together, that we should recreate ourselves, with undecent cachinnations; but rather that we might mourn, and by it inherit a Kingdom to come. For thou verily if thou standest but in the presence of an earthly King, wilt not dare so much as to smile. But yet when thou hast the Lord of Angels himself present everywhere, thou standest not before him with trembling and greatest reverence; but even when he is angry thou laugh • st, neither dost thou consider, that by this thou dost more offend him, then thou didest displease him with thy sin. Neither doth God so much detest sinners, as those who are secure after their sins commit • ed. And yet there are some so utterly insensible, and iron-like, that after all these words they will say: verily I would to God that I might never chance to weep, but God grant me, that I may rather always play and be merry. What, I pray, can be found more childish then such a mind? For God never taught or granted men to play; but the Devil. Hear therefore what Players have heretofore suffered. The people, saith he, sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Such were there heretofore in Sodom: such likewise were there at the time of the Flood: for the Lord saith of them, That they abounded with pride, with fullness of bread, and with riches. Those likewise in the time of Noah, When they saw the Ark building for so many years together, did shun all the dolor of compunction, and did only civilly serve their flattering mirth, being nothing careful of things to come; and therefore the sudden punishment of the Flood did drown them all, and there was made a common shipwreck of the whole world. Wherefore crave not thou that from God which thou receivest from the Devil. For it is God's use to give an humbled, trembling, broken, chaste, penitent, and wounded soul. These verily are the gifts of God, because we likewise stand most in nee • of such. For a great combat hangs over our heads: and we must fight against invisible powers, against spiritual wickednesses; and against such like Principalities, and Powers; and it is well with us, if giving all diligence, and watching with all, we may be able to endure their fierce assaults. But if we laugh and play, fostering with all perpetual idlene • se, we shall be most easily overcome of our own idlen • sse also, even before the fight. Wherefore it is not our parts to laugh continually, to let ourselves loose to cachinnations and derisions, to effeminate ourselves with delight, but rather of those men and women Actors who are beheld in Play-houses, who are defiled in Brothel-houses; of Parasites and flatterers who are made for this very purpose. This is not, I say, the part of those, who are called to an eternal Kingdom, and are likewise registered in that celestial Kingdom: this is not the part of those who carry spiritual armor, which verily is proper only to the Soldiers of the Devil: For he it is who hath digested jests and plays into an art, that by these he might draw the Soldiers of Christ unto himself, and might weaken the nerves of their virtue. Wherefore he hath likewise erected Theaters in Cities, and hath prepared these incentives of laughter and filthy pleasure: and by their pestilence, he raiseth up the like plague upon the whole Citty. Which things S. Paul commands us to fl • e, exhorting, that we should put far from us all foolish speaking & surrility; then which laughter is far more pernicious, and • ar • e worse. For when those Stage-players and ridiculous persons, have uttered any blasphemous and filthy thing, then especially all the simpler sort are most excessive in their laughter; applauding them most in that, for which verily they ought to have cast stones at them, who kindle a furnace of dreadful fire upon their own heads by this kind of pleasure. For those who applaud the utterers of these things, persuade them for to act them; and therefore for this they deserve rather to undergo the punishment which is appointed for these things. For if there were no spectator, nor maintainer of such things, there would certainly be none who would care to act them. But when they see you to forsake your own callings, yea the very places of your daily work, and the gain you reap from thence, and all things else, for love of this vain spectacle, they are then carried to these things with a more earnest intention, and bestow more study in them. And this I speak, not to excuse their fault, but that you may learn, that you especially are the spring and head of this iniquity, who spend the whole day in such ridiculous, in such pernicious pleasures, proclaiming abroad the honest name of Wedlocke, and the reverend business in it. For he who personates these things doth not sin so much as thou who commandest them to be done. Neither dost thou only command and call for, but thou dost likewise further the things that are acted, by thy exultation, laughter, applause; and by all manner of means thou maintainest this Diabolical Shop. With what eyes then canst thou now behold thy wife, which thou hast there seen prostrated to so great injury in the person of another? How canst thou refrain from blushing, as oft as thou rememberest thy wife, when thou shalt there see the same sex so filthily made common? Neither mayest thou reply unto me now, that whatsoever is there done is but a fiction or feigned argument, but not the truth of things. For this very • eining (which comes home to our purpose) hath made very many adulterers, and overthroweth many houses. And therefore it grieves me most, that this so great an evil, is not believed to be an evi •• ; but that which is far the worst of all, both • avour, and clamor, and applause, and laughter are expressed, when so beastly adultery is committed to the public hurt. What then sayest thou, is this only feining not a crime? Well therefore are these worthy of a thousand deaths, because what all laws command men to shun, those things are these not afraid to imitate. For if adultery it self be evil, doubtless the imitation of it must be evil. And I do not yet report how many and great adulterers they may make who personate such adulteries in an histrionical fiction, and how impudent likewise they make their spectators. For there is nothing more filthy, nothing more lascivious then that eye, that can patiently, that I say not willingly, behold such things. Moreover what a thing is this, that when as thou wilt not so much as look upon a naked woman in the street, yea nor yet at home, but if such a thing fall out by accident thou thinkest it done to injure thee; that yet when as thou goest up to the Play-house, that thou mayest violate the chastity of both Sexes, and mayest likewise incestuously defile thine own eyes, thou believest that no dishonest thing befalls thee? For thou canst not say thus, that she is an harlot that is thus uncovered; because it is nature it self, and there is the same body of an whore, and of a free woman. For if thou thinkest that there is no obscenity in such a fight, for what cause when as thou shalt see the same thing in the street, doest thou step back again from thy intended walk, and most severely rebuke that immodesty? unless perchance thou believest, the same thing not to be alike filthy when we are severed, and when we sit all together. But this is merely derision and shame, and words altogether of extreme folly; and it is better for one to besmeare his whole face with clay and dirt, then with a spectacle of so great filthiness. For dirt is not so noxious to the eyes, as that unchaste spectacle, and the sight of a naked Harlot. Hear therefore what nakedness brought upon mankind even from the beginning, and even by this means fear that filthiness. What then hath made men naked? disobedience and the counsel of the Devil, so much hath this always pleased him from the beginning. But they verily when they were naked, were yet ashamed; you repute the same thing worthy praise, according to that of the Apostle, glorying in your shame. After what manner therefore can thy wi • e from henceforth behold thee returning from such a contumely? how can she entertain or speak to one so unworthily defiling the condition and sex of woman's nature; yea and returning a captive, a servant of an whorish woman from such a spectacle. If then you grieve when you hear these things, I confess that I give you, and owe you the greatest thanks. For who is he that doth comfort me, but he who is made sorrowful by me? Wherefor cease not to mourn for this licentiousness, and oft to be grieved for it. For this grie • e will be made unto you a beginning of conversion unto better things. Wherefore I have more earnestly pressed my speech, that I might free you by a more deep incision from their corruption by whom you are intoxicated, and might revoke you to pure holiness of mind • : which verily, together with the promised rewards of piety, we may all happen to enjoy by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be glory forever and ever, Amen. In his 7. Homely upon Matthew