Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	lord_n	see_v	word_n	3,071	5	3.9363	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10335	Th'overthrow of stage-playes, by the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; th'objections aunswered, and the case so cleared and resolved, as that the iudgement of any man, that is not froward and perverse, may easelie be satisfied. Wherein is manifestly proved, that it is not onely vnlawfull to bee an actor, but a beholder of those vanities. Wherevnto are added also and annexed in th'end certeine latine letters betwixt the sayed Maister Rainoldes, and D. Gentiles, reader of the civill law in Oxford, concerning the same matter.	Rainolds, John, 1549-1607.; Gentili, Alberico, 1552-1608.	1599 (1599)	STC 20616; ESTC S115568	189,176	200

such a case For by evill is sinne meant Sinne is the transgression of the law The law allowed Priestes to worke on the Sabbat day in offering sacrifices And sacrifice did not please God in comparison of mercy Therefore to doe that worke of mercie and charitie for the reliefe of hungrie bodies vpon the Sabbath day was not euill Contrariwise when Peter being in danger of trouble and vexation if he had bene known to be of Christes disciples did therevpon denie that hee knew him or had bene with him he was put in minde by Christs wordes deedes and he did acknowledge by his owne teares that hee should not haue done so Why Because he lyed and to lye is euill not allowed in any case by our Lawgiuer no not for the defense of the glorie of God much lesse for the safetie of man a woorme By conference and laying of which thinges together we are taught this difference betwene the morall law and the ceremoniall that the ceremoniall was not enioyned to be kept absolutelie and simply and therefore when it could not bee kept without the breach af the morall lawe the law of loue and charitie it yeelded therevnto but the morall lawe is simply and absolutely enioyned to be kept as a paterne of that holinesse which God requireth in his children Be yee holy for I am holy and therefore who so breaketh any part thereof though to keepe an other parte doeth defile himselfe and displease the Highest Now the prohibitiō of men to be attired as wemen wemen as men belongeth to the morall not to the ceremoniall law For Christ hath delivered vs frō the keeping of the ceremoniall So that were this difference of attire a ceremonie then Christian men and wemen might e●…h cōtinuallie weare the others rayment as lawfully as they may weare a garment made of linen wollen sow their field with maslin plow with an oxe and an asse eate of swines flesh of blood of strangled if not more lawfullie rather then these last which the Apostles did forbid the Gentiles for a time in respect of the Iewes But they may not weare ech the others raiment as the generall precepts absolutelie giuen in the new testament touching the distinct and severall attire of both sexes shew It is a cōmandment therfore of the morall law that wemen shall not attire them selves like men nether men like wemen And hereof it foloweth that if a man might saue his life or benefit many by putting on womans raimēt yet ought he not to do it because it is euill Nay which addeth greater weight vnto the reason it is a notorious and detestable euill as the Spirite sheweth by the words ensuing For all that doe so are abomination to the Lord thy God And seeing that himself hath giuen this censure God forbid but we should thinke it most true and iust although our weake eyesight could discerne no cause why so small a matter as flesh and blood might countit should be controlled so sharpelie Howbeir if wee marke with iudgement and wisedome first how this precept is referred by learned Divines to the cōmandment Thou shalt not commit adulterie some expreslie making it a point annexed therto some impliedlie in that either they knit it to modestie a parte of temperance or note the breach of it as ioyned with wantonnesse and impuritie next among the kindes of adulterous lewdnesse howe filthie and monstrous a sinne against nature mens naturall corruption and vitiousnes is prone to the Scripture witnesseth it in Cananites Iewes Corinthians other in other nations one with speciall caution Nimium est quod intelligitur thirdlie what sparkles of lust to that vice the putting of wemens attire on men may kindle in vncleane affections as Nero shewed in Sporus Heliogabalus in him selfe yea certaine who grew not to such excesse of impudencie yet arguing the same in causing their boyes to weare long heare like wemen if we consider these things I say we shall perceiue that hee who condemneth the female hoore and male and detesting speciallie the male by terming him a dogge reiecteth both their offeringes with these wordes that they both are abomination to the Lorde thy God might well controll likewise the meanes and occasions whereby men are transformed into dogges the sooner to cutt off all incitements to that beastlie filthines or rather more then beastlie But whether this were part of the cause that moved the Spirit of God or no it is cleere and certaine that hee pronounceth them abominable in his sight or as the Hebrues speake more forciblie abomination whosoeuer put on the different sexes raiment And so it being simplie and absolutelie vnlawfull because it is forbidden by the morall law and proved to be evill a fowle abominable evill in Gods sight the Christian faith instructeth vs that wee may not doe it for any good to come thereof no not for the saving of honor wealth or life of others or our selues The argumēts wherby you striue to proue the contrarie are drawen from two exāples One of the Macedonians whose king Amyntas entertaining Persian ambassadors having at their request broght noble wemen to the banket when the embassadours dalying with them did touch their brests offred some to kisse them the kings sonne misliking their lascivious actions desired thē to giue the wemen leaue to go forth pretēding they should returne neater so by his directiō there came in their steed yong men attired like them with daggers vnder their garmentes who slew the embassadours as soone as they offered to touch them The other of Achilles whose mother Thetis at the time of the Troian warre knowing as Poëts faine that hee should dye at Troy if he went thither with the Grecians did thervpo●… attire him they say as a woman and committed him as her daughter to Lycomedes king of Scyros there to bee kept safe from that danger For hence you conclude that a man may lawfully putt on womans raiment to benefit others to saue his life because the Macedonians by their young Princes motion and Achilles did so Which argument if it holde then may a man lye to saue his life or benefit others because David did so then may a man forsweare to saue his life or benefite others because Peter did so For the examples of Prophets and Apostles are surer groundes to build on then of Achilles or Macedonians But you will not say that wee may forsweare nor lye I hope for any cause sure the Scripture will not neither the best Divins no not Schoolemen or Canonistes which yet in many points are farre beneth the best you must remember therefore that wee are to liue by lawes not by examples and regard in Macedonie and Greece as in

good nature and honest ingenuitie of such of the parties as I knowe but if they had not yet I being taught to presume the best by him who sayeth that charitie beleeueth all things hopeth all things was to deeme they had and so I doe still Yea although you saye it greeueth them not a little that they should in private but much more in publike be charged with infamie I beleeue and hope so much the better of them knowing that there is a griefe to repentance which the Lorde worketh in his by such reproofes and it was well with Peter whē he wept bitterlie Wherefore hauing this perswasion of your players euen of them for whose partes I charged playes most namelie Hippodamia Melantho the Nyph Phaedra her Nurse if I should haue noted them as infamous them I saye not their partes these players and not players I should haue taken on me the iudgement that belongeth vnto the searcher of heartes and reines and spoken against mine owne conscience Which if you haue made them beleeue I loue them so ill by reason of the bad conceit I haue of them that I would doe of spite and malice to discredit them yet lett me intreat them to thinke I loue my selfe better then that I would through their sides wounde mine owne who when I was about the age that they are six and twentie yeares since did play a womans parte vpon the same stage the part of Hippolyta As for you who pretending in your proposition you would assay to shewe that the trueth in this controuersie belongeth rather to your aunswers then to the reasons fathered on Momus doe afterward endeuour in your confutation to obscure darken the trueth with mistes of pitie and humane affectiōs inculcating that it would be a contumelie to this or that youth with manie vnlesse the cause be wonne on your side lett mee intreat you likewise to regard hereafter if not my most reasonable petition and desire yet your owne conclusion who saying you may graunt without offence you trust that your censure of Momus in the generalitie lighteth vpon me doe adde these woordes to proove it For the maine matter is not whether you had occasion to thinke your self to bee touched in the generalitie or no being of that opinion you are but whether the opinion bee iustifiable or no. Which point if you remember in your next replie though next replie rather I need not much to feare if this point be remembred no more then Cato needed to feare Galbas aunswere who had bene condemned except he had vsed boyes teares as Cato wrote but had you remembred it in your last replie you might haue induced me the more easilie to hearken vnto your advise and request that I should rather deale with you by private conference then by furder writing if you had greatlie erred in any thing For the trueth and equitie of that which I said in defense of the reasons fathered on Momus to the reproofe of playes is so vndoubted and manifest of it selfe that men of vnderstanding and sense who should compare your replie with it must though I kept silence needes perceyue your stomake was sick of that hunger which for an inordinate appetite it breedeth Physicians call the dogged appetite more greedily disposed to deuoure and swallow vp all that it mett with then able to concoct or to retaine well ought that it had taken A proofe heereof you giue in your verie beginning by crossing of my proême Wherein I hauing thanked you for that by enlarging your aunswere to Momus you shewed why you thought our reasons to be naught sith that your reprooving thereof did touch mee also who tooke them not to bee rascall reproches as you termed them but sound reasons euerie braunch hereof you carpe and checke But how First where I had written that as our Saviour when he was smitten by one for speaking naught but reason saide If I haue spoken evill beare witnesse of the evill but if well why doest thou smite me so they whose obiections against playes you attributed to the person of Momus might iustlie saye in my iudgement If our reasons be naught discouer their naughtines if good why doe you Mome vs You replie that no man can rightlie say to you If our reasons bee naught discouer their naughtines if good why doe you Mome vs as Christ might truely say If I haue spoken euill beare witnes of the evill but if well why doest thou smite me because he vndoubtedlie had said nothing but reason and therefore was most vniustlie smitten but the obiections in your case and against you are most vntrue and there is no man smiten by you Then which speech of yours I pray you be not offended with me for my plainesse I neuer read anie to my remembrance more voide of reason For our Sauiours dilemma according to the naturall force of that argument was made to apprehend and holde fast his aduersarie whether soeuer him selfe had spoken euill or well So that when the two theeues who suffered with Christ and deserued death were brought into iudgement in case the iudge had offered to giue sentence against them before they * heard why they might haue iustlie saide If we haue robbed any beare witnesse of our robberie if not why doe you condemne vs Wherfore when to reproove the former part of my dilemma you affirme that no man can rightlie saye vnto you If our reasons bee naught discouer their naughtines because Christ vndoubtedlie had saide nothing but reason vndoubtedly your selfe doe speak beside all reason As much in a manner as beside the trueth when to reprooue the later part thereof you adde that you doe Mome no man For so must I interpret your wordes of smiting no man or else you speake beside all reason herein too when vpon my citing Christes wordes Why doest thou smite me by way of similitude to your Moming vs you say no man is smitten by you But that some are smitē by you with Momus name euen all reproovers of playes and so which is the next branch you plucke at my selfe I shewed by the meaning of the tale of Momus opened out of Aristotle ioyned with your applying thereof vnto a person who chargeth playes as we doe To the refutation whereof it maketh nothing that when you declared you did enlarge therefore your aunswer vnto Momus because I and others had asked why the thinges by him obiected were not answered you say that by others you meant some of your friends not reprovers of playes and that you had no purpose to touch me in particular nor knew when you conceyued and penned the devise of Momus that I had reprooved them For was it the man in the moone trow we whose rascall reproches or as you correct it triviall and common you put in the mouth of Momus and made your Epilog controll them Or was it some on earth whose speeches being

kept and they presume that Poperie is the Catholike faith Likewise the meanest advocate in a court of law might speede all his clients by saying that such as haue wrong offered them ought to be releeved and hee presumeth his clients haue so Neither had you needed to write so long a reply of twelue leaves to me twelue wordes might haue sufficed that you presume my cause is naught and naughty things must not be credited But your selfe acknowledge that this prooveth not the lawfulnes of your playes So that in affirming you did presume them to bee lawfull and calling it a simple assertion which you avowed concerning sports you speake more trueth then you intended For it is a simple assertion in deede to say that sports are needfull against a mans arguments who saith that stage-playes are vnlawfull And hee may be iustly noted of presumption who beeing vnable to proove a thing he fansieth condemneth them as Momes that are minded otherwise and bring sound proofe against it Howbeit had you kept your selfe within the compasse of such oversights you were more excusable But it is a greater fault to play the sclanderer by falsifying mens wordes and fathering vpon them an erroneous sentence which never came into their mindes nor fell out of their mouths or pennes And what doe you else when having saide that I vse many wordes against dansing you reply that you loue to see honest dansing and you see no cause in reason charitie or Christian libertie why dansing should simply be condemned For hereby you insinuate or pronounce rather that I condemned dansing simply and honest dansing whereas my wordes were that danses of Penelopes wooers of Melantho of other of her maides and simply all stage-dansing do savour of dishonestie Which differeth as much from that you father on me as the speech of Christ Destroy ye this temple in three dayes I will raise it vp againe meaning of his body did differ from that which the false witnesses affirmed him to haue said of the temple of God the temple made with handes Nay it surpasseth that of the false witnesses it differeth as much as if where Christ saide that all vngodly men shall perish they had fathered on him that all men shall perish And your crime herein is the more blamewoorthy because I had so plainly excepted certaine dansing that you can not seeme to haue mistaken my wordes and reade all dansing for all stage-dansing but wilfully and advisedly to haue misreported mee For I said expressely I meant those danses that I specified and not Davids dansing which S t Ambrose doeth well distinguish from them Now S t Ambrose saith that Davids religious and godly dansing is decent but the dangerous dansing practised by players and the foolish toyes the dotages of the stage are faultie even in youth too So both mine owne woords and the autour I cited doe manifestlie shew that whē you tooke vpō you to prayse honest dansing and said you saw no cause in charitie or reason why dansing should simply be condemned you could not but in reason and charitie see cause why you should have dealt more simply and honestly then so calumniouslie to raise a false surmise of me You know what creature it is whom the scripture nameth a calumniatour Beside as you offend in charging me with that I said not so in going about to overthrow that which I said For whereas I affirmed that dansing of Penelopes wooers with her maides and simply all stage-dansing is disallowed by the light of nature and for proofe thereof did alleage the testimonies of Romans putt by Nero of Philistines putting Samson to it and of all ancient lawes in a manner yea of reason it selfe as Arias Montanus noteth you avouching two mens opinions to the contrarie doe adde that to apply either the dansing of those noble Romans whom Nero enforced to danse so publikely or Samsons dansing among the Philistines or the note of Arias Montanus against your dansing onely of two sober measures is a comparison without all measure Wherein first through negligence of marking my words or desire of crossing them before you vnderstood them you misreport my drift and say that I applyed those thinges against your dansing onely of two sober measures you meane the wooers dansing with the maides which I applyed not against it alone but against the rest of your stage-dansing also that is all your stage-playing For this did I betoken by the name of stage-dansing the better to expresse the sentence that I had in hand of Saint Ambrose who by dansing noteth all histrionicall motions and playings on the stage in like sort as Horace saith one was requested to danse Polyphemus meaning to play his part and Plancus dansed Glaucus in Uelleius storie and g stage-players dansed Oedipus and Hercules in Macrobius and Arnobius speaketh of dansing Europa Leda Ganymedes Neither was it hard for you to perceiue that I meant thus much if you had better weighed the branches of my speech proofes therto answering concluded with the note of Arias Montanus touching not onely dansers but persons of such shewes spectacles Chiefly if you had looked on the autour him selfe and marked that in the persons of such shewes and spectacles he compriseth stage-players as the generalitie of his wordes exemplified by Nero maketh plaine An other iniurie is it that you terme those proofes of mine a comparison and which is more a comparison without all measure What measure you did vse in the meting out hereof I can not guesse vnlesse peradventure because that you had heard that comparisons are odious you hoped you should make all my proofes odious by naming them comparisons For I having noted against your argument drawne from sports and recreations that sports by the light of nature are accounted vnseemelie bad infamous and so is all stage-dansing did alleage the iudgements of Romans of Philistines of ancient lawes well nigh all and of reason it selfe as testimonies to proove that proposition by not as comparisons but as testimonies And therefore in the note of Arias Montanus I did omitt that he saith of the law of God condemning stage-playes likewise because that might goe higher then the light of nature Otherwise you may be sure that I who cited him for mens lawes a thing of weaker proofe would not have omitted the lawe of GOD his strongest argument But if I had ioyned supernaturall light to the light of nature and had produced testimonies of the Scripture also would you have replied that to alleage the Scripture is a comparison without all measure You must by like reason And what should stay you from it All would have espied that it were no comparison Why more then the note of Arias Montanus which yet when you had cast my allegation of the Romans and Philistines in such a mould that it could not appeare

I brought them in as testimonies you named with them for company a comparison too Though seeing you are greeved with my applying of it against your stage-dansing and that induced you to call it a cōparison me thinks you should have fastned that odious name rather on the proposition prooved by those testimonies For the proofes reach not you immediatlie they fight not nigh at hande the proposition doeth as being the maior of that argument wherof your stage-players make the minor And the proposition condemning all stage-dansing doth giue a deadlyer wound nether can it choose but light on your stage-dansing the proofes might seeme to be more easilie avoided or comming so farre off to raze the skinne onely Againe my applying of the proposition to you by the assumption would deserve more woorthily the name of a comparison and the assumption being particular or singular the proposition vniversall were not this applying of all against some a comparison without all measure The third iniurious part offered me in this point is that you alleage the iudgement of Homer and Syr Thomas Eliot as making for that dansing which I did reproove And bringing in the former of them by a figure saying To omit Homers iudgment thereof him self you call an excellent observer of decorum in all things and quote for his iudgement the eight booke of his Odyssea Now better had it ben●…●…or you to omit him without a figure in deede sith he describing there the life of King Alcinous and of his people the Phaeacians saieth that they tooke pleasure continually in feasting and musicke and daunsing and braverie of apparell and hott baths and chambering wherein a livelie paterne of a wanton riotous voluptuous Epicures life being sett foorth by Homer as Horace Athenaeus Eustathius may teach you if I should not haue blamed dansing in your playes because such an excellent observer of decorum saith the Phoeacians vsed it then must the belly bee your players God because such an excellent observer of decorū saith the Phoeacians served it Moreover seeing that the Musicke which the minstrell gave thē to their dansing was a song of Mars taken in adulterie with Venus Vulcans wife you commend in dansing the number of the footing wel expressing answering and as it were acting the measure and meaning of the Musike you see what good instructions you give men by extolling your excellent observer of decorum in all things Adde therevnto that he so good an observer of decorum maketh the Phoeacian actors danse with others of their owne sexe or single Which how much why it is more allowable then men and women to danse together I wish you to consider by weighing with examples mentioned in Scripture the iudgement of Divines thereon So shall you perceiue that Homer in the eight booke of his Odyssea hath no sufficient warrant for Melantho to danse together with Eurymachus the maides with the wooers no not though they were maides and Melantho in deede much lesse for boyes attired like Melantho maides to danse with men vpon a stage The later of your autours you alleage directlie and that learned Knight Syr Thomas Eliot say you among other things that he writeth in a booke of his in the prayse of dansing compareth the man treading the measures to Fortitude and the woman on his hande to Temperance You adde that you have seene the booke and you remember hee vseth this comparison in it But did you not remember the name of the booke too or was it for some speciall cause that you concealed it your woordes might giue a man occasion to thinke that he had written a booke in the praise of dansing which that he did I finde not I guesse you meane therefore his booke entituled the Governour Wherein he prayseth Dansing and vttereth somewhat like to that avouched by you and treateth of circumstances a point you touch also which being all observed dansing may be honestlie and honorably vsed But his speech of Fortitude and Temperance represented by men and maidens in a danse commeth nothing neere your maides and wooers measures whereto you would stretch it For among diverse maners and kindes of dansing vsed in ancient time he rehearseth one wherein as Lucian saith translated woord for woorde by him in a maner dansed young men and maidens the man going before and expressing such motions as he might afterward vse in warre the maiden following him modestly and shamefastlie so that it represented a pleasant coniunction of temperance fortitude Now those warlike motions were as Plato sheweth speaking of the like danse gestures which resembled partlie the avoiding all sortes of woundes and blowes by bending aside by going backe by leaping vp by bowing downe partlie the enforcing of enimies by shooting arrowes and casting dartes at them and giving them all sortes of wounds Wherfore this being it that represented Fortitude in the danse described by Syr Thomas Eliot farre was it frō his meaning to make your measures your sober measures warlike motions or compare a wooer treading them to Fortitude As farre as to compare a boy doeing the same in maidens likenes to Temperance Which if you had otherwise expressed his sense rightlie yet should you haue forborne to apply to yours for the observing of decorum a thing that you commend so in Homer and your selfe aime at sith those maides and wooers intended both by Homer and you to be wantons must vse lascivious danses and the man if you will needes haue such resemblances bee compared rather to Mollitude or Cowardnes the woman to Incontinencie Beside that the praise which that learned Knight geveth vnto dansing he giveth it not simply for he saith some danses doe corrupt the mindes of them that danse and provoke sinne but with limitation to weete being vsed and continued in such forme and with such observations and rules as hee specifieth Whereof the first to name one for example is that by the curtesie or reverent inclination made at beginning of dansing the dansers and beholders should marke and remember this to be signified that at the beginning of all our actes we should doe due honour to God which is the roote of prudence And in deede if dansers in treading of their measures had such regards and meditations then not Syr Thomas Eliot onely but the Fathers would praise dansing too For when godly Bishops assembled in the Councells of Laodicea and Ilarda decreed that Christians ought not to danse at mariages when S t Chrysostome blamed women for so doeing as being a staine vnto their sexe when S t Ambrose cited and averred that of Tullie that such as danse are drunke or madde when S t Austin said that it were better to spend the Sabbat day in digging delving then in dansing they meant not to restraine men from marking and remembring that at