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death_n	body_n	young_a	youth_n	100	3	7.7134	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10187	Histrio-mastix The players scourge, or, actors tragædie, divided into two parts. Wherein it is largely evidenced, by divers arguments, by the concurring authorities and resolutions of sundry texts of Scripture ... That popular stage-playes ... are sinfull, heathenish, lewde, ungodly spectacles, and most pernicious corruptions; condemned in all ages, as intolerable mischiefes to churches, to republickes, to the manners, mindes, and soules of men. And that the profession of play-poets, of stage-players; together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous and misbeseeming Christians. All pretences to the contrary are here likewise fully answered; and the unlawfulnes of acting, of beholding academicall enterludes, briefly discussed; besides sundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, health-drinking, &c. of which the table will informe you. By William Prynne, an vtter-barrester of Lincolnes Inne.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1633 (1633)	STC 20464A; ESTC S115316	1,193,680	1,258

mancipia pantomimorum remember that holy covenant which you not long since made to God in baptisme to forsake the Devill and all his workes the pompes the vanities of this wicked world with all the sinfull lusts of the flesh of which Stage-playes as the Fathers teach you are the chiefe O perjure perjure not your selves renounce not your christianity your faith your vow your baptisme by frequenting Playes in your youth your child-hood bequeath not your selves so soone unto the Devill after your solemne consecration unto God in Christ let not him gaine possession of your persons your service in your youth that so hee may command and challenge them in your age Non enim obtin●bis ut desinat si incipere permiseris ergo intranti resistamus c. But as you have given up your soules and bodies as an holy living sacrifice unto God in baptisme to serve him with them in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of your lives so be yee sure to make good your promise by remembring by serving your Creator in the dayes of your youth your strength your health and life who will then crowne you with glory and immortality at your death Pitty it is to see how many ingenious Youthes and Girles how many young that I say not old Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of birth and quality as if they were borne for no other purpose but to consume their youth their lives in lascivious dalliances Playes and pastimes or in pampering in adorning those idolized living carcases of theirs which will turne to earth to dung to rottennesse and wormes-meat ere be long and to condemne their poore neglected soules casting by all honest studies callings imployments all care of Heaven of salvation of their owne immortall soules of that God who made them that Saviour who redeemed them that Spirit who should sanctifie them and that Common-weale that fosters them doe in this idle age of ours like those Epicures of old most prodigally most sinfully riot away the very creame and flower of their yeeres their dayes in Play-houses in Dancing-schooles Tavernes Ale-houses Dice-houses Tobacco-shops Bowling-allies and such infamous places upon those life-devouring time-exhausting Playes and pastimes that I say not sinnes beside as is a shame for Pagans much more for Christians to approve O that men endued with reason ennobled with religion with immortall soules fit onely for the noblest heavenliest sublimest and divinest actions should ever bee so desperately besotted as to wast their precious time upon such vaine such childish base ignoble pleasures which can no way profit soule or body Church or State nor yet advance their temporall much lesse their spirituall and eternall good which they should ever seeke You therefore deare Christian Brethren who are who have beene peccant in this kinde for Gods sake for Christs sake for the holy Ghosts sake for Religions sake which now extremely suffers by this your folly for the Church and Common-weales sake for your owne soules sake which you so much neglect repent of what is past recalling and for the future time resolve through Gods assistance never to cast away your time your money your estates your good names your lives your salvation upon these unprofitable spectacles of vanity lewdnesse lasciviousnesse or these delights of sinne of which you must necessarily repent and be ashamed or else be condemned for them at the last passing all the time of your pilgrimage here in feare and imploying all the remainder of your short inconstant lives in those honest studies callings● and pious Christian duties which have their fruit unto holinesse and the end everlasting life And because we have now many wanton females of all sorts resorting daily by troopes unto our Playes our Play-houses to see and to be seene as they did in Ovids age I shall only desire them if not their Parents and Husbands to consider that it hath evermore beene the notorious badge of prostituted Strumpets and the lewdest Harlots to ramble abroad to Playes to Play-houses whether no honest chast or sober Girles or Women but only branded Whores infamous Adulteresses did usually resort in ancient times the Theater being then made a common Brothell And that all ages all places have constantly suspected the chastity yea branded the honesty of those females who have beene so immodest as to resort to Theaters to Stage-playes which either finde or make them Harlots inhibiting all married Wives and Virgins to resort to Playes and Theaters as I have here amply proved● Since therefore Saint Paul expresly enjoynes all women especially those of the younger sort to be sober chaste keepers at home yea therefore keepers at home that they may be chaste and sober as ancient and moderne Commentators glosse it that the Word of God be not blasphemed where as the dissolutenesse of our lascivious impudent rattle-pated gadding females now is such that as if they had purposely studied to appropriate to themselves King Solomons memorable character of an whorish woman with an impudent face a subtile heart and the attire of an Harlot they are lowde and stubborne their feet abide not in their houses now they are without now in the streets and lie in wait at every corner being never well pleased nor contented but when they are wandring abroad to Playes to Play-houses Dancing-matches Masques and publike Shewes from which nature it selfe if we believe S. Chrysostome hath sequestred all women or to such suspicious places under pretence of businesse or some idle visits where they oft-times leave their modesty their chastity behinde them to their eternall infamy Let me now beseech all female Play-haunters as they regard this Apostolicall precept which enjoynes them to be sober chast keepers at home or good carefull House-wives as som● have rendred it adorning themselves in modest apparell with shamefastnesse and sobriety which now are out of fashion not with broidered cut or borrowed plaited haire or gold or pearles or costly array the onely fashions of our age but which becommeth women professing godlinesse with good workes As they tender their owne honesty fame or reputation both with God and men the honour of their sex the prayse of that Christian Religion which they professe the glory of their God their Saviour and their soules salvation to abandon Playes and Play-houses as most pernicious Pests where all females wrecke their credits most their chastity some their fortunes not a few their soules and to say unto them as the Philosopher did unto his wealth which he cast into the Sea Abite in profundum malae cupiditates ego vos mergam ne ipse mergar à vobis CATASTROPHE I Have now deare Christian Readers through Gods assistance compleatly finished this my Histrio-Mastix wherein I have represented both to your view and censures to as well as my poore ability and other interloping

with much murther and bloodshed in all ages these have caused the Husband to murther his Wife the Wife to poyson her Husband one Whore-master to murther his Corrivals to the selfe-same Strumpet yea these have caused unnaturall Mothers to murther their owne spuri●us Issues to conceale their l●wdnesse as Authors as our owne Statutes and experience teach us therefore they must needs be crying● because they are bloody sinnes Fiftenthly they are such sinnes which offer an high indignity to the whole Trinity First to God the Father not onely in taking those bodies that are his which were made for himselfe alone not for fornication and giving them up as prof●ssed instruments of sinne to lust to lewdnesse to Satan to all uncleanesse but likewise in contaminating oblitterating and casting dirt yea sinne upon his most holy Image stamped on them Secondly to Iesus 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 indure any pollution especially in his Temples which should be alwayes holy as he is holy And who is there so desperately wicked that dares thus affront the whole Trinity it selfe by these cursed filthy sinnes Sixteenthly they are sinnes of which men very seldome repent A Whore saith Salomon is a deepe Ditch and a strange woman is a narrow Pit out of which men can hardly recover themselves None that goe into her returne againe neither take they hold of the pathes of Life And who then would ingage his soule upon such irrecoverable irrepenitable sins as these Seventeenthly these sinnes are the very high-way to Hell the beaten rode to eternall death the end of them is bitter as wormwood sharpe as a two-edged sword Wherefore Salomon exhorts his Sonne to remove his way farre from a strange woman and not to come nigh the doore of her house a place well worthy their observation who feare not for to run to Whore-houses or to cast themselves upon the temptations the enticements of Strumpets as too many doe For her house inclineth unto death and her pathes unto the dead her feet goe downe to death her steps take hold of hell her house is the way to hell going downe to the chambers of death None that goe into her returne againe neither take they hold of the path of Life Eighteenthly they are sinnes against the very bodies and soules of men Against the bodies of men as the Apostle witnesseth Flee fornication every sinne that a man doth is without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his owne body that is in defiling it in dishonouring it in impayring it in destroying it Against the soules of men as Salomon testifieth Who so saith he committeth adultery with an woman lacketh understanding he that doeth it destroyeth his owne soule And who would be so inhumanely so atheistically desperate as to destroy both soule and body for ever to enjoy the momentany bitter-sweetnesse of these filthy sinnes Nineteenthly they are sinnes which disable men to performe any holy duty acceptable to God Sinnes into which few fall but such as are abhorred of the Lord and given up to a reprobate sence to worke all wickednesse even with gre●dinesse Sinnes which devoure to destruction and roote out all a mans increase Sinnes which cause the earth to rise up against men and the fire not blowne to devo●re them Sinnes which draw downe the temporall the eternall wrath of God upon the children of disobedience These were the sinnes that destroyed the old worldwith water which consumed the Citties of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven Which caused three and twenty thousand of the Isralites to fall in one day These were the sinnes that caused God in the yeere of our Lord 1583. even in our Citty of London to destroy with ●ire from Heaven two Cittizens the one leaving his Wife the other her owne Husband whiles they were in the very act of adultery on the Lords day their bodies being left dead and halfe burnt up for a Spectacle of Gods avenging Iustice unto others These are the sinnes but adultery and incest mor● especially which God himselfe 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 sinnes that not onely the Iewes in ancient times but even meere Pagans from the very light of nature did punish with death it selfe Hence Drac● enacted that the adulterer taken in adultery might without any danger to the party be lawfully killed The selfe-same Law was enacted by Solon and Plato Hence Romulus among those lawes which he wrote in brasse and placed in the Capitol enacted That the convicted adulteresse should be put to death according as her husband or his friends should thinke meete Which act was afterwards confirmed by the Iulian Law Hence among the Lacedemonians it was lawfull for a man to kill him who was taken in adultery with his wife Hence the Corinthians used to drowne 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 Turkes the adulterer and adulteresse 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 farre greater crime then periury or sacriledge and therefore worthy of a severer punishment The AEthiopians account adultery treason and therefore they make it capitall In Peru whoredome is punished with the death of both parties The Brasilians prosecute adultery with capitall hatred in so much that he whose wife is taken in adultery may lawfully kill her if he please The Indian Bramanes may lawfully poyson their unc●aste wives In old Saxony women who were convicted of adultery and ravishers of maides 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 cruell 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 feare of which they live very chaste If then the very judiciall Law of Moses together with these Heathens and Pagan Nations have deemed these sinnes capitall punishing adulterers and adulteresses with death as being the publike enemies of mankinde needs must these sinnes bee execrable yea dangerous unto Christians Twentiethly these sinnes are prejudiciall both to the Church and State in

so much as with their bodies Notwithstanding be departs not but staies and demandeth drinke of us not water but holinesse For Christ des●ributeth holy things to holy men For he doth not give us water out of this Well but living Blood which albeit it be received to testifie the Lords death yet to us it is made a cause of life But thou leavest the fountaine of his blood and this dreadfull cup and runnest hastily to that diabolicall well that thou maist behold a swimming whore and suffer a shipwracke of thy soule For that water is a certaine vast sea of luxury in which bodies are not drowned but soules suffer shipwracke For she verily being naked sports her selfe with swimming in the midest of the waters but thou looking on her from an high scaffold art plunged into the depths of lust For these nets of the Devill doe not so much catch those who descend into that water and there roll themselves as those who sit above For these are drowned farre more cruelly then that Pharaoh heretofore who was overwhelmed with his Chariots Horsemen Now if were possible by any meanes for me to shew unto you the soules swimming upon these waters tru●ly they would appeare no otherwise then those AEgyptian bodies that were tossed in those floods But this verily ●s far more dangerous that this so great destruction they call pleasure and this filthy sea of perdition they stile the Euripus of delight when as verily one may more easily and safely passe over the AEgaean and Tyrrhenian sea then the horrible dangers of this spectacle For first of all the Devill doth sollicite the hearts of such all night long with an over-anxious expectation afterwards be represents that which hath beene so greedily beheld where with he doth presently binde and lead them captive Neither mayest thou thinke thy selfe free from sinnes if thou doest not couple with an harlot when as thou dost commit all this with thy will For if thou art possessed by this concupiscence thou art verily burned with a greater flame But if by beholding these things thou suffrest nothing notwithstanding thou art guilty in being a scandall unto others and by thy encouragement of such pleasures thou thy selfe confoundest both thine owne face and with thy face thy soule But that we may not seeme to deale onely by way of reproofe we will now propound the meanes of reformation What then is this meanes of amendment I deliver you to your owne wives to be instructed when certainely you ought rather according to the Apostle to be instructors of your wives But because by sinne the order is inverted and the body is made the superior the head the inferior let it not grieve you to returne to honest things by this way But if thou art ashamed of the tutorship of a woman avoyd sinne and thou maist quickly ascend into the chaire of a Doctor which is ordained for thee by God But as long as thou shalt sinne the Scripture doth send thee not onely to an woman but even to irrationall and the basest creatures Neither doth a creature endued with the honor of reason blush to become a Scholler of the Bee and the Ant neither is this the fault of the Scripture but of those who have lost their owne noblenesse Therefore we also will have a care to doe thus And now verily we assigne thee to a woman to be taught but if thou shalt contemne her admonitions we will even send thee to the tutorship of unreasonable creatures For we will shew thee how many birds and fishes yea how many kindes of beasts and creeping things outstrip thee in honesty and chastity But if thou art ashamed to be compared to such creatures returne to the ensigne of thy owne noblenesse and remembring that vast Sea of Hell and fiery River avoyd this pestiferous Fish-pond of the Play-house For this is it which doth drowne its Spectators in that fiery Sea and which doth kindle the very bottome of that fire For if he who without these provocations seeth a woman is yet notwithstanding drawne sometimes to lust after her and commits adultery onely by lusting he who not onely s●eth but likewise earnestly beholds a naked and lascivious women with his whole minde how is he not a thousand times made the captive of lust That great Flood under Noah did not so extinguish mankinde as these swimmers doe altogether suffocate all their spectators even with much disgrace For that flood although it brought in the death of bodies yet it blotted out the vices of soules But this water doth the contrary it workes the destruction of soules the bodies still continuing in life You verily if that any contention about honor ariseth contend with all ambition that you ought to have preheminence of the whole world flattering your selves with this priviledge that this Citty did first give the name of Christians to the faithfull but when you should contend about honesty and chastit● are you not ashamed lest you should be overcome of the very basest villages Yes sayest thou But what then doe you command us to doe To goe into desert Mountaines and to become Monkes And what else doe I lament but that thou thinkest an honest and pure life belongs onely to them Verily Christ hath given common precepts unto all men For where he saith If any man looke upon a woman to lust after her hee hath already committed adultery with her in his heart it is not onely spoken to a Monke but likewise to an Husband For that Mountaine in which Christ taught these things was then filled almost only with such Consider therefore that Theater and avoyd their Diabolicall Assemblies and doe not as it were blame my more troublesome speech For I prohibit not marriages nor honest pleasure but I would have it to be done with honesty not with obscenity or sinne I doe not therefore bid the goe into Mountaines and Deserts but to be bountifull and likewise honest and modest even while● thou livest in the midest of the City The Apostle tells us The time is short it remaines therefore that those who have wives bee as if they had none for the fashion of this world passeth away As if he should say I bid you not to dwell in the tops of Mountaines although I desire that likewise because Citties imitate the abominations committed in Sodom but yet I doe by no meanes force you to it Contiu●e having an house wife children onely doe not make them Spectators of incestuous pleasures doe not thou introduce the plague of the Theater into thine house Doest thou not heare Paul saying The man hath not the power of his body but the woman Therefore he hath also given common precepts to him Thou verily if thy wife frequent the Church becommest a most grievous accuser of her but thou thy selfe spending the whole day in Play-houses dost not believe thy selfe to be worthy of accusation but when as thou

lives that we may learne to feare the Lord and to keepe and doe all the workes and Statutes of his Law which was King Davids study all the day long yea in the night season to And because no time should bee left for any vaine studies or discourses we are further enjoyned to have the Word of God alwayes in our hearts to teach it diligently to our children and to talke of it when we are sitting in our houses and when wee are walking by the way when we lye downe and when we rise up Which for any man now conscionably to performe is no lesse then arrant Puritanisme in the worlds account If then we believe these sacred precepts to which I might adde two more Pray continually Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes and againe I say rejoyce to bee the Word of God and so to binde us to obedience there are certainely no vacant times alotted unto Christians to read any idle Books or Play-house Pamphlets which are altogether incompatible with these precepts and the serious pious study of the sacred Scripture as S. Hierom writes Quae enim quoth he cōmunicatio luci ad tenebras ●ui consensus Christo cum Belial quid facit cum Psalterio Horatius cum Evangelijs Maro cum Apostolis Cicero Et licet omnia munda mundis nihil reijciend●m quod cum gra●iarum actione percipitur tamen simul non debemus bibere calicem Christi calicem Daemoniorum as he there proves by his owne example which I would wish all such as make prophane Playes and human Authors their chiefest studies even seriously to consider For saith he when ever I fell to read the Prophets after I had beene reading Tully and Plautus Sermo horrebat incultus their uncompt stile became irkesome to me quia lumen caecis oculis non videbam non oculorum putabam culpam e●se sed solis Whiles the old Serpent did thus delude me a strong feaver shed into my bones invaded my weake body and brought me even to deaths doore at which time I was suddenly rapt in ●pirit unto the Tribunall of a Iudge where there was such a great and glorious light as cast me downe upon my face that I durst not looke up And being then demanded what I was I answered I am a Christian whereupon the Iudge replyed thou lyest Ciceronianus es non Christianus thou art a Ciceronian not a Christian for where thy treasure is there also is thy heart whereupon I grew speechlesse and being beaten by the Iudges command and tortured with the fire of conscience I began to cry out and say Lord have mercy upon me Whereupon those who stood by falling down at the Iudges feet intreated that he would give pardon to my youth and give place of repentance to my error exact●rus deinde cruciatum si gentilium litterarum libr●s aliq●ando legiss●m I being then in so great a strait that I could be content to promise greater things began to sweare and protest by his Name saying Domine si unquam habuero ●odices seculares si legero te negavi And being dismissed upon this my oath I returned to my selfe againe and opened my eyes drenched with such a showre of teares that the very extremity of my griefe would even cause the incredulous to believe this tr●nce which was no slumbe● or vaine dreame but a thing really acted● my very shoulders being blacke and blue with stripes the paine of which remained after I awaked Since which time saith he Fateor me tanto dehinc studio divina legisse quanto non ante mortalia leg●ram And from hence this Father exhorts all Christians to give over the reading of all prophane Bookes all wanton Poems which in his 146. Epistle to Damasus hee most aptly compares to the Huskes with which the Prodigall in the Gospell was fed where hee writes thus fitly to our purpose Possumus aliter siliquas interpraetari Daemonum cibus est carmina poetarum saecularis sapientia rhetoricorum pompa verborum Haec sua omnes suavitate delectant dum aures versibus dulci modulatione currentibus capiuntur animam quoque penetrant pectoris interna devinciunt Verum ubi cum summo studio fu●rint labore perlect● nihil aliud nisi inanem sonum sermonum strepitum suis lectoribus tribuunt nulla ibi saturitas veritatis nulla re●ectio justitiae reperitur studiosi ●arum in fame veri in virtutum penuria perseverant Vnde Apostolus prohibet ne in Idolio quis recumbat c. Nonne tibi videtur sub alijs verbis di●ere ne legas Philosop●os Orato●es Poetas nec in illorum le●tione requiescas Nec nobis blandiamur si in eis quae sunt scripta non credimus cum aliorum conscientia vulneretur putemur probare quae dum legimus non repr●bamus Absit ut de ore Christiano sonet Iuppiter omnipoten● me Hercule me Castor caetera magis portenta quam numina At nunc etiam Sacerdotes Dei and is not as tr●e of our times omissis Evangelijs Prophetis videmus Comaedias legere amatoria Bucolicorum vers●um verba canere ten●re Virgilium id quod in pueris necessitatis est crimen in se fa●ere voluptatis Cavendum igitur si captivam velimus habere uxorem ne in idolio recumbamus aut si certè fuerimus ejus amore decepti mundemus eam omni sordium errore purgemus ne scandalum patiatur frater pro quo Christus mortuus cum in ore Christiani carmina in idolorum laudem composita audierit personare Since therefore all these idle Play-bookes and such like amorous Pastorals are but empty huskes which yeeld no nourishment but to Swine or such as wallow in their beastly lusts and carnall pleasures since they are incompatible with the pious study and diligent reading of Gods sacred Word the gold the hony the milke the marrow the heavenly Manna feast and sweatest nourishment of our soules with the serious hearing reading meditation thoughts and study whereof we should alwayes constantly feed refresh rejoyce and feast our spirits which commonly starve and pine away whiles we are too much taken up with other studies or imployments especially with Playes and idle amorous Pamphlets the very reading of which S. Augustine repented and condemned let us hencefore lay aside such unprofitable unchristian studies betaking our selves wholly at leastwise principally to Gods sacred Word which is onely able to make us wise unto salvation and to nourish our soules unto eternall life since Christianity is our general profession let not Paganisme scurrility prophanes wantonnes amorousnesse Playes or lewde Poeticall Figments or Histories but Gods Word alone which as Sūmula Raymundi saith transcends all other Bookes Sciences be our chiefest study at all such vacant times as are not occupied in our lawfull callings or other pious duties I shal therfore cloze up this 2. reply with