Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	damn_v	unrighteousness_n	2,037	5	11.2658	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

so weake so few that they cannot bring one Councell one Father one ancient one moderne Christian or Pagan Writer of any note into the field to maintaine their cause against this army-royall of Play-condemning Authorities which I have here mustered up against them It is not their long since conquered and confuted Lodge or Haywood two scribling hackney Players their onely professed printed Play-Champions that I know of who can withstand their all-conquering troopes which either severall or united are impregnable able to over-power to vanquish all the forces that the whole world can raise agai●st them Let it therefore be your wisdome now at last to take the best the strongest side not onely in quality but in number too Stage-playes and Actors as the foregoing Scenes declare have bin oppugned condemned in all ages all places by all sorts of men Iewes and Gentiles Greekes and Barbarians Christians and Pagans Emperours Magistrates people Writers of all sorts have bent not onely their hearts and judgements but their very hands their tongues their pens and power against them Yea those who are dead and rotten long agoe still fight against them in their surviving workes Licet ossa jacent calamus bella gerit and they will one day rise up in judgement as they doe now in armes against us if we submit not to them Let us O let us not therefore be any longer beso ●e befooled with these lewd stigmatized Playes or Actors as we have beene in former times but since all Ages all Nations yea those who loved them best and most at first to wit the Greeks and Romans together with all primitive and moderne pious Christians Fathers Councels Writers have thus unanimously successively condemned renounced them let us abominate and reject them too It was the branded infamie of the Iewes that they pleased not God and were contrary to all men and will it not be ours too if all these Authorities will not sway us If Scriptures Councels Fathers if Christian if Pagan Writers Nations Citties Republickes Emperours Magistrates Kings and Edicts thus severed thus united will not stir nor draw us from our Stage-playes Play-houses and Actors what then can we conclude of our selves but this that God hath given us over to an impenitent heart a reprobate sence a cauterized conscience if not to strong delusions to beleeve to affect these lying Playes and Fables that we all might be damned who will not beleeve the truth which all these Witnesses have confirmed but take pleasure in unrighteousnesse in ungodly Playes and Actors which leade their followers to destruction and without repentance plunge them into hell for ever amids those filthy Divels whose disavowed pompes and workes they deeme their chiefest pleasures Let us therefore earnestly pray to God to open our eares that we may heare to incline our hearts that we may beleeve what all these testifie and averre of Stage-playes that so now at last we may take our finall farewell of them as all true penitent Christians have done before us and never returne unto them more to Gods dishonour the Republickes dammage or our owne eternall ruine concluding from henceforth of all Stage-playes all amphitheatricall Spectacles as Prudentius that worthy Christian Poet did many hundred yeares agoe Heu quid vesani sibi vult ars impia ludi Hae sunt deliciae IOVIS INFERNALIS in istis Arbiter obscuri placidus requiescit Averni And then we neede no more no other arguments to disswade us from resort to Stage-playes when we shall thus adjudge them the chiefest delights of the infernall Divel Iove who rests well pleased well delighted with them as too many carnall Christians doe who will one day rue it when it is too late if they now repent it not in time ACTVS 8. SCENA PRIMA HAving thus at large evinced the unlawfulnesse of Stage-playes by Reasons by Authorities I come now to refute those miserable Apologies those vaine pretences or excuses rather which their Advocates oppose in their defence the most of which are already answered to my hands Apologies for Stage-playes are of great antiquity Tertullian in his booke De Spectaculis cap. 1 2 3. 8. brings in the Pagan Romans whose consciences the pleasures of these enchanting Enterludes had bribed apologizing for their Playes with great acutenesse the feare of losing these their secular pleasures adding a kinde of sharpnesse to their wits I finde St. Cyprian complaining that the vigour of Ecclesiasticall discipline was so farre enervated in his age and so precipitated into worse in all dissolutenesse of vice that vices were not onely excused but authorized there wanting not such flattering Advocates and indulgent Patrons of naughtinesse who gave authority unto vices and which was worse converted the very censure of the heavenly Scriptures into a justification of crimes and Stage-playes producing some texts of Scripture in defence of Playes as well as reasons which this Father at large refells The like Play-apologies of voluptuous Pagans I reade recorded in Arnobius Chrysostome Augustine and Salvian who answer them to the full And as these Pagans of olde so some who would be deemed Christians now as namely one Thomas Lodge a Play-poet in his Play of Playes and one Thomas Haywood a Player i● his Apology for Actors have lately pleaded as hard for Stage-playes as ever Demetrius did for his great Diana whose severall allegations in the behalfe of Playes are soledly refelled by Mr. Stephen Gosson in his Playes confuted by the Authour of the 3. Blast of Retrait from Playes and Theaters by Mr. Iohn Northbrooke in his Treatise against vaine Playes and Enterludes by Dr. Rainolds in his Overthrow of Stage-playes by I G in his Refutation of the Apologie for Actors which you may peruse at leisure and by sundry others forerecited whom I spare to mention The Players the Play-patrons of our present age as their cause is worse so their Pleas for Playes are no other no better than those of former times which neede no other replies then what these Fathers these Authours have returned yet since their answeres are now growne obsolete and our Play-Advocates persevering in their former folly proceede to justifie one vanitie one falshood with another disputing much for the lawfull use of Stage-playes perchance to exercise or declare their witts in the unhappy patronage of evill things I shall therefore addresse my selfe to give a satisfactory answer to all their chiefe Play-propugning Objections that so I may pu● them to perpetuall silence The first if not the best Argument in defence of Stage-playes may be cast into this forme That which is not prohibited but rather approved and commended by the Scripture cannot be sinfull nor unlawfull unto Christians But Stage-playes are not prohibited but rather approved and commended by the Scripture Therefore they cannot bee sinfull nor unlawfull unto Christi●ns The Major being unquestionable the Minor may be thus

I pray you but to foster mischiefe in their youth● that it may alwayes abide with them and in their age bring them sooner unto hell And as for these Stagers themselves are they not commonly such kinde of men in their conversation as they are in profession are they not as variable in heart as they are in their parts are they not as good practisers of ba●dery as inactors Live they not in such sort th●mselves as they give precepts unto others Doth not their talke on the Stage declare the nature of their disposition ●doth not every one take that part which is proper to his kinde Doth not the Plough-mans tongue walke of his Plough the Sea-faring ma●s of his Mast Cable and Saile the Souldiers of his Ha●nesse Speare and Shield and bawdy mates of bawdy matters Aske them if in the laying out of their parts they choose not those parts which are most agreeable to their inclination and that they can best discharge And looke what every of them doth most delight in that he can best handle to the contentment of others If it bee a roisting bawdy or lascivious part wherein are unseemely speeches and that they make choyse of them as best answering and proper to their manner of play may we not say by how much the more he exceds in his gesture he delights himselfe in his part and by so mach it is pleasing to his disposition and nature If it be his nature to be a bawdy Player and he delight in such filthy and cursed actions shall we not thinke him in his life to be more disordered and to abhorre virtue But they perhaps will say that such abuses as are handled on the Stage others by their examples are warned to beware of such evils to amendment Indeed if their authority were greater then the words of the Scripture or their zeale of more force than of the Preacher I might easily be perswaded to thinke that men by them might be called to good life But when I see the Word of truth proceeding from the heart and uttered by the mouth of the Reverend Teachers to be received of the most part into the eare and but of a few rooted in the heart I cannot by any meanes beleeve that the words proceeding from a prophane Player and uttered in scorning sort enterlaced with filthy lewde and ungodly speeches have greater force to move men unto virtue than the words of truth uttered by the godly Preacher whose zeale is such as that of Moses who was contented to be rased out of the booke of life and of Paul who wished to be separated from Christ for the welfare of his brethren If the good life of a man be a better instruction to repentance than the tongue or word why doe not Players I beseech you leave examples of goodnesse to their posteritie But which of them is so zealous or so tendereth his saluation that he doth am●nd himselfe in those points which as they say others should take heed of Are they not notoriously knowne to be those men in their life abroad ●s they are on the Stage Roisters Brawlers Ill-dealers Bosters Lovers R●ffians So that they are alwayes exercised in playing their parts and practising wickednesse making that an Art to the end they might the better gesture it in their parts For who can better play the Ruffian than a very Ruffian who better the L●ve● than they who make it a common exercise To conclude the principall end of all their Enterludes is to feed the world with sights and fond pastimes to Iuggle in good earnest the money out of other mens purses into their owne hands What shall I say They are infamous men and in Rome were thought worthy to be expelled allbeit there was libertie enough to take pleasure In the Primitive Church they were kept out from the communion of Christians and never remitted till they had performed publike pennance And thereupon Saint Cyprian in a certaine Epistle counselleth a Bishop not to receive a Player into the Pension of the Church by which they were nourished till there was an expresse act of penance with protestation to renounce an Art so infamous Some have obiected that by these publike-Playes many forbeare to doe evill for feare to be publikely reprehended and for that cause they will say it was tollerated in Rome wherein Emperours were touched though they were present But to such it may be answered that in disguised Players given over to all sorts of dissolutenesse is not found so much as to will to doe good seeing they care for nothing lesse than for virtue And thus much for these Players Thus this Play-Poet and sometimes an Actor too Master Stephen Gosson another reclaimed Play-Poet writes thus of Stage-Players That they are uncircumcised Philistims who nourish a canker in their owne soules ungodly Masters whose example doth rather poyson then instruct men Wherefore writes he sithence you see by the example of the Romans that Playes are Ra●s-bane to government of Common-weales and that Players by the iudgement of them are infamous persons unworthy of the credit of honest Citizens worthy to be removed their Tribe if not for Religion yet for shame that the Gentiles should iudge you at the last day or that Publicans and Sinnes should presse into the Kingdome of Heaven before you withdraw your feet from Theaters with noble Marius set downe some punishment for Players with the Roman Censors shew your selves to be Christians and with wicked Spectators be not puld from Discipline to libertie● from virtue to pleasure from God to Mammon so shall you prevent the scourge by repentance that is comming towards you and fill up the gulfe that the Divell by Playes hath digged to swallow you Thus he To him I will annex the testimonie of I. G. in his Refutation of the Apologie for Actors Therefore writes he let all Players and founders of Playes as they tender the salvation of their owne soules and others leave off tha● cursed kinde of life and betake themselves to such honest exercises and godly mysteries as God hath commanded in his Word to get their living withall For who will call him a wise man that playes the foole and the vice Who can call him a good Christian that playeth the part of the Devill the sworne enemy of Christ Who can call him a iust man that playeth the dissembling hypocrite Who can call him a straight dealing man that playeth a cosoners tricke and so of all the rest The wise man is ashamed to play the foole but Players will seeme to be such in publike view to all the world A good Christian hateth the Devill but Players will become artificiall Divils excellently well A iust man cannot endure hypocrisie but all the acts of Players is dissimulation and the proper name of Player witnesse the Apologie it selfe is hypocrite A true dealing man cannot indure deceit

without but poysons onely within Thirdly though all these good things are in Stage-playes now and then yet they are there onely as good things perverted which prove worst of any Nothing is there so pernicious as good parts or a good wit abused as wit art eloquence and learning cast away upon an amorous prophane obscene lascivious subject on which whiles many out of a vaine-glorious humour have spent the very creame and flower of their admired parts I may truly affirme with Salvian Non tam illustrasse mihi ipsa ingenia quàm damnasse videantur they seeme to me not so much to have illustrated as damned their much applauded wits and parts in being acutely elegant in such unworthy sordid theames which modest e●es would blush to reade and chast tender consciences bleede to thin●e of As therefore Ovids transcendent poetry Martials prophane and scurrilous pande●ly wit Catullus Tibullus and Propertius their eloquence made their obscene lascivious poëms farre more pernicious not more chast and commendable so the elegancy invention stile and phrase of Stage-playes is onely an argument of their greater lewdnesse not any probate of their reall goodnesse What therefore Vincentius Lerinensis writes of Origen and Tertullian that their transcendent abilities of eloquence learning and acutenesse made their erronious Tenents farre more dangerous the same wee may conclude of Playes and Poets the more witty and sublime their stile or matter the more pernicious their fruites for then Viperium obducto pot●mus melle venenum We drinke downe deadly poyson in a honey potion which proves honey onely in the pallate but gall in the bowells death in the heart as the most delightfull amorous Stage-playes alwayes doe SCENA SEXTA THE 6. Objection in the defence of Stage-playes is this which is as common as it is prophane That Stage-playes are as good as Sermons and that many learne as much good at a Play as at a Sermon therefore they cannot be ill To this I shall answer first in the words of Mr. Philip Stubs and of I. G. in his Refutation of the Apologie for Actors p. 61. Oh blasphemy intollerable Are obscene Playes and filthy Enterludes comparable to the word of God the foode of life and life it selfe It is all one as if they had said Baudry Heathenry Paganisme Scurrilitie and Divelry it selfe is equall with Gods word or that Sathan is equipollent with the Lord. God hath ordained his word and made it the ordinary meanes of our salvation the Divell hath inferred the other as the ordinary meanes of our destruction God hath set his holy word and Ministers to instruct us in the way of life the Divell instituted Playes and Actors to seduce us into the way of death And will they yet compare the one with the other If he be accursed that calleth light darknesse and darknesse light truth falshood and falshood truth then à fortiori● is hee accursed that saith Playes and Enterludes are equivalent with Sermons or compareth Comedies Tragedies with the word of God whereas there is no mischiefe almost which they maintaine not Thus they But if Stage-playes be as good as Sermons as many prophane ones who heare and reade more Playes than Sermons deeme them then Players certainly by the selfesame argument are as good as Preachers and if this be so what difference betweene Christ and Belial Play-houses and Churches Ministers and Actors yea why then doe we not erect new Theaters in every Parish or turne our Churches into Play-houses our Preachers into Actors since they are thus parallels in their goodnesse But what prodigious and more than stygean profanesse is there in this comparison Who ever paralleld hell with heaven vice with vertue darknesse with light Divels with Angels dirt with gold yet there is as great a disparity in goodnesse betweene Playes and Sermons as there is in these the one being evermore reputed the chiefest happinesse the other the greatest mischiefe in any Christian State But this part of the objection is too grosse to confute since the very naming of it is a sufficient refutation I come therefore to the second clause That many learne as much good at Playes as at Sermons And I beleeve it too for had they ever learn'd any good at Sermons which would be altogether needles if so much goodnesse as is objected might be learn'd from Playes they would certainly have learned this among the rest never to resort to Stage-playes The truth then is this most Play-haunters learne no good at all at Sermons not because Sermons have no goodnesse for to teach them but because they are unapt to learne it partly because they seldome frequent Sermons at leastwise not so oft as Playes partly because their eares are so dull of hearing and their mindes so taken up with Play-house contemplations whiles they are at Church that they mind not seriously what they heare partly because the evill which they learne at Playes overcomes the good they learne at Sermons and will not suffer it to take root within them and partly because Playes and Sermons are so incompatible that it is almost impossible for any man to receive any good at all from Sermons whiles hee is a resorter unto Stageplayes Well therefore may they learne as much goodnesse from Playes as Sermons because they never learned ought from either but much hurt from both the very word of God being a stumbling blocke a meanes of greater condemnation yea a savour of death unto death to such unprofitable hearers who reape no grace nor goodnesse from it But to passe by this if there be so much goodnesse learn'd from Playes I pray informe me who doe learne it If any then either the Actors or Spectators For the Actors their goodnesse verily is so little that it is altogether to be learnt as yet and if ever they chance to attaine the smallest dram of grace as they are never like to doe whiles they continue Players it must be then from Sermons onely not from Playes which make them every day worse and worse but cannot possibly make them better For the Spectators they can learne no good at all from Playes because as Isiodor Pelusiota long since resolved it Players and Stageplayes can teach thē none Never heard or read I yet of any whom Stage-playes meliorated or taught any good all they can teach them all they learne from th●m is but some scurrill jests some witty obscenities some ribaldry ditties some amorous wanton complements some fantastique fashions some brothel-house Courtshippe to wooe a strumpet or to court a whore these are the best lessons these schooles of vice and lewdnesse teach or these their schollers learne I shall therefore close up this objection with that of Mr. Stubs and I. G. in their forequoted places If you will learne to doe any evill skilfully cunningly covertly or artificially you neede goe no other where than to the Theatre If you will learne falshood