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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	wit_n	world_n	write_v	75	3	4.7187	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

a tender thing like a most beautifull flower it is quickly blasted with a small winde and corrupted with an easie 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 sweetnesse of a Diabolicall Singer come neere thee nor a compt and beautifull Youth Ha●e thou nothing to doe with Stage-playes because they are the pleasing incendiaries of mens lusts and vices because they draw mens soules by their flattering entisements to deadly pleasures which Christians should extinguish with the love of Christ and curbe with fasting and cause them to violate the vow and bond of Chastity of Widdowhood of Virginity So in his Commentary on Ezechiel lib. 6. cap 20. he certifieth us That we also when as we depart out of AEgypt 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 Heretiques which are rightly stiled Idols We must likewise remove our eyes from all the Spectacles yea rather the offences of AEgypt as Sword-playes Cirque-playes and Stage-playes which defile the purity of the soule and by the sences gaine entrance to the minde and so that is fulfilled which is written Death hath entred by your windowes By this grave learned Fathers verdict then it is most evident that Stage-playes devirginate unmarried persons especially beautifull tender Virgins who resort unto them which I would our female Play-haunters and their Parents would consider that they defile their soules with impure carnall lusts and so let in eternall death upon them Saint Augustine brands all Stage-playes with this stigmaticall Impresse That they are the Sp●ctacles of filthinesse The overturners of goodnesse and honesty The chasers away of all modesty and chastity Meretricious shewes The unchaste the filthy gestures of Actors The art of mischievous villanies which even modest Pagans did blush to behold The invitations to lewdnesse by which the Devill useth to gaine innumerable companies of evill men unto himsefe Hence hee stiles Theaters The Cages of uncleanesse the publike professions of wickednesse of wicked men and Stage-playes The most petulant the most impure impudent wicked uncleane the most shamefull and detestable attonements of filthy Devil-gods which to true Religion are most ex●crable whose Actors the laudable towardnes of Roman vertue had depriv●d of all honour disfranchised their tribe acknowledged as filthy made infamous because the people were instructed incouraged by the sight and hearing of St●ge-playes to imitate to practise 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-playes and Cirque-playes because they are but P●nders but allectives to uncleanesse incendiaries and fomentations unto carnall lusts Hence he speakes thus to Christian Parents which I would to God those gracelesse Parents who either accompany send encourage or else permit their Children to runne to filthy lewde lascivious Stage-playes which vitiate which deprave them ever after would seriously consider As oft deare Breathren as you know that any of your Children resor● either to furious bloody or filthy Enterludes with a vaine perswation and pestiferous love● as if it were to some good worke you who now by the grace of God contemne not onely these luxurious but also cruell 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 thinke to scare away the Devill from them by their crossings would well consider it doe presently crosse themselves and they stand there carrying that in their foreheds from whence they would depart if they carried it in their hearts For every one who runnes to any evill worke if he chance but to stumble doth forth-with crosse his face and knoweth not that he doth rather include then exclude the Devill For then should he crosse himselfe well and repell the Devill out of his heart if he recalled himsefe from that wicked worke Wherefore I intreat you deare Brethren agai●e and againe that you would supplicate for them with all your might that so they may receive understanding to condemne these damnable things desire to avoyd them mercy to acknowledge them We may likewise speake unto those whom voluptuous Stage-playes oft-times draw from the assemblies of the Church Notwithstanding I intreat you deare Brethren that as often as you shall see them to doe any such thing you would in our stead most severely correct them Let them heare our voyce 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 beene present with you Thus Saint Augustine by whose words you may easily discover not onely the truth of our present Assumption but likewise the sinfulnesse the unlawfulnesse of Playes themselves as also of acting hearing seeing and frequenting Stage-playes Which hee likewise seconds in some other passages as namely in his 2. Booke De Moribus Manichaeorum where hee writes thus against them Finally we have oft-times found in Theaters divers of their choyce men who were grave both in age and as they seemed even in manners too with an old Presbyter I omit yong men whom we were likewise wont to finde brawling for Stage-players and Wagoners which thing is no small argument after what manner they can containe themselves from secret adulteries and villanies since they cannot overcome that lust which may uphold them in the eyes of their Auditors and makes them even to blush and runne away for shame In his Booke De Catechizandis Rudibus cap. 16. Hee informes us That there are certaine men who seeke not to be rich nor yet to aspire to the vaine pompes of honors but desire onely 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 Citties But these through their luxury consume their meane estate and from poverty they fall to Burglaries Thefts and Robberies and are suddenly filled with many and great feares and these who a little before did sing in an Ale-house now dreame of the mourning of a prison But by the study and sight of Stage-playes they are made like to Devils c. To passe by his sundry notable passages against Players and Stage-playes in his 1.2 4 5 6 7

conclude with that of Baronius and Spondanus his Epitomizer who informe us That among the primitive Christians in the solemne time of baptisme when as they all made publike renunciations it was the custome of the French Church for Christians particularly to renounce all Stageplayes as Salvian testifieth and under the pompes of the Divell which it was then and now the custome for Christians at their baptisme to renounce St. Cyrill teacheth us in another place that all Stage-playes were esteemed to be comprised and so ALL OTHERS DOE INTERPRET So that by the resolution both of the primitive Church Fathers and of ALL OTHER INTERPRETERS SINCE if Baronius or Spondanus may be credited Stage-playes are the very Pompes of the Divell which wee most solemnly abjure and protest against in our baptisme upon our very first admittance into the Church of Christ. And certainly they must needes be so For if Pompa in its genuine interpretation signifie nought else as Calepine Eliot Holioke and other Distionaries teach us but Spectaculum to wit a Spectacle Stage-play or glorious gaudy shew in which sence this word is oft times used both by Clemens Alexandrinus Cyprian Arnobius Lactantius M●nucius Felix Tertullian Nazienzen Chrysostome Augustine Salvian Apuleius Prudentius and other ancient Christian Writers and likewise by Zenophon Cicero Seneca Livie Dionysius Hallicarnasseus Ovid Plutarch Suetonius Plautus Athenaeus Diodorus Siculus Macrobius Herodian with divers other Heathen Authours to which many moderne Writers might be added who comprehend all Playes and Spectacles under the name of Pompes And if Stage-playes were originally invented by and consecrated unto Divels on whose festivalls they were alwayes solemnly acted in greatest pompe and state as all these Authours and the premises largely testifie then questionlesse the very Pompes of the Divell which we renounce in baptisme can be no other but Stage-playes with such other Spectacles Shewes and Pastimes which the idolatrous Pagans used in the solemnities and worship of their Divell Gods and so the primitive Church and Christians alwayes tooke them If then the primitive Church and Saints of God who to shew their greater detestation to Stage-playes disabled all those who did but marrie women-Actors or Play-haunters from taking holy Orders or any Ecclesiasticall preferments whatsoever thus solemnly abominated and renounced Stage-playes in their Baptisme as the very Pompes and pastimes of the Divell it is most undeniably certaine that they reprobated and condemned Stage-playes in the very highest degree And to put this out of all further question we have the Century-Writers in the behalfe of Protestants and Cardinall Baronius and Spondanus in the behoofe of the Papists upon the serious perusal of all the severall records and Writers of the primitive Church proclaiming this as an indubitable truth That all the Christians Fathers and Councels in the primitive Church have wholly abandoned yea utterly condemned Stage-playes as diabolicall heathenish unchristian Spectacles excommunicating all Players all Play-haunters both from the Church the Sacraments and the society of Christians till they had abjured renounced these lewd accursed Enterludes which they did most detest And shall we then who professe our selves the undoubted progenie followers successours of the primitive Churches Saints and Christians so farre degenerate from their piety purity zeale and Christian discipline as not onely to tollerate but even patronize admire honour Players Play-Poets Theaters Stage-playes● which they so severely censured so diligently suppressed and which is worse to hate abominate revile condemne and ignominiously traduce all such for Puritans Praecisians Humorists Cynnicks Novellers Factionists I know not what besides an apparant argument of their grace and goodnesse when such vitious persons thus revile them who either write or speake against them or out of piety and conscience resort not daily to them Alas where is our Christianity our piety our godly discipline where is our claime our title our conformity to the primitive Church where our affinity our cognation to the primitive Christians whose children successours and disciples we professe our selves whiles that we thus tollerate harbour justifie these Diabolicall Pompes and Spectacles which they so seriously renounced as extremely opposite to as inconsisted with the very practise and profession of a Christian and thus causlesly revile all those who speake or write against them When we shal all appeare before the dreadful tribunal of our most holy Saviour as we shall doe ●re long and when we shall there behold those blessed Patriarkes Apostles Fathers Bishops Saints and holy Martyrs in the prim●tive Church who have so zealously anathematized renounced Stage-playes as the very Pompes of the Divell which they and we have solemnly abjured in our baptisme passing an eternall doome of condemnation on us for our perfidious resort unto them against our sacred vow alas what can we pleade to justifie to extenuate this our fact or to intitle our selves to the triumphant Church in heaven whose discipline wee thus reject on earth Can wee alledge for our selves that we are pious Christians when as our daily Play-house-haunting proclaimes us worse than Pagans or can we pleade we are members of the holy Catholicke Church of Christ when as our frequent presence at Playes at Play-houses and the diametrall contrariety of our lives our actions to all the primitive Christians proves us the very limbes the bondslaves of the Divell Certainly we must needes stand silenced amazed confounded condemned then for justifying for frequenting Stage-playes now against the unanimous execration vote and sentence of the whole primitive Church and Saints of God both under the Law and Gospell who as they shall judge and doome us at the last so they must needes abominate and condemne us now O therefore let no Christian now be so impiously shamelesse so peevishly absurd as to apologize for Playes or Players by pen by tongue or practise as tollerable as usefull among Christians or ignorantly much lesse maliciously out of an implacable detestation to all grace all goodnesse to condemne all such for Puritans Novellers or factious Male-contents the common voice and clamour of our dissolute gracelesse times wherein many turne professed Atheists or incarnate Divels to avoid the jealousie of being reputed Puritans But since the whole Catholicke Church both before and under the Law and Gospell with all the primitive Christians Fathers Councels of all Nations all places have thus unanimously proclaimed an everlasting professed hostility and passed such a finall doome and execration against Players and Stage-playes let this eternally convince our conscience close up our mouths alter our resolutions reforme our Play-haunting lives cause us readily to subscribe to this 47. Play-confounding Argument against which there can be no resistance with which I shall conclude this Scene That which the whole Church of