[From A Sermon preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the thirde of November 1577 in the time of the Plague. By T. W. This was printed, according to the colophon, by F. Coldocke on 10 Feb. 1578. There are two copies in the B.M., but one has been bound in error with the title-page of an earlier sermon of 9 Dec. 1576, by the same author. T. W. was probably Thomas White, vicar of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, and later founder of Sion College and of White's Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. The sermon is sometimes claimed for Thomas Wilcox; but he was in ecclesiastical disgrace in 1577 and unlikely to have access to Paul's Cross.]
P. 46. 'Looke but vppon the common playes in London, and see
the multitude that flocketh to them and followeth them: beholde the
sumptuous Theatre houses, a continuall monument of Londons prodigalitie
and folly. But I vnderstande they are nowe forbidden
bycause of the plague. I like the pollicye well if it holde still, for
a disease is but bodged or patched vp that is not cured in the cause,
and the cause of plagues is sinne, if you looke to it well: and the
cause of sinne are playes: therefore the cause of plagues are playes. . . .
Shall I reckon vp the monstrous birds that brede in this nest?
without doubt I am ashamed, and I should surely offende your chast
eares: but the olde world is matched, and Sodome ouercome, for
more horrible enormities and swelling sins are set out by those stages,
than euery man thinks for, or some would beleeue, if I shold paint
them out in their colours: without doubt you can scantly name me
a sinne, that by that sincke is not set a gogge: theft and whoredome;
pride and prodigality; villanie and blasphemie; these three couples
of helhoundes neuer cease barking there, and bite manye, so as they
are vncurable euer after, so that many a man hath the leuder wife,
and many a wife the shreuder husband by it: and it can not otherwise
be, but that whiche robbeth flatlye the Lord of all his honor,
and is directly against the whole first table of his law, should make
no bones of breache of the second also, which is toward our neighbour
only. Wherefore if thou be a father, thou losest thy child: if thou
be a maister, thou losest thy seruaunt; and thou be what thou canst
be, thou losest thy selfe that hauntest those scholes of vice, dennes of
theeues, and Theatres of all leudnesse: and if it be not suppressed
in time, it will make such a Tragedie, that London may well mourne
whyle it is London, for it is no playing time.'
