I will place, & put in the order or rowe of the first, playes and daunses: I meane such playes as by which man draweth or getteth to hymselfe, his neighboures money. It is true that wee fynd not in the Scripture these words. Thou shalt not play, but wee find indeede these wordes. Thou shale not steale: Now that to gayne or get an other mans money at play shoulde not be a most manifest & plaine thieuery: none of sound iudgement will denie it. For hee which hath wonne or gotten it, by what title or right can he say, that such money is his: Verily when we get or win the money, or the goods of our brother, it must be with the sweate of our face or browe, & that our laboure bringe him some profite, that is to be profitable unto him: and euen as we receaue his money or good: so must hee thorow our diligence and trauaile receaue some profite. But when a man hath gotten his money by the hazard or chaunce, as a man would say, of play, I pray you what commoditye and profite commeth to him thereby: we must then conclude, that this is a kind of theft: which although it be not playnly expressed in the holye scripture, yet neuertheles it ought to bee referred to the eight commaundement, in which it is sayd, Thou shalt not steale.
The like is of daunses which wee may put in the first & second row or order. For although wee haue not any playne and expresse forbidding, where it should be sayd, Thou shalt not daunse, yet we haue a formall and plaine commaundement, Thou shalt not commit adultery, or whoredome: to which the daunses ought to be referred. [Sidenote: A definition of daunses.] Now if one would aske me what daunses were: I wil answeare, that considering the sway which they haue at this day amongest us Cristians, they bee nothing else but impudent, shameles, and dissolute gestures, by which the lust of the flesh is awaked, stirred by, and inflamed, as wel in men as in women. [Sidenote: Deut. 22. Titus. 2.] Bat if honesty, modesty, and sobernes, be required in apparaile, & adorning of mens selues, as we see that it is commended and commaunded in Deuteronomie, & seing that S. Paule also in his epistle to Titus, willeth that there should be among us a sober and holy countenaunce, singularly and specially in women, which ordinarily be very curious in their garmentes, it is certayne and sure, that there is some poyson or venym hidden under the grasse. [Sidenote: I. Pet. 3.] And because it is so, S. Peter in his first canonicall or generall epistle, forbiddeth that women should appeare, shew, and sett out themselues by theyr apparayle and neatnes. Add that in many other places of the sayd holy scripture, the diuersity and difference in attire and garmentes, is condemned, as prouoking to whoredome, and slipperines, by more stronge reason the dissolute and lewde gestures, which be practised by the proper and owne members of a mans bodye, ought to be cutt of, and banished from among christians. [Sidenote: Jud. 23.] And S. Jude exhorteth us, to haue, yea and that in