“Now, are not these, that have got their ribands hanging about their arms, hands, back, waists, knees, hats, like unto fiddlers’ boys? This shows that you are got into the basest and most contemptible life, who are in the fashion of the fiddler’s boys and stage-players, quite out of the paths and steps of solid men; and in the very steps and paths of the wild heads, who give themselves up to every invention and vanity of the world that appears, and are inventing how to get it upon their backs, heads, feet, and legs, and say, if it be out of the fashion it is nothing worth. Are not these the spoilers of the creation, who have the fat and the best of it, and waste and destroy it? Do not these cumber God’s earth? Let that of God in all consciences answer, and those who are in the wisdom, judge. And further, if one get a pair of trousers like a coat, and hang them about with points, and up almost to the middle, a pair of double cuffs upon his hands, and a feather in his cap, here is a gentleman; bow before him, put off your hats, get a company of fiddlers, a set of music, and women to dance. This is a brave fellow. Up in the chamber; up in the chamber without, and up in the chamber within. Are these your fine Christians? Yea, say they, they are Christians. “But, say the serious people, they are out of Christ’s life, and out of the apostles’ command, and out of the saints’ ornament. And to see such as are before described, as are in the fashions of the world before-mentioned, a company of them playing at bowls, or at tables, or at shuffle-board; or each taking his horse, that has bunches of ribands on his head, as the rider has on his own (who, perhaps, has a ring in his ear too) and so go to horse-racing, to spoil the creatures; O, these are gentlemen indeed, these are bred up gentlemen, these are brave fellows, and they must take their recreation; for pleasures are lawful. These in their sports set up their shouts, like wild asses. They are like the kine or beasts, when they are put to grass, lowing when they are full. Here is the glorying of those before mentioned; but it is in the flesh, not in the Lord. These are bad Christians, and show that they are gluttoned with the creatures, and then the flesh rejoiceth. Here is bad breeding of youth and young women, who are carried away with the vanities of the mind in their own inventions, pride, arrogancy, lust, gluttony, uncleanness. They eat and drink, and rise up to the play. This is the generation which God is not well-pleased with; for their eyes are full of adultery, and cannot cease from evil. These be they that live in pleasures upon earth; these be they who are dead while they live; who glory not in the Lord, but in the flesh. These be they that are out of the life, that the Scriptures were given forth from; who live in the fashions and vanities of the world, out of truth’s adorning, in the devil’s