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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57291	The stage condemn'd, and the encouragement given to the immoralities and profaneness of the theatre, by the English schools, universities and pulpits, censur'd King Charles I Sundays mask and declaration for sports and pastimes on the Sabbath, largely related and animadverted upon : the arguments of all the authors that have writ in defence of the stage against Mr. Collier, consider'd, and the sense of the fathers, councils, antient philosophers and poets, and of the Greek and Roman States, and of the first Christian Emperours concerning drama, faithfully deliver'd : together with the censure of the English state and of the several antient and modern divines of the Church of England upon the stage, and remarks on diverse late plays : as also on those presented by the two universities to King Charles I.	Ridpath, George, d. 1726.	1698 (1698)	Wing R1468; ESTC R17141	128,520	226

It had been more becoming a Supream Magistrate to provide against such unsuitable Matches by wholsom Laws than to have had them represented as the Subject of Mirth on a Stage as it would have been more decent for an University to have given him such Counsel than to divert him with such ridiculous Entertainment The Dialogue betwixt Albumazar Pandolfo and Cricca about Astrology is a meer Rhapsody of studied Nonsence which looks very unlike the Practice of Christians whose great Law-giver tells them They must be accountable for every idle Word The Courtship betwixt Trincalo a Farmer and Armellina Pandolfo's Maid wherein Trincalo compares himself to a lusty strong Ass and her to a Wanton young Filly and that they should have a race of Mules if she were willing is so very Coarse and throws so much Contempt upon the Country Farmers who are so useful to the Nation that it can neither be reconciled to the Maxims of Christianity nor Common Policy In short the whole Comedy is far from having any thing of a tendency to Vertue in it except Reflections upon the City as not affording a Dozen of Chast VIRGINS and the like on Sheriffs and Justices of Peace as Cheating and Hectoring their Neighbours and representing Country Gentlemen as minding nothing but Wenching and Drinking and young Gentlewomen talking smuttily of their Amours be vert●ous Representations If it be said as usual that those Vices are represented in order to make them be abhorr'd and the Guilty Persons ashamed of them it is easie to Answer That a Supream Magistrate is authoriz'd by God and the Laws of his Country to punish those Vices by the Sword of Justice which will be ten times more effectual than making them the Subject of Diversion on a Stage I come next to the Royal Slave a Tragi Comedy presented to the King and Queen by the Students of Christ-Church in Oxford The Prologue to the King and Queen is on the Representation of one of the Person Magi discovered in a Temple worshipping the Sun and at the sight of a new Majesty he leaves the Altar and addresseth himself to the Throne What Moral this can include is hard to determine except it were that they had a mind to insinuate that it was no Crime to Sacrifice Religion to the Court as too many of them attempted to do in reality when they embrac'd Doctrines contrary to those of the Church of England for which some of them as Laud Montague and others were censur'd by the Parliament afterwards In the Prologue to the University there 's a Jerk at some that they call Late damned Books and wich they hoped would inspire none of the University with a harsh Opinion of the Play which they alledge was so innocent that the ●ittle Ruff or Careless might be present at it without fear and they valued themselves highly upon the Presence of their Majesties as giving Life to the Performance and the King's Servants spoke much in the same manner when they presented it before them at Hampton Court The first Act represents a parcel of drunken Ephesian Captives revelling in their Chains and calling for VVhere 's but bidding their Goaler and his Wife be sure that they did not suffer any of the Young Students of the LAW to forestal the Market The Goaler too has a Jerk at the Custom of Singing Psalms at the Gallows All which I humbly conceive was an Entertainment no way suited to the Royal Majesty of a King nor to the modesty of a Queen Nor was it any thing for the Credit of the Nation that the Reins of Publick Discipline should be so far let loose as to suffer such Practices amongst the young Students of the Law if that was the Moral of the Fable The Rape attempted afterwards upon the Persian Queen and her Ladies by those Ephesian Captives and their lewd Discourses from time to time was no very good Lesson nor meet Entertainment for a Queen And their bringing in the Persian Courtiers yielding compleat Obedience to Cratander a mock-Mock-King for three Days because Arsamnes their Prince commanded it and at the same time divested himself of his Authority for that space seems to teach the slavish Doctrine● so much then contended for by the Court that i● was unlawful to resist the King or any having his Commission under any Pretence whatsoever tho' he should ev'n overturn the Foundations of their Constitution as here their Counterfeit Arsamnes did by making a Captive King of Persia. Nay and this Play too which they pretend was so fram'd as it could give no offence to the Gravity of the University or Clergy represents Atossa the Queen a little inclining to the Taint of an Unlawful Amour with Cratander the Three-Days●King and him Entertaining it also tho' at the same time he is their chief Pattern of Vertue Indeed there 's Praxaspis's Saying in the Second Scene that seemed to be a Sa●yrical hint tho' I cannot think co●sidering the Temper of the Stage that 't was so design'd Viz. that when one of the Ladies wondred that they had not chosen Cratander a Queen for Company to impe his Reign Praxaspis answer'd That the Female Sex was too Imperious to Rule and would do as much harm in a Kingdom as a Monkey in a Glass-shop move and remove till they had broken all Had her then Majesty taken the hint and forborn medling with Affairs of State it 's probable that Matters had not come to that fatal Exit they did which is one Instance more to convince our Advocates of the St●ge that those who frequent and admire it most are never reform'd by it I shall forbear any further Remarks upon those Plays these being enough to make good the Charge that our Universities have encouraged the Stage which is so much the more Criminal in ●hem because they ought to instruct the Nation by their Example as well as their Learning Methinks the Reverence they ow'd to the Antient Philosophers Fathers and Councils besides what our first Reformers the Acts of Parliament and those of their own Convocations requir'd from them should have restrained them But to the great Misfortune of the Nation neither th●se nor any Consideration whatever were able to prevail with them so that the Universities became infected with the Contagion of the Stage and they being the Nurseries of Officers for the Church and State it was no wonder if the Infection spread from them all over the Kingdom especially being patroniz'd by the Court and A. B. Laud and his Faction of the Church This encourag'd particular Students afterwards such a Barton Holyd●y and Gaspar Main both of Christ-Church Oxford to write Plays The latter in his Comedy call'd The Amorous VVar is so very foul and smutty that it may well deserve the Name of down-right Lewdness but it 's supposed he thought it Attonement sufficient to jerk at the City and Parliament which he does there with abundance of more Malice than Wit Neither Time nor Room will now

was more severely restricted if not totally discharged by the first and third of Iames and first of Charles And that the Stage was culpable in those times as well as now For Jesting with Scripture and prophanely using the Name of God and the Trinity From all which it will appear to any unprejudic'd Person that whatever Opinion might have been sometimes entertained of it by the Court the Opinion of the English State which includes the Court and Parliament too hath not at any time been very favourable to it CAP. XI Sediti●ns and Tumults occasioned by the●● STAGE OUR Author Page 13. upbraids Mr. Collier For not quoting a more Modern National Opinion against the Stage when it lay under a more Universal Abdication viz. in the Reign of those later Powers at the Helm who with no little Activity leaped over the Block and the whole Whitehall-Stage it stood upon and yet stumbled at the Straw c. A prosane Comedy and Tragedy were all Heathen and Antichristian but pious Regicide and Rebellion were Religion and Sanctity with them The Camel would go down but the Gnat stuck in their Throats He ought by all means to have quoted this National Opinion of the Stage in pure Gratitude to the Patrons of his Book the Gentlemen of the Calves-Head-Feast who have made it their particular bosom Favorite c. Here 's a great deal more of ill Nature than Wit whether we take it with respect to the Nation to Mr. Collier or to the particular Party he reflects upon It 's a Malicious False and Unmannerly Reflection upon the Nation to insinuate that King Charles I. was cut off by their Authority when the World knows that it was the Act of a prevailing Head-strong Faction contrary to the Sense of the Nation and of that very Parliamen● who began the Opposition to King Charles for his Tyranny and Oppression if Levying of Money without Consent of Parliament and forcing the Citizens of London and others that would not lend him the Summs he demanded to serve as Soldiers in his Fleet and Army and a hundred other such things may be call'd by that Name It is Malicious upon Mr. Collier to the highest degree who is known to the World to be for Passive Obedience the opposite Extreme It is as full of Spite against those who are Enemies to the Stage many of whom abhor the Memory of that Fact and are zealous Sons of the Church of England though at the same time they detest Tyranny be it in Prince or Prelate But to repay our Author in his own Coin we have had a later instance of Friends to the Stage as Goodman and others engaged in a Design of as black a Nature if the Assassination of the bravest Prince in the Universe may be so accounted But lest they object That this is but one instance we shall bring Antiquity in for further Evidence and in the first Place St. Chrysostom who tells us That the Players and Play haunte●s of his time were most notorious Adulterers the Authors of many Tumults and Seditions setting People together by the Ears with idle Rumors filling Cities with Commotions and were more savage than the most cruel Beasts Tertullian Cyprian and Clemens Alexanandrinus declaim against Tragedies and Comedies As Bloody Impious and Prodigal Pastimes which occasion Tumults and Seditions Gregory Nazianzen informes us That Plays and Interludes disturbed Cities raised Sedition among the People taught Men how to Quarrel sharpned ill Tongues destroyed the mutual Love of Citizens and set Families at Variance Cornelius Tacitus acquaints us in his Annals That the Stage-players in Rome grew so Seditious that after many renew'd Complaints against them by the Pretors Tiberius and the Senate ba●ished them out of Italy Marcus Aurelius testifies That because of the Adulteries Rapes Murthers Tumults and other Outrages occasion'd and committed by Stage-players he was forc'd to banish them out of Italy into Hellespont where he commanded Lambert his Deputy to keep them hard at Work Suetonius tells us That in Nero's Time there were so many Seditions Quarrels Com. motions and Misdemeanours in the Roman Theatre That Nero himself though he took great delight in them suppressed all Plays by a solenan Edict Caesar Bulengerus informs us That under Hypatius and Belisarius there were at least 35000 Men slain in a Commotion and Tumult raised at a Cirque Play In the time of Theodorick King of Italy we are im●ormed by Cassiodorus That there were so many Tumults Quarrels and Commotions raised at Stage Plays that he was forced upon the complaint of the People to write to the Senate to punish the Mutineers and suppress their Insolencies But there being no reforming of them he gave Orders wholly to suppress them We have heard already that the Statute of the 4th of Henry 4. Cap. 27. restrained them in Wales because of the Commotions Murthers and Rebellions they occasioned there The Statute of the 3d of Henry 8. Cap. 9. against Mummers proceeded from the like Cause And we are informed That Kets Rebellion in the 3d of Edward VI. was concerted at and partly occasioned by a Meeting at a Stage-play at Wimonham to which the Country people resorting were by the Instigation of one Iohn Flowerdew first incouraged to pull down the Inclosures and then to rebel Nay I refer our Author to his own Stow in his Survey of London where he shall find an Account of diverse Tumults and Riots occasion'd by Stage-Plays Those Tumults Seditions and Rebellions being by the fore-mentioned Authors charged upon the Stage let the Defender of Dramatick Poetry wipe off the Imputation if he can or give us as good Authorities to prove that Enmity to the Stage did ever produce such Effects CAP. XII The Grecian and Roman State against the STAGE THE Defender Page 14. triumphs over Mr. Collier for telling us That the Athenians thought Comedy so unreputable a Performance that they made a Law That no Judge of the Areopagus should write one beca●se that only prohibited a Judge from writing a Co●●edy An Argument says our Author enough to set Heraclitus himself a smiling But I would pray the Reviewer not to insult lest the Athenians themselves should give him a rebuke and speak their Mind more freely than Mr. Collier has done for them For if we may believe Plutarch Though the Athenians put great Honout upon Actors and Play-Poets at first yet growing Wiser by dear bought Experience at last when they found that the Stage had effeminated their Spirits exhausted their Treasures and brought sundry Mischiefs upon them they abandoned the same and enacted a publick Law against it that no Man should thenceforth presume to Pen or Act a Comedy and declared all common Actors Infamous from that time forward The Defender owns That the Lacedemonians passed a positive Bill of Exclusion against the Stage and I shall make hold to add their Reasons from Plutarch

Multitude Thespis thought it a good Excuse when he told him It was but a Play at which the Philosopher struck his Staff upon the Ground with great Indignation and replied to him smartly If we approve this Play of yours we shall quickly find the Effects of it in our Bargains And therefore forbad him to Act any further telling him his Tragedies were a parcel of unprofitable Lies The next is Lycurgus the famous Spartan Law-giver Who we are informed by the same Author excluded all Stage-plays out of the Commonwealth lest they should corrupt their Youth and bring their Laws into Contempt The Answer of a Lacedemonian to the Ambassador of Rhodes who ask'd The occasion of this Severe Law is no less observable viz. That Lycurgus foresaw the great Damage that Players and Jesters might do in a Common-wealth But however that was this I know says he That it is better for us Greeks to weep with our Philosophers than for the Romans to laugh with their Fools To these we may add the Opinion of Socrates so famous for his Wisdom among the Greeks Who by the express Resolution of the Oracle of Delphos condemned all Comedies as Pernicious Lascivious Scurrillous and unseemly Diversions and of the great Orator Isocrates who declaims against all Plays and Actors as Hurtful Scurrilous Fabulous Ridiculous Invective and Expensive Pastimes and therefore not ●it to be tolerated in a City These being Men of the greatest Repute for Wisdom Learning and Moral Instructions in all the Heathen Antiquity It must needs be allowed that tho' they be few in number yet their Opinion in this Matter is of more Weight because agreeable to the Dictates of Resin'd Reason than those of 100 others that approve the Stage and other Licentious Practices which always issue in the Ruine of their Followers The Reasons they have exhib●ted for their Aversion to the Stage are not to be Answer'd by our Authors Scoff* That the particular Opinions of not half a Score of these Dissenting Ethnick Doctors out of at least half as many hundred of that Fraternity especially too at their rate of talking or Mr. Collier for them is no more a Conclusive Argument in my simple Judgment against the Stage than a Diogenes in his Tub and his Rags or an Epimantus at his Roots and his Water should perswade any Rational Man from a clean Shirt upon his Back and a good House over his Head or a good Dish of Meat and a Bottle of Wine for his Dinner viz. If he be able to purchase it If our Author can produce for his opinion but an equal number of Ethnick Doctors of the like Authority with those we have quoted against it he will oblige the learned World more than any Man has hitherto been able to pretend to but much more if he can bring us half a Score Hundreds I must also desire him to consider that most of the Authors here mentioned bear a gre●ter Character than that of particular Persons Plato Aristotle and Seneca were the great Lights of the Gentile World in thier time and their moral Dictates were received as Laws Lycurgus and Solon were Legislators and their Doctrine embraced as the Laws of famous Commonwealths Add to these the Laws of the Roman Emperors and Senators and of the several Republicks of Greece against the Stage and we shall find that the Theatre was not condemned by a few dissenting Ethnick Doctors But by the greatest Men of the World in their time and the w●sest and most polite Nations upon the Face of the Earth As to Diogenes's Rags and Tub and Epiamantus's Roots and Water Our Author very well knows they cannot infer the Prohibition of a moderate use of Houses and Raiment or of good Meat and Drink because those things are allowed by the Laws of God Nature and Nations which cannot be said of the Stage though at the same time I must crave leave to tell him that the mortified Lives of such Heathen Philosophers will rise up in Judgment against the Debauches and Riots of most of those who frequent and patronize the Play-house CAP. XV. The Antient Poets against the STAGE OUR Author falls next on Mr. Collier's Quotations from the Poets and in the first place charges him with quoting ovid's following Lines impertinently Sed tu praecipue curvis venare Theatris Haec loca sunt votis fertiliora tuis ruit ad celebres cultissima femina Ludos Copia Iudicium saepe morata meum est Spect●tum veniunt veniunt spectenter ut ipsae Ille locus Casti damna pudoris habet Ovid. de Arte Amandi Lib. 1. The Reviewer is in the right that Ovid does not here design to reflect upon the Stage because then it was his darling Recreation but he must at the same time own its a fair Confession that the Play-house was the properest place for a Lecher to forage in which fully answers Mr. Collier's design and had our Author but turn'd his Eye to the very next page he might have found a Quotation from Ovid for pulling down the Theatre as a Nursery of Villany Ut t●men hoc fatear Ludi quoque semina praebent Nequitie tolli tota Theatra jube Peccand● ca●sam quam multis saepe dederunt Marria cum durum sternit arena solum Tollatur Circus non tua Licentia Circi est Hic sedet Ignoto jun●ta puella Viro Cum quaedam spatientur in hac ut amator eodem Conveniat quare 〈◊〉 ulla patet Trist. Lib. 2. Such was the difference betwixt Ovid when he was carried head-long by the Impetuous 〈◊〉 of his Lust and when he was an Exile and 〈◊〉 time to reflect upon his former lewd way of Living Being willing to attone for the Mischief 〈◊〉 had done by his Lascivious Poem De 〈◊〉 Amandi he composed another De Remedi● Amoris wherein as one of the chief Receipts he prescribes Abstinence from the Stage and from Reading the Amorous Versos writ by himself and others thus At tanti tibi sit non indulgere Theatris Dum bene de vacuo pectore ●●dat amor Enervant animos cytharae cantusque lyr 〈◊〉 Et vox numer is brachia mota suis Illic assidue ●icti saltantur Amantes Quid cavens Actor quid Iuvet arte docet Eloquar invitus teneros ne tange Po●tas Summoneo dotes Impias csse me as c. Nor is Ovid the only Roman Poet that hath thus censur'd the Frequenters of the Theatre Any Man that peruses Iuvenal and Horace will find they had no honourable Opinion of it neither The former gives an Elegant Description how the prodigal Dames in his time consumed their Husbands Estates by frequenting the Play-house as followeth Ut 〈◊〉 Ludos conducit Ogulnia Vestem Conduc● comites cellam cervical Amicas Nutricem flavam cui det mandata puellam Haec ta●ten argenti superest quodcunque paterni Levibu● Athletis ac vasa novissima donat c. Prodiga non sentit pereuntem

answer in the Words of Augustus formerly mentioned in the like case That he had been powerful enough to make his Enemies stoop and is he not able now to banish Iesters and Fools His next Insinuation That it diverts the Iacobites and prevents their Plots and Conventicles is equally absur'd Let him but cast an Eye up to Westminster-Hall or the City Gates and there the Heads and Limbs of Charnock Perkins and Friend c. will tell him to his Face that he 's mistaken His Answers to the Objections from Authority in the Third Chapter I shall pass over as having said enough on that Head already in Answer to others And as for his Pretence in the rest of his Book to shew the Usefulness of the Stage to the Advancement of Religion it 's only a further proof of his Vanity and intollerable Confidence seeing Fathers Councils and the best of Divines in all Ages have demonstrated the contrary to their Arguments that I have quoted already I refer him and so bid him Farewel If he think that I have not used him with that Smoothness that he might have expected let him remember how he treated the whole Nation as Splenetick Rebels the Parliament of England in 1641. as Traitors and all the Divines of those Times as Blockheads and Hypocrites CAP. XX. The STAGE Encouraged by the Universities I Come next to consider the Encouragement given to the Stage by our Universities which may also bear date from the Reign of King Charles I. for before that time I find both of them had declared themselves against the Theatre Dr. Reynolds in his Book Entituled The Overthrow of Stage-Plays affirms That the best and gravest Divines in the University of Oxford condemned Stage-Plays by an express Statute in a full Convocation of the whole University in 1584. whereby the use of all Common-plays was expresly prohibited in the University lest the younger sort who are prone to imitate all kinds of Vice being Spectators of so many lewd and evil Sports as in them are practised should be corrupted by them And Mr. Prin informs us That the University of Cambridge enacted the like That no Common Actors should be suffered to play within the Jurisdiction of the University for fear they should deprave the Manners of the Scholars And whereas it was objected that the Universities approved of Private Stage-Plays acted by Scholars in private Colledges Dr. Reynolds answe●s in the Book above-mentioned That tho' they conniv'd at them yet they gave no publick approbation to them that they were not receiv'd into all Colledges but only practised in some private houses perchance once in three or four years and that by the particular Statutes of those Houses made in times of Popery which require some Latin Comedies for Learning sake only to be acted now and then and those Plays too were for t●e most part compos'd by idle persons who d●● not affect better Studies and they were acted 〈◊〉 such as preferr'd Vain-glory Ostentation and Strutting on the Stage before Learning ● by such who were sent to the University not so much to obtain Knowledge as to keep t●●m from the common Riotous way of living ●s Parents send little Children to School to kee● them out of harms way and their Spectators ● the most part were of the same sort but the raver better and more studious persons especially Divines condemn'd them censur'd them and came not at them Thus we see that our Universities formerly condemn'd the Stage and that they came afterwards to countenance them must without doubt be ascribed to the Influence of K. Charles I. and A. Bishop Laud for I find on Aug. the 30th 1636. the Students of Christ-Church in Oxford presented a Tragi-comedy call'd The Royal Slave to the K. and Queen which was afterwards presented again to Their Majesties at Hampton-Court and the 2d Edition Printed at Oxford by William Turner in 1640. The Gentlemen of Trinity-Colledge in Cambridge did before that viz. in 1634. present a Comedy to the King call'd Albumazar Printed at London by Nicholas Okes upon both which I shall make some Remarks and first upon Albumazar Remarks upon the Universities Plays before King Charles I. The Poet values himself in the Prologue upon the Dignity of his Audience but chiefly addresses himself to the Ladies whose Beauties he says made the whole Assembly glad Whether the Play was altogether so pure and chast as became His Majesties presence the Gravity of the University and the Modesty of the Ladies we shall see afterwards but this very hint of the Beauty of the Ladies cheering the hearts of the Assembly will fall under our Saviours Reproof of not looking upon a Woman to lust after her and is the very thing for which St. Chrysostom declaims against Plays as we have heard already Nor can it be reconcileable to the purity of the Christian Religion which hath set a Bar upon our very Looks for Men and Women to haunt Play-houses in order to ogle one another as the Stage-Poets themselves now express it Then for the Play it self The Dialogue betwixt Albumazar Harpax and Ronca where they applaud Theft and Robbery as that which made the Spartans Valiant and Arabia Happy and charge it on all Trades and Callings tho' guilt with the smooth Title of Merchant Lawyer or the like could have no Natural Tendency to teach Moral Honesty Whether it might have any design to justifie the after Practices of Levying Money without Consent of Parliament Ex●orting Loan Money from Merchants and Tradesmen as being only a better sort of Thieves or to justifie Plundering the Country as the Histories of those times say was very usual amongst the King's Soldiers afterwards I know not but the Fable seems to carry some such Moral and the Authority of an University would go a great way among Libertines so that it could but be collected by the least Innuendo tho' never so much wrested Albumazar's insisting upon Great Necessity as the Cardinal Virtue and it being Printed too in Italick would seem to strengthen the Conjecture especially seeing he goes on to represent all Mankind as Thieves and that the very Members of Man's Body are fram'd by Nature so as to steal from one another which is good enough Authority for the Head to steal from all the rest The 2d Scene Containing a Discourse betwixt Pandolfo an old Fellow of 60 in Love with Flavia a Girl of 16 and Cricca his Servant is far from being Chast. I cannot imagine what Edification it could afford to the Audience to hear an old Man insist upon his Vigor and Fitness for a young Girl and his Servant on the other hand telling him that one Nights Lodging would so much enfeeble him as Flavia would make him a Cuckold This seems more adapted to expose to Laughter the Dotage that old Age is now and then subject to and to justifie the Disloyalty of a young Wife so Wedded than to bewail or reprove such Folly on both sides

of Service to the Courts of St. Germains and Versails If we consider that the Restoring and Incouraging of Play-houses was one of the chief Expedients of those who were resolved to put Cardinal Mazarins Advice in Execution which was to debauch the Nation in order to the better Introducing of Po●ory and Slavery and therefore those who reflect upon Mr. Collier for his Nonjurancy for his Book called A Perswasive to Consideration and for his Absolving Sir William Perkins and Sir Iohn Friend at Tyburn ought not to be angry with him for writing against the Stage If all our Church-men had done their Duty as well as Mr. Collier has done his in this Matter Stage-Plays had never b●en suffered in the Nation nor had there been the least pretence for their Usefulness But in K. Charles I. Time they were necessary to Ridicule the Puritans and run down the Patrons of Liberty and Property And in K. Char. II. Reign they were no less wanted to lash the Dissenters and Whiggs that oppos'd Tyranny and needful to promote the Glorious Design of Debauching the Nation and to baffle the Evidence of the Popish Plots And now by the just Judgment of God the Clergy who did but too much Countenance the Proceedings of those Reigns are lash'd and expos'd in the Play-houses themselves which Mr. Collier complains of This it 's hop'd will cure their Itch of Adorning or rather disguising the Doctrines of the Gospel with the Phrase of the Stage and their fondness of Reading Plays for refining their Stile No Clergy-man can propose to himself any justifiable End in Reading Plays but that which Mr. Collier has excellently perform'd to wit the exposing their Immorality and Profaneness and to discover their Failure in their pretended Designs It is altogether unsufferable to hear a sort of young Divines Regale our Ears from the Pulpit with the Rhetorick of a Play while at the same time they Treat the Phrase of the Scripture and the Language of Antient and Learned Divines as Unintelligible Cant and yet that this hath been and is still too common amongst some of our Clergy-men cannot be denied So long as those Writings of Parkers and others which call the New Birth a Fantastical Iargon or those Sermons which treat the Doctrine of St. Austin Calvin and Beza nay and of the Articles of the Church of England too as Stuff and Cant have an Existence Mr. Collier and others may write Volumes against the Stage as long as they please but they will find it to little purpose whilst the Plays are so much read and incourag'd by the Clergy and by 'em retail'd again to the People If the Language of the Play-house be thought fit to be made use of as an Ornament to a Sermon the Hearers will be apt to conclude that the Stage is not so Criminal a Thing as some Men would have it accounted And seeing Mr. Collier has been so much approv'd for lashing the Poets and the Stage there 's no reason to think that it should be taken amiss in another to censure the vanity of such of the Clergy as write Plays or Preach in that Dialect and have neglected to inform their People of the Danger of the Play-house Had they taken due care to instruct their Auditors in this Matter at Church the Audiences would never have been so numerous at the Stage For why should I think there 's any hurt in the Theatre when I see that its ordinary for our Gallants on a Saturday to prepare themselves by a Play for Hea●ing a Sermon on Sunday Nay sometimes it may be for the Sacrament And yet the Parson hath not the Courage or Honesty to reprove it but perhaps chuses it as the most proper way to recommend himself to the Applause of his Hearers to deliver his Preachment in the stile of a Comedy Our Wits indeed when passing their Judgment on a Sermon think they give the Preacher a large Encomium when they say he has read abundance of Play-Books Which let our Youngsters in Divinity value as they please I should think it the most picquant Satyr that could be put upon me were I worthy of bearing the Indelible Character But that those flanting Preachers may have no occasion to say that I am alone in this Matter I shall pray them to consider the following Authorities Prosper says to such Whilst they would seem Nice and Elegant they grow perfectly Mad with fulsom Expressions St. Ierom writing to Nepotianus Advises him when he is Preaching in the Church To labour for the Groans and not for the Applause of his Hearers Not to behave himself like a Declaimer of feigned Orations or a pretended Advocate and to talk without Measure The Sermon of a Minister ought to be seasoned with Quotations from Scripture Prosper Aquitanicus says That a Preacher ought not to value himself upon the Accuracy of his Stile except he have more mind to shew his own Learning than to edifie the Church of God That his Sermon ought to be so plain that the most ignorant Persons may understand it the business of Declaimers or Makers of Orations being one thing and that of Preachers another The former endeavour to set off the ●omp of an Elaborate Speech with the utmost strength of their Eloquence The latter seek after the Glory of God in a sober and plain Discourse Of the same Opinion are St. ●erom Ambrose Theodoret Theophylact and others as appears by their Commentaries on 1 Cor. 2. 1. c. Isidorus Pelusiot a taxes some Monks of his time for their affected Stile in Preaching Who can abstain from Satyrs against you says he when they hear your Sermons cram'd with Heathen Historians and Poets Pray what is there in them preferable to our Religion Therefore either let your Sermons be Grave and prefer a Modest Stile to big swelling Words and pompous Rhetorick or give me leave to say That you are fitter for the Stage than the Pulpit The Bishop of Chemnis in his Onus Ecclesiae has very remarkable Sa●ings to this purpose and amongst others those that follow In these last days the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures is utterly lost the Preachers being puffed up with Knowledge teach their own Notions They extol the Learning of the Heathen Philosophers and thereby darken the Sun-shine of Christian Wisdom And now most of the Schools where Divinity was formerly taught are filled with Poetical ●ictions Empty Trifles and Monstrous Fables The Preachers hunt after their own Applause and study to gratifie the Ears of their Auditors with Ornat and Polite Discourses But true Sermons are better than those that are Elegant And let those Eloquent Doctors know that our Saviour says of them In vain do ye Worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men. To conclude this Point with the Authority of the Apostle St. Paul he commends his own Sermons because his Speech and his Preaching was not with enticing Words of Mans Wisdom but in

demonstration of the Spirit and of Power yet this great Apostle of the Gentiles was brought up at the Feet of Gamaliel and had more humane Learning than 20 of our fluttering Doctors It is not my design to cry down Eloquence in a Preacher nor to commend a rough way of Expression from the Pulpit Eloquence is the Gift of God and commended in the Preacher Apollos but at the same time we are told That he was mighty in the Scriptures and taught diligently the things of the Lord It 's reckoned highly prophane and Mr. Collier has smartly reproved it for Poets to apply the Phrase of the Scripture to the use of the Stage and I see no reason why Vice Versa it should not be liable to that same Censure to adopt the Phrase of the Stage for the Language of the Pulpit not that it 's absolutely Unlawful for a Preache● to quote an apposite Sentence or Verse either from Greek Latine or other Poets The Apostle himself hath taught us the contrary by his own Example when he tells the Cretians that one of their own Poets says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it is an intolerable Affectation of Novelty when a New Word or a Quaint Phrase is no sooner published in a Play or Gazzette but we shall the next Sunday after hear it out of the Pulpit This is so far from holding fast the Form of sound Words as St. Paul enjoyned Timothy that it is rather the prophane and vain Babbling he commanded him to avoid and which Calvin upon the place says is Inanis tinnitus profanus Simulatque Doctores it a inflant suas tibias ad suam Eloquentiam Venditandam A prophane and empty Jingle which the Doctors make use of to set off their Eloquence It were an easie matter to quote as many Sermons guilty of these Vanities as Mr. Collier has quoted Plays guilty of abusing Scripture but for obvious Reasons I forbear it The only cause why I mention it is to shew that it is not the Poets alone that support the Credit of the Stage and that what is Criminal in a Poet is ten times worse in a Priest and therefore they ought not to pass without a Reproof It 's known there are many godly Persons amongst our Clergy who bewail those things and oppose them as much as they can but there is a mighty Neglect somewhere and the World will hardly be perswaded that our Church of England is unanimous in this Matter else it were easie for them who shook King James out of his Throne to overturn the Stage It is not to be supposed that the King and Parliament would deny the Clergy such a Request if it were duly presented and considering how much the Nation hath suffered in its Morals and Religion by the Licentiousness of the Stage it 's high time that some effectual Course should be taken to suppress it But there 's reason to fear that the Faction begun by Arch-bishop Laud has still too great an interest amongst our Clergy for scarcely can any other reason be imagined why after so many Years Experience of the Mischief of the Stage the Church should be so silent in this Matter That there is something in this I am very apt to think because of the Deference many of the Clergy men pay to the Memory of that Prelate and of his Master King Charles I. whom he help'd to mislead In those Times as Mr. Prin acquaints us in his Histriomastix none were accounted Enemies to the Play-house but Puritans and Precisians and in opposition to them it probably was that Laud and his Clergy became its Patrons and it is not unlike that many of the Less-thinking Church-men continue still to favour it on that Account as being unwilling to condemn that for which King Charles I. and Arch-bishop Laud testified so much Passion but these Gentlemen would do well to remember That the Defence of the Stage was never so much the Characteristick of their church as was the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and seeing the Majority of them have relinquished that they are infinitely the more to blame for still adhering to this If a Petition of the Londoners had so much Influence on Queen Elizabeth as to get the Play-houses suppress'd and if the Stage was expresly condemned by a Statute of King Iames I. we have no reason to despair of obtaining the same now upon the like Application And methinks the Clergy are more concerned to stir in it than ever seeing it would appear by Mr. Collier's third Chapter Of the Clergy abused by the Stage that the Theatre is now become a Nusano● to themselves It is apparent enough from what has been said already that the Clergy are chargeable with the Mischief of the Stage by the omitting of what their Character obliges them to do against it and that many of them are also Culpable by seeming to hallow its Phrase in the Pulpit but this is not all as will appear by what follows We have heard that the Stage was condemned by Act of Parliament in King Iames I. Time but reviv'd again in the Reign of K. Charles contrary to Law and that Operas were practised in his own Court by his Royal Authority on Sundays Now considering how much that Prince was devoted to the Interest of the Clergy it 's highly improbable that he would have atttempted any such thing had the then Governing part of the Church given him faithful warning against it but Laud and the other topping Church-men of that time were so far from opposing it that they concur'd with him imposed a Book of Sports and Pastimes upon all their Clergy to be read to the People on Sundays which was a fair step towards converting all the Churches of the Nation into Play-houses This great Example did so much incourage the Stage that Mr. Prin tells us in his Book before-mentioned in two Years time there were above 40000 Play-Books printed They became more vendible than the choicest Sermons Grew up from Quarto's to Folio's were printed on far better Paper than most of the Octavo or Quarto Bibles and were more saleable than they And Shackspeers Plays in particular were printed in the best● Paper The two old Play-houses were rebuilt and enlarged and a new Theatre erected so that there were then six Play-houses in London twice the number of those in Rome in Nero's Time which though a much more spacious City Seneca complains of as being too many That Faction of the Clergy became at last so enamour'd of the Stage that the same Author informs us He had heard some Preachers call their Text a Land-skip or Picture and others a Play or Spectacle dividing their Texts into Actors Spectators Scenes c. as if they had been Acting a Play Upon which he complains of their using Play-house Phrases Clinches and strong Lines as they called them and that it was to to frequent to have Sermons in respect of their Divisions