Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	capable_a	court_n	great_a	14	3	2.1254	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51496	Beauty in distress as it is acted at the theatre in Little Lincolns-Inn-Fields by His Majesties servants / written by Mr. Motteux ; with a discourse of the lawfulness & unlawfulness of plays, lately written by the learned Father Caffaro, divinity-professor at Paris, sent in a letter to the author by a divine of the Church of England.	Motteux, Peter Anthony, 1660-1718.; Caffaro, Francesco, ca. 1650-1720.	1698 (1698)	Wing M2945; ESTC R36604	66,084	94

sinning from all manner of Objects indifferently As to the reading of the Plays which are now acted in France I never could find in those I have perus'd any thing which could any ways offend Christianity or good Manners The greatest fault that can be found in them is that most of the Subjects are taken out of Fables and yet what harm is there in that They are such Fables out of which may be taken very fine Instructions of Morality capable of inspiring Men with a love of Virtue and a detestation of Vice These are the words of a very great Man Peter Bishop of Blois who maintains That 't is lawful to extract Truths out of Heathen Fables and that 't is no more than receiving Arms from our very Enemies To leave nothing unresolv'd let me examin the Precautions which the Doctors give us in going to a Play As to the lawfulness of the Drama St. Thomas St. Bonaventure St. Antonine and above all Albertus Magnus has said that in all Sports we ought to take care of three things The first is that we should not seek for Pleasure in immodest Words or Actions as they did in the times of the Antients an unhappy Custom which Cicero laments in these words There is a kind of jesting which is sordid insolent wicked and obscene The second thing we are to take care of says Albertus is that when we would refresh our Spirits we should not entirely lose the Gravity of the Soul which gives St. Ambrose occasion to say Let us beware lest in giving our Spirits some Relaxation we lose the harmony of our Souls where the Virtues form an agreeable Consort And the third Condition required in our Sports as well as in all the other Actions of our Lives is that they be sutable to the Person Time and Place and regulated by all the other Circumstances which may render them inoffensive It would be easy for me to prove that none of these Qualifications are wanting to the Plays as they are in France from whence you ought to conclude that they are good and allowable After all I have said for Plays you cannot question but they ought to be such as are free from all immodest Speeches and Actions You have told me your self that the Players are very careful of this point and that they would not so much as suffer when they accept of any piece that it should have any thing in it indecent licentious equivocal or the least word under which any poison might be conceal'd We have very severe Laws in France against Blasphemers they are bor'd through the Tongue they are condemn'd even to be burn'd and should we caress the Players or give them any privilege if they were Blasphemers Libertines or Profane We own say our Reformers that they dare not openly speak any thing that is profane nor act upon the Stage those Infamies which were formerly acted there but there is still something remaining of its primitive Corruption disguis'd under gay Names Is there any Play acted now where there is not some Love-intrigue or other where the Passions are not represented in all their light and where mention is not made of Ambition Jealousy Revenge and Hatred A dangerous School for Youth where they are easily dispos'd to raise real Passions in their Hearts by seeing feign'd ones represented The first Duty of a Christian is to suppress his Passions and not to expose himself to the growth of them and by a necessary Consequence nothing is more pernicious than that which is capable of exciting them A fine Speech this for a rigid Declaimer but not sound enough for an equitable Divine Is there no difference think ye between an Action or a Word which may by accident raise the Passions and those which do it in reality The last are absolutely unlawful and sinful and tho it might happen that a Man might be unmov'd by them yet we are oblig'd to avoid them because 't is only by chance that they produce not their effect whereas in their own nature they are always attended with pernicious Consequences But for those Actions and Words which may by accident raise the Passions we cannot justly condemn them and we must even fly to Desarts to avoid them for we cannot walk a Step read a Book enter a Church or live in the World without meeting with a thousand things capable of exciting the Passions Must a Woman because she is handsom never go to Church for fear of exciting the Lust of a Debauchee Must the Great in Courts and the Magistrates lay aside that Splendor which is becoming and perhaps necessary to them for fear of exciting Ambition and a desire of Riches in others Must a man never wear a Sword for fear of being guilty of Murder This would be ridiculous and tho by misfortune a Scandal happen and an occasion of sinning be taken 't is a Passive not an Active Scandal pardon those School-terms 't is an Occasion taken not given which kind alone we are order'd to avoid for as to the first 't is impossible to avoid it and sometimes to foresee it All Histories not excepting the Bible make use of such words as express the Passions and relate great Actions of which they have been the Cause And will it be a Crime to read History because we may there meet with something which may be an occasion of our falling By no means unless it be a scandalous profane and loose History such a one as does infallibly stir up dangerous Passions and then 't is no longer an occasion taken but given But this is not the Character of our Plays for tho they speak of Love Hatred Ambition Revenge and the like 't is not done with an Intention of exciting those kinds of Passions in the Audience nor are there any such scandalous Circumstances in them as will infallibly produce such mischievous Effects in their Minds Besides as the wise Lycurgus said Shall we destroy all the Vines because some men get drunk with the juice of the Grape An ill use has and may be made of the most Sacred things such as are the Holy Scriptures and consequently of the most indifferent and least serious yet neither the one nor the other ought to be forbidden unless we would forbid every thing that may be put to an ill Use. As to the second Qualification which our Casuists require in Sports which is to avoid breaking the Harmony of the Soul by the excess and length of our Pleasures it may be said that neither those who go to Plays nor those who compose them nor those who act them so far unbend their Minds as to destroy that just disposition of Soul As for the first they have their Liberty to go or stay away and after a days Labour two Hours of Refreshment may be allow'd As for the Authors and Players whose Profession seems to be one contied Diversion they do not certainly look upon their Lives to be a Play since they have