Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	action_n	bring_v	case_n	941	5	6.2748	4	true

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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

the Stage It may perhaps be further objected That the Magistrate being left at Liberty as to the Means of Recommending Virtue and Discountenancing Vice he may appoint the Stage for that End To which I Answer The Magistrate is infinitely better provided of Means already He hath the Ministers to preach the Gospel from the Pulpit and Judges to explain his Laws from the Bench and is provided with a Sword to protect Vertue and punish Vice And therefore to spend Time and Money in that which is needless would be not only contrary to Scripture Rule but to Common-sense Nor can the Patrons of the Stage give us an Instance that ever any Magistrate appointed the Stage for those Ends they mention We are told in the Introduction to Britania Triumphens Acted on a Sunday at Whitehall in 1637. as before●mentioned That Princes of Sweet and Humane Natures have ever both amo●gst the Antients and Moderns in the best times presented Spectacles and Personal Representation to recreate their Spirits wasted in Grave Affairs of State and for the Entertainment of their Nobility Ladies and Courts That was the only End according to the then Poets that the Stage pretended to but now it seems that they would usurp both upon the Bench and the Pulpit CAP. VI. The Fathers against the Stage and mistaker● by Aquinas THE next Argument is from Thomas A. quinas who in his Question of Sports and Diversions says That 't is the part of a wise Man sometimes to unbend his Mind by diverting Words or Actions Whence the Dr. concludes That St. Thomas approv'd the Drama This Man may perhaps be a Professor of Divinity but it would seem he was never a Professor of Logick else he would not put more into the Conclusion than is found in the Premises as here he has done except he can prove that there are no diverting Words or Actions but in Plays and the straining of this Conclusion is so much the more needless that he brings in Aquinas afterwards expresly giving his Opinion for Plays provided the Players and Spectators he not guilty of Excess or Speak and Act nothing that is Unlawful c. pag. 12. But as the Dr. brings in Aquinas to reconcile the Fathers with the School-men in this Point or indeed rather to contradict the Fathers by the School-men what if we bring in Aquinas contradicting the Dr. himself If either the Paris Doctor or the Doctor of the Church of England who applauds his Performance please to look into Aquinas his Secunda Secund● Quaest. 168. Art 3. ad 3m it will appear That they make the Angelical Dr. speak otherwise than he really does Aquinas 's words are Si qui autem super●luē sua in tales consumunt veletiam sustentant illos Histriones qui illicitis Ludis utuntur peccant quali ●os in peccato foventes unde Augustinus dicit super Iohannem quod donare res suas Histrionibus vitium est immane non virtus nisi forte aliquis Histrio esset in extrema necessitate in qua esset ei subveniendum dicit enim Ambrosius in Libro de O●●iciis pasce same Morientem Quisquis enim pascendo hominem Servare poteris si non paveris Occidi●ti It 's plain that the Paris Dr. or his Translator make Aquinas say what he never intended The Angelical Dr. says It is a Crime to give Super●luously ●r lavishly to Stage Players But it seems nothing is Criminal with the Parisian Dr. or his Englisher except they give them their whole Estates Besides they injure St. Austin mightily They would make the World believe That the African Father was only against giving whole Estates to Players too when the honest Man says expresly That to give any thing to a Stage-Player except at the Point of Starving is a monstrous Crime or First●rate Sin Immane Vitium and the Reason of the Exception he brings from St. Ambrose That whosoever is in a Condition to give a Man Bread and yet lets him starve kills him And how well Aquinas reconciles the School-men with the Fathers in this Point of the Stage may be seen by the very following Article where he quote● St. Augustine in his Book of True and False Repentance charging those that would obtain Forgiveness to abstain from the Plays and Shows of the Age Which being compared with his former Advice not to give any thing to the Stage-Player except he were at the point of starving shews plainly for all the Angelical Doctors nice Distinction of St. Augustine's only forbidding Plays to Men under Pennance that he wrests his Words The Truth of which will be prov'd by St. Austin himself who says That had there been none but honest Men in Rome they would never have admitted Stage●Plays And elsewhere he says The Roman Vertue knew nothing of those Theatrical Acts for almost 400 Years and when they were introduc'd for the Recreation of Sensualists and admitted by the dissolute Morals of the time the Heathen Idols de●ued they might be dedicated to them He likewise takes notice That being brought into Rome to asswage the Plague which afflicted thei● Bodies the crafty Devils who knew that the Disease would in its proper time come to a Period did thence take occasion to infect their Morals with a far greater Contagion And adds That their Pontif Scip● dreaded that Plague and Infection upon their Minds when he forbad the Building of Theatres well knowing that the Re-publick could not be preserved by the standing of their Walls if their ●orals failed but they were more prevailed on by the Allurements of Impious Devils than by the Precautions of Provident Statemen Nor is there any of the Fathers more Pathetical and Pressing in their Exhortations to Christians to avoid the Stage than this Excellent Person as may be seen in his Homilies and other Writings Then as to the whim of the Revelation to Paphnutius That a certain Player should be his Partner in Glory by which Aquinas would prove that Players are not in a State of Sin However it may relish with the Paris Doctor it sounds but ill to be quoted by a Divine of the Church of England But admitting the Revelation to be true it will not prove what they would have it for the Player mentioned might have abandoned the Stage and become a true Penitent otherwise by this way of arguing Thieves may conclude that they are not in a State of Sin because our Saviour said to one on the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Besides Aquinas's Words are Quod quidam Iocu●ator ●uturus erat sibi Consors in vita fu●ura Now the Doctor knows that Ioculator and Histrio are not convertible Terms There are many Jocose Men that would think the Stage below them or if Ioculator must needs be a Stage-Player let it be translated the Merry Andrew or Fool in the Play there 's no reason why such should be denied the Benefit of Pap●●utius's Evidence for Heaven it being but

thing may be establish'd I shall add that of an Actor who dying at the Bath about 1630. sent for his Son whom he had bred up to that same way of Living and abjured him with his last Breath and floods of Tears that as he tendred the eternal Happiness of his Soul he should abjure and for sake 〈◊〉 ungodly Profession which would enthral him to the Devils Vassalage for the present and plunge hi● for ever into Hell at last If our Author consider it he will soon be convinced that the Seizure of the Soul is incomparably more dreadful than that of the Body and of this I shall put him in Mind of one Instance that was frightful enough as it is recorded by Mr. Braithwait who was present and saw it An English Gentlewoman of good Note who daily spent the best of her time upon the Stage falling into a dangerous Sickness her Friends sent for a Minister to prepare her for her End but whilst he exhorted her to Repent and to call upon God for Mercy instead of listning to his wholsome Instructions she redoubled her Cries to let her see Hieronimo acted and as she had liv'd so she died Now I would refer it to our Authors own Conscience whether he would be willing to make such an Exit And if this was not a more dreadful Possession than those mentioned in the Gospel when the Devil threw the Bodies of those he had made a Scizure of into the Fire or Water But to conclude this point I must crave leave to inform him that the Devil hath renewed his claim to the Stage oftner than once since the days of Tertullian and particularly in Queen Elizabeths Reign when he visibly appeared on it in the Bell-Savage Play-house as they were prophanely acting the Story of Faustus to the Terror and Amazement of all the Spectators and the seizing of some of them with a Distraction The Reviewer's Argument That 't was the general Opinion of Christians that Plays were a lawful Diversion because St. Cyprian Tertullian St. Augustine c. made it their business to refute that Opinion is just as consequential as if he should say that 't is the general Opinion of the People of England that Immorality and Profanness is lawful because their Preachers Labour to prove the contrary as to every individual Species of it in all their Sermons and Books on that Subject and no less false is his Assertion That the Appearance of that general Innocence in those Entertainments gave them that Reception among Christians that they could not believe them Criminal without some express Divine Precept against them for nothing could be more odious than those Practices and Postures c. which the Fathers every where Charge upon the Stage as I have already prov'd and herein also the Reviewer contradicts M. Motteux and his Parisian and Church of England Divine who tell us the Father were against the Stage because of the Idolatry Blasphemy and other Infamous Practices there which were very far from Innocence Thus these Champions of a bad Cause like Troops in disorder fall foul upon one another CAP. XVII The Scripture not silent against the STAGE I Come next to the mighty Counter-B●●● which the Reviewer has rais'd for the Defence of the Stage and that is his more ●●rious Speculations as he calls them upon the Scriptural Silence in that Case than any that the Fathers have been pleased to make First then says he as our blessed Sav●our was born in the Days of Augustus 't is known by all Historians that the shutting up of Ia●● Temple doors in his Reign universally opened those of the Play-houses and so they continued throughout the Empire many Reigns after him If any Man should say that when our Saviour was born the Devil and the World kept Holy Day for Joy he would be foully mistaken and yet according to this Author it would seem they did so For at our Saviours Birth says he Play-houses were open'd throughout the whole Empire But what if I should tell him that the Devil finding himself disarm'd by our Saviours Birth and bereft of the Sword which he had influenced Men to sheath in one anothers Bowels for a long time betook himself to another Weapon and that was the Lusts of the Flesh to make War upon their Souls This Speculation may not perhaps be so curlous as that of our Author but I am of Opinion it may be every whit as solid seeing not only the Antient Fathers but even the Heathen Roman Historians charge the Play-houses with all Manner of Lewdness and Augustus himself as I have already said banished the Stage-Players out of Rome because of the Mischiefs they occasioned The Reviewor must not pretend that the opening of the Theatre was an Effect of our Saviour's Birth or a suitable way of Rojoycing for it his Foretur●ner Iohn the Baptist taught a contrary Doctrine and prepared the Jews to receive him by Repentance and Mortification When our Saviour came himself at the fulness of time the way of his Entrance into the World was the severest Reproof that ever was giv'n to the P●mps and Vanities of it His Childhood and Youth were wholly estrang'd from all those ●●othy Diversions and when he entred on the Ministry he taught a subli●e and refined Purity that was absolutely inconsistent with the Practice of the Stage He instructed his Followers in the full Extent of the Law that it did not so much as allow a Wanton Glance or a Lewd Thought than which there cannot be a more effectual Condemnation of the Theatre which by the Testimony of all Historians and Ages has ever been a Nursery of Impurity and chiefly supported by Persons of a dissolute Life But to return to our Author Now it may raise a little Wonder says he why the Apostles that went forth by a Special Command of the Almighty to Convertall Nations Preaching Repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven they that so exactly performed that great Commission as to arraign and censure Vice and Impiety from the highest to the lowest in all its several Branches not only pronounced their louder Anathema's against the more crying Sins but read Divinity Lectures ev'n upon the Wardrobe and Dressing Box correcting the very Indecencies of the Hair the Apparel and each uncomly Gesture that these Missioners of Salvation should travel through so many Heathen Nations the Gentiles they were sent to call and meet at every turn the Theatre and the Stage Players staring them in the very Face and not make one Reprimand against them is a Ma●● of very serious Reflection Had the Play-house been as St. Cyprian calls it The Seat of Infection or as Clemens Alexandrinus much to the same Sense calls it The chair of Pestilence and to join the Authority of the Unclean Spirit along with them The Devil 's own Ground I am of Opinion in this case that those Divine Monitors the Apostles that set Bars to the Eye

the Ear the Tongue to every smallest Avenue that might let in the Tempter would hardly have left the broad Gates to the Play-house so open without one Warning to the unwary Christian in so direct a Road to Perdition Such a Discovery I believe would have been rather the Earlier Cautionary Favour of some of our kind Evangelical Guardians than the Extorted Confession of our greatest Infernal Enemy 200 Years after To Answer the Reviever in his own way of Argument Had the Stage been so useful to the Happiness of Mankind to Government and to Religion as Mr. Dennis pretends to prove it in his late Book or had it been such an Excellent Mean for Recommending Vertue and Discountenancing Vice as others of its Advocates would ●●ve it to be then certainly it may raise a little wonder that those kind Evangelical Guardians should not have somewhere or other dropp'd one Expression at least in its favour as well as they 〈◊〉 made use of the pertinent Expressions of ●me of the Poets and therefore their profound Evangelical Silence upon this Head gives us just cause to suspect that they had a far other Opinion of the Design and Nature of the Theatre But to come closer to our Author had he but seriously reflected upon his own Matter of serious Reflection it would soon have abated the height of his Wonder for if the Apostles Preached Re●●ntance censur'd Vice and Impiety from the highest to the lowest read Divinity Lectures upon the Ward-Robe and Dressing-Box corrected the Indecencies of the Hair and Apparel and each uncomly Gesture they must by necessary consequence have Preached against the Stage which is charg'd with the height of Impiety and Vice ●uperfluous prodigality of Apparel unlawful disguising of the Sex and obscene and uncomly postures not only by the Fathers of the Church but even by Ovid Iuvenal Horace and other Heathen Poets and Historians of those times as I have proved before so that our Reviewers Battery is fairly dismounted and his Cannon pointed against himself for by a Conclusion lawfully deduced from his own Premises it infallibly appears that the Apostles did not only give one but many Reprimands to the Theatre tho' they did not express it by name And I will make bold to tell him further that the Apostles in those very Injunctions by which they set Bars to the Eye the Ear and the Tongue did as infallibly shut up all the Avenues of the Theatre as they barricado'd those that might let in the Tempter if beholding Vanity hearing Blasphemy and speaking Lies in hypocrisie come within the reach of their Inspir'd Prohibitions And therefore well might St. Cyprian say that the Divine Wisdom would have had a low Opinion of Christians had it descended to be more particular in this Case when the Stage was known to abound with Idolatry Profanity Cruelty Blasphemy Sodomy and such other Impur●ties as were not so much as once to be named amongst Christians I pass over his Remarks on the Inconsistency betwixt Mr. Colliers Defence of the Modesty and Chastity of the Antient Heathen Poets and Stage and his quotations of the Fathers that imply the contrary Mr. Collier is able to defend himself and an Over-match for him on this Subject There 's no doubt but the Stage at its first Institution was chaster than ours and if we may give credit to Livy The Plays at first were plain Country-Dances where the Youth jok'd upon one another in Artless Verse and their Gestures were as plain and simple as the rest of the performance The Poets that Mr. Collier quoted are modester than ours and yet it will not follow that the horrid Impieties charg'd upon the Stage by the Christian Fathers and Roman Historians is all slander or that the Innocence of the Primitive Stage was the cause of the Scriptural silence against Plays The Theatre was opposed by the Jews before the Coming of Christ tho' no where condemned by name in the Old Testament Yet that People to whom the Oracles of God were committed understood it to be contrary to the Law of Moses and the Discipline of their Nation and therefore they conspir'd to cut off Herod the Great in the Theatre which he had built at Ierusalem whilst he was beholding his Stage-Plays which they had certainly effected had not the Plot been discovered whereof Herod taking the advantage he brought in his Theatrical Enterludes which at first were pleasing to none but the Heathens that sojourned there and were at last attended with an Apostacy from the Laws of their Ancesto●s a corruption of Discipline and dissolution of Manners And a remarkable Judgment followed on Herod Agrippa who appearing on the Stage in a Silver Robe of admirable workmanship and being receiv'd by the Acclamations of the People as a God because of the beams which darted from his Apparel by the Reflexion of the Sun was immediately smitten with a grievous Disease by something that appeared in the shape of an Owl hovering over his head and being tormented for five days with an intollerable pain in his Bowels was at last miserably devoured by Worms From this opposition of the jews to the Stage we may reasonably infer that 〈◊〉 such method of pastime or diversion or of recommending Virtue and discouraging Vice was allowed by the Church of God under the Old Testament and that therefore there 's much less reason to think that any such thing was allowed or approved by the Christian Church under the New Testament whose Worship has less of External Pomp but much more of the Spirit and Truth than that of the Jews had From hence likewise we gain another Argument that if the Jews thought the Stage discharg'd under the General Prohibition To take the Names of the Heathen Gods in their mouths and the Article of their Law which forbad Men and Women the promiscuous use of one anothers Apparel the Primitive Church had much greater Reason to conclude that the Theatre was forbid to them under the General Terms of Idolatry Sacrifices of Idols Vanities of the Gentiles Rudiments and Customs of the World corrupt Communication Bitterness and Evil Speaking keeping company with Fornicators fellowship with the unfruitful Works of Darkness Filthiness Foolish Talking and Iesting which was not convenient being partakers with the Children of Disobedience Rioting Chambering and Wantonness c. all which the Stage was infected with as hath been prov'd already So that the Advocates of the Play-house may with as much reason infer that Apostacy Atheism Incest and other Crimes are not forbidden by the Scriptures because not expresly nam'd there as argue that the Play-house is not discharg'd because it is not particularly mention'd in Sacred Writ If it be objected That all those Arguments are against the Corruption of the Stage but not against the Original innocent Constitution of Plays I answer that there never was a time when the Stage was free from all or part of those Corruptions that it was of an Heathenish and