A practical exposition of the X. Commandments with a resolution of several momentous questions…A practical exposition of the X. Commandements with a resolution of several momentous questions…

That a man in his time could not pick one chaste woman, whom he might safely love as his wife out of the whole Play-house; and that all women, who frequent Stage-plays, are infamous, and forfeit their good names. It were good that our women, who love and haunt such Plays, would consider this, as also what is reported of Sempronius Sophus, a noble Roman, who divorced from his wife for this alone cause, that she frequented Stage-plays without his knowledge, which might make her an Adulteress; which Divorce the whole Roman Senate did approve (though it was the very first they did approve) as being a mean to keep women chaste: So great an enemy to chastity were these Plays judged to be; which is touched by Rhodiginus, amongst others, in his Antique Lections, lib. 28. cap. 16.) Tertullian calls the Play-house, the Chapel of Venery, the House of Lechery, the Consistory of Uncleanness: And in his Apol. adv. Gent. We renounce your Spectacles and Stage-plays, even as we reject their original, which we know to have had their conception from Superstition; we have nothing at all to do with the fury of your Circus, with the dishonesty of the Theatre, we come not at all to your Plays. Origen in Epist. ad Rom. sayes, That Christians must not lift up their eyes to Stage-plays, the pleasurable delights of polluted eyes, lest their lusts be inflamed by them. Lactantius de vero cultu, says, That these Interludes with which men are delighted, and whereat they are willingly present, because they are the greatest instigations to Vice, and the most powerful instrument to corrupt mens minds, are wholly to be abolished from amongst us. Greg. Naz. de rect. educ. calls Stage-players the Servants of lewdness, and Stage-plays, the dishonest, unseemly instructions of lascivious men, who repute nothing filthy but modesty; and Play-houses the Lascivious shops of all filthiness and impurity. Ambrose in Psal. 118. stiles▪ Stage-plays spectacles of vanity, by which the Devil conveys incentives of pleasure to mens hearts, Let us therefore (says he) turn away our eyes from these vanities and Stage-plays. Hierom Epist. ad Salvinam, Have nothing to do with Stage-plays, because they are the pleasing incendiaries of mens lusts. Augustine de Civ.

That a man in his time could not pick one chast woman, whom he might safely love as his wife out of the whole Play-house; and that all women, who frequent Stage-playes, are infamous, and forfeit their good names. It were good that our women, who love and haunt such Playes, would consider this, as also what is reported of Sempronius Sophus, a noble Roman, who divorced from his wife for this alone cause, that she frequented Stage-playes without his knowledge, which might make her an Adulteress; which Divorce the whole Roman Senate did approve (though it was the very first they did approve) as being a mean to keep women chaste: So great an enemy to chastity were these Playes judged to be; which is touched by Rhodiginus, amongst others, in his Antique Lections, lib. 28. cap. 16.) Tertullian calls the Play-house, the Chappel of Venery, the House of Letchery, the Consistory of Vncleanness: And in his Apol. adv. Gent. We renounce your Spectacles and Stage-playes, even as we reject their original, which we know to have had their conception from Superstition; we have nothing at all to do with the fury of your Circus, with the dishonesty of the Theater, we come not at all to your Playes. Origen in Epist. ad Rom. sayes, That Christians must not lift up their eyes to Stage-playes, the pleasurable delights of polluted eyes, lest their lusts be inflamed by them. Lactantius de vero cultu, sayes, That these Interludes with which men are delighted, and whereat they are willingly present, because they are the greatest instigations to Vice, and the most powerful instrument to corrupt mens minds, are wholly to be abolished from amongst us. Greg. Naz. de rect. educ. calls Stage-players the Servants of lewdness, and Stage-playes, the dishonest, unseemly instructions of lascivious men, who repute nothing filthy but modesty; and Play-houses the Lascivious shops of all filthiness and impurity. Ambrose in