of our pious fathers. These are either become venerable to me for their antiquity, or they are much fitter for expressing the truths of the gospel, and delineating the character and duty of a disciple of Christ, than any that have been invented in later times. As the growth or decay of vegetable nature is often so gradual as to be insensible; so in the moral world, verbal alterations, which are counted as nothing, do often introduce real changes, which are firmly established before their approach is so much as suspected. Were the style, not only of some modern essays, but of some modern sermons, to be introduced upon this subject, it would greatly weaken the argument, though no other alteration should be made. Should we every where put virtue for holiness, honor, or even moral sense for conscience, improvement of the heart for sanctification, the opposition between such things and theatrical entertainments would not appear half so sensible.

By taking up the argument in the light now proposed, I am saved, in a great measure, from the repetition of what has been written by other authors on the subject. But let it be remembered, that they have clearly and copiously shewn the corruption and impurity of the stage and its

adherents, since its first institution, and that both in the heathen and Christian world. They have made it undeniably appear, that it was opposed and condemned by the best and wisest men, both heathens and Christians in every age*. Its very defenders do all pretend to blame the abuse of it. They do indeed allege that this abuse is not essential to it, but may be separated from it; how

* Particularly at Athens, where it first had its birth, both tragedy and comedy were soon abolished by public authority; and among the Romans, though this and other publie shows were permitted in a certain degree, yet so cautious were that wise people of suffering them to be frequent, that they did not permit any public theatre, when occasionally erected, to continue above a certain number of days. Even that erected by M. Scaurus, which is said to have cost so immense a sum as a million sterling, was speedily taken down. Pompey the Great was the first who had power and credit enough to get a theatre continued.

The opinion of Seneca may be seen in the following passage: "Nihil est tam damnosum bonis moribus, quam "in aliquo spectaculo desidere. Tunc enim per volupta"tem facilius vitia surrepunt."

As to the primitive Christians, see Constit. Apost. lib. 8. cap. 32. where actors and stage-players are enumerated among those who are not to be admitted to baptism. Many different councils appoint that they shall renounce their arts before they be admitted, and if they return to them shall be excommúnicated. Tertullian de Spectaculis, cap. 22. observes, That the heathens themselves marked them with infamy, and excluded them from all honors and dignity. To the same purpose see Aug, de Civ Dei. lib. 2. cap. 14. "Actores poeticarum fabularum "removent a societate civitatis-ab honoribus omnibus re"pellunt homines scenicos."

The opinion of moderns is well known, few Christian writers of any eminence having failed to pronounce sentence against the stage.

ever, all of them, so far as I have seen, represent this separation as only possible or future; they never attempt to assign any æra in which it could be defended as it then was, or could be affirmed to be more profitable than hurtful. Some writers do mention a few particular plays of which they give their approbation. But these have never yet, in any age or place, amounted to such a number, as to keep one society of players in constant employment, without a mixture of many more that are confessedly pernicious. The only reason of bringing this in view at present when it is not to be insisted on, is, that it ought to procure a fair and candid hearing to this attempt to prove, That the stage, after the greatest improvement of which it is capable, is still inconsistent with the purity of the Christian profession. It is a strong presumptive evidence in favor of this assertion, that, after so many years' trial, such improvement ha never actually taken place.

It is perhaps also proper here to obviate a pretence, in which the advocates of the stage greatly glory, that there is no express prohibition of it to be found in scripture. I think a countryman of our own has given good reasons to believe, that the apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Ephesians,

*

The late Mr. Anderson.

D

chap. v. ver. 4. by "filthiness, foolish talking "and jesting," intended to prohibit the plays that were then in use. He also thinks it probable, that the word Komois used in more places than one, and translated" revelling," points at the same thing. Whether his conjectures are just or not, it is very certain that these, and many other passages, forbid the abuses of the stage; and if these abuses be inseparable from it, as there is reason to believe, there needed no other prohibition of them to every Christian. Nay, if they never had been separated from it till that time, it was sufficient and it would be idle to expect that the scripture should determine this problematical point, Whether they would ever be so in any after age. To ask that there should be produced a prohibition of the stage, as a stage, universally, is to prescribe to the Holy Ghost, and to require that the scripture should not only forbid sin, but every form in which the restless and changeable dispositions of men shall think fit to be guilty of it, and every name by which they shall think proper to call it. I do not find in scripture any express prohibition of masquerades, routs and drums; and yet I have not the least doubt, that the assemblies called by these names, are contrary to the will of God, and as bad, if not worse,

than the common and ordinary entertainments of the stage.

In order to make this inquiry as exact and accurate as possible, and that the strength or weakness of the arguments on either side, may be clearly perceived, it will be proper to state distinctly, what we understand by the stage, or stage-plays, when it is affirmed, that in their most improved and best regulated state, they are unlawful to Christians. This is the more necessary, that there is a great indistinctness and ambiguity in the language used by those who, in writing or conversation, undertake to defend it. They an alyze and divide it into parts, and take sometimes one part, sometimes another, as will best suit their purpose. They ask, What there can be unlawful in the stage abstractedly considered? Comedy is exposing the folly of vice, and pointing out the ridiculous part of every character. And is not this commendable? Is not ridicule a noble means of discountenancing vice? And is not the use of it warranted by the satire and irony that is to be found in the holy scriptures? Tragedy, they say, is promoting the same end in a way more grave and solemn. It is a moral lecture, or a moral picture, in which virtue appears to great advantage. What is history itself, but representing the cha