Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage | Page 9

just way of Reasoning? I dare
say you do not. Is not this then the very Case I am speaking of? Is the
Stage, as 'tis now manag'd, any thing else but a downright Rebellion
against God and his Holy Religion? Are not the Plays, (if not by Design)
yet by a natural and necessary Consequence, an undermining of his
Laws, and an Attempt upon his Government? And must it not then
follow, that every one that frequents them, is a Party in the Cause, and
encourages the Undertaking? And tho' he should be so Happy as never
to smile at a Prophane Jest, nor join in Applauding a Vitious Play; yet,
will that exempt him from a Share of that Guilt which his Presence and
Purse has help'd to support? No, Madam, 'tis Numbers strengthen the
Enemy, and give fresh Courage to his Attempts! A Full House is the
very Life of the Stage, and keeps it in Countenance, whereas thin
Audiences would, in time, make it dwindle to nothing.
I know, Madam, this is strange Doctrine to some People. If a Man talks
to them of leaving the Plays, they wonder what he means, and are ready
to take him for a Madman. They have so long habituated themselves to

the _Play-Houses_, that they begin to think a Place there, to be part of
their _Birth-Right_: But I desire such would be perswaded to hear what
the late A. B. Tillotson thought of these matters, (and I hope some
Deference is due to his Judgment). If they look into the 11th Volume of
his 'Sermons', they will find that in his Discourse against the Evil of
Corrupt Communication, he tells them, _That Plays, as the Stage now
is, are intolerable, and not fit to be permitted in a Civiliz'd, much less in
a Christian Nation, They do most notoriously minister_, says he, _both
to Infidelity and Vice. By the Prophaneness of them they are apt to
instil bad Principles into the Minds of Men, and to lessen that Awe, and
Reverence which all Men ought to have for God and Religion: and by
their Lewdness they teach Vice, and art apt to infect the Minds of Men,
and dispose them to Lewd and Dissolute Practices. And therefore_,
says he, _I do not see how any Person pretending to Sobriety and
Virtue, and especially to the pure and holy Religion of our Blessed
Saviour; can, without great Guilt and open Contradiction to his Holy
Profession, be present at such Lewd and Immodest Plays, much less
frequent them, as too many do, who would yet take it very ill to be shut
out of the Communion of Christians, as they would most certainly have
been in the first and purest Ages of Christianity._
This is the Opinion, Madam, of that Excellent Man: and, one would
think, it should put those Persons who are the Encouragers of Plays,
and the Frequenters of them, when they read it, upon an Enquiry, What
it is they are doing? Whether they are not carrying on the Designs of
the great Enemy of Mankind? But if that will not prevail upon them, let
'em reflect upon the late Instance of God's severe Displeasure against
us, and tell me then, whether they think it consistent with that
Humiliation and Repentance which this great Judgment ought to
awaken in us, and which Her Majesty, by Her late Gracious
Proclamation, calls upon us to Exercise, to be ever again present at a
Place, where they must often hear the Name of God Prophaned, and
every thing that is Serious made a Jest of? A Place which they cannot
but know, and must own, (if put to the Question) has contributed so
much to the Corrupting the present Age; and which, 'tis to be fear'd, is
one of those accursed things, that has provok'd the Almighty to be so
angry with us.
These are things, Madam, of no trifling Importance; they are such as

deserve the serious Reflections of all good Christians, whatever the
Pretenders to Gaiety may think. And though some may, perhaps,
misconstrue and ridicule such Considerations by the Names of
Preciseness and _Fanaticism_; yet, 'tis to be hop'd, that all who have
any regard for the Honour of God, the Welfare of their Countrey, and
the Interest of our Established Church, will not be laugh'd out of their
Duty, but be perswaded, not only to withdraw themselves from a Place
of so much Danger, but advise others to do the like; that the Stage may
no longer Triumph in the Spoils of Virtue and Religion. 'Tis now the
time to begin such an _Undertaking_: We have a powerful Enemy
abroad, and a more formidable one at _home_; I mean that Looseness
and Irreligion which so abounds: and what