XI. Can Ladies really dislike Lewd Discourse in Conversation, and yet like to see Lewdness represented in all the Dresses that can vitiate the Imagination, and fasten upon the Memory?

XII. Can Parents, or any other Persons who have the Conduct of Youth, and have any serious Concern for the Souls of their Children, or of those that are committed to their Care, satisfie their Consciences, without Restraining them from going to a place of such Impiety and Infection; where they would be in the way to unlearn the best Instructions of their Parents and Governours; where Pride and Falshood, Malice and Revenge, Injustice and Immodesty, Contempt of Marriage, and false Notions of Honour, are recommended; where Men are taught to call in question the first Principles of their Religion, and are led to a contempt of Sacred things?

XIII. Can sincere and judicious Christians think that the Players exposing (as they pretend to do) Formality, Humour, and Pedantry, is an Equivalent for their insulting sacred things, and their promoting to so high a degree the Prophaneness and Debauchery of the Nation?

XIV. Can modest and prudent Christians think, that the Opinion of the General Councils, Primitive Fathers, and so many wise and good Men in the several Ages of the Church, who have condemned the going to Plays as unlawful, and as a renouncing the Baptismal Engagements, doth not deserve great regard?

XV. Can sincerely religious Persons hear of the most horrid, licentious Treatment of sacred things as is in our Plays, and this not among Mahometans and Infidels, not at Rome and Venice, but in a Protestant Countrey, without a Fear that the Judgments of God will fall upon us?

XVI. Can less be expected from good Christians, who are sensible of the intolerable Disorders of the Play-Houses, and the Mischiefs that are brought upon Mankind by them, than that they would use all proper Methods for the Discouraging and Restraining their Relations and Friends from going to them, as they have any Concern for the Honour of God, the Good of Mankind, and the Welfare of their own Immortal Souls; that so by Persons, who have any virtuous Principles, keeping from a Place which they will never be able to frequent with Safety to themselves, under any partial Regulation; the Players, the unhappy, the miserable Players, may be necessitated to quit their Profession, and take upon them some honest and useful Employment (wherein good Men ought to encourage and assist them) and thereby the execrable Impieties of the Play-Houses, and the ruinous consequences of them, be prevented?

XVII. Lastly, Can Persons frequent the Play-Houses, after the outragious Impieties of them, and the fatal Effects of their going to them, are in so full and advantageous a manner laid open to the World, without a greater Aggravation of their Guilt?

FINIS.

Some
THOUGHTS
Concerning the
STAGE
IN A
LETTER
TO A
LADY