56 AN RUMBLE ÁTTE3IPT, &C. and religion are in extremest hazard, and sometimes receive a sore and lasting wound. In this respect shall I put the question, what do you more than others? It is granted there are some persons of the established church that have avoided these things as well as our fathers the puritans, and in some few families, even of figure And condition, these perilous amusements may be disallowed or seldom frequented : but it was a constant and known mark of a protestant dissenter in former days, to refuse attendance upon any of these kind of diversions, and boldly to deny his company when he was never so much Importuned. I hope we ,have not utterly lost those pieces of puritanism amongst us. I grant that our present age having run so much greater lengths in liberty than the age of our ancestors, there may be some degrees of allowance, or at least some excuses drawn from the too general custom of others in those things which cannot be certainly proved to be sinful, though they may possibly have a dangerous appearance and tendency: when a whole age takes large liberties, even persons of sobriety and virtue are under great temptations to extend the limits of their rules of practice ? It was a known saying of one of the ancients, that those things might be done by men tf vietae among the rabble -of Romulus, which ought never to have been done in the republic ofPlato. It is granted further that it is hard to prove every one of these diversions I have mentioned to be absolutely and universally un - lawful : and it is possible that persons of piety and seriousness may give themselves leave, upon just reasons, to attend once or twico in the course of life upon such diversions ; perhaps it may be done in order to knowwhit they are, that they may not utterly condemn things which they know nothing of, and that they may pass ajudgment concerning them ; or'upon some other very un common occasion and occurrence,where the real service or advan- tage does plainly overbalance the danger of hurting our own spirits, or of giving a bad example to others. But upon the whole, it must be confessed, that to make this sort of entertainments a practice, tends greatly to cor- rupt the savour of piety, and flatten our relish for divine things ; it is ready to thrust out the religion of the closet and the family, to weaken the springs of virtue, to take off the guard of the conscience, to sensualize the mind and fill it with vain images, which too often pollute the imagination, and oppress the young seeds of virtue and godliness, that were beginning to spring in the heart. And I am bold to say, that if our fathers were in any degree too rigid and austere in pronouncing these things abso- lutely criminal and sinful, and in their utter prohibition of them- selves and their household from ever once attending upon them ; it is certain that we their ;children are much more criminal in
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