But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
Ver. 3. But fornication and all uncleanness] As standing in full opposition to that sweet smelling savour, Ephesians 5:2, being no better than the corruption of a dead soul, the devil's excrement. That people fitly punished this filthy sin, who put the offenders' heads into the paunch of a beast where all the filth lieth, and so stifled them to death.
Let it not be once named] Much less acted as in stage plays. Ludi praebent semina nequitiae. (Ovid. Trist.) How Alipius was corrupted by them, St Austin tells us. How the youth of Athens, Plato complaineth. One of our countrymen professeth in print, that he found theatres to be the very hatchers of all wickedness, the brothels of baudery, the black blasphemy of the gospel, the devil's chair, the plague of piety, the canker of the commonwealth, &c. He instanceth on his knowledge, citizens' wives confessing on their death beds that they were so impoisoned at stage plays, that they brought much dishonour to God, wrong to their marriage beds, weakness to their wretched bodies, and woe to their undone souls. (Spec. Belli Sacri.) It was therefore great wisdom in the Lacedaemonians to forbid the acting of comedies or tragedies in their commonwealth, and that for this reason, lest either in jest or earnest anything should be said or done contrary to the laws in force among them. (Plutarch.) What a sad complaint was that of the apostle, 1 Corinthians 5:1, that that which was not so much as named among heathens was done by a Christian; whereas the rule of piety here is, that those sins should not be so much as named among Christians which are done by the Gentiles.