“To every thing there is a season… a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance…”
Eccl. 3:1-4
“And David danced before the Lord with all his might…”
2 Sam. 6:14
“Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them…”
Jer. 31:13
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Order of Contents
Article 1
Book 1
Quote 1
Westminster & Divines
Latin 1
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Article
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – ‘Of Dances’ in The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 2, ch. 11, ‘Of Whoredom, Fornication & Adultery’, pp. 503-6
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Book
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – A Brief Treatise Concerning the Use & Abuse of Dancing (London, 1580) 54 pp. ToC
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Quote
1500’s
Martin Bucer
On the Reign of Christ, bk. 2, ch. 54, ‘Honest Games’ in Melanchthon & Bucer, ed. Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), pp. 347-48
“To these may be added dances (but the dances of pious girls must be separate from the dances of young boys) which may be danced to pure and holy songs (Plato, Laws II, 654 ff.), with chaste and modest motion befitting those who profess piety, as Miriam, the sister of Moses, danced and the matrons of Israel when they had crossed the Red Sea and sang the praises of God for such a wonderful delivery of their nation from the slavery of Egypt (Ex. 15:20-21).
Such was the dance of the holy girls who celebrated David and Saul in a song of victory when they returned from the slaughter of the Philistines (1 Sam. 18:6), the kind of dance the Holy Spirit requires in Ps. 149:3 and 150:4 when he says, ‘Praise the Lord with timbrel and dance.’
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In pious singing, therefore, we are reminded of these gifts from such an immense goodness of God. And should the spirit not rightly leap with joy and gladness and excite the body to bear witness to this joy and impel it to express this gladness, by action, however, becoming to every age and nation? Certainly a deeper recollection of divine blessings strongly moved David, although he was a king, when he was bringing in the Ark of the Lord, so that he danced before it (II Sam. 6:12-15). He was a Palestinian, I admit, of a nation far more emotional and uninhibited than our European people. But since our young people delight in dancing, why are such dances not introduced among us too, who have become citizens of heaven through the blood of Christ, so that they spring forth from a pious and holy exultation of the mind over the goodness of God and strengthen and increase that exultation and inflame the spirit with a desire for all piety?
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For this reason, no singing nor any kind of dancing should be allowed, either privately or publicly, which has not been approved by wise and religious men to whom this responsibility will be referred by Your Majesty.”
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Westminster & her Divines on Lascivious Dancing
Order of Contents
Intro
Larger Catechism
Westminster Divines 4
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Intro
Some take Westminster to have prohibited all dancing. Yet the only place Westminster addresses the issue, in Larger Catechism #139 on the sins forbidden in the 7th Commandment, qualifies the prohibition of “dancings” with “lascivious”:
“The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment… are… all… lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings…”
If dancing is not qualified in the series by “lascivious”, then (1) all books (unqualified) were prohibited by Westminster, which is absurd, and (2) the divines must have condemned David dancing before the Lord: equally absurd. At the very least the syntax of the catechetical phrase allowed for divines who did not take all dancing to be immoral to affirm the proposition. This allowance must be considered part of Westminster’s original historic intent.
The only proof-text Westminster gave that explicitly mentions dancing (amongst the many possible in Scripture) is Mk. 6:22, regarding the daughter of Herod dancing before him and his company at his birthday. The context easily lends itself to a lascivious dance, as many commentators so take it.
The quotes below give instances where Westminster divines condemn only lascivious dancing, and not dancing outright. Richard Byfield’s quote to this effect from his catechism below is significant so far as it dates to before Westminster and is very close in content and phraseology to Westminster, it possibly having influenced Westminster’s own formulation.
While Thomas Young’s thrust condemns all dancing in general, though leaving some dances to be lawful (such as David before the Lord), yet he acknowledges others who allowed for “sober and modest dances”, giving a glimpse into Westminster’s larger context.
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Larger Catechism #139
“The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment… are… all unnatural lusts;[q] all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections;[r] all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto;[s] wanton looks,[t] impudent or light behaviour, immodest apparel;[v]… idleness, gluttony, drunkenness,[e] unchaste company;[f] lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays;[g] and all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.[h]
[q] Rom. 1:24,26,27. Lev. 20:15,16.
[r] Matt. 5:28. Matt. 15:19. Col. 3:5.
[s] Eph. 5:3,4. Prov. 7:5,21,22.
[t] Isa. 3:16. 2 Pet. 2:14.
[v] Prov. 7:10,13.
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[e] Ezek. 16:49. Prov. 23:30-33.
[f] Gen. 39:10. Prov. 5:8.
[g] Eph. 5:4. Ezek. 23:14-16. Isa. 23:15-17. Isa. 3:16. Mark 6:22. Rom. 13:13. 1 Pet. 4:3.
[h] 2 Kings 9:30 compared with Jer. 4:30 and with Ezek 23:40“
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Quotes of Westminster Divines
Order of
Byfield
Featley
Gouge
Young
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1600’s
Richard Byfield
A Candle Lighted at the Lamp of Sacred Scriptures, or a Catechism… (London, 1627), no page number
“Q. What else is condemned [in the 7th Commandment]?
A. The occasions of uncleaneness, as idlenes, pride and fulness of bread, prattling and gadding from house to house, lascivious dancings, books, songs, pictures, and stage-plays, the companying with fornicators, the resorting to lewd houses, the maintaining of stews [whore-houses], the making light of others’ fornication, and the not marrying when we have not the gift of continency.”
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Daniel Featley
Clavis mystica: a Key Opening diverse Difficult & Mysterious Texts of Holy Scripture... (London, 1636)
Collection of Sermons, 22nd Sermon, p. 288
“Where is now our gay and gorgeous apparel?… our pompous shows? our various delights and pastimes? our riotous banquets? our effeminate songs? our melodious music? our lascivious dancing? our amorous embracings? All these things are vanished like shadows; but our sorrows come upon us thick…”
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Sermons preached at Paris, 40th Sermon, p. 617
“Wherefore examine your own hearts and consciences… call yourselves to an account for your unlawful gaming and sporting, your immoderate drinking, your Lord’s Day breaking, your lascivious dancing, your chambering and wantonness; and if the remembrance of these your former sins be loathsome unto you…”
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William Gouge
A Learned & Very Useful Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews (London, 1655), ch. 13, §47. Of Remedies against Whoredom, Adultery & Other Sins of Uncleanness, p. 38
“3. Immodest spectacles: lascivious representations on a stage, wanton places, amorous books, etc.
4. Lewd company, which is as pitch: touch pitch and it defiles. This is it which the wiseman intends about fire, Prov. 6:27-28, Young mens and maids dalliance: so husbands and wives of others, without just cause, are occasions of whoredom and adultery.
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6. Lascivious dancing and masking, Mt. 14:6-7.”
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Thomas Young
The Lord’s Day... (1655; London: 1672), bk. 1, ch. 14, p. 246
“…let them who commend them [dances] to the Church, see where those sober and modest dances which they speak of can find any place:
and to those that expound choreas ducere [to conduct dances], only of lascivious dances, we will in a form of speech commodious enough interpret these dances to be meant of all dancings whatsoever: otherwise St. Cyprian had not affirmed that David danced before God, unless any should think that the Blessed [Peter] Martyr (which never came into his mind) would brand the royal prophet with a mark of lascivious and obscene dancing.
And if there be any that think that dancing be sober and modest, they are at their liberty for me to abound in their own sense: at least, with Octavius, that good defender of the Christian religion, and other lights of Reformed Christianity, it seems meet for me to repute them as obscene and evil pleasures.
Lastly, let the patrons of those dances which they call sober…”
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Latin Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – 23. ‘On the Vanities [Excelsis] of the World, on the Seventh Commandment of the Decalogue, First, of Dances’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht, 1667), vol. 4, pp. 325-56
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