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Order of Contents
Article 1
Quote 1
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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Quote
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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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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