A26892:8504
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 19. And that you may see that the scandal forbidden in the New Testament, is always of this nature, let us take notice of the particular Texts where the word is used: And first to scandalize is used actively in these following Texts. In Matth. 5. before cited, and in the other Evangelists citing the same words, the sense is clear: That the offending of a hand or eye, is not displeasing, nor seeking of ill report; but hindering our salvation by drawing us to sin. So in Matth. 18. 8. & Mar. 9. 42, 43. where the sense is the s•m•. In Matth. 17. 27. [Lest we should offend them, &c.] is not only [Lest we displease them] but lest we give them occasion to dislike Religion, or think hardly of the Gospel, and so lay a stumbling block to the danger of their souls. So Matth. 18. 6. & Mark 9. [Who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, &c.] that is, not who shall displease them, but who so by threats, persecutions, cruelties, or any other means, shall go about to turn them from the faith of Christ, or stop them in their way to Heaven, or hinder them in a holy life: Though these two Texts seem nearest to the denied sense, yet that is not indeed their meaning. So in Joh. 6. 6. Doth this offend you? that is, Doth this seem incredible to you, or hard to be believed, or digested? Doth it stop your faith, and make you distaste my doctrine? So 1 Cor. 8. 13. If meat scandalize my brother, our Translators have turned it, If meat make my brother to offend: So it was not displeasing him only, but tempting him to sin, which is the scandalizing here reproved.
§. 19. And that you may see that the scandal forbidden in the New Testament, is alwayes of this nature, let us take notice of the particular Texts where the word is used: And first to scandalize is used actively in these following Texts. In