A37042:156
The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…
The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal divided into four parts ... : in each of which there are not a few choice and useful questions, very shortly and satisfyingly discussed and cleared / by ... Mr. James Durham ... who being dead (by this) yet speaketh ; and published by John Carstares ... ; to which is prefixed an excellent preface of famous Mr. Blair ... ; together with a table of the contents of the several chapters of each part.
Edinburgh: printed by Christopher Higgins, 1659
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.
2. Scandals may be of that nature, that it is fit1 to take public notice of them, and to follow them with Church-censures till they be removed. This is clear in the Lord's reproving the neglect of public Censure in these Churches; for, His finding fault that they had such, and suffered such (as in the next Epistle) can be constructed no otherwayes, but that they did not by Church-censure cut them off from their fellowship, which is elsewhere abundantly clear. And it is true in these cases, 1. When a scandal is of its own nature gross and infectious, like a little leaven ready to leaven the whole lump. 2. When it is clear and in the matter of fact cannot be denied: the first is requisite to a public scandal for convincing of the conscience of the evil it self; the second for making application of the consequents of such an evil to such a person. 3. An offence becometh public, though it be not of its own nature so at first, if it be afterward aggreged by such circumstances as obstinacy and contempt of private admonition, frequent relapsing therein, and such like, as Christ's rule, Matth. 18. and the general nature of offence doth ⟨p. 59⟩confirm: Scandals that are so circumstantiated, and they only, are to be taken notice of by Church-judicatories as the proper object of Church-discipline. Hence we may see a great difference betwixt offence as it is the object of private discretion, and as it is the object of Church-discipline. I call them gross evils and of an infectious nature, which are against a clear Law of God, and of that influence in a man's christian walk, as any sober man▪ acquainted with the Word of God, and reflecting upon conscience, cannot but acknowledge to be sinful, obstructive to the work of grace where they are, and tending to the marring the beauty of a Church, and the edification and salvation of her members if they should spread, such as Sabbath-breaking, swearing, and what doth directly contradict a moral command, these things are obviously censurable. And upon this occasion, I cannot but much wonder at, and regrate the unwarrantable expressions, at least, in the matter of fact, of a Learned man, Mr. Baxter against Blake, pag. 130.
2. Scandals may be of that nature, that it is fit