The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

An offence then that¹ is to be accounted public, that is▪ which is so in respect of its notority or publicness, and such as is not the object of private admonition, but whereof a Church-judicatory is immediately to take notice, may be considered in respect of its first instant o• in respect of some following circumstance; for what is required in the nature of the sin it self hath been spoken to already. It is public in the first respect, 1. When it is done before so many as probably cannot be satisfied with private admonition, so that thereby there is a hazard to many to be scandalized. 2. It is public, when it seemeth to be done with contempt and an high hand, as if a person were owning the same; Thus a scandal that hath fewer witnesses, may be accounted public, when another, it ⟨p. 114⟩may be, actually known to as many, is not to be accounted such, because in this case there is no access to private admonition, the person being like a swine, ready to turn on the admonisher. Thus suppose Absalom's incest had not been actually known to many, yet the very circumstances of his doing it openly, and purposely that it might be known, made it of a public nature: Thus sometimes it is more necessary to take notice of an offence committed in a public place, though, it may be, few know the same, than of a thing done more privately, because as to them it might have been public to many; and it showeth an humour and corruption that is beyond private admonition, when a thing is so circumstantiated. 3. Sometimes offences will have an horror, and an indignation wakened against them, even in respect of such circumstances, as to be drunk, lascivious, and such like, are offences; but to be so in a Market-place, or in public streets, even supposing it to be in a day when few do actually see it, doth waken an indignation in the hearts of sober men, as being an affront to Religion and Order, and inconsistent with Christianity and Civility, much more than if it had been in a private place, or privately; for, that is before the Sun to do so, as Zimries act was, which provoked Phinehas's zeal. 4. An offence is public, when it is generally accounted to be a certain truth, and not a suspicion only;

An offence then that¹