Epistle to the Corinthians chap. 8. and 10. the sum of which seems to be this that the stronger and wiser Christians ought to abstain from eating what had been offered to Idols tho as ordinary meat in the presence of any one who with Conscience of the Idol did eat it as a thing offered to an Idol For such there were in the Church of Corinth so weak as not yet to have quite left off their Idolatrous Worship and a Christians eating what had been Offered in Sacrifice before such an one might serve to harden and confirm him in his Error whose Conscience being weak is defiled Of whose Soul St. Paul professed himself to have so great regard that he would eat no such meat as long as the World lasted rather than lay such a stumbling-block before or wound their weak Consciences In all these places and many more that might be named for the fuller explication of which I refer you to interpreters and those that have written largely on this subject no less than Apostacy from the Christian Faith was the sin into which these weak Christians were so apt to fall and by an undue use of our Liberty to give occasion to anothers forsaking the Christian Religion whereby our Saviour loseth a Disciple and the Soul of our Brother perisheth is the proper sin of Offending or giving Scandal I shall mention but one place more which is Revel 2. 14. where Balaam is said to have taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block or Scandal before the Children of Israel which relates of his inticing them by the Daughters of Moab to Fornication and Idolatry and by that means provoking God against them So that in the most general sense to Scandalize or Offend any one is to give occasion to his sin and consequently his ruin and undoing and this I suppose will be granted by all that do not receive their opinions from the meer sound of words Hence I shall conclude these few things 1. The better Men are the harder it is to Scandalize them Those are not such Godly persons as they would be thought who are so ready at all turns to be Offended for how can they be reckon'd to excel others in knowledg or goodness who are so easily upon every occasion drawn or tempted to sin Thus Mr. Baxter himself tells the Separatists in his Cure of Church Divisions Vsually saith he men talk most against Scandalizing those whom they account to be the best and the best are least in danger of sinning and so they accuse them to be the worst or else they know not what they say for suppose a Separatist should say if you hold Communion with any Parish Minister or Church in England it will be a Scandal to many good people I would ask such an one Why call you those good people that are easily drawn to sin against God Nay that will sin because I do my duty Therefore if you know what you say you make the Separatists almost the worst of men that will sin against God because another will not sin The great thing our Nonconformists pretend unto above other men is tenderness of Conscience by which they must mean if they mean any Vertue by it a great fear of doing any thing that is evil and this where it is in truth is the best security that can be devised against being Scandalized or Offended by what other Men do that is against being drawn into sin by it So that they do really disparage and severely reflect upon the Dissenters who are thus afraid of giving them Offence as I have explained it 2. No man can with sense say of himself that he shall be Scandalized at what another man does for it is as much as to say that by such a person and action he shall be led into sin ignorantly and his saying this confutes his ignorance If he knows it to be a sin he is not betrayed into it nor doth he fall into it through ignorance and mistake which is the case of those that are Scandalized but wilfully commits it This a great Bishop compares with the peevishness of a little Child who when he is commanded to pronounce the word he hath no mind to tells you he cannot pronounce that word at the same time naming the word he pretends he cannot speak Such Nonsense it is for a man to forbid me doing any thing upon pretence it will be a Scandal to him or make him through mistake fall into some sin when by this it is plain that he knows of it beforehand and so may and ought to avoid the stumbling-block that is laid before him and the danger that he is exposed unto Surely saith Solomon Prov. 1. 17. in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird. If to Offend or Scandalize any one is to tempt and draw him into some sin whereby his Conscience is wounded there then can be no fear of giving Offence by our Conformity to the orders and usages of our Church because there is nothing appointed by or used in it but what may be complyed withal without sin For this as I before observed is supposed in the Question I at first propounded to discourse of that he who absented from his Parish Church for fear of Offending his weak Brethren was convinced in his own mind of the lawfulness of all that is enjoyn'd and therefore by his own Conformity he can only engage others to do as he hath done which as long as he is perswaded to be lawful I do not see how he can be afraid of Scandalizing others by it or making them to sin by his Example unless he will imagine his Brethren not so weak but so wicked as to Worship the Host because he Kneels at receiving of the Sacrament and to adore the Cross because he bows at the Name of Jesus or that they will renounce all Religion because he hath forsaken their ways of Separation This cannot but prove a vain excuse for me to forbear doing that in which there is really no evil lest by the Authority of my example I make others sin in doing the same innocent action which in this case is so far from being to be feared that if by my example I prevail with others to return into the Communion of our Church they are not thereby at all Scandalized but I have done them a most signal kindness and benefit If it be said that tho what I do is in it self lawful yet it may minister occasion or provocation to others to do something else that is unlawful and so I become truly guilty of giving Offence I Answer that we are accountable only for the natural tendencies or probable effects of our actions which may be easily foreseen and prevented Remote probabilities and contingencies and bare possibilities come not into reckoning nor are they at all to be weighed If in every action I am bound to consider what advantage a wicked sensual Man or a weak silly man might take and
these indifferences endanger the Soul of his Brother as in that famous place 1 Cor. 8. 13. If meat make my Brother to offend I will eat no Flesh while the World standeth lest I make my Brother to Offend where by Flesh and meat is to be understood such as had been Offered unto Idols which tho lawful for a Christian to eat at common meals yet the Apostle would wholly abstain from rather than wound the weak Conscience of a Brother If I by the Law of charity as the Reverend Bishop Taylour saith Great exemp p. 420 must rather quit my own goods than suffer my Brother to perish much rather must I quit my priviledg And We should ill die for our Brother who will not lose a meal to prevent his sin or change a dish to save his Soul and if the thing be indifferent to us yet it ought not to be indifferent to us whether our Brother live or die After this manner do we profess our selves ready to do or forbear any thing in our own power to win and gain our Dissenting Brethren to the Church We grant that those who conform are obliged by this Law of charity not needlesly to vex and exasperate our Dissenters nor to do any thing which they are not bound to do that may estrange them more from the Church but to restrain themselves in the use of that liberty God and the Laws have left them for the sake of peace and out of condescension to their Brethren We dare not indeed omit any duty we owe to God or our Superiours either in Church or State nor can we think it fit and reasonable that our Apostolical Government Excellent Liturgy Orderly Worship of God used in our Church should all be presently condemned and laid aside as soon as some Weak men take Offence at them but in all other things subject to our own ordering and disposal we acknowledge our selves bound to please our Brother for his good unto Edification I only add here that this very rule of yielding to our Brother in things indifferent and undetermined ought to have some restrictions and limitations several of which are mentioned by Mr. Jeans whom I have so often named as First That we are not to forbear these indifferent things where there is only a possibility of Scandal but where the Scandal consequent is probable for otherwise we should be at an utter loss and uncertainty in all our actions and never know what to do Secondly Our weak Brethren must have some probable ground for their imagination that what we do is evil and sinful or else we must wear no Ribbands nor put off our Hats but come all to Thou and Thee and for this exception he gives this substantial reason that if we are to abstain from all indifferent things in which another without probable ground imagineth that there is sin the servitude of Christians under the Gospel would be far greater and more intolerable than that of the Jews under the Mosaical administration Thirdly This must be understood of indifferent things that are of no very great importance for if it be a matter of some weight and moment as yielding me some great profit I must only for a while forbear it untill my Brother is better informed Lastly We must not wholly betray our Christian liberty to please peevish and froward people or to humour our Neighbour in an erroneous and superstitious opinion for which he quotes Mr. Calvin who in his Comment upon 1 Cor. 8. 13. tells of some foolish Interpreters that leave to Christians almost no use at all of things indifferent upon pretence to avoid the Offence of Superstitious persons Now tho all this is generally true yet I think there are no certain unalterable rules to be laid down to direct our practise in this affair For it being an exercise of charity must be determined by the measures of prudence according to circumstances and we may as well go about to give certain rules for Mens charity in other cases and fix the proportion which every Man ought to give of his estate towards the relief of the poor as positively to tell how far a Man must deny himself in the use of indifferent things and forego his own liberty for the sake of his Brother and so I end this head with those words of the learned Dr. Hammond in his little Treatise of Scandal This whole matter is to be referred to the Christians pious discretion or prudence it being free to him either to abstain or not to abstain from any indifferent action remaining such according as that piety and that prudence shall represent it to be most charitable and beneficial to other Mens Souls Thus I have done with the first proposition that nothing sinful is to be committed to avoid Scandalizing others 2. I proceed now to the Second that to avoid a less Scandal being taken by a few we must not give a greater Offence and of vastly more pernicious consequence to a much bigger number of persons Not that such a case can ever happen wherein we must necessarily give just Offence to one side or other and so are uncharitable whether we do or forbear to do the same action for then we should be under a necessity of sinning which implies a contradiction but yet it may and often doth happen that some weak persons may take Offence at my doing and others be more Offended at my forbearing to do the same thing and thus whether I do it or not I shall give Offence tho not justly nor through my own fault to some one or other In such circumstances therefore we are to consider which way is given the greater and more dangerous Offence and it can never be either prudence or charity to abstain from that which may Scandalize our Brother when by forbearance a greater and more publick Scandal is ministred to others for in this case we have greater reason on the account of Scandal it self to do than to forbear that action as all that write on this subject do and must acknowledge and for which they usually quote that saying of Bernard Prudenter advertendum est scandalum scandalo non emendari c. We are prudently to mark that one Scandal is not mended by another which kind of emendation we should practise if to take off offence from one party we give offence unto another This was the occasion of that famous Contest between the two great Apostles mentioned in the second Chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians St. Peter had freely conversed with the Gentile Christians and had eat with them all kind of meats but afterwards when certain believing Jews from Jerusalem who were still to the dissatisfaction and Offence of all the other Dissenters who have as good a right to this Plea of weakness as themselves 3. Hereby great Offence is given to all those who do conform for this Separation from the Church is a publick condemning of the Government Orders Discipline or
and those who call them hirelings and say they prophesie only for filthy lucre Thus it is usually observed that St. Paul writes quite after a different manner to the Romans and to the Galatians tho upon the same subject In his Epistle to the Romans amongst whom he had never yet been he pitieth and pleadeth for the weak Christians chargeth that they should not be despised or cast off that no cause of offence should be given them but to the Galatians a People that had been fully instructed in the nature of their Christian Liberty amongst whom himself had planted the Gospel and had been present in person and so knew that they understood better when some of them fell into the same Error thinking Circumcision and the observation of the Mosaical Law necessary to Christians he chides them sharply and rebukes them more severely Who hath bewitched you O foolish Galatians c. He who would condescend to the Ignorant Novices amongst the Romans would not in the least comply with the Galatians that had or ought to have had more knowledge and light and afterwards when the reason of such forbearance ceased when the nation of the Jews had rejected Christ and the Gentile world was come into the Church the observation of the Mosaical Law and the distinction of meats contained therein was so far from being tolerated in those whether Jews or Gentiles who through mistake thought themselves obliged to it that it was condemned by the Rules and Canons of the Church The sum of all this is that whatever Argument may be drawn from St. Paul's discourses about weak Brethren by way of Analogy or Similitude or Parity of reason yet there are no such weak persons now amongst us as those were for whom the Apostle provideth or as those little ones were for whom our Saviour was so much concerned 2ly I would desire our Dissenting Brethren to consider by what pretence they can challenge any priviledge belonging to them under the notion of weak Christians when according to their own opinion and conceit of themselves they are of all men furthest off from being such in any sense This is as if a man worth a Thousand pound per annum should Sue in formâ pauperis They who take upon themselves to be teachers of others wiser and better than their Neighbours the only Sober and Godly party and are too apt to despise all other Christians as Ignorant or Prophane with what colour of reason can they plead for any favour to be shewn or regard to be had to them in complyance with their weakness Tho they love to argue against us from the example of St. Pauls condescension to the uninstructed Jews or Gentiles yet it is apparent that they do not in other cases willingly liken themselves to those weak believers or Babes in Christ They have really better thoughts of themselves and would be Leaders and Masters in Israel and prescribe to their Governours and give Laws to all others and do prefer their own private opinion which they call their Conscience before the Judgment of the wisest men or the determinations of their Lawful Superiours And if in all instances we should deal with them as weak persons turn them back to their Primmer advise them to learn their Catechism they would think themselves highly wrong'd and injured If the several Dissenters amongst us did in good earnest look upon themselves as weak that is Ignorant Wavering half Christians did they think their dislike of the Constitutions of our Church to be the effect of such weakness they would be either more careful to hide it or would more diligently seek out for remedy they would be more modest and humble not so forward to judge and condemn what they do not understand they would not encourage one another to hold out and persist in this their weakness nor breed up their Children in it nor so Zealously endeavour to instil the same prejudices and mistakes into all with whom they converse But the truth is they ordinarily look upon their opposition to the orders of our Church as the effect of an higher illumination greater knowledg than other Men have attained unto they rather count us the weak Christians if some of them will allow us so much for otherwise if they do not take us for the weaker and worse Christians Why do they separate from us Why do they associate and combine together into distinct Congregations as being purer more select Christians than others Now tho such persons as these may be in truth very weak of little judgment or goodness notwithstanding this conceit of themselves and their party yet these are not by any means to plead for indulgence under that Character nor to expect we should forgo our just Liberty to please and humour them And that this is nothing but the plain truth is sufficiently evident from this one observation that many amongst them will grant our Reformation to have been very excellent and laudable for those days of Darkness and Ignorance wherein it was first made But we now say they see by a clearer light have greater knowledge and have arrived to higher perfection and so discover and cannot bear those faults and defects which before were tolerable Now who doth not see that these two pleas are utterly inconsistent and destructive of one another to desire abatement of the Ceremonies and abolition or alteration of the Liturgy in complyance with their weakness and to demand the same because of the greater knowledg and light they now enjoy above that Age wherein this present Constitution of our Church was established This shews they will be either weak or strong according as it best sutes with the Argument they are managing against us they are contented to be reckoned as weak only that on it they may ground a plausible objection against us 3 Those who are really weak that is Ignorant and injudicious are to be born withal only for a time till they have received better instruction We cannot be always Babes in Christ without our own gross fault and neglect he is something worse than a weak man who is fond of and resolutely against all means of Conviction persists in his Ignorance and mistake The case of young beginners and Novices is very pittiable who have not been taught their lesson but the same condescension is not due to those who are ever learning and yet are never able to come to the knowledg of the truth not for want of capacity to understand but for want of humility and willingness to be instructed Such who are peevish and stubborn whose Ignorance and Error is Voluntary and affected who will not yield to the clearest reason if it be against their interest or their party can upon no account claim the priviledges of weak persons It is a great piece of inhumanity and cruelty to put a stumbling-block in the way of a blind man but he walks at his own peril who hath eyes and will not be persuaded
No surely he ought to use all means and take all care possible to execute his Commission without doing any hurt or damage to any person whatever but if he would have stated the case right it should have been done thus suppose this Slave should utterly refuse to do as he was Commanded and for his justification should plead that he must be forced to ride through many Towns are Cities where are many little Children who are often playing at the Doors or in the Streets he knows not but that some of them may be in his way or chance to run between his Horses legs and therefore to avoid the doing of this mischief which might possibly happen he resolves not to stir one foot from his own home Is this pretence sufficient to excuse his disobedience No more can our Nonconformity to the rules given us by our Superiours be innocent because some may be Scandalized at our Obedience 2. It is further said that Scandal is in the nature of it spiritual murder and if where Authority hath determined our choice we must hold to their determination any Scandal to the contrary notwithstanding it seemeth then in case the Magistrate command it we may lawfully murther the Soul of our Brother wound his weak Conscience and destroy with our meats our Ceremonies the work of God and him for whom Christ died It is good saith St. Paul Rom. 14. 21. neither to eat Flesh nor to drink Wine nor any thing whereby thy Brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak But our Prelatists saith Mr. Jeans determine quite otherwise If Authority enjoyn it it is good say they to eat Bread drink Wine wear a Surplice use the sign of the Cross in Baptism tho thereby never so many Brethren stumble or are offended or made weak But all this is meer bugbear fitted only to fright Children and such weak persons as we are now treating of for it can never be shewen how wearing a Surplice or Kneeling at receiving of the Sacrament or Crossing the Infants forehead hath any tendency towards the scaring Men from Christianity or making them to deny Christ and forsake and grow weary of his Religion which I have sufficiently proved to be the only proper Scandalizing of our Brother which St. Paul so highly aggravateth and chargeth with the guilt of destroying and murthering his Soul none of these things do directly and immediately lead or tempt any man to any sin Whatever Scandal may follow is wholly accidental and the fault and mistake of those only who are Offended and to provide always against such Scandals is an impossible undertaking for they may follow the most innocent actions nay the most necessary duties and this Argument concludes as strongly against obedience to any other Command of God if by it my Brother may stumble or be offended or be made weak as it doth against submission to our Superiours in things lawful They that make these Objections do not sufficiently consider that by Gods Law we are bound to obey the Lawful Commands of our Superiours and it is not only the Law or Ordinance of Man of which they seem to make so little account but it is the Law of God also that is violated by our disobedience to our Governours in things Lawful The Comparison therefore ought not to be only as they make it between an human Authority determining some indifferent things and the divine Law of charity to the Soul of our Brother but between the divine Command of obedience to our Superiours and the avoiding of Scandal Here we affirm that we cannot be bound to transgress a plain Law of God or which is all one in this Question a lawful command of our Superiours for fear of some evil that may by chance happen to some others through their own fault and we prove it by this reason which our Dissenting Brethren must own for true and good because every one is bound to have a greater care of his own than others Salvation and consequently rather to avoid sin in himself than to prevent it in his Brethren If it be here asked as it is by some whether any human Authority can make that action cease to be Scandalous which if done without any such Command had been criminal upon the account of the Scandal that followed it I Answer that no Authority whether divine or human can secure that others shall not be Offended by what I do out of obedience to their Commands but then it doth free me from all guilt and blame by making that to become my duty to do which if I had done needlesly without any great reason and my Brother had been hurt and his Conscience wounded by it might have been justly charged with uncharitableness greater or less according as the Scandal was more or less probable to follow This must be granted that the Laws of God or Man otherwise obligatory do not lose their binding force because of some Scandal that may possibly happen from our Complyance with them or else all Authority is utterly void and insignificant and every Man is at liberty to do all things as himself pleaseth for to borrow the words of the excellent Bishop Sanderson To allow Men under pretence that some offence may be taken thereat to disobey Laws and Constitutions made by those that are in Authority over us is the next way to cut the sinews of all Authority and to bring both Magistrates and Laws into contempt for what Law ever was made or can be made so just and reasonable but some Man or other either did or might take offence thereat Whether such a Constitution or Command of our Superiours be Scandalous or no every one must judge for himself and so according to his own private opinion of the goodness or hurtfulness of what is required he is free to obey it or not which is directly to dissolve all Government and to bring in certain disorder and everlasting confusion every one doing what is good in his own Eyes 3. It is said that Avoiding of Scandal is a main duty of charity May Superiours therefore at their pleasure appoint how far I shall shew my charity towards my Brothers Soul then surely an inferiour Earthly Court may cross the determinations of the High Court of Heaven This Mr. Jeans urgeth also out of Amesius but it is easily replyed That here is no Crossing the determinations of God since it is his express will that in all lawful things we should obey our Governours and he who hath made this our duty will not lay to our charge the mischiefs that may sometimes without our fault through the folly and peevishness of Men follow from it and certainly it is as equal and reasonable that our Superiours should appoint how far I shall exercise my charity towards my Brethren as it is that the mistake and prejudice of any private Christians should set bounds to their Power and Authority Cancel the publick Laws or that every ignorant and froward
pass their unwarrantable censures upon us and our actions and they who govern themselves by the opinions and fancies of others can never tell whither they shall be led by this principle They are slaves to the Party they espouse and must run with them into all the Folly and Extravagance they can be guilty of or if at last they are forced to leave them they shall in the end be more hated and despised by them than if they had never humoured them at all 4. I add only that according to this Rule that we must not do any thing which may displease or grieve our weak Brethren we do in effect submit our Judgments and Consciences to the conduct of the most ignorant and injudicious Christians and yield to them that Power and Authority over us which we deny to the Magistrate and our Lawful Superiours and it cannot but seem a very hard case that they who are so tender of their Christian liberty and think it so highly infringed and violated by the determinations of their Superiours about indifferent matters should yet suffer themselves to be thus straitly tied up by the wills and passions of their weak Brethren If this were so saith Mr. Baxter p. 134 of the forenamed Book the most Childish and Womanish sort of Christians who have the weakest judgments and the strongest wills and passions must rule all the World for these are hardliest pleased and no man must displease them Whatever condescension therefore may be due to the weak and Ignorant yet it was never intended that they should govern the wiser and better instructed Christians in all their actions and who can Govern more Absolutely than they whose wills must never be crossed and whom none must displease From all this I conclude that this cannot be the sense of Scandalizing or giving Offence viz. doing of something which another takes ill or is angry with us for it 2. I am now in the Second place to shew what is the true meaning of Offending or Scandalizing in Scripture The Greek word which we Translate Scandal or Offence signifies either a Trap and Snare or else more commonly something laid in the way of another which occasions his stumbling or falling by which he is bruised and hurt and so consequently whatever it was that hindred Men from becoming Christs Disciples or discouraged them in their new Profession or tempted them to forsake that Faith they had lately embraced is called a Scandal or Offence It is sometimes rendred an occasion to fall as Rom. 14. 13. occasion of stumbling as 1 Joh. 2. 10. a stumbling-block Revel 2. 14. or a thing that doth Offend as St. Matt. 13. 41. In all which places there is the same Original word Hence to Offend or Scandalize any one as it is commonly used in the New Testament is to do something which tends to estrange or fright Men from the Christian Profession to beget in them hard and unworthy thoughts of it or is apt when they are converted to turn them from it and make them repent of their change Of this I shall give some few instances out of the discourses of our Saviour and his Apostles Thus our Blessed Lord St. Matth. 17. 27. is said to have paid tribute lest he should Offend or Scandalize the Jews This was more than he was bound to for he tells us the Children are free But he did it that he might not give any occasion to his Enemies to represent him to the People as a contemner of their Law or an Enemy to Caesar according as you understand that Tribute to be paid either to the Romans or the Temple and so prejudice them against his Person and Doctrine Thus our Saviours own Country-men who were acquainted with his Father and Mother and Kindred who knew the meanness of his Birth and Education Mark 6. 3. were Offended or Scandalized at him They were astonished at the great things he did and the greater things he spoke and would in all probability have believed on him had they not known his mean Original and employment Is not this the Carpenter the Son of Mary c. After the same manner when our Lord St. John 6. 61. had discoursed of eating the Flesh of the Son of Man they that heard him taking it in a gross carnal sense were Offended or Scandalized at him They began to doubt of his being a true Prophet or the Messiah who would teach his Disciples to turn Cannibals Thus again our Saviour before the night in which he was betrayed told his Disciples St. Matt. 26. 31. all of ye shall be Offended or Scandalized because of me this Night that is shall fly away and shamefully forsake me when you behold my hard usage and dismal sufferings So Christ Crucified 1 Cor. 1. 23. to the Jews was a Scandal or stumbling-block that is they had set their minds and hearts on a temporal earthly King and expected to be freed from the Roman Yoke and to be restored to their former Dominions and greatness as the effect of the coming of their Messiah and therefore could not be persuaded to own him for their Prince and Saviour and the Son of God who was put to such a Cursed and Ignominious death In the same sense they who heard the Word of God Mark 4. 17. and received it with gladness but having no root in themselves when Affliction or Persecution arose for the Words sake were presently offended or Scandalized that is were ready to leave and renounce that Profession that was likely to cost them so dear After the publishing of the Gospel by the Apostles that which most stumbled the Jewish Converts was the danger Moses's Law and their Temple Worship and the singular preeminences of the Seed of Abraham seemed to be in of being undermined by Christianity They were strangely wedded to their Legal observances fond of Circumcision and those peculiarities which distinguished their Nation from the rest of mankind they were jealous of any Doctrine that encroached upon their Priviledges or tended to bring them down to the same level with the Uncircumcised World This mightily Offended them and hardned them against Christianity whereas on the other side the Gentile Converts with as much reason were afraid of putting their Necks under so heavy a Yoke or being brought into subjection to the Jewish Law and there was no such effectual way to scare them from Christianity as when it came attended with the burden of the Mosaical Ceremonies which were an Offence to them that is did discourage them from believing in Christ or continuing in his Faith Now to prevent the mischiefs that might arise from these different apprehensions amongst the Christian Proselites was the occasion of the meeting of that first Council at Jerusalem mentioned Acts 15. and of those directions which St. Paul gives Rom. 14. concerning our behaviour towards weak Brethren Another case there was concerning eating of things offered to Idols of which St. Paul discourseth in his first