“Thus often promoters of error may be gifted with ability to reason, make queries, shift arguments and place of Scripture, preach well, pray well with a great deal of eloquence, and liberty of plausible expressions, yea, they may possibly not want, as it were, signs and wonders . . . and yet the Lord’s end …
Why Christians Are A Handful
“The like was often Paul’s case, who at first had an easy work with people, when they were heathens, in comparison of what he had with the same when they became Christians, and tainted with false doctrine, or listeners to corrupt teachers, as in the Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians is clear” (Durham, p. …
Girard Nails the Anonymous Accuser
“Envy loves to hide, but it also loves company because it wants to make converts and, in order to contaminate them, it must go on display” (Rene Girard, A Theater of Envy, p.187).
A Ground of Irritation
“Or, it may be, many are counted scandalous who cannot legally and judicially be found to be such. For it is more easy to assert a scandal that to prove [one], even often when it is true. And it being rather a ground of irritation than edification, when a process is entered and not convincingly …
Public Rebuke
“If the offenses are of that nature that a public rebuke is necessary in respect of the circumstances and aggravations thereof, it is not to be neglected. Yet it is not necessary that every offense that comes to the eldership, yea even these that are known to many, should at all times be brought to …
You Can Say That Again
“The second thing, to wit, what order and manner is to be observed in the following of public scandals, is not easily determinable, there being such variety of cases in which the Lord exercises the prudence and wisdom of his church officers” (Durham, 53).
Private Discretion
“Scandals that are so circumstanced, 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 between offense as it is the object of private discretion, and as it is the object of church discipline” (Durham, p. 50, emphasis mine).
What Breeds Offenses
“Tenaciousness and self-willedness often breed offenses, and continually stand in the way of removing them; and although there is nothing more ordinary in a time of offenses that that, to wit, for men to stand to their own judgment and opinion as if it were a piece of liberty and conscience not to condescend in …
Meddle Not
“When offenses abound, it is often most safe to be least appearing, except a man’s call is the more clear and convincing. For as in the multitude of words there wants not sin, so in much meddling there wants not offense” (Durham, p. 36).
Contentious Souls Breed Contention
“That is the meaning of the word (Rom. 14:22), Hast thou faith? that is, clearness is such a particular, have it to thyself; that is, make your own private use of it without troubling others with the same. And we will see, that this spirit of contention, and the abounding of offense, have ever been …