9. Argument 8. That which, apart from necessity, entails unavoidable scandal is unlawful.
Argument 8. That which, apart from necessity, entails unavoidable scandal is unlawful.
A rgument 8 Owen:
Argument 8: That practice which is accompanied with unavoidable scandal, engaged in only on pretense of liberty, is contrary to the gospel; but such is our joining in the present public worship.
It were endless to reckon up all the scandals which will ensue herein. That which respects our enemies must not be omitted. Will they not think, will they not say that we have only falsely and hypocritically pretended conscience for what we do, when we can on outward considerations comply with that which is required of us? Woe to the world because of such offences: but woe to them also by whom they are given.
Baxter:
§24. To the major of your eighth argument I answer: 1. It is not true when there is far greater scandal by forbearing that practice [of joining in the present public worship], but only when there is less scandal on the other side. 1
To the minor I answer: It is not true that it is only liberty that is pleaded for the communion in question. It is great duty that is pleaded:
1. The duty of Christian union and concord, and love and peace.
2. The duty of obeying the commands and example of Christ and his apostles.
3. The duty of avoiding the principles of schism and the condemning and false accusing the Church of Christ on earth.
4. The duty of bearing witness against the principle of the sinfulness of communicating with a Church in liturgies, which would make Christ in most ages to be no King, as having no Kingdom or Church on earth.
5. The duty of taking warning by the mischiefs of causeless Separation in ages that have so much smarted by it.
6. The duty of seeking our own edification.
7. The duty of keeping thousands of Christians from ceasing all public worship where they can have no other but in the parish-churches.
8 The duty of keeping thousands of good people from being ruined for mistakes and evil doing.
9. The duty of obeying magistrates in lawful things.
10. And the duty of avoiding scandal on the other side.
Is all this nothing but "pretense of liberty"?
As to the scandal mentioned by you, no doubt adversaries will reproach you whether you communicate in the parish-churches or not. But note: 1.
That if any be guilty of such sin as for outward considerations to do any evil or any good which they take to be evil, these men deserve some reproach.
But:
1. If they before were in circumstances which made it no duty, and after by God's providence are in circumstances which make it a duty, the
reproachers do but show their ignorance or malice, whether they be persecutors or Separatists that so reproach them.
2. Or if men see the error of their former Separation, they must not forbear repentance and amendment for fear of reproach.
There is so great a difference of men and cases that it's gross sottishness to think that their duties and sins are the same in mutable circumstances:
It's a sin to preach or pray when we should be quenching a fire, saving men's lives. Christians, as well as Pharisees, are yet to learn what that means, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice, and therefore accuse the guiltless." [Mt. 12:7] Some men have no possibility of any other church-worship but in the parish-churches. Some have no other possibility but what is worse. Some may have abler teachers, but at the cost of imprisonment and ruin. It is not lawful to lie in prison merely for refusing to hear a weak nonconformist when you might hear an abler: and so it is in the case of conformists, else all were bound to a few men.
Some have liberty to hear fitter men, or at the least, more agreeable to them, without greater hurt than good (as the Dutch and French here have).
Some are commanded by husbands, parents and masters to one church, and some to another. Some have more able and godly ministers in the parishchurches, and some have such as I would never own or encourage in the ministry by seeming to own them.
Some can remove their dwelling and some cannot. Some had liberty the last year that cannot have it this year without more hurt than their benefit will compensate.
In these cases where God has not at all tied us to a [Service-]book, or no book, to this church or to that, he that can truly tell which way he shall do
and get most good or hurt, may by that better know his duty than by these arguments or men's censures.
But verily, my chief reason for communion in public is the very same which you bring against it: even the avoiding of heinous scandal. I have told the world:
1. That scandal is not displeasing men, but laying before them a temptation to sin. 2
2. That if the Separatists be the best Christians, they are farthest out of the danger of scandal. It is the worst that are easiliest tempted to sin, and so whom we should be most fearful to scandalize.
3. And it's a greater sin to scandalize many than few.
4. And it's worse by scandal to tempt men to the mortal sins 3 of persecuting or scorning godly men than merely to tempt them to some small mistakes or to grieve them.
5. And to scandalize our rulers is worse than to scandalize inferiors (other things being equal).
And now I tell you, I the rather join in public worship:
1. Lest I should harden thousands in the opinion that we take that to be unlawful which is not, and that we are for sinful Separation, and that we separate from and unchurch almost all Christ's Church, and that we are enemies to order and peace and concord, and that we are unruly enemies to government and giddy, ignorant, self-conceited people.
2. And so, lest we breed throughout the land such a contempt of conscience in God's service, as they have of Quakers, and thousands by this should be alienated from the reverence of serious religion, and youth should be educated to the like contempt under these temptations.
3. And lest if any in Church-matters be guilty of sinful extremes on the other side (in oaths, professions, ceremonies or practices), we should harden them therein, by tempting them to think that we have no worse against their way than the use of a liturgy.
4. Lest the conceit that we are but a company of giddy fanatics encourage any contentious preachers to render us odious and rail at us in the pulpits to their own shame and the widening of our breaches.
5. And lest the same error should tempt any bishops or magistrates to think they do God and their Church and country service, in silencing, imprisoning, reproaching and ruining God's faithful servants without cause and bring the land under God's wrath by persecution. Are these no scandals? or not greater than offending or displeasing the dissenting separators? to say nothing of occasioning our reproach in all the foreign Churches which have a liturgy. 4
If against all this, the displeasing of your mistaken flocks should prevail, then their weakness and error would constitute them our chief governors.
1. Baxter: "Though we think not that men may [morally] command us to destroy our neighbors' souls by scandal, yet when disobedience to a ruler's law is likely to do more hurt than the scandal taken at it comes to, we are for avoiding the greater hurt." The English Nonconformity as under King
Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (London, 1689), https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26924.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , p. 14.
2. See https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-scandal/#displease at 'On Scandal & Offenses' (RBO).
3. Protestants commonly appropriated the mortal and venial sin distinction from Romanism, in protestant senses; see https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-the-distinction-of-venial-mortal-sin/
(RBO). Baxter is here using "mortal sins", as other reformed divines did, with regard to either greatly hurting and hardening one's conscience, or in respect to the sin against the Holy Spirit, which they often interpreted as involving knowingly persecuting Christian righteousness and the kingdom of Christ; see https://reformedbooksonline.com/of-the-sin-against-the-holy-spirit/ (RBO).
4. The German Lutheran theologian, George Calixt: "LXXXV… Nor does there appear to be much hope of bending the Puritans, as they are called in England, a turbulent and seditious race of men, to moderation and mutual tolerance. Their spirits are too lofty to concede anything to others besides themselves; they are more eager for novelty than for antiquity, and more prone to wild behavior than to seeking tranquility." https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CalixtusControversies-between-Lutherans-and-Reformed.pdf , tr. by AI by WesternCatholike (1650; Leiden,
1652), p. 35.