A Treatise of Scandalizing, Title page – Errata
VAE Scandalizantium. OR A TREATISE OF Scandalizing, WHEREIN THE NECESSITY, NATURE, SORTS, AND evills of scandalizing, are handled, with resolution of many questions thereto pertaining.
Preached at Lemster, in Hereford-Shire.
BY IOHN TOMBES, B. D. OXFORD, Printed by Leon: Lichfield, for Edward Forrest. AN. DOM. 1641.
To the RIGHT HONOURABLE IOHN LORD VISCOVNT SCUDAMORE.
Right Honourable,
IT is necessary that Christians should bee warned of sin against God, lest they incurre his wrath. And withall it is as necessary that the sins of which men are warned should be Plainely, and distinctly declared. Without the one mens consciences will sinne without feare: without the other they will feare where no feare is: the defect of the former will make consciences secure: the want of the latter perpetually unquiet, or setled in errour. And errours in conscience produce many great evills not onelyonly ad intra in mens owne soules, but also ad extra in humane affaires. The endeavouring then to direct mens consciences in practique cases cannot but be a needfull and charitable worke.
And surely as it is usefull in other arguments, so very needfull in this of scandals. Few there bee that heed the terrible commination of our Saviour against scandalizers, and therefore are affected as if by transmigration they had Cains spirit, when he said nunquid ego fratris mei custos? Whence it is that offences are multiplyed dayly, many soules perish, alienations of minde, schismes, jarres and warres too arise. Wee wish, wee pray, I would wee might say we hope for a true union and consolidation of mens minds. Certainly it is not to be hoped without removeall of scandals. On the other side the greivous threatning of our Lord Christ doth so affright many consciences, that they are almost irresolute in every thing they doe before men, as fearing least there be anguis in herba, some scandall in it. In my small reading and experience I find few doubts of conscience, concerning mens patent actions, in the resolving of which the difficulty hath not most of all rested on this point of scandals.
Which considerations moved me to apply some part of my studies to cleare this argument, and to remove this evill. And having in this forme fashioned a treatise, I cannot say polished, it is now produced into the light for publique good by discovery of truth. Such as it is I humbly present to your Lordship, as to a person made honourable not only by your high dignities, but also by your noble vertues, manifested abroade in your employments of State, and in this your native countrey (wherein as in your proper Orbe you shined many yeares tanquam stella primae magnitudinis) by your eminent prudence and integrity in government, and by your rare, pious, and large munificence in restoring tithes, and bestowing lands and building on the Church, and indeared to my selfe by reason of that noble favour by which your Honour hath beene pleased to cheare me in this very great, and very poore Cure, in and under which I now labour. Which I beseech your Honour to accept of as from him that rejoyceth in the prosperity of your Honour and your noble House, and studies to acquite himselfe
Your Honours in most humble observance IOHN TOMBES.
TO THE READER.
Christian Reader,
FOR preventing of mistakes I intreat thee to take notice. 1. That whereas I finde the word [Scandall] in common speech & some writings used as if it did signify a slander or evill report, I conceive that such use of the word [Scandall] in that sense is different from the proper notation and use thereof: and therefore is omitted by me in this treatise. For though a slander may be a scandall, yet ratio nominis, or the notion and conceit of them is different; the one signifying a false report of another in respect of the speaker whether the party slandered know of it or not, be offended or not: the other generally signifies all such acts whereby mens minds are harmed in reference to the person harmed, as I have declared chap: 1. and 2. of this treatise. 2. That whereas I use the tearme [regard] sundry times, especially chap. 4. in such a sense as it carries Rom. 14. 6. where our last translatours by it render [foreign] used there by the Apostle, and I say such a scandall is not to be regarded or not regardeable, my meaning is not as if it were not simply to be regarded, but in every respect to bee neglected, so as that we should not at all be bound to be greived for anothers harme caused by his owne wilfullnesse or ill disposition, nor to pray or use other Christian meanes to redresse it, but onelyonly this, that we are not so to regard it as to conceive our selves bound in conscience to omit our action, or to charge our selves with sinne if we doe that thing upon which scandall followes in the cases there mentioned. 3. That there are in the print sundry faults escaped in the few Hebrew and Greeke and Latin words, in the running title, in the numbers of sections in the margint, in the interpunctions, and letters, which because I conceive the learned will easily amend, and they are not likely either to hinder or pervert the understanding of the rest, I have thought best not to burden the table of Errata with them, but have collected these few that follow as the most materiall.
Errata.
PAge 8. line 21. for bastes read beastes. p. 19. l. 6. for Sandalls r. Scandalls. p. 76. l. 5. for and r. are. p. 77. l. 3. dele then. p. 80. l. 11. for due it r. due to it. p. 104. l. 18. for occasion r. occasion of. p. 118. l. 8. for it that r. in that. p. 285. l. 15. for wise r. wife. p. 392. l. 12. for they r. there. p. 410. l. 18. for changeth r. chargeth. p. 433. l. 18. for intrence r. entrench.