A Treatise Concerning Scandal - Hardcover

Durham, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0941075028 ISBN 13: 9780941075022

Publisher: Naphtali Press, 1990

About this title

From the Back Cover:

James Durham's work on scandal and offense is the first of several books Naphtali Press plans to publish by 17th century Scottish Presbyterians. Many of the works of this group of writers are classic statements on the subjects they treat. This book of Durham's is such a work.

John Macleod (Scottish Theology) says, His book on the Scandal of Church divisions has long been looked upon as the Scottish classic on its topic. John Macpherson (Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology) says, Taken all in all it is the very best book we have on the subject. According to James Walker (The Theology and Theologians of Scotland): He is the author of a book which once was very famous. For a hundred years and more you find it constantly referred to. Unhappily, as in so many other instances, it has a forbidding, or at all events not an attractive name. Yet I am not sure that anywhere a better idea is to be obtained of our old ecclesiasticism, and of its freedom to a large extent from the severity and rancorousness which have been so often attributed to it, than from the book `On Scandal,' by this judicious man, who, with his thorough, searching, cumbrous intellect, reminds you not seldom of John Owen.

The work is divided into four parts. The first deals with scandal and offense in general, where he defines these terms, and discusses private offenses between individuals, and how they are given and taken. In the second part he writes concerning public scandals, or such that need to be in some way taken notice of by the government of the church, and the various scriptural teachings on the order, implementation, and motive of church discipline. The third is about scandalous errors; the spreading of error, why it spreads, the Lord's design in it, Satan's devices in spreading error, and the duties of Christians in a time when error prevails. Of particular interest is a lengthy treatment of the minister's duty toward those seduced to error, where the four steps of discovery (or trial), conviction, admonition and rejection of an heretic are discussed. The last part concerns scandalous divisions in the church, how they arise, the evil of them, grounds for unity, things to overlook in order to unite, things to do in order to unite, and how to unify where the division concerns differences in church government.

From the Inside Flap:

In this work Mr. Durham, in opening and examining the different scandals which deface the visible church, causing both the professed people of God, and the heathen to stumble and fall in the snares of sin and the devil, shows carefully and clearly the various means of avoiding and remedying these offenses, and what the people of God in their various places and stations must do to maintain the beauty of Zion in godliness and holiness, in purity and in peace.

About this edition

• Publisher: Naphtali Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0941075028
• ISBN 13: 9780941075022
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 380