A Treatise Concerning Scandal

Review The appearance of a new and handsomely reset edition of James Durham's classic and unique work on ecclesiastical discipline is a timely and welcome event in these days of laxity in doctrine and morality within the church. The author was a Covenanter who ministered in the Church of Scotland during the Cromwellian interregnum. Possessed of a fragrant saintliness and an irenic spirit, he completed this volume on his deathbed, at age 36, under the title, 'The Dying Man's Testament to the Church of Scotland.' Durham grieved over the divisions that racked the Christian community of his time and was concerned that church discipline not be abused either by flagrant neglect or excessive rigor. The weighty scriptural balance he brings to his subject is unequalled. -- Gordon J. Keddie, Semper Reformanda, vol. 2 No 3The book is divided into four parts -- Part One: Concerning Scandals in General -- dealing with offences between individual Christians. Part Two -- Concerning Public Scandals -- dealing with church discipline. Part Three: Concerning Doctrinal Scandals -- dealing with the spread of error in the church. Part Four: Concerning Scandalous Divisions -- dealing with divisions between godly men occasioned by such things as different outlooks and practices. The editor has spared no effort to make this old classic readable and useful. -- Austin R. Walker, Banner of Truth, Issue 337This book ought to be required reading in seminaries and, indeed, for all who would serve as elders in Christ's church. It will repay careful study and breathe grace into our handling of the disciplinary problems that often confront us. Sessions will find real blessing if they study together Part Two [public scandals], especially. -- Gordon J. Keddie, Semper Reformanda, vol. 2 No 3 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. 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