3. Alluring promises of some gain or pleasure that shall come by sin, is another scandal which doth cause the fall of many. The course that Satan tried with Christ, "All this will I give thee," was but the same which he found most successful with sinners in the world. This is a bait which sinners will themselves hunt after, if it be not offered them. Judas will go to the Pharisees with a "What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?" Peter saith of the scandalous heretics of his time, "They allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error; while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption," 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19. 4. Threatenings also and scorns are scandals, which frighten unbelieving souls into sin. Thus Rabshakeh thought to prevail with Hezekiah. Thus Nebuchadnezzar Dan. iii. thought to have drawn those three worthies to idolatry. Thus the Pharisees thought to have frightened the apostles from preaching any more in the name of Christ, Acts iv. 17, 21. Thus Saul thought to have perverted the disciples, by breathing out threatenings against them, Acts ix. 1. 5. And what words will not do, the ungodly think to do by force; and it enrageth them, that any should resist their wills, and that their force is patiently endured. What cruel torments, what various sorts of heavy sufferings, have the devil and his instruments devised, to be stumblingblocks to the weak, to affright them into sin! 6. Gifts also have blinded the eyes of some who seemed wise: "As oppression maketh a wise man mad, so a gift destroyeth the heart," Eccles. vii. 7. What scandals have preferments proved to the world, and how many have they ruined! Few are able to esteem the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than the treasures of the world. 7. And evil examples are the commonest sort of scandals:[135] not as they offend, or grieve, or are apparently sinful; but as they seem good, and therefore are temptations to the weak to imitate them. So apt are men to imitation, especially in evil, that they will do what they see another do, without examining whether it be justifiable or not. Especially if it be the example either of great men, or of learned men, or of men reputed eminently godly, or of a multitude, any of these the people are apt to imitate: this therefore is the common way of scandal. When people do that which is evil as if it were good, and thereby draw the ignorant to think it good, and so imitate them. Or else when they do that which is lawful itself, in such a manner as tendeth to deceive another, and draw him to that which is indeed unlawful; or to hinder him in any thing that is good.