5th. An active scandal is given (and so is faulty) many ways. If it be in a thing lawful, then it makes our brother condemn our lawful deed, yea, animates him by our example to that which in his conscience he condemneth, both which are sin. If it be in a thing unlawful, then is the scandal given and peccant, it, 1. Either our brother be made to fall into the outward act of sin; or, 2. If he be made to stumble in his conscience, and to call in question the way of truth; or, 3. If it do so much as to make him halt, or weaken his plerophory or full assurance; or, 4. If it hinder his growth and going forward, and make him, though neither to fall, nor to stumble, nor to halt, yet to have a smaller progress; or, 5. If none of these evils be produced in our brother, yet when, either through our intention and the condition of the deed together, or through the condition of the deed alone, occasion is given him of sinning any one of these ways. _Opus nostrum_ (saith a great proctor for popish ceremonies(355)) _quoties sive natura sua, sive superaddito accidente alicujus circumstantiae, est inductivum proximi ad peccatum, sive causativum magni mali, sive turbativum boni spiritualis; sive impeditivum fidei, &c., quamvis etiam effectus non sequeretur, malum est et peccatum._ _Sect._ 4. 6th. A passive scandal, which is taken and not given, is not only faulty when it proceedeth of malice, but also when it proceedeth of ignorance and infirmity; and _scandalum pusillorum_ may be _scandalum acceptum_, on the part of the offended faulty, as well as _scandalum Pharisaeorum_. When weak ones are offended at me for the use of a lawful thing, before I know of their weakness, and their taking of offence, the scandal is only passive; and so we see that weak ones may take offence where none is given, as well as the malicious. Now, their taking of offence, though it proceed of weakness, yet is sinful; for their weakness and ignorance is a fault, and doth not excuse them. 7th. A scandal may be at first only passive, and yet afterward become active. For example, Gideon’s ephod and the brazen serpent were monuments of God’s mercies, and were neither evil nor appearances of evil; so that when people were first scandalised by them the scandal was merely passive, but the keeping and retaining of them, after that scandal rose out of them, made the scandal to become active also, because the reserving of them after that time was not without appearance of evil. _Sect._ 5. 8th. The occasion of a scandal which is only passive should be removed, if it be not some necessary thing, and we are not only to shun that which giveth scandal, but also that whereupon followeth a scandal taken, whatsoever it be, if it be not necessary. This is so evident, that Papists themselves subscribe to it; for both Cardinal Cajetan(356) and Dominicus Bannes say, that we should abstain even _a spiritualibus non necessariis_ when scandal riseth out of them.