urum alterius peccatum,
aut quodeunque malum: nam etiam dicitur illud voluntarium interpretative._

_Sect._ 9. I will yet descend more particularly to confute our opposites'
several answers and defences, which they have used against our argument of
scandal. And I begin with our Lord Chancellor: "As for the godly amongst
us (saith he(397)), we are sorry they should be grieved; but it is their
own fault, for if the things be in themselves lawful, what is it that
should offend them?"

_Ans._ 1. He does not well express scandal (whereof he is there speaking)
by grief; for I may be grieved, yet not scandalised, and scandalised, yet
not grieved, according to my first proposition touching scandal.

2. To what purpose tells he it is their own fault? Thinks he that there
are any offended without their own fault? To be offended is ever a
fault,(398) as I show in my third and sixth propositions; so that if a
scandal be not removed where it is men's own fault that they are offended,
then no scandal shall ever be removed, because all who are scandalised
commit a fault in being scandalised. _Nihil potest esse homini causa
sufficiens peccati, quod est spiritualis ruina, nisi propria voluntas; et
ideo dicta vel facta alterius hominis possunt esse solum causa imperfecta
aliqualiter inducens ad ruinam_, saith Aquinas,(399) giving a reason why,
in the definition of scandals, he saith not that it giveth cause, but that
it giveth occasion of ruin.

3. Why thinks he that if the things be in themselves lawful, they are
purged of scandal? What if they edify not? 1 Cor. xx. 23. What if they be
not expedient? Are they not therefore scandalous, because in themselves
lawful? This shift is destroyed by my ninth proposition. And, I pray, were
not all meats lawful for the Gentiles in the apostles' times? Yet this
could not excuse their eating all sorts of meats, when the Jews were
thereby offended.

4. Whereas he demandeth, if the things be in themselves lawful, what is it
that should offend them? I demand again, though adultery, murder, &c., be
in themselves unlawful, what is it that should offend us? Should we offend
or be scandalised for anything? Nay, then, we should sin; for to be
offended is a sin.

5. He had said to better purpose, What is it that may offend them, or doth
offend them, that it may be voided? Whereunto I answer, that there is a
twofold scandal which may be and hath been given by things lawful in
themselves (as I touched in