So, 2. He that saith, You shall not assemble but at forty miles' distance one from another; or you shall meet only in a room, that will hold but the twentieth part of the church; or you shall never preach in any city or populous place, but in a wilderness far from the inhabitants, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of place: but he so doth it, as tends to destroy or frustrate the work which God commandeth us. But so doth not he that only boundeth churches by parish bounds, or forbiddeth inconvenient places.
3. So he that saith, You shall never meet under a hundred thousand together, or never above five or six, doth but determine the accident of number: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. For the first will be impossible; and in the second way they must keep church assemblies without ministers, when there is not so many as for every such little number to have one. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall not meet above ten thousand, nor under ten.
4. So he that saith, You shall not hear a Trinitarian, but an Arian; or you shall hear only one that cannot preach the essentials of religion, or that cries down godliness itself; or you shall hear none but such as were ordained at Jerusalem or Rome, or none but such as subscribe the council of Trent, &c. doth but determine what person we shall hear: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall hear only this able minister, rather than that.
I need not stand on the application. In the latter case we owe formal obedience. In the former we must suffer, and not obey.
For if it be meet so to obey, it is meet in obedience to give over God's worship. Christ said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another;" but he never said, If they forbid you preaching in any city, or populous place, obey them. He that said, "Preach the gospel to every creature, and to all nations, and all the world," and that "would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,"[351] doth not allow us to forsake the souls of all that dwell in cities and populous places, and preach only to some few cottagers elsewhere; no more than he will allow us to love, pity, and relieve the bodies only of those few, and take none for our neighbours that dwell in cities, but with priest and Levite to pass them by.
[351] Matt. x. 30; Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxviii. 19; 1 Tim. ii. 4; 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26; iv. 1-3.
Quest. CXI. _Must subjects or servants forbear weekly lectures, reading, or such helps, above the Lord's day's worship, if princes or masters do command it?_
_Answ._ 1. There is great difference between a mere subject, or person governed, and a servant, slave, or child.
2. There is great difference between such as are hindered by just cause and real necessities, and such as are hindered only through profane malignity.
(1.) Poor people have not so much leisure from their callings, as the rich; and so providing for their families may, at that time, by necessity become the greater and the present duty.
(2.) So may it be with soldiers, judges, and others, that have present urgent work of public consequence; when others have no such impediment.
(3.) He that is the child or slave of another, or is his own by propriety, is more at his power, than he that is only a subject, and so is but to be governed in order to his own and the common good.
(4.) A servant that hath absolutely hired himself to another, is for that time near the condition of a slave; but he that is hired but with limitations, and exceptions of liberty, (expressed or understood,) hath right to the excepted liberty.
(5.) If the king forbid judges, soldiers, or others, whose labours are due to the public, to hear sermons at that time when they should do their work, or if parents or masters so forbid children and servants, they must be obeyed, while they exclude not the public worship of the Lord's own day, nor necessary prayer and duty in our private daily cases.
(6.) But he that is under such bondage as hindereth the needful helps of his soul, should be gone to a freer place, if lawfully he can. But a child, wife, or such as are not free, must trust on God's help in the use of such means as he alloweth them.
(7.) A prince, or tutor, or schoolmaster, who is not a proprietor of the person, but only a governor, is not to be obeyed formally and for conscience sake, if he forbid his subjects or scholars such daily or weekly helps for their salvation as they have great need of, and have no necessity to forbear; such as are hearing or assembling with the church on the week days at convenient time, reading the Scriptures daily, or good books, accompanying with men fearing God, praying, &c.; because God hath commanded these when we can perform them.
Quest. CXII. _Whether religious worship may be given to a creature? and what?_
_Answ._ While the terms of the question remain ambiguous, it is uncapable of an answer.