3. It is not only lawful, but one of the best works in the world, for fit persons to go on a design to convert the poor infidels and heathens where they go. Therefore the preachers of the gospel should not be backward to take any opportunity, as chaplains to ambassadors, or to factories, &c. to put themselves in such a way.
4. It is lawful for a son or servant (whose bonds extend to such a service) to go in obedience to a superior's command; and God's special protection may be trusted in a way of obedience.
5. It is lawful for one in debt to go, that hath probable hopes that way and no other to pay his debts. Because he is a defrauder if he detain other men's money, while a lawful way of repaying it may be taken.
6. It is lawful for a duly qualified person to go in case of extreme poverty, to be able to live in the world; and that poverty may be called extreme to one that was nobly born and educated, which would be no poverty to one that was bred in beggary.
7. It is lawful for a well qualified person, who desireth riches to serve God, and to do good with, to go in a way of trading, though he be in no poverty or necessity himself. Because God's blessing on a lawful trade may be desired and endeavoured, and he that should do all the good he can, may use what lawful means he can to be enabled to do it. And other men's wants should be to us as our own, and therefore we may endeavour to be able to relieve them.
8. In a time of such civil war, when a man knoweth not which side to take, it may be better for some men to live abroad; yea, among infidels.
9. There is little to dissuade a man whose trade leadeth him into a country that is better than his own, or so sottish as to have small temptation, and that hath the company of faithful christians, with which he may openly worship God, and privately converse to his spiritual edification.
10. In urgent cases one may go for a time, where he can have no use of public church worship, so be it he have private means and opportunities of holy living.
11. It is lawful on less occasions to leave one's own country in a time of debauchery, when temptations at home are greater than those abroad, or in a time of such persecution as may lawfully be avoided, than at another time.
12. A settled christian may go more safely, and therefore lawfully, on smaller urgencies, than a young, raw, lustful, fanciful, unsettled novice may.
II. _Neg._ 1. It is not lawful for any one to seek riches or trade abroad or at home, principally for the love of riches, to raise himself and family to fulness, prosperity, or dignity: though all this may be desired when it is a means to God's service and honour, and the public good, and is desired principally as such a means.
2. It is not lawful to go abroad, especially into infidel or popish countries, without such a justifiable business, whose commodity will suffice to weigh down all the losses and dangers of the remove.
3. The dangers and losses of the soul are to be valued much above those of the body and estate, and cannot be weighed down by any mere corporal commodity.
4. It is less dangerous usually to go among Turks and heathens, (whose religion hath no tempting power to seduce men,) than among Socinians or papists, whose errors and sins are cunningly and learnedly promoted and defended.
5. It is not lawful for merchants or others for trade and love of wealth or money, to send poor raw, unsettled youths into such countries where their souls are like to be notably endangered, either by being deprived of such teaching and church helps which they need, or by being exposed to the dangerous temptations of the place; because their souls are of more worth than money.
6. It is not lawful therefore for master or servant to venture his own soul in such a case as this last mentioned; that is, so far as he is free, and without necessity doth it only for commodity sake.
7. We may not go where we cannot publicly worship God, without necessity, or some inducement from a greater good.
8. The more of these hinderances concur the greater is the sin: it is therefore a mere wilful casting away of their own souls, when unfurnished, unsettled youths (or others like them) shall for mere humour, fancy, or covetousness leave such a land as this, where they have both public and private helps for their salvation, and to go among papists, infidels, or heathens, where talk or ill example is like to endanger them, and no great good can be expected to countervail such a hazard, nor is there any true necessity to drive them, and where they cannot publicly worship God, no, nor openly own the truth, and where they have not so much as any private company to converse with, that is fit to further their preservation and salvation, and all this of their own accord, &c.
_Quest._ II. May a merchant or ambassador leave his wife, to live abroad?