_Answ._ You must be faithful to your trust, 1. If it be true religion and a good cause for which he suffereth. 2. Or if he be falsely accused of abuses in religion. 3. Or if he be faulty, but the penalty intended, from which you secure him, is incomparably beyond his fault and unjust. Supposing still that you save him only by lawful means, and that it be not like to tend to do more hurt than good, to the cause of religion or the commonwealth.
_Quest._ XII. What if a papist or other erroneous person intrust me (being of the same mind) to educate his children in that way, when he is dead, and afterward I come to see the error, must I perform that trust or not?
_Answ._ No: 1. Because no trust can oblige you to do hurt. 2. Because it is contrary to the primary intent of your friend; which was his children's good. And you may well suppose that had he seen his error, he would have intrusted you to do accordingly: you are bound therefore to answer his primary intention, and truly to endeavour his children's good.
_Quest._ XIII. But what if a man to whom another hath intrusted his children, turn papist or heretic, and so thinketh error to be truth? what must he do?
_Answ._ He is bound to turn back again to the truth, and do accordingly.
_Object._ But one saith this is the truth and another that; and he thinketh he is right.
_Answ._ There is but one of the contraries true. Men's thinking themselves to be in the right doth not make it so. And God will not change his laws, because they misunderstand or break them: therefore still that which God bindeth them to is to return unto the truth. And if they think that to be truth which is not, they are bound to think otherwise. If you say, They cannot; it is either not true, or it is long of themselves that they cannot: and they that cannot immediately, yet mediately can do it, in the due use of means.
_Quest._ XIV. What if I foresee that the taking a trust may hazard my estate, or otherwise hurt me, and yet my dying (or living) friend desireth it?
_Answ._ How far the law of christianity or friendship oblige you to hurt yourself for his good, must be discerned by a prudent considering, what your obligations are to the person, and whether the good of your granting his desires, or the hurt to yourself, is like to be the greater, and of more public consequence: and whether you injure not your own children or others by gratifying him. And upon such comparison, prudence must determine the case.
_Quest._ XV. But what if afterward the trust prove more to my hurt than I foresaw?
_Answ._ If it was your own fault that you foresaw it not, you must suffer proportionably for that fault; but otherwise you must compare your own hurt with the orphans', in case you do not perform the trust: and consider whether they may not be relieved another way; and whether you have reason to think that if the parent were alive and knew the danger, he would expect you should perform your trust, or would discharge you of it. If it be some great and unexpected dangers, which you think upon good grounds the parent would acquit you from if he were living, you fulfil your trust if you avoid them, and do that which would have been his will if he had known it. Otherwise you must perform your promise though it be to your loss and suffering.
_Quest._ XVI. But what if it was only a trust imposed by his desire and will, without my acceptance or promise to perform it?
_Answ._ You must do as you would be done by, and as the common good, and the laws of love and friendship, do require. Therefore the quality of the person, and your obligations to him, and especially the comparing of the consequent good and evil together, must decide the case.
_Quest._ XVII. What if the surviving kindred of the orphan be nearer to him than I am, and they censure me and calumniate me as injurious to the orphan, may I not ease myself of the trust, and cast it upon them?
_Answ._ In this case also, the measure of your suffering must first be compared with the measure of the orphan's good; and then your conscience must tell you whether you verily think the parent who intrusted you, would discharge you if he were alive and knew the case. If he would, though you promised, it is to be supposed that it was not the meaning of his desire or your promise, to incur such suffering: and if you would not believe that he would not discharge you if he were alive, then if you promised you must perform; but if you promised not, you must go no further than the law of love requireth.
_Quest._ XVIII. What is a minister of Christ to do, if a penitent person confess secretly some heinous or capital crime to him (as adultery, theft, robbery, murder); must it be concealed or not?