A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…

that quicquid non expedit, quatenus non expedit, non licet? whatsoever is not expedient, in so far as it is not expedient, it is not lawful. Doeth not ^qPareus likewise show out of Augustine, that such things as are not expedient, but scandalous, and do not edify, but hurt our brother, fiunt ex accidenti illiceta & peccata, proinde vitanda? 7. To conform unto inconvenient and scandalous Ceremonies, in the case of deprivation, is at the best, to do evil that good may come of it: which was the pretence of those Counsellors, of Pope Pius the 5. ^rwho advised him to suffer stews at Rome, for preventing a greater evil of abusing chaste women and honest matrons. So the Pseudo-Nicodemites allege for their abstaining from flesh upon the days forbidden by the Church, that this they do for shunning a greater evil, which is the scandal of Papists. ^sOur Divines answer them, that evil ought not to be done that good may come of it. But saith ^tMr Sprint, this rule ^uof the Apostle must be limited, and in some cases holdeth not: for a man may for doing of good, do that which is evil in use, circumstance, and by accident, so it be not simply and in nature evil. Ans. 1. he begs the thing in question: for that rule is alleged against him to prove, that nothing which is evil in the use of it, may be done for any good whatsoever. 2. The difference betwixt that which is simply evil, and that which is evil in use and by accident, is in that the one may never be done, the other is unlawful only pro tempore: but in this they agree, that both are unlawful; for ^xthat which is evil by accident, whiles it is such, is unlawful to be done, no less then that which is in nature evil. 3. Divines hold ^yabsolutely, that inter duo vel plura mal• culpae (such as things scandalous & inconvenient) nullum est eligendum