A26892:7066
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Quest. 110. Must we obey the Magistrate if he only forbid us Worshipping God, in such a place, or Country, or in such numbers, or the like?
Quest. 110. Must we obey the Magistrate if he only forbid us Worshiping God, in such a place, or Countrey, or in such numbers, or the like?
Answ. WE must distinguish between such a determination of Circumstances▪ modes or accidents,1 as plainly destroy the worship or the end, and such as do not. For instance, 1. He that •aith, You shall never assemble but once a year or never but at midnight; or never above six or seven minutes at once, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of Time: But he doth it so as to destroy the worship, which cannot so be done, in consistency with its ends. But he that shall say, You shall not meet till nine a clock, nor stay in the night, &c. doth no such thing.
- 1What if we be forbidden only Place, Numbers, &c.▪
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 popular 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 forbideth inconvenient places.