A97353:219
The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…
The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their principles about civil and ecclesiastical authority and obedience ... : mostly written many years past, and now published to save our lives and the kingdoms peace, from the false and bloody plotters ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1680
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.
62. In some cases God hath laid some special charge on us by his own Law, which way first to exercise our Love: But where he hath not so done, the Greatest Good in the exercises of Love is to be preferred to a lesser, and the lesser is no duty but a sin, when it would exclude the greater, (Comparatively).
63. If a King or Parent command me to forbear a necessary Act of Love (or expression of it) (as to save a mans life, or soul as far as I am able when there is great hope of the success) unless finis gratiâ, a Greater Good oblige me to forbear it, the Authority of the commander doth not oblige me; as not dissolving Gods obligations.
64. The command of Order and Decency in the celebration of public worship in the Assemblies, is a general precept of Natural right: But it is only the media, which (in some cases propter finem) do cease; that is, when necessity imposeth some disorder and undecency, as without which the end or thing ordered must be forsaken; and so they cease to be a means. But out of such cases of Necessity, they are of perpetual obligation.
64. The command of Order and Decency in the celebration of publick worship in the Assemblies, is a general precept of Natural right: But it is only the media, which (in some cases propter finem) do cease; that is, when necessity imposeth some disorder and undecency, as without which the end or thing ordered must be forsaken; and so they cease to be a means. But out of such cases of Necessity, they are of perpetual obligation.