be lawful and expedient,
though a private Christian do but exhort me to it, or whether I be
exhorted to it or not. For answer to this I say, that I will obey the
directions of the church in many things rather than the directions of a
brother; for in two things which are in themselves indifferent, and none
of them inexpedient, I will do that which the church requireth, though my
brother should exhort me to the contrary. But always I hold me at this
sure ground, that I am never bound in conscience to obey the ordinances of
the church, except they be evidently lawful and expedient. This is that,
_sine quo non obligant_, and also that which doth chiefly bind, though it
be not the only thing which bindeth. Now, for making the matter more
plain, we must consider that the constitutions of the church are either
lawful or unlawful. If unlawful, they bind not at all; if lawful, they are
either concerning things necessary, as Acts xv. 28, and then the necessity
of the things doth bind, whether the church ordain them or not; or else
concerning things indifferent, as when the church ordaineth, that in great
towns there shall be sermon on such a day of the week, and public prayers
every day at such an hour. Here it is not the bare authority of the church
that bindeth, without respect to the lawfulness or expediency of the thing
itself which is ordained (else we were bound to do every thing which the
church ordains, were it never so unlawful, for _quod competit alicui qua
tali, competit omni tali_: we behold the authority of the church making
laws, as well in unlawful ordinances as in lawful), nor yet is it the
lawfulness or expediency of the thing itself, without respect to the
ordinance of the church (for possibly other times and diets were as
lawful, and expedient too, for such exercises, as those ordained by the
church); but it is the authority of the church prescribing a thing lawful
or expedient. In such a case, then neither doth the authority of the
church bind, except the thing be lawful and expedient, nor doth the
lawfulness and expediency of the thing bind, except the church ordain it;
but both these jointly do bind.

_Sect._ 8. I come now to examine what is the judgment of formalists
touching the binding of the conscience by ecclesiastical laws. Dr Field
saith, that the question should not be proposed, whether human laws do
bind the conscience, but "whether binding the outward man to the
performance of outward things by for