ll not depart the breadth of one nail, is this, that we
can never lawfully conform (no not in the case of deprivation) unto any
ceremony which is scandalous and inconvenient in the use of it. For
further confirmation whereof, we say, 1. Every negative precept of the law
of God bindeth to all times, in such sort, that the action which it
forbiddeth (so long as it remaineth evil, and the kind of it is not
changed) can never lawfully be done. Therefore, forasmuch as to abstain
from things scandalous and inconvenient, is one of the negative precepts
of the law of God, and the ceremonies whereunto Mr Sprint would have us to
conform in the case of deprivation, are, and remain scandalous and
inconvenient in our practice and use of them according to his own
presupposal; it followeth, that the use and practice of the same is
altogether unlawful unto us. 2. That which is lawful in the nature of it
is never lawful in the use of it, except only when it is expedient for
edification, as teacheth the Apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 12; x. 23. The
Corinthians objected that all indifferent things were lawful. The Apostle
addeth a limitation,(266) _esse licita quatenus conducunt_, they are
lawful to be used in so far as they are expedient. 3. It is the Apostle's
commandment, let all things be done unto edifying, 1 Cor. xiv. 26.
Therefore whatsoever is not done unto edifying ought not to be done. 4.
The Apostle saith, 1 Cor. viii. 13, "If meat make my brother to offend, I
will eat no flesh while the world standeth." Now, put the case, the
Apostle had been hindered from preaching the gospel for his precise
abstaining from those meats whereat his brother would be offended, would
he in that case have eaten? Nay, he saith peremptorily, that whilst the
world standeth he would not eat. 5. Say not our writers,(267) that we must
flee and abstain from every thing which is not expedient for the
edification of our brother? And doth not the Bishop of Winchester
teach,(268) that in our going out, and coming in, and in all our actions,
we must look to the rule of expediency? And saith not Bishop
Spotswood,(269) "It is not to be denied, but they are ceremonies, which
for the inconveniency they bring, ought to be resisted?" 6. Dare Mr Sprint
deny that which Ames saith he heard once defended in Cambridge,(270) viz.,
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. Doth
not Par