2. He is not to be accounted a free man that cannot remove, without a greater hurt than the good, either to the church or country, or to his family, his neighbours, or himself.
3. Without teaching, prayer, and divine praises we are not to reckon that we have proper church assemblies and communion.
4. We must do all that is in our power to procure the right use of sacraments and discipline.
5. When we cannot procure it, it is lawful and a duty to join in those assemblies that are without it, and rather to enjoy the rest than none. Few churches have the Lord's supper above once a month, which in the primitive church was used every Lord's day and ofter; and yet they meet on other days.[347]
6. It is possible that preaching, prayer, and praise, may be so excellently performed in some churches that want both discipline and the Lord's supper, and all so coldly and ignorantly managed in another church that hath all the ordinances, that men's souls may much more flourish and prosper under the former than the latter.
7. If forbearing or wanting some ordinances for a time, be but in order to a probable procurement of them, we may the better forbear.[348]
8. The time is not to be judged of only by length, but by the probability of success. For sometimes God's providence, and the disturbances of the times, or the craft of men in power, may keep men so long in the dark, that a long expectation or waiting may become our duty.
[347] Acts xxviii. 31; xi. 26; xx. 7, 20, &c.; 1 Cor. xiv.; Acts ii. 42; 1 Tim. iv. 13, 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2; 2 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. x. 25, 26; Col. iv. 16; Acts xiii. 27; xv. 21; 1 Thess. v. 27; 1 Cor. v. 34, &c.
[348] Matt. xxvi. 31; Acts viii. 1.