A02990:123
A friendly trial of the grounds tending to separation in a plain and modest…A friendly triall of the grounds tending to separation in a plain and modest…
A friendly trial of the grounds tending to separation in a plain and modest dispute touching the lawfulness of a stinted liturgy and set form of prayer, Communion in mixed assemblies, and the primitive subject and first receptacle of the power of the Keys: tending to satisfy the doubtful, recall the wandering, and to strengthen the weak: by John Ball.A friendly triall of the grounds tending to separation in a plain and modest dispute touching the lawfulnesse of a stinted liturgie and set form of prayer, Communion in mixed assemblies, and the primitive subject and first receptacle of the power of the Keyes: tending to satisfie the doubtfull, recall the wandering, and to strengthen the weak: by John Ball.
Cambridge: printed by Roger Daniel printer to the University of Cambridge for Edward Brewster, 1640Cambridge: printed by Roger Daniel printer to the Universitie of Cambridge for Edward Brewster, 1640
Chapter 5: A stinted form of prayer doth not quench the Spirit.
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.
Might not the same be objected against the use of a set translation,1 singing of psalms, the use of the Lords prayer for this fifteen hundred years without alteration? for these are the same now that they were many years agone, or at least may be: the same for City, Country, Court, University, and the meanest villages? There are some ⟨p. 94⟩common blessings which we and others daily stand in need of, and those it is lawful to ask daily in a set form of words. Thus we may pray every day for increase of faith, patience, love, meekness, the forgiveness of sins, the continuance of those outward blessings which we enjoy, freedom from or victory over temptations, &c. Thus there is no petition in the Lords prayer which doth not always, in the main, concern every Christian mans estate. And if the matter of our prayers may be the same daily, in the City & the Country, Court and University, in this and former ages, the same phrase of speech, method and form external may be lawful, fit and expedient. For it is not the repetition of the same words in prayer every day that displeaseth the Lord, but the ignorant, rash, cold, customary, superstitious and irreverent pouring out of words before him, that is distasteful to his Majesty. Variety of phrase doth not delight the Lord: neither will he reject the desires of an humble and contrite heart because they are tendered often in one and the same phrase of speech. And if the matter of prayer be the same in places of greatest wealth and poorest condition, and the same form of blessing, baptizing, singing of psalms and putting up their petitions to God be fit and decent for them all; it can be no prejudice to a stinted Liturgy that it is the same in all places, and throughout all ages, if the language be the same. For this doth argue it to be the more not the less fit, and that the greater not the less regard is had to the people. The reason in brief is this; It is lawful to ask the same common blessings of God every day, in all assemblies and ⟨p. 95⟩congregations, both of the City & Country, Court and University, met together to call upon God: therefore the same stinted form of prayer or Liturgy may be lawful in the greatest city and meanest village, in this and the ages following, whether read or uttered out of memory: for pronouncing cannot make an evil matter good;