A02990:166
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 8: The people may lawfully be present at those prayers which are put up unto God in a stin…
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.
CHAP. VIII. The people may lawfully be present at those prayers which are put up unto God in a stinted form of words, and partake in divine ordinances administered in a stinted Liturgy.
CHAP. VIII. The people may lawfully be present at those prayers which are put up unto God in a stinted form of words, and partake in divine ordinances administred in a stinted Liturgie.
The author of the Letter formerly cited telleth us, That against our prayer-book divers men have pleaded after a different manner.1 First, some arguments, saith he, are proper to the Separatists, quà tales; viz. 1. That it is offered up in a false church. 2. With a false ministry. 3. In the behalf of the subjects of the kingdom of Antichrist. These are properly theirs, being the grounds whereupon they make a total Separation from all the churches in this land, as no churches of Christ. These I approve not: yet note them, that you may see upon how different grounds the same position is maintained by several persons, ⟨p. 123⟩and that you may be delivered from the prejudice which hindereth many from receiving those truths, because they fear the reproach of Brownism. Secondly, there are other grounds which are common to all that plead for the purity of Christs ordinance; and which do not necessarily infer such Separation, but only serve to show the unlawfulness of that practice, and of communicating therein. Thus far the Letter. Wherein, to let pass other things, we may take notice of a twofold Separation from the worship of God amongst us acknowledged: the one total, as from a false church, false ministry, and subjects of the kingdom of Antichrist; the other partial, from the stinted Liturgy, and ordinances of worship dispensed in a stinted form. And this latter only is approved by this author, but not the former, of which we make no question. But whereas he saith, his grounds upon which he buildeth his last Separation are common to all that plead for the purity of Christs ordinances, therein he is much mistaken. For his grounds are one and the very same with the Brownists, whereby they condemn all stinted Liturgies, acknowledged by no reformed church in the world, nor by particular pastors in any church but themselves. And if they take not themselves to be the only pleaders for the purity of Christs ordinances, they cannot show that these reasons have been approved, or positions allowed, by any pleaders for reformation in any time or age of the church. The reasons brought to confirm the unlawfulness of communicating