A02990:205
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.
The main challenge in this objection (which I have set down more at large,1 because it is much insisted upon) against our communion-book is, ⟨p. 150⟩That it was taken out of the mass-book. But in the manner of propounding there be divers great mistakes, to say no more. It is a great fault, that they put no difference betwixt the substance of worship and the external form or order of celebration. The substance of worship in that stinted form of prayer, is, That we call upon God in the mediation of Jesus Christ, according to his will. Is this the devise of Antichrist because the form of words was taken out of the mass-book? Suppose a minister of the Gospel should borrow some expressions or phrases of speech from heathen authors, is his sermon forthwith the invention or devise of an heathen? It is as far wide that they say.2 Not only the form of it taken from the church of Antichrist, but surely the matter also. For the matter of our Liturgy is the reading of the scriptures in a known tongue, the calling upon God in the mediation of Jesus Christ, and not upon angels or saints departed; for the living, and not for the dead: the right administration of the sacraments for substance, and singing of psalms: are these the devises of Antichrist? Is the administration of the Lords supper in both kinds in remembrance of Christs death and passion, who by one oblation of himself once offered hath made a full perfect and sufficient oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world;3 is this taken from the church of Antichrist? These imputations are not so gross, as their reasons weak upon which they are built. If our stinted Liturgy be the devise of Antichrist because it is not prescribed by the ⟨p. 151⟩apostles or recorded in scripture, then every stinted Liturgy must fall under the same censure;4 for none other is prescribed in scripture, or recorded by the apostles: And so either every stinted Liturgy is part of that mystery of iniquity which began to work in the apostles days, or our Liturgy is not Antichristian because it was not prescribed or used in the primitive churches planted by the apostles. If it was received by little and little till at last it came to be completely framed,