A02990:235
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
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 particulars are many and well known:1 so that ancient custom is not plea sufficient to prove a thing good, nor some abuse crept into and continued in the church cause sufficient why we should voluntarily absent our selves from the Lords ordinances. In the second primitive church (as some distinguish) if not the first, they had a stinted form of Liturgy, not only for lessons, psalms, epistles and gospels, and professions of faith, but in prayers, for matter and manner not much unlike to ours. To the praise of ⟨p. 176⟩God be it spoken, our Liturgy for purity and soundness may compare with any Liturgy used in the third and fourth ages of the church: And if in those times the faithful might lawfully hold communion in the ordinances of worship, we cannot at this day lawfully withdraw our selves by reason of such faults as be objected. This ⟨p. 177⟩I mention, that we might learn to acknowledge Gods mercy, walk worthy of what we have received, and strive forward towards perfection by all lawful means. Long before the Lord called his people to come out of Babylon, what faults soever can be objected against our Liturgy were found in theirs. The faithful therefore may lawfully be present at our service, notwithstanding the faults objected against it. For the Lord did not only wink at his peoples weakness and ignorance for the time, but approve of their nonseparation until he was pleased to call them forth. Neither can it be imagined, that they might hold communion in other ordinances but not in their stinted Liturgies: for in those times of all other parts the stinted Liturgies were most pure, God of his endless mercy so providing for his church and the comfort of his people in those hard and evil times when the doctrine was miserably & dangerously corrupted,2 in respect of Merit of works, and Invocation of Saints, &c. the Liturgies were long preserved pure and free, whereby the faithful might be present with more comfort and freedom of conscience. This one thing duly considered would put an end to many scruples, ⟨p. 178⟩and might serve to stop them who out of over-great heat and forwardness are ready to except against the means of their own comfort, and to cast off what God offereth because they cannot enjoy what they desire.