A02990:253
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.
If the godly might then communicate because they could not cast out the ungodly, the same reason is good at this day: If the faithful be bound to reprove their delinquent brother,1 and not suffer sin to rest upon him, the same duty did concern them in former times: If the sacraments be now available and of use,2 according to the covenant of promise which God hath made to the faithful and their seed, and none otherwise; as the sacraments are one in their ⟨p. 196⟩common nature, so in their use, available only to the children of the covenant at all times: If it be contrary to the main ends for which the Lord gathereth and preserveth his church upon earth, that wicked and ungodly men should be received into covenant, or permitted to continue in the society of the faithful, it was unlawful in the Jewish as well as in the Christian churches. And therefore if the church of the Jews, all this notwithstanding, continued the true church of God, when it was corrupted in doctrine and manners, in officers and ordinances of worship;3 when the teachers were dumb dogs and blind guides,4 the prophets prophesied lies, and the priests received gifts, and the people rebellious, adulterous, oppressors, an assembly of rebels;5 when the priesthood was bought and sold,6 the temple defiled and made an house of merchandise, the law corrupted with false glosses,7 and made void with false and sinful traditions;8 when error, heresy, idolatry, oppression, rebellion,9