A02990:52
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.
Must this go for currant without limitation,1 proof or explication, That all inventions of men in Gods worship are forbidden in the second commandment? What then shall we say to all devised words and phrases used in Gods service? What to all set forms of catechisms, studied sermons, interpretations of the scriptures, the contents of chapters, the titles of sundry books of scripture? What to the divisions of them into sections,2 chapters and verses, the interlineary glosses, divers readings, marginal references, the reading of one part this week, another the next? What of the building and ordering of synagogues for the sanctification ⟨p. 31⟩of the sabbaths,3 the fashion of gathering for the repair of the temple in Joash his time, the swearing to the covenant under Asia, the ordination of holy feasts and fasts upon occasion? What of the forms and gestures used in oaths, of conceived prayer it self, of set forms of worship, studied before, and kept in memory, as some distinguish; in the same form and with like truth, we may argue against them; mens inventions in the worship of God are forbidden by the second commandment: But set forms of catechisms, studied sermons, interpretations ⟨p. 32⟩of the scripture, &c. are mens inventions. The conclusion that followeth from these premisses is evidently false; therefore some one of them, if not both, is false also: For of truth nothing but truth can follow. And what they can answer to the premisses of this latter argument, the same will be sufficient to overthrow the other. Catechizing is Gods ordinance: but this or that form of catechism in respect of method and phrase of speech is the collection and composition of man. Reading the scripture is allowed of God: but the division of the law into fifty three or fifty four greater sections, and the subdivision of these into lesser sections; the partitions of several books into chapters, and the division of them into verses; the appointing of this or that portion of the law, the prophets, and the evangelists to be read ordinarily upon this or that day, is the invention or devise of man. Preaching is commanded of God, so is the interpretation of the scripture; but the phrase and method of sermons is of men.