A02990:69
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.
A stinted form of prayer is not unlawful to him that needeth it,1 as not able largely to express his own desires, or lay open his wants particularly: but to him that is able and needeth it not it is unlawful; because in such case a set form of prayer is an arbitrary help or furtherance forbidden by the second commandment.
A stinted form of prayer is not unlawfull to him that needeth it,1 as not able largely to expresse his own desires, or lay open his wants particularly: but to him that is able and needeth it not it is unlawfull; because in such case a set form of prayer is an arbitrary help or furtherance forbidden by the second commandment.
- 1Object. 9.
But then a set form of prayer in words devised by others or by a mans self,1 is not unlawful because stinted or devised, not of it self, nor to all, but by accident only. Then it is not a devised worship, strange incense, an idol-prayer, an image of prayer, forbidden in the second commandment: for whatsoever is verified of a general as general, is verified of all underneath it. Then they must not say, Humane inventions in Gods worship are forbidden; but, Humane inventions in the worship of God are lawful to them ⟨p. 47⟩that need them, unlawful to them that need them not, because arbitrary. Then the exception of using a stinted form ordinarily without alteration or addition is altogether fruitless: for the form is unlawful because arbitrary. And for the thing it self, it is an unwritten tradition, because it hath no ground in scripture. For it is a received rule, That all distinctions in Divinity not grounded upon the word of God, are unwritten traditions, indeed humane unwarrantable inventions and additions. But this distinction, That a stinted form of prayer is warrantable to him that needeth it, because of his inability, unwarrantable to him that needeth it not, is grounded upon no text of scripture, or solid consequence drawn from thence. All arbitrary helps and furtherances in Gods service are not forbidden in the second commandment; nor any help or furtherance, because arbitrary in this sense; that is, no help or furtherance devised in Gods worship that is lawful to one because he needeth it, is forbidden to another by the second commandment because he needeth it not.