A30189:415
An answer to two treatises of Mr. John Can, the leader of the English…An answer to two treatises of Mr. Iohn Can, the leader of the English…
An answer to two treatises of Mr. John Can, the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam the former called, A necessity of separation from the Church of England, proved by the Nonconformists principles : the other, A stay against straying : wherein in opposition to M. John Robinson, he undertakes to prove the unlawfulness of hearing the ministers of the Church of England ... / by the late learned, laborious and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, John Ball.An answer to two treatises of Mr. Iohn Can, the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam the former called, A necessitie of separation from the Church of England, proved by the Nonconformists principles : the other, A stay against straying : wherein in opposition to M. Iohn Robinson, he undertakes to prove the unlawfulnesse of hearing the ministers of the Church of England ... / by the late learned, laborious and faithfull servant of Jesus Christ, John Ball.
London: printed by R.B., 1642
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.
To make this manifest in some particulars not formerly mentioned; It is an infallible Maxim you say, (as Doctor ⟨p. 131⟩Usher and others observe out of Tertullian.) Whatsoever is first, that is truest, and what comes after, is adulterate. 1The first in any kind or sort of things, is truest and best, so Field. This is spoken of the prime, first, original being of each thing, which is a sure proof of goodness and perfection. For all defects found in things are swervings, declinings, and departures, from their original and first estate. For truth is before false-hood, and good before evil, and habit before privation. But you miserably apply that Rule to the first judgment of the separated Church in London, concerning the hearing of the Word preached, in our English Assemblies, as if it must be truest, because it was first, and their after judgement adulterate, because it followed.
To make this manifest in some particulars not formerly mentioned; It is an infallible Ma•ime you say, (as Doctor ⟨p. 131⟩Ʋsher and others observe out of Tertulli•n.) Whatsoever is first, that is truest, and what comes after, is adulterate. 1The first in any kind or sort of things, is truest and best, so Field. This is spoken of the prime, first, originall being of each thing, which is a sure proofe of goodnesse and perfection. For all defects found in things are swarvings, declinings, and departures, from their originall and first estate. For truth is before false-hood, and good before evill, and habite before privation. But you miserably apply that Rule to the first judgment of the separated Church in London, concerning the hearing of the Word preached, in our English Assemblies, as if it must bee truest, because it was first, and their after judgement adulterate, because it followed.
- 1CAN. Stay. sect. 2. p. 14. Usher. de Christ. Eceles. success. & stat. c. 1. p. 19 Field of the Ch. lib. 2. c. 5. page 49. CAN. Stay. sect. 2. p. 11. For with reverence to the phrase; From the beginning it was not so. Basil. ep. 79. Non est aequum ut quae apud ipsos obtinuit consuetudo, pro lege & canone habeatur rectae doct. inae, Henry Answ. first ans. p. 31. I grant your Church is ancient, but I deny it to be most ancient: seeing then the most ancient (by your own grant) is most true, &c. CAN. Stay. sect. 4. p. 27. T. C. repl. 1. p. 79. D. T. W. The Doctors of the Synod. 5.6. Wars are judged by their causes and not by their consequences Bilson Christian subject part. 3. page 201.