A30189:587
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
Chapter 4 › Section 3 › ANSWER.Chapter 4 › Section 3 › ANSVVER.
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 best way to be secure from the force of your darts, is to run unto the mark. For here we have reasons numbered up which have weight in them for some purpose (some of them at the least) but direct them to your mark, and they recoil back upon your self. When you have reckoned up first, second, and third, &c. the conclusion is ever wanting, and not so much as one premise which looks to the right conclusion to be confirmed. The thing to be proved is this, that it is no true Church of God, which is not planted, gathered, or built of Saints only: but that consequence will never follow from those premisses. For every thing in those Reasons must as well be applied to the continuance of the church, as to the first gathering and planting of it. The wicked are expressly forbidden to meddle with the covenant, or ordinances of God, men visibly wicked make the church a Synagogue of Satan: Men must be hewen and reformed before they are fit to have any place in the Church of God: Men of wicked conversation ⟨p. 71⟩have no right to the holy things of God: 1They cannot perform the duties of members, they have nor Christ for their head; they are uncapable of the covenant, &c. Is any thing here spoken peculiar to the members of the Church at the first planting thereof, which doth not hold true of the members of the Church established and confirmed? Are not the wicked at all times forbidden to meddle with the ordinances of God, uncapable of the covenant, spiritually dead, not fit to have place in the house of God? And if this hold true against such members of the Church at all times, why do you bear the Reader in hand. That you only plead against the first building of a Church of such wi••ed and ungodly persons? *The Question (you say) hath ever been about the true and natural members, whereof Gods Church is orderly gathered, and planted, and not about the degenerate and decayed estate thereof. But if any of these Reasons will conclude ought, there was never society to be esteemed the true church of God, all whose members were not Saints and holy, spiritually enlived, fit to perform the duties of members, fitted, prepared and laid orderly in the building, married to the Lord Christ. What you hold, that is not material in this point, but what your Arguments conclude: