A63200:121
A trial of the new-church way in New-England and in old ... by that…A tryall of the nevv-church vvay in New-England and in old ... by that…
A trial of the new-church way in New-England and in old ... by that learned and godly minister of Christ, John Ball of Whitmore ; penned a little before his death and sent over to the New England ministers, anno 1637, as a reply to an answer of theirs in justification of the said positions ... ; now published ... by William Rathband and Simeon Ash.A tryall of the nevv-church vvay in New-England and in old ... by that learned and godly minister of Christ, John Ball of Whitmore ; penned a little before his death and sent over to the New England ministers, anno 1637, as a reply to an answer of theirs in justification of the said positions ... ; now published ... by William Rathband and Simeon Ash.
London: printed by T. Paine and M. Simmons for Thomas Underhill, 1644
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.
Reply.
What is here premised to prevent all mistakes, doth seem more to raise then to abate scruples if we mistake not your meaning. You refuse not all religious communion with all that are not Church members, and so much they profess, who formerly have gone for, and professed themselves Separatists from our Assemblies. You do not appropriate this privilege of the Seals only to the members of your own Churches, excluding all other Churches of Christ from the same; If your meaning be only this, that you deny not the Sacraments administered in other Churches to be the true Sacraments of Christ for substance, then you ascribe little more to the Churches of Christ in this, then to the Synagogue of Satan, the Church of Rome. For you will not deny Baptism administered among them to be true for substance: If you deny not to have fellowship with them in the Seals, and to admit them to the Sacrament, and to communicate with them: then either your judgment is contrary to your practice, or you exclude the Churches of England from the number of true visible Churches of Christ, which is to destroy what you formerly builded, and here profess. All possible care to keep the Ordinances of God from contempt, we allow and commend, provided you go not beyond the Lords warrant, and deny not the privileges of the Church to them, to whom they are due by divine appointment, nor the name and title of Church to those societies, which God hath plentifully blessed with means of grace, have received the Tables and Seals, and have entered into Covenant with his Highness. Your ⟨p. 18⟩liberty to receive such satisfaction as is meet, is not called into question, nor whether you are to keep the bond of the Spirit inviolate according to order. But whether this be to keep the bond of the Spirit inviolate (viz) to exclude from the Sacrament true visible believers, or known recommended Christians, formerly members of visible Churches among us; and their children; because they are not members (as you speak) in Church Order. And whether God alloweth to put this difference between Church members of your societies & other visible believers walking in holiness, though not admitted members of any society according to your Church order, as to receive the one, though members of another society, unto the Seals, and to debar the other and their children.