Life

Ball was one of ten sons of Nathanael Ball

Nathanael Ball

Nathanael Ball was an English clergyman, an assistant to Brian Walton in his London Polyglot Bible.-Life:He was born at Pitminster, near Taunton Dean, Somerset. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School before entering King's College, Cambridge, where he had a name as a scholar.He also spoke...

, M.A. ejected from Barley, Hertfordshire

Barley, Hertfordshire

Barley is a village and civil parish in the district of North Hertfordshire, England. According to the 2001 census, it has a population of 659. The place-name refers to a lea or meadow and not to the grain-producing plant...

. He was educated for the ministry under the Rev. John Short at Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, and finished his studies at Utrecht

Utrecht

Utrecht is a city in the Netherlands.The name may also refer to:* Utrecht , of which Utrecht is the capital* Utrecht , including the city of Utrecht* Bishopric of Utrecht* Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht...

, partly under Henry Hickman

Henry Hickman

Henry Hickman was an English ejected minister and controversialist.-Life:A native of Worcestershire, he was educated at St Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1648. At the end of 1647 he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and the next year obtained by favour of the parliamentary...

, ejected fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

, who died minister of the English church at Utrecht in 1692. He was ordained 23 January 1695, and became minister in 1705 of the presbyterian congregation at Honiton

Honiton

Honiton is a town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. The town's name is pronounced in two ways, and , each pronunciation having its adherents...

 (extinct 1788), where he united two opposing sections, and ministered for forty years, being succeeded by John Rutter (d. 1769).

He was a serious scholar, and ‘carried the Hebrew psalter into the pulpit to expound from it.’ His learning and high character meant that a nonconformist seminary, which he opened before the Toleration Act

Toleration Act

Toleration Act may refer to:* Act of Toleration 1689, in England* Maryland Toleration Act, of 1649...

, was connived at, and attended by the sons of neighbouring Anglican gentry. Ball is notable for retaining the puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 style of divinity unimpaired to a late period. He had no sympathy with any of the innovations in Calvinism

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

.

He died 6 May 1745, in his ninety-first year.

Works

He published:

• ‘The Importance of Right Apprehensions of God with respect to Religion and Virtue,’ Lond. 1736.
• ‘Some Remarks on a New Way of Preaching,’ 1737; this was answered by Henry Grove
  Henry Grove
  Henry Grove was an English nonconformist minister, theologian, and dissenting tutor.-Life:He was born at Taunton, Somerset, on 4 January 1684...
  
  , the leader of a more moderate school of presbyterian liberalism.