He was educated for the ministry under the Review John Short at Lyme Regis, Dorset, and finished his studies at Utrecht, partly under Henry Hickman, ejected fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who died minister of the English church at Utrecht in 1692.
Ball was one of ten sons of Nathanael Ball, Master of Arts ejected from Barley, Hertfordshire. He was a serious scholar, and ‘carried the Hebrew psalter into the pulpit to expound from lieutenant’ His learning and high character meant that a nonconformist seminary, which he opened before the Toleration Acting, was connived at, and attended by the sons of neighbouring Anglican gentry. He died 6 May 1745, in his ninety-first year.
