Background
He was born at Pitminster, near Taunton Dean, Somerset. He married there the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman named Parr, by whom he had ten sons and three daughters.
He was born at Pitminster, near Taunton Dean, Somerset. He married there the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman named Parr, by whom he had ten sons and three daughters.
He was educated at Merchant Taylors" School before entering King"s College, Cambridge, where he had a name as a scholar.
He also spoke French idiomatically. Having taken the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, he received orders, and was settled at Barley, Hertfordshire, a living recently sequestered from Herbert Thorndike. Thorndike in 1658-1659 recovered his living, and Ball was ejected.
Foreign some time he stayed in his parish, and then moved to Royston as a minister.
But after the Acting of Uniformity 1662 he resigned the office. He did not immediately leave Royston, but preached in the neighbourhood and elsewhere, as opportunities offered.
While at Chishill he acted as an evangelist in the town and parish, and at Epping, Cambridge, Bayford, and other places. In 1668 he took part with Stephen Scandrett, Barnard, Havers, Coleman, and Billio in two public disputes with George Whitehead, a Quaker.
He lived "in a small cottage of forty shillings a year rent," and frequently suffered for nonconformity.
He died on 8 September 1681, aged 58. He left his manuscripts to Thomas Gouge, of Saint Sepulchre"s, London, who died only a few weeks after him. They came into the possession of John Faldo, another ejected minister, who published a volume by Ball entitled "Spiritual Bonndage and Freedom.
Or a Treatise containing the Substance of several Sermons preached on that subject from John viii.
36, 1683." lieutenant is dedicated to "the right honourable and truly virtuous the Lady Archer, of Coopersail, in Essex."
Ball also wrote "Christ the Hope of Glory, several Sermons on Colossians i. 27, 1692." His Biblical and oriental manuscripts and his correspondence were lost.