Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/10

2 whom they could derive so many blessings upon themselves, might be mov'd to obey sincerely by knowing so good a reason of their obedience. If then in the administration of civill justice, and under the obscurity of Ceremoniall rites, such care was had by the wisest of the heathen, and by Moses among the Jewes, to instruct them at least in a generall reason of that government to which their subjection was requir'd, how much more ought the members of the Church under the Gospell seeke to informe their understanding in the reason of that government which the Church claimes to have over them: especially for that the Church hath in her immediate cure those inner parts and affections of the mind where the seat of reason is; having power to examine our spirituall knowledge, and to demand from us in Gods behalfe a service intirely reasonable. But because about the manner and order of this government, whether it ought to be Presbyteriall, or Prelaticall, such endlesse question, or rather uproare is arisen in this land, as may be justly term'd, what the feaver is to the Physitians, the eternall reproach of our Divines; whilest other profound Clerks of late greatly, as they conceive, to the advancement of Prelaty, are so earnestly meting out the Lydian proconsular Asia, to make good the prime metropolis of Ephesus, as if some of our Prelates in all haste meant to change their soile, and become neighbours to the English Bishop of Chalcedon; and whilest good Breerwood as busily bestirres himselfe in our vulgar tongue to divide precisely the three Patriarchats, of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and whether to any of these England doth belong, I shall in the meane while not cease to hope through the mercy and grace of Christ, the head and husband of his Church, that England shortly is to belong, neither to See Patriarchall, nor See Prelaticall, but to the faithfull feeding and disciplining of that ministeriall order, which the blessed Apostles constituted throughout the Churches: and this I shall assay to prove can be no other, then that of Presbyters and Deacons. And if any man incline to thinke I undertake a taske too difficult for my yeares, I trust through the supreme inlightning assistance farre otherwise; for my yeares, be they few or many, what imports it? So they bring reason, let that be lookt on: and for the task, from hence that the question in hand is so needfull to be known at this time chiefly by every meaner capacity, and containes in it the explication of many admirable and heavenly privileges reacht out to us by the Gospell, I conclude the task must be easie. God having to this end ordain'd his Gospell to be the revelation of his power and wisdome in Christ Jesus. And this