Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/22

 be a distinction of dignity betweene two functions of so great ods. But there being no such difference among our Ministers, unlesse it be in reference to the Deacons, it is impossible to found a Prelaty upon the imitation of this Priesthood. For wherein, or in what worke is the office of a Prelat excellent above that of a Pastor? in ordination you'l say; but flatly against Scripture, for there we know Timothy receav'd ordination by the hands of the Presbytery, notwithstanding all the vaine delusions that are us'd to evade that testimony, and maintaine an unwarrantable usurpation. But wherefore should ordination be a cause of setting up a superior degree in the Church? is not that whereby Christ became our Saviour a higher and greater worke, then that whereby he did ordaine messengers to preach and publish him our Saviour? Every Minister sustains the person of Christ in his highest work of communicating to us the mysteries of our salvation, and hath the power of binding and absolving, how should he need a higher dignity to represent or execute that which is an inferior work in Christ? why should the performance of ordination which is a lower office exalt a Prelat, and not the seldome discharge of a higher and more noble office wch is preaching and administring much rather depresse him? Verily neither the nature, nor the example of ordination doth any way require an imparity betweene the ordainer and the ordained. For what more naturall then every like to produce his like, man to beget man, fire to propagate fire, and in examples of highest opinion the ordainer is inferior to the ordained; for the Pope is not made by the precedent Pope, but by Cardinals, who ordain and consecrate to a higher and greater office then their own.

 

T followes here to attend to certaine objections in a little treatise lately printed among others of like sort at Oxford, and in the title said to be out of the rude draughts of Bishop Andrews. And surely they bee rude draughts indeed, in so much that it is marvell to think what his friends meant to let come abroad such shallow reasonings with the name of a man so much bruited for learning. In the 12 and 23 pages he seemes most notoriously inconstant to himselfe; for in the former place he tels us he forbeares to take  any