Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/30

 man out of the pretended care of peace & unity being caught in the snare of his impious boldnesse to correct the will of Christ, brought forth to himselfe upon the Church that irreconcileable schisme of perdition and Apostasy, the Roman Antichrist: for that the exaltation of the Pope arose out of the reason of Prelaty it cannot be deny'd. And as I noted before that the patterne of the High Priest pleaded for in the Gospel (for take away the head Priest the rest are but a carcasse) sets up with better reason a Pope, then an Archbishop, for if Prelaty must still rise and rise till it come to a Primat, why should it stay there? when as the catholick government is not to follow the division of kingdomes, the temple best representing the universall Church, and the High Priest the universall head; so I observe here, that if to quiet schisme there must be one head of Prelaty in a land or Monarchy rising from a Provinciall to a nationall Primacy, there may upon better grounds of repressing schisme be set up one catholick head over the catholick Church. For the peace and good of the Church is not terminated in the schismelesse estate of one or two kingdomes, but should be provided for by the joynt consultation of all reformed Christendome: that all controversie may end in the finall pronounce or canon of one Arch-primat, or Protestant Pope. Although by this meanes for ought I see, all the diameters of schisme may as well meet and be knit up in the center of one grand falshood. Now let all impartiall men arbitrate what goodly inference these two maine reasons of the Prelats have, that by a naturall league of consequence make more for the Pope then for themselves. Yea to say more home are the very wombe for a new subantichrist to breed in; if it be not rather the old force and power of the same man of sin counterfeiting protestant. It was not the prevention of schisme, but it was schisme it selfe, and the hatefull thirst of Lording in the Church that first bestow'd a being upon Prelaty; this was the true cause, but the pretence is stil the same. The Prelates, as they would have it thought, are the only mawls of schisme. Forsooth if they be put downe, a deluge of innumerable sects will follow; we shall be all Brownists, Familists, Anabaptists. For the word Puritan seemes to be quasht, and all that heretofore were counted such, are now Brownists. And thus doe they raise an evill report upon the expected reforming grace that God hath bid us hope for, like those faithlesse spies, whose carcasses shall perish in the wildernesse of their owne confused ignorance, and never taste the good of reformation. Doe they keepe