Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/51

 not due belief. Neither shal I stand to trifle with one that will tell me of quiddities and formalities, whether Prelaty or Prelateity in abstract notion be this or that, it suffices me that I find it in his skin, so I find it inseparable, or not oftner otherwise then a Phenix hath bin seen; although I perswade me that whatever faultines was but superficial to Prelaty at the beginning, is now by the just judgment of God long since branded and inworn into the very essence therof. First therefore, if to doe the work of the Gospel Christ our Lord took upon him the form of a servant, how can his servant in this ministery take upon him the form of a Lord? I know Bilson hath decipher'd us all the galanteries of Signore and Monsignore, and Monsieur as circumstantially as any punctualist of Casteel, Naples, or Fountain Bleau could have don, but this must not so complement us out of our right minds, as to be to learn that the form of a servant was a mean, laborious and vulgar life aptest to teach; which form Christ thought fittest, that he might bring about his will according to his own principles choosing the meaner things of this world that he might put under the high. Now whether the pompous garb, the Lordly life, the wealth, the haughty distance of Prelaty be those meaner things of the world, wherby God in them would manage the mystery of his Gospel, be it the verdit of common sense. For Christ saith in S. Iohn, The servant is not greater then his Lord, nor he that is sent greater then he that sent him. And addes, If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye doe them. Then let the prelates well advise, if they neither know, nor do these things, or if they know, and yet doe them not, wherin their happines consists. And thus is the Gospel frustrated by the Lordly form of Prelaty.

 

Hat which next declares the heavenly power, and reveales the deep mistery of the Gospel, is the pure simplicity of doctrine, accounted the foolishnes of this world, yet crossing and confounding the pride and wisdom of the flesh. And wherin consists this  Rh