Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/63

 with all those glorious privileges of sanctification and adoption which render him more sacred then any dedicated altar or element, shall be restor'd to his right in the Church, and not excluded from such place of spirituall government as his Christian abilities and his approved good life in the eye and testimony of the Church shall preferre him to, this and nothing sooner will open his eyes to a wise and true valuation of himselfe, which is so requisite and high a point of Christianity, and will stirre him up to walk worthy the honourable and grave imployment wherewith God and the Church hath dignifi'd him: not fearing lest he should meet with some outward holy thing in religion which his lay touch or presence might profane, but lest something unholy from within his own heart should dishonour and profane in himselfe that Priestly unction and Clergy-right whereto Christ hath entitl'd him. Then would the congregation of the Lord soone recover the true likenesse and visage of what she is indeed, a holy generation, a royall Priesthood, a Saintly communion, the houshold and City of God. And this I hold to be another considerable reason why the functions of Church-government ought to be free and open to any Christian man though never so laick, if his capacity, his faith, and prudent demeanour commend him. And this the Apostles warrant us to do. But the Prelats object that this will bring profanenesse into the Church, to whom may be reply'd, that none have brought that in more then their own irreligious courses; nor more driven holinesse out of living into livelesse things. For whereas God who hath cleans'd every beast and creeping worme, would not suffer S. Peter to call them common or unclean, the Prelat Bishops in their printed orders hung up in Churches have proclaim'd the best of creatures, mankind, so unpurifi'd and contagious, that for him to lay his hat, or his garment upon the Chancell table they have defin'd it no lesse hainous in expresse words then to profane the Table of the Lord. And thus have they by their Canaanitish doctrine (for that which was to the Jew but jewish is to the Christian no better then Canaanitish) thus have they made common and unclean, thus have they made profane that nature which God hath not only cleans'd, but Christ also hath assum'd. And now that the equity and just reason is so perspicuous, why in Ecclesiastick censure the assistance should be added of such, as whom not the vile odour of gaine and fees (forbid it God and blow it with a whirlewinde out of our land) but charity, neighbourhood, and duty to Church-government hath call'd together, where could a man