Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/65

 so rashly hath let down in to the divine vessel of his soul Gods temple. If this obtaine not, he then with the counsell of more assistants who are inform'd of what diligence hath been already us'd, with more speedy remedies layes neerer siege to the entrenched causes of his distemper, not sparing such fervent and well aim'd reproofs as may best give him to see the dangerous estate wherein he is. To this also his brethren and friends intreat, exhort, adjure, and all these endeavours, as there is hope left, are more or lesse repeated. But if, neither the regard of himselfe, nor the reverence of his Elders and friends prevaile with him, to leave his vitious appetite, then as the time urges, such engines of terror God hath given into the hand of his minister as to search the tenderest angles of the heart: one while he shakes his stubbornnesse with racking convulsions nigh dispaire, other whiles with deadly corrosives he gripes the very roots of his faulty liver to bring him to life through the entry of death. Hereto the whole Church beseech him, beg of him, deplore him, pray for him. After all this perform'd with what patience and attendance is possible, and no relenting on his part, having done the utmost of their cure, in the name of God and of the Church they dissolve their fellowship with him, and holding forth the dreadfull sponge of excommunion pronounce him wip't out of the list of Gods inheritance, and in the custody of Satan till he repent. Which horrid sentence though it touch neither life, nor limme, nor any worldly possession, yet has it such a penetrating force, that swifter then any chimicall sulphur, or that lightning which harms not the skin, and rifles the entrals, it scorches the inmost soul. Yet even this terrible denouncement is left to the Church for no other cause but to be as a rough and vehement cleansing medcin, where the malady is obdurat; a mortifying to life, a kind of saving by undoing. And it may be truly said, that as the mercies of wicked men are cruelties, so the cruelties of the Church are mercies. For if repentance sent from heaven meet this lost wanderer, and draw him out of that steep journey wherein he was hasting towards destruction, to come and reconcile to the Church, if he bring with him his bill of health, and that he is now cleare of infection and of no danger to the other sheep, then with incredible expressions of joy all his brethren receive him, and set before him those perfumed bankets of Christian consolation; with pretious ointments bathing and fomenting the old and now to be forgotten stripes which terror and shame had inflicted; and thus with heavenly solaces they cheere up Rh