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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50949	The reason of church-government urg'd against prelaty by Mr. John Milton ; in two books.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2175; ESTC R3223	58,920	68

THE REASON OF Church-governement Urg'd against PRELATY By Mr. John Milton In two Books LONDON Printed by E. G. for Iohn Rothwell and are to be sold at the Sunne in Pauls Church-yard 1641. The Reason of Church-government urg'd against PRELATY THE PREFACE IN the publishing of humane lawes which for the most part aime not beyond the good of civill society to set them barely forth to the people without reason or Preface like a physicall prescript or only with threatnings as it were a lordly command in the judgement of Plato was thought to be done neither generously nor wisely His advice was seeing that persuasion certainly is a more winning and more manlike way to keepe men in obedience then feare that to such lawes as were of principall moment there should be us'd as an induction some well temper'd discourse shewing how good how gainfull how happy it must needs be to live according to honesty and justice which being utter'd with those native colours and graces of speech as true eloquence the daughter of vertue can best bestow upon her mothers praises would so incite and in a manner charme the multitude into the love of that which is really good as to imbrace it ever after not of custome and awe which most men do but of choice and purpose with true and constant delight But this practice we may learn from a better more ancient authority then any heathen writer hath to give us and indeed being a point of so high wisdome worth how could it be but we should find it in that book within whose sacred context all wisdome is infolded Moses therefore the only Lawgiver that we can believe to have beene visibly taught of God knowing how vaine it was to write lawes to men whose hearts were not first season'd with the knowledge of God and of his workes began from the book of Genesis as a prologue to his lawer which Josephus● ight well hath noted That the nation of the Jewes reading therein the universall goodnesse of God to all creatures in the Creation and his peculiar favour to them in his election of Abraham their ancestor from whom they could derive so many blessings upon themselves might be mov'd to obey si cerely by knowing so good a reason of their obedience If then in the administration of civill justice and under the obscurity of Ceremoniall rites such care was had by the wisest of the heathen and by Moses among the Jewes to instruct them at least in a generall reason of that government to which their subjection was requir'd how much more ought the members of the Church under the Gospell seek● to informe their understanding in the reason of that government which the Church claimes to have over them especially for that the Church hath in her immediate cure those inner parts and affections of the mind where the seat of reason is having power to examine our spirituall knowledge and to demand from us in Gods behalfe a service intirely reasonable But because about the manner and order of this government whether it ought to be Presbyteriall or Prelaticall such endlesse question or rather uproare is arisen in this land as may be justly term'd what the feaver is to the Physitians the eternall reproach of our Divines whilest other profound C● erks of late greatly as they conceive to the advancement of Prelaty are so earnestly meting out the Lydian proconsular Asia to make good the prime metropolis of Ephesus as if some of our Prelates in all haste meant to change their solle and become neighbours to the English Bishop of Chalcedon and whilest good Breerwood as busily bestirres himselfe in our vulgar tongue to divide precisely the three Patriarchats of Rome Alexandria and Antioch and whether to any of these England doth belong I shall in the meane while not cease to hope through the mercy and grace of Christ the head and husband of his Church that England shortly is to belong neither to See Patriarchall nor See Prelaticall but to the faithfull feeding and disciplining of that ministeriall order which the blessed Apostles constituted throughout the Churches and this I shall assay to prove can be no other then that of Presbyters and Deacons And if any man incline to thinke I undertake a taske too difficult for my yeares I trust through the supreme inlightning assistance farre otherwise for my yeares be they few or many what imports it so they bring reason let that be looke on and for the task from hence that the question in hand is so needfull to be known at this time chiefly by every meaner capacity and containes in it the explication of many admirable and heavenly privileges reacht out to us by the Gospell I conclude the task must be easie God having to this end ordain'd his Gospell to be the revelation of his power and wisdome in Christ Jesus And this is one depth of his wisdome that he could so plainly reveale so great a measure of it to the grosse distorted apprehension of decay'd mankinde Let others therefore dread and shun the Scriptures for their darknesse I shall wish I may deserve to be reckon'd among those who admire and dwell upon them for their clearnesse And this seemes to be the cause why in those places of holy writ wherein is treated of Church-government the reasons thereof are not formally and profestly set downe because to him that heeds attentively the drift and scope of Christian profession they easily imply themselves which thing further to explane having now prefac'd enough I shall no longer deferre CHAP. I. That Church-government is prescrib'd in the Gospell and that to say otherwise is unsound THe first and greatest reason of Church-government we may securely with the assent of many on the adverse part affirme to be because we finde it so ordain'd and set out to us by the appointment of God in the Scriptures but whether this be Presbyteriall or Prelaticall it cannot be brought to the scanning untill I have said what is meet to some who do not think it for the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant that Church discipline is platform'd in the Bible but that it is left to the discretion of men To this conceit of theirs I answer that it is both unsound and untrue For there is not that thing in the world of more grave and urgent importance throughout the whole life of man then is discipline What need I instance He that hath read with judgement of Nations and Common-wealths of Cities and Camps of peace and warre sea and land will readily agree that the flourishing and decaying of all civill societies all the moments and turnings of humane occasions are mov'd to and fro as upon the axle of discipline So that whatsoever power or sway in mortall things weaker men have attributed to fortune I durst with more confidence the honour of divine providence ever sav'd ascribe either to the vigor or the slacknesse of discipline Nor is there any

pretences that may be brought in favour of it CHAP. VI That Prelaty was not set up for prevention of Schisme as is pretended or if it were that it performes not wh● t it was first set up for but quite the contrary YEt because it hath the outside of a specious reason specious things we know are aptest to worke with humane lightnesse and frailty even against the soli● est truth that sounds not plausibly let us think it worth the examining for the love of infirmer Christians of what importance this their second reason may be Tradition they say hath taught them that for the prevention of growing schisme the Bishop was heav'd above the Presbyter And must tradition then ever thus to the worlds end be the perpetuall cankerworme to eat out Gods Commandements are his decrees so inconsiderate and so fickle that when the statutes of Solon or Lycurgus shall prove durably good to many ages his in 40 yeares shall be found defective ill contriv'd and for needfull causes to be alter'd Our Saviour and his Apostles did not only foresee but foretell and forewarne us to looke for schisme Is it a thing to be imagin'd of Gods wisdome or at least of Apostolick prudence to set up such a government in the tendernesse of the Church as should incline or not be more able then any other to oppose it selfe to schisme it was well knowne what a bold lurker schisme was even in the houshold of Christ betweene his owne Disciples and those of Iohn the Baptistabo● fasting and early in the Acts of the Apostles the noise of schisme had almost drown'd the proclaiming of the Gospell yet we rea● e not in Scripture that any thought was had of making Prelates no not in those places where dissention was most rife If Prelaty had beene then esteem'd a remedy against schisme where was it more needfull then in that great variance among the Corinthians which S. Paul so labour'd to reconcile and whose eye could have found the fittest remedy sooner then his and what could have made the remedy more available then to have us'd it speedily and lastly what could have beene more necessary then to have written it for our instruction yet we see he neither commended it to us nor us'd it himselfe For the same division remaining there or else bursting forth againe more then 20 yeares after S. Pauls death wee finde in Clements Epistle of venerable autority written to the yet factious Corinthians that they were still govern'd by Presbyters And the same of other Churches out of Hermas and divers other the scholers of the Apostles by the late industry of the learned Salmatius appeares Neither yet did this worthy Clement S. Pauls disciple though writing to them to lay aside schisme in the least word advise them to change the Presbyteriall government into Prelaty And therefore if God afterward gave or permitted this insurrection of Episcopacy it is to be fear'd he did it in his wrath as he gave the Israelites a King With so good a will doth he use to alter his own chosen government once establish'd For marke whether this rare device of mans braine thus prefe● ' d before the ordinance of God had better successe then fleshly wisdome not counseling with God is wont to have So farre was it from removing schisme that if schisme parted the congregations before now it rent and mangl'd now it ● ag'd Heresie begat heresie with a certaine monstrous haste of pregnancy in her birth at once borne and bringing forth Contentions before brotherly were now hostile Men went to choose their Bishop as they went to a pitcht field and the day of his election was like the sacking of a City sometimes ended with the blood of thousands Nor this among hereticks only but men of the same beliefe yea confessors and that with such odious ambition that Eusebius in his eighth book testifies he abhorr'd to write And the reason is not obscure for the poore dignity or rather burden of a ● ochial Presbyter could not ingage any great party nor that to any deadly feud but Prelaty was a power of that extent and sway that if her election were popular it was seldome not the cause of some faction or broil in the Church But if her dignity came by favour of some Prince she was from that time his creature and obnoxious to comply with his ends in state were they right or wrong So that in stead of finding Prelaty an impeacher of Schisme or faction the more I search the more I grow into all perswasion to think rather that faction and she as with a spousall ring are wedded together never to be divorc't But here let every one behold the just and dreadfull judgement of God meeting with the a● dacious pride of man that durst offer to mend the ordinances of heaven God out of the strife of men brought forth by his Apostles to the Church that beneficent and ever distributing office of Deacons the stewards and Ministers of holy almes 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 P● otestant 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 themsel● 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