Page:The reason of church-governement urg'd against prelaty - Milton (1641).djvu/13

inspir'd as Moses, or were such men as with authority anough might give it out to be so, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, because they wisely forethought that men would never quietly submit to such a discipline as had not more of Gods hand in it then mans. To come within the narrownesse of houshold government, observation will shew us many deepe counsellers of state and judges to demean themselves incorruptly in the setl'd course of affaires, and many worthy Preachers upright in their lives, powerfull in their audience; but look upon either of these men where they are left to their own disciplining at home, and you shall soone perceive for all their single knowledge and uprightnesse, how deficient they are in the regulating of their own family; not only in what may concerne the vertuous and decent composure of their minds in their severall places, but that which is of a lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the outward vessell, their body, in health or sicknesse, rest or labour, diet, or abstinence, whereby to render it more pliant to the soule, and usefull to the Common-wealth: which if men were but as good to discipline themselves, as some are to tutor their Horses and Hawks, it could not be so grosse in most housholds. If then it appear so hard and so little knowne, how to governe a house well, which is thought of so easie discharge, and for every mans undertaking, what skill of man, what wisdome, what parts, can be sufficient to give lawes & ordinances to the elect houshold of God? If we could imagine that he had left it at randome without his provident and gracious ordering, who is he so arrogant so presumptuous that durst dispose and guide the living arke of the holy Ghost, though he should finde it wandring in the field of Bethshemesh, without the conscious warrant of some high calling. But no profane insolence can paralell that which our Prelates dare avouch, to drive outragiously, and shatter the holy arke of the Church, not born upon their shoulders with pains and labour in the word, but drawne with rude oxen their officials, and their owne brute inventions. Let them make shewes of reforming while they will, so long as the Church is mounted upon the Prelaticall Cart, and not as it ought betweene the hands of the Ministers, it will but shake and totter, and he that sets to his hand though with a good intent to hinder the shogging of it, in this unlawfull waggonry wherein it rides, let him beware it be not fatall to him as it was to Uzza. Certainly if God be the father of his family the Church, wherein could he expresse that name more, then in training it up under his owne all-wise and dear Oeconomy, not turning it loose to the havock of