UNITY OF DISCIPLINE 393 others, and to communicate with those; and likewise to comply with all reasonable acts for communion .1 To preserve this peace and correspondence, it was a law and cus- tom that no church should admit to communion those which were excommunicated by another or who schismatically divided. " Q We are all believed to have done the same thing, whereby we are found to be all of us associated and joined together by the same agreement in censure and discipline."' The decrees of bishops were sent to be subscribed' VII. All Christian churches are oneby a specificai unity of discip- line, resembling one another in ecclesiastical administrations; which are regulated by the indispensable sanctions and institutionsof their Sovereign. They are all bound to use the same sacraments, according to the forms appointed by our Lord, not admitting any substantial altera- tion. They must uphold that sort of order, government, and ministry, in all its substantial parts, which God " appointed" in the church, or "gave thereto," as St Paul expresses it; it being a temerarious and dangerous thing to innovate in those matters which our Lord had a special care to order and settle. -1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11; Rom. xii. 7; Acts xx. 28. " Nor can they continue in the church that have not retained divine and ecclesiastical discipline, neither in good conversation nor peaceable life."' In lesser matters of ceremony or discipline, instituted by human prudence, churchesmay differ, and it is expedient they should do so, in regard to the various circumstances of things and qualities of per- sons to which discipline should be accommodated; but no power ought to " abrogate," destroy, or infringe, or violate the main form of discipline, constituted by divine appointment' Hence, when some confessors had abetted Novatianus against Cornelius (thereby against a fundamental rule of the church, neces- sary for preserving of peace and order therein, that but one bishop should be in one church)," St Cyprian thus complains of their pro- ceeding: ' Cypr., Ep. 41, 42, 62, p. 93; Theod. v. 9; Euseb. de P. Samos. a Idem enim omnes credimur operati, in quo deprehendimur eadem omnes censure, et disciplineconsensione sociati. Cler. Rom. ad Cypr., Ep. xxxi. a Vid. Conc. Sard. P. Leonia II. Ep. ii. (ad Hisp. Episc.) N. B. p. 385, tom. v.; P. Bened. II., Ep. xvi. p. 404. 4 Nec remanere in ecclesia possunt qui deificam et ecclesiasticam disciplinam nec actus sui conversation, nec morum pace tenuerunt. P. Cornet. apud Cypr., Ep. xlvüi., Vid. Ep. lxxiii ad. Jul,. s Ep. Firmil. p. 198 ; Aug. Ep. cxviii. et lxxxvi., supra. 6 Gravat enim me, atque contristat, &c. Ep. xliv., ad Confess. Rom.
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