396 DISCOURSE ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. the propagation of Christianity and founding of Christian societies, had no meaning, took no care, to establish any such polity. They resorted to several places, whither divine instinct or rea- sonable occasion carried them, where, by their preaching, having convinced and converted a " competent number" of persons (öxxov izavòv, Acts xi. 26) to the embracing Christian doctrine, they ap- pointed pastors to instruct and edify them, to administer God's worship and service among them, to contain them in good order and peace, exhorting them to maintain good correspondence of cha- rity and peace with all good Christians otherwhere. This is all we can see done by them: xsrporoví)o'etvrs5 airo7 orpscCuripou5 xar ixxx4orav, "When they had ordained them elders in every church," Acts xiv. 23. 3. The fathers, in their set treatises, and in their incidental dis- courses about the unity of the church, which was de facto, which should be de jure in the church, make it to consist only in those unions of faith, charity, peace, which we have described, not in this political union. The Roman church gave this reason why they could not admit Marcion into their communion, they would not do it without his father's consent, between whom and them " there was one faith and one agreement of mind."' Tertullian in hisApologetic, describing the unity of the church in his time, says, "We are one body, by our agreement in religion, our unity of discipline, and our being in the same covenant of hope."' And more exactly and largely in hisPrescriptions against Heretics, the breakers of unity: " Therefore, such and so many churches are but the same with the first apostolical one, from which all are de- rived. Thus theybecome all first, all apostolical; whilst they maintain the same unity; whilst there are a communion of peace, names of brotherhood, and contributions of hospitality among them, the rights ofwhich are kept up by no other means but the one tradition of the same mystery. "3 " They and we have one faith, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same baptism; in a word, we are but one church."' And Constantine the Great, in his Epistle to the churches: (Our Saviour) " would have his catholic church to be one, the -- pia yáp Éomry ,i vriomr, zal ¡.pia ñ 1.14,..0.Epiph. Ikea. xlü. 3 Corpus sumus de conscientia religionis et discipline unitate, et spei faedere. Apol. xxxix. 3 Itaque tot ac tante ecclesies una est ilia ab apostolis prima, ex qua omnes ; sic omnes prime, et omnes apostolica ; dum unam omnes probant unitatem ; communicatio pads, et appellatio fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitalitatis ; qua jura non alia ratio regit, quam ejusdem sacramenta una traditio.Tertul. Prtescript., cap. xx. Una nobis et illis fides, unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem spes, eadem lavacri sac. rameuta; semel dixerim, una ecclesia sumus.Tert. de Virg., vel. ii.
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