as, in consequence, upbraided by some as a coward; but when a
fellow-bishop, Papianus, ventured to ask an explanation of a course of
proceeding which apparently betokened indecision, Cyprian treated the
inquiry as an insult, and poured out upon his correspondent a whole
torrent of invectives and reproaches. He is _God's bishop_, and no one
is to attempt, by the breath of suspicion, to stain the lustre of his
episcopal dignity. "I perceive by your letter," says he, "that you
believe the same things of me, and persist in what you believed.... This
is not to believe in God, this is to be a rebel against Christ and
against His gospel.... Do you suppose that the priests of God are
without His cognizance ordained in the Church? For if you believe that
those who are ordained are unworthy and incestuous, what else is it but
to believe that, not by God, or through God, are His bishops appointed
in the Church." [646:2] After indulging at great length in the language
of denunciation, he adds, in a strain of irony--"Vouchsafe at length and
deign to pronounce on us, and to confirm our episcopate by the authority
of _your_ hearing, that God and Christ may give _you_ thanks, that
through you a president and ruler has been restored as well to _their_
altar as to _their_ people." [647:1]

II. The Catholic system encouraged its adherents to cultivate very
bigoted and ungenerous sentiments. They were taught to regard themselves
as the "peculiar people," and to look on all others, however excellent,
as without claim to the title or privileges of Christians. How different
the spirit of the inspired heralds of the gospel! When Peter saw that
the Holy Ghost was poured out on men uncircumcised, he recognized the
divine intimation by acknowledging the believing Gentiles as his
brethren in Christ. Conceiving that God himself had thus settled the
question of their Church membership, "he commanded them to be baptized
in the name of the Lord." [647:2] But men who professed to derive their
authority from the apostle, now showed how grievously they misunderstood
the benign and comprehensive genius of his ecclesiastical polity. The
dominant party among the disciples had not long assumed the name of
Catholics when they sadly belied the designation, for nothing could be
more illiberal or uncatholic than their Church principles. All evidences
of piety, no matter how decided, if found among the Nazarenes, or the
Novatians, or the friends of Felicissimus, w