commonwealth is very
different from any merely earthly organization, for it has no
statute-book but the Bible, and it owes explicit obedience to no ruler
but the King of Zion. Freedom of conscience, in obedience to the Word,
is the heritage of all its members; and every one of them is bound to
exercise the privilege, and to resist its violation. Its unity appears,
not in adhesion to any visible head, but in cordial submission to its
one great Lord and Sovereign. When a change was made in its primitive
framework, its essential unity was impaired. After the elders had handed
over a considerable share of their authority to their president, they
could not be expected to take such a deep interest in its government as
when they were themselves individually responsible for its official
administration. They still, indeed, acted as his counsellors, but as
they no longer held the independent footing they had once occupied, they
could neither speak nor act so freely and so energetically as before.
Thus, whilst one member of the ecclesiastical body was permitted to
attain an unnatural magnitude, others ceased to perform their proper
functions, and the whole eventually became diseased and misshapen. And
the new arrangement entirely failed in checking the growth of the
errorists. After its adoption heresies sprung up as rapidly as ever, and
the multitude of its sects continued to be the scandal of Christianity
even in the time of Constantine. [654:1] Their suppression is to be
attributed, not to the potency of Prelacy, but to the stern intolerance
of the Imperial laws. By the rigid enforcement of conformity the
Catholic Church at length reigned without a rival.

It is easy to see from the extant ecclesiastical writings of the third
century that the doctrine of the visible unity of the Church as
represented by the Catholic hierarchy already formed a prominent part of
the current creed. As there is "one God, one Christ, and one Holy
Ghost," it was affirmed that there could be but "one bishop in the
Catholic Church." [654:2] This theory seemed somewhat inconsistent with
the fact that there were many bishops in almost every province of the
Empire; but the ingenuity of churchmen attempted a solution of the
difficulty. It was alleged that the whole episcopacy should be regarded
as one, and that each bishop constituted an integral part of the grand
unit. "The episcopacy is one," says Cyprian, "it is a whole in which
each enjoys full possess