this regularity was first established with the
provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops of a
district, subject to a metropolitan. Plank, p. 90. Geschichte der
Christ. Kirch. Verfassung--G]

[Footnote 115: Acta Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian. edit. Fell, p. 158.
This council was composed of eighty-seven bishops from the provinces of
Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa; some presbyters and deacons assisted at
the assembly; praesente plebis maxima parte.]

[Footnote 116: Aguntur praeterea per Graecias illas, certis in locis
concilia, &c Tertullian de Jejuniis, c. 13. The African mentions it as a
recent and foreign institution. The coalition of the Christian churches
is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 164 170.]

As the legislative authority of the particular churches was insensibly
superseded by the use of councils, the bishops obtained by their
alliance a much larger share of executive and arbitrary power; and as
soon as they were connected by a sense of their common interest, they
were enabled to attack with united vigor, the original rights of their
clergy and people. The prelates of the third century imperceptibly
changed the language of exhortation into that of command, scattered the
seeds of future usurpations, and supplied, by scripture allegories and
declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason. They
exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was represented in the
Episcopal Office, of which every bishop enjoyed an equal and undivided
portion. [117] Princes and magistrates, it was often repeated, might
boast an earthly claim to a transitory dominion; it was the episcopal
authority alone which was derived from the Deity, and extended itself
over this and over another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic substitutes
of the high priest of the Mosaic law. Their exclusive privilege of
conferring the sacerdotal character, invaded the freedom both of
clerical and of popular elections; and if, in the administration of
the church, they still consulted the judgment of the presbyters, or the
inclination of the people, they most carefully inculcated the merit of
such a voluntary condescension. The bishops acknowledged the supreme
authority which resided in the assembly of their brethren; but in the
government of his peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his
flock the same implicit obedience as if that favorite metaph