Cyprian adds, “Who is so wicked and perfidious, who so transported by the rage of discord, as to think that the Unity of God, the vesture of the Lord, the Church of Christ, may be severed ? Christ tells us in his Gospel: There shall be one flock and one shepherd. (John x. 16) Does any one then imagine, that in the same place, may be many shepherds, and many flocks. The Apostle also, urging the same unity, entreats and admonishes, saying : (1 Cor. i. 10.) Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you.” Ibid.
“God is one, and Christ is one, and his Church is one, and Faith is one, and his people, connected by one solid bond, is
Unity cannot be severed; nor the one body, by laceration, be divided. Whatever is separated from the stock, cannot live, cannot breathe apart: it loses the substance of life.” Ibid. p. 202.
“He is not a Christian, who is not in the Church of Christ.....If he be put to death for the name of Christ, when out of the Church, and separated from Unity and Charity, he cannot be crowned.”')- Ep. lv. p. 108. Oxon. 1682.“ They (schismatics) may burn in the flames, and lay down their lives by fire, or wild beasts; their death will not be the crown of their faith, but the punishment of their perfidy. They may be killed, they cannot be crowned.” De Unit. Eccles. p.114. Ibid.
