TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.
No. XX.
THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.
St. Cyprian on the Unity of the Church, (continued.)
6.
The one Church Catholic, and one only, in every place.
Who then is the criminal and the traitor, who so mad and reckless a schismatic, as either to credit the practicability, or venture on the attempt of putting asunder what God has made one; this garment of the Lord, the Church of Christ? He teaches. He warns us, in His Gospel, "There shall be one fold, and one shepherd." And does any suppose that there can be, in one place, either many shepherds or many folds? So too the Apostle, suggesting this same unity, implores and exhorts us; "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." And again he says, "bearing one another's burthens in love, doing all to preserve the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace." Think you that any can stand and live, who retires from the Church, and forms for himself other habitations and a different home? whereas, it was said to Rahab, in whom was prefigured the Church, "Thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all the house of thy father, thou shalt gather unto thee into thine house, and it shall come to pass, whosoever shall go abroad beyond the door of thine house, his blood shall be on his own head." So the Paschal sacrifice contains this simple mandate in the law of Exodus, that the lamb which is slain, as prefigurative of Christ, must be eat in one house. "In one
