Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 357 X7now come clearly to discern the organisation ofthe Church as a visible kingdom Sfc \_-t\-J-l-AA of ^/A Christ, X_/ * A -L AK^ t_,» at thehead of which the Roman Bishop stood. Thatgdom, O / the whole moral and religious O doctrineof which, together with the life founded upon it,they felt to be in contradiction with the heathenlife and the maxims of polity on which from timeimmemorial the empire had been based, that kingdomDecius saw to be summed up and representedin him who held, to use the words of Cyprian«/" Peter's place." With that religious associationwhich Decius saw extending round him on everyside, and gradually drawing into its bosom thebest of the two sexes, there was no way of dealingbut either to yield to those new maxims which itset forth, or to destroy it. In proportion as theemperors were zealous for the worship of the Romangods, and instinct with the old discipline ofthe state, they inclined to the latter alternative,and none more decisively than Decius, who pridedhimself on following the spirit of Trajan. Thepersecution which he set on foot reached and slewPope Fabian, and caused the election of a succes-sor to be deferred for sixteen months. When atthe end of that time Cornelius was chosen, Cyprian>raises him" as to be reckoned among O the gloriousr">confessors and martyrs, who sat so long awaitinghis butchers, ready either to slay him withword, or crucify him, or burn him, or teaIs body with any unheard-of ]