and painful gradations that
the sinner, the heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the bosom
of the church. A sentence of perpetual excommunication was, however,
reserved for some crimes of an extraordinary magnitude, and particularly
for the inexcusable relapses of those penitents who had already
experienced and abused the clemency of their ecclesiastical superiors.
According to the circumstances or the number of the guilty, the exercise
of the Christian discipline was varied by the discretion of the bishops.
The councils of Ancyra and Illiberis were held about the same time, the
one in Galatia, the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which
are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The Galatian,
who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to idols, might obtain
his pardon by a penance of seven years; and if he had seduced others to
imitate his example, only three years more were added to the term of his
exile. But the unhappy Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was
deprived of the hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death;
and his idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other
crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pronounced. Among
these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of calumniating a bishop,
a presbyter, or even a deacon.

The well-tempered mixture of liberality and rigor, the judicious
dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims of
policy as well as justice, constituted the human strength of the church.
The Bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to the government of
both worlds, were sensible of the importance of these prerogatives; and
covering their ambition with the fair pretence of the love of order,
they were jealous of any rival in the exercise of a discipline so
necessary to prevent the desertion of those troops which had enlisted
themselves under the banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day
became more considerable. From the imperious declamations of Cyprian,
we should naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication and
penance formed the most essential part of religion; and that it was much
less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect the observance of
the moral duties, than to despise the censures and authority of their
bishops. Sometimes we might imagine that we were listening to the voice
of Moses, when he commanded the earth to open, and to swallow up, in