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letter. Martyrdom is noe a punishment, but a lappineas. The worri of the gomet ara branda to in lame Dith. In the oase of the lapsed, αε ju memt of Cyprian is a quiesced in. 1. To Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the church of the Ca thaginians, Moyses and Maximus, presbytera, and Nicostratus and Rufinus, deacons, and the other confessors persevering
in tho faith os the truth, in God the Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the Ηοly Spirit, meeting.
Placed, brother, as We are among Various and manifold somm ' on account of the present desolations of many brothronthroughout almost the whole Worid, this clites consolation has reached us, that we have been litted up by the receipt Os yo letter, and have gathered some alleviation for the grieis ofour saddened spirit. From Which me can atready perceive thalino grace of divine providence Wished to keep us so long inutup in the prison chains, perhaps for no other reason thanthat, instructed and more vigorousty animared by your letter,mo mi t missi a more earnest mill attain to tho destinedero n. For Four letter has shone u pon us as a calm in the
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cialty in that you havo described, Mith glorious and deserved praises, the glorious, I Will not say, deallis, but immortalities
the Lord giving them the promised testimony in the presenco of the Father. It is this, then, which also raises our spiritday by day, and inflames us to the following of the trach offuch digni .
3. For What more glorious, or What more blessed, canhappen in any man from the divine condescension, than to
itself, to havo attained immortality -than, When torn topieces, and tortured by ali the instruments of crueity, to havsovercome the tortum by the tortures themselves Τ-than is
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or mollier more than me is not worthy of me: and ho that loveth his oWn foui more than me is not Worthy of me. And
my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down on thethrone of my Father. ρ Moreover tho apostle: μWho shali separato us from the love os Christi stiali tribulation, ordistress, or persecution, Or famine, or nahedness, or perit, or
3 Supplicia sua post fidem amare coepisse. η Mati. T. 37, 38. Mati. v. 1 12. ε Matti x. 18, xxi. 22. - Rev. iii. 21.
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eVery day more and more arm and adorn every one os usmissi greater abundance and readiness, and will confirm and
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ia . An unia hing number has nover been accustomed is havo meight in extenuation os a crime; but shame, modes ,
patience, discipline, humili , and subjection, matting for thejudment of others upon itself, and Maring the sentence of others upon ita o- judgment this it is whicli proves ponitenco; this it is Which ains over a d p wonnd; this itis Which mises up the ruina of tho fallen spirit and restores them, Which quelis and restinins the burning vamur of theirraging sins. For tho physician Will not ovo in the sichtho Dod of healthy dies, test the nnseasonable nourishment, insisad of repressing, should stimulate the po er of the raging disease,-that is to say, test What might have been moner diminished is abstinence, should, through impatience,
he prolonged by gro ing indigestion.
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again to a conflagration, unless the material of tho wholo firobo extinguished even to the extremest spark; so that men ofiliis hind should justly know that even they themselves aremore advantaged by the Very delay, and that mors trus remedies are applied by the necessary postponement. Besides, where stiali it be said that they who consess Christ aro
donied Him ars in no peril of their faith - here, thatthey are bound in the cincture of chains in God's name, is they who have not hept the confession os God are not d prived os communion Τ-Where, that the imprisoned martyrs lay down their glorious lives, is those who have forsinen tholaith do not seel the magnitude of their dangers and their sins ' But ii they betray too much impatience, and demand communion with intolerable eagerness, they Vainly ulterwith petulant and unbridled longues those querulous and invidious reproaches whicli avait nothing against the truth, since they might have retained by their own right what noπby a necessity, Which they of their own Dee Will have fought, they are compelled to sue sor. For the faith which could consess Christ, could also have been hept by Christ in communion.
iareweli in the Lord; and have us in remembrance.
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they may be restored to their original state. But is certain lapsed ones claim to be the taurch, and is tho church boamong them and in them, What is leti but for us to ask of these Veo persons that they Would deign to admit us into thechurchi Therofore it belloves them to bo submissive and quiet and modest, as those Who ought to appease God, in remembrance of their sin, and not to writo letters in thonamo of the church, When they should rather be aWare that ther are Writing to the church.
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Thinhing of Which things, and although they had received
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1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, Meeting. You havs done uprightly and with discipline, loved brethren, that, is the advice of my colleagues Who
ere present, you have decided not to communicats .ith Gaius tho presbyter os Didda, and his demon; Whο, is communicating With the lapsed, and offering their oblations, havo been frequently inhen in Seir Michod errore; and whooncct and again, as Du Wrote in me, When Warned by mycolleagues not in do this, have persisted obstinately in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brethren also hom among our people, Whose benefit me destro mith althumili to consuli, and whose salvation me talio care sor, not milli affected adulation, but With sincero fiath, that theymay supplicato tho Lord With true penitence and Moantagand sorro sinco it is Written, Remember from Whenco thou ari fallen, and repent.' d again, tho divine Scri tum says, Thus salth the L d, When thou shalt be converted and lament, then thou inalt be saved, and shalt iso.
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When, by the Lord's mercy, we shali begin to assembletogether. In ths meantimo, ii any mr trained and impetuous person, Whether of our presbyters or deacons or os strangere, should dare, besore our decree, to communicato with tho lapsed, let him be expelled hom Our communion, and plead the cause of his rashness before ali of us when, by the Lord's permission, Me shali assemble together again. mr OVer, Fou Wished me to reply What Ι thought concerning Philumenus and Fortunatus, sub-deacons, and FaVorinus, auacolyte, Who retired in the midst of tho timo os triat, and have noW returned. Os whicli thing I cannot mahe myself sole judge, since many of the clero are stili absent, and have not considered, even thus late, that they should return to their place; and this case of each one must be considered separalely
with the whole of the peopte themselves. For a matter hicli hereaster may constitute an examplo as regards the