Excerpt from The Treatise of Novatian, on the Trinity As the Church is a great society, it has the right to expel any members who break its rules of conduct or of faith, and also to readmit them on its conditions of repentance and amendment being fulfilled; this power it exercises through its officers, the bishops and priests. Excommunicated persons had long before Novatian's time been so readmitted, at least when at the point of death, and the principle was gradually widened, so that even those who had been grievous sinners, and were in no danger of death, could again enjoy Church privileges; while the power of granting readmission was extended to Confessors - those who had stood firm for Christ during persecution.1 But there always was a strong body of opinion in the Church that grievous Sins, including apostasy from the faith, could not be absolved, but must be left to God's uncovenanted mercies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.