Excerpt from Universal History, Vol. 4 of 6: From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century We have remarked, that hitherto the Christian churches were entirely independent of each other. About the middle of the second century, the Greek churches began to unite into general associations the whole churches Of a province forming one body, and agreeing to be governed by general rules of discipline, which were concerted and framed by a council of the elders, or deputies from each particular church. These assemblies the Greeks termed Synods and the Latin churches, following the same example, termed these general meetings Concilia and the rules of discipline there enacted were called Canons. AS it was necessary for the maintenance of order in these assemblies, that some person Of authority should preside, the right of presiding was conferred, by an election of the several bishops, either upon some one of them selves possessing eminent virtue or abilities, or. 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.