Egæ in Cilicia, where that pretended god was worshipped for his eminent cures, and frequent appearances in dreams to his votaries. At Alexandria he dispersed and banished the Androgyni, or priests of Nile, who used to perform ridiculous ceremonies to that river, accounted by them a deity, and caused the nilometrium, or famous cubit, wherewith they wont every year to measure the height of the river, to be removed out of the temple of Serapis (where it was religiously kept) into the Christian church at Alexandria. When the people cried out hereupon, that the goddess would be angry, and the Nile no longer overflow its banks, the event showed the prediction to be false and foolish, the river overflowing the country the next year in larger measures and proportions than it had done before.' In short, by several laws he forbad to offer sacrifices, or to erect any images to the gods, or to consult their priests and oracles, or to exercise any of their mysterious rites.

By these smart and vigorous proceedings against the idolatry and impieties of the heathen world, Satan every day visibly fell as lightning from heaven, and the great dragon, that old serpent, which had so long deceived the world, fled before, and fell under the power of the cross. In memory whereof, this good emperor caused some of his coins, still extant, to be stamped on the reverse with the figure of a serpent bowing under, and struck through with the banner of the cross. And in the portico before his palace he caused his picture to be drawn at full length with the cross over his head, and a dragon under his feet struck

Euseb. ib. lib. iv. c. 25, p 537; Socr. lib. i. c. 18, p. 48.

through with darts, and thrown into the sea, to denote by what assistance he had routed and ruined the old enemy of mankind, and had cast him down to hell.' All which, my author says, was foretold by that of the prophet, That the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, should punish leviathan, that crooked serpent, and slay the dragon that is in the sea.'?

And now God, having brought about so great a change and reformation, and advanced Christianity, which had lately been so much despised and trampled on, to be the religion of the empire, took this excellent prince into a better world. He died at Nicomedia, May the 22nd, ann. 337, to the irreparable loss of the church, and the grief of all good men. I shall conclude his reign with the comparison, which Eusebius, in an oration delivered at the solemnization of his tricennalia, about a year before his death, makes between this and the preceding times, the sum of whose discourse upon that argument we shall here represent. "The former emperors," says he, "were passionate admirers of their gods, and the people everywhere honoured them with statues and images, which they erected to them in fields and houses, yea in their very butteries and bed-chambers: chapels and porticos, groves and temples were with infinite pains and charge set apart for their worship, and enriched with the most costly ornaments and oblations. The fruit of all which devotion was nothing else but war and fighting, mutinies and seditions, which filled the world with blood and slaughters: their gods by their feigned answers and oracles

1 Euseb. de Vit. C. lib. iii. c. 3, p. 484. 2 Is. xxvii. 1.

vainly flattering them into hopes of prosperity and success, when, alas! they could not foresee that sad fate that did attend themselves. Encouraged with this assurance, and carrying the statues of their fond and senseless deities at the head of their army. they marched into the field: whereas Constantine, armed with no other breast-plate but that of piety, nor carrying any other banner than that of the cross, at once triumphed both over his enemies, and their gods. In a grateful sense of so signal a mercy he openly owned the power of that triumphal sign, a monument whereof he set up in the midst of Rome, and commanded that all should look upon it as the tutelar and guardian power of the Roman empire. He taught the mystery of it to all, and especially his soldiers, and trained them up both in the principles and practice of true prayer, and holy adoration, and that they must not depend upon the strength of their arms, the greatness of their courage, the multitude of their number, but look up to God as the only fountain of all power and victory, and observe the Lord's-day as most proper for their devotions. His own vacant time he spent in prayer, reading the Scriptures, and other divine exercises and employments, and he formed his whole court after his example. He paid a just reverence to the victorious Cross, and erected triumphal arches to it in every place, and with a noble and magnificent bounty commanded churches and oratories to be built, and those to be re-edified which had been demolished by the rage and madness of his predecessors, who taking upon them to fight against God, had all come to untimely ends, and both they and their families been swept away as in a moment. While this emperor, guarded by

the salutary standard, carried victory about him, and had founded newer and more stately churches, and rebuilt the old ones into greater magnificence than before; conspicuous instances whereof were to be seen at Constantinople, Nicomedia, Antioch, and in Palestine, where, at Jerusalem, he raised an immense and admirable structure over the place of our Saviour's sepulchre, which he enriched and adorned with the most exquisite artifice. Three other incomparable churches he built, the one over the place of our Lord's birth, another at the place of his ascension, and a third at the place of his passion. So illustrious a piety God was pleased to reward with the enlargement of his empire, and the prosperity and security of his family, besides those eminent blessings which were reserved for his posterity. A signal evidence of that divine power that superintended the happiness of the empire, that could so equally distribute recompences suitable to each party; for all those that had ruined and laid waste the churches, had quickly reaped the wages of their impiety, and had been swept away without leaving either house or posterity behind them. But this good emperor having endeared himself to heaven by an unusual piety and bounty, had accordingly engaged God to be the saviour and protector of his empire. his family, and his posterity."

1 Orat. de Laud. Const. c. 9, p. 628.

SECTION II.

The Condition of the Gentiles under the reign of Constantine Junior, Constantius, and Constans.

CONSTANTINE upon his death-bed divided the empire among his three sons. To Constantine, his eldest, he assigned Britain, Spain, Gaul, and part of Proconsular Africa; to Constans, the youngest, Italy, Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, the parts that border upon the Euxine, and the remainder of Africa; to Constantius, the middle son, Mysia, Thrace, Asia, the East, and Egypt. The first of these princes lived but a little while, and the reigns of the two other were so taken up with the Arian and other controversies, which unhappily divided the Christian world, and distracted the state as well as the church, that we meet not with much relating to the Gentiles within this period. Sozomen in the general gives us this account of the state of things; that the emperors trod in their father's steps in their care of, and kindness to the church, investing the clergy, their children, and servants, with many peculiar privileges and immunities. They not only confirmed their father's laws, but enacted new ones, prohibiting any either to offer sacrifices, or to pay any adoration to the images of the gods, or to exercise any part of pagan superstition. The temples that stood either in the cities or fields, they commanded to be shut up, or bestowed them upon churches, where they wanted either room or materials to build with; for it was their great care either to repair ruinated churches, or to erect new ones