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assumed the name and observed the rites of christians, while they remained infidel in heart and prone to every kind of vice. The kindness and unsuspecting sincerity of the emperor, as Eusebius tells us*, surrounded him with men, who took advantage of his virtues and abused his liberality. But it is also evident, that as a politician he desired to strengthen his government and his empire, by uniting his subjects in one profession and form of religion and religious worship; whence he was not only the more readily satisfied with an outward conformity, but was induced, in order to recommend christianity to the Pagans, to copy into its external forms some of the ornamental parts of their ceremonial.

Nor were other causes and means of corruption wanting. The uncommanded austerities of the Ascetics, the fanatical and almost delirious extravagances of the Monks, the contentions of opposite sects, the honours paid to the memory of martyrs, the fictitious miracles, the pilgrimagest, the arts and briberies, the struggles and violences, which often attended the election of

*De vita Constantini, lib. 4, c. 54.

+ Constantine himself, in the near view of his approaching end, declared to the Bishops, whom he had assembled to baptize him, that it had been his hope and intention to

bishops; all these things, which either took their rise, or acquired force and establishment, about this period, contributed in various ways and degrees to vitiate and corrupt the morals of christians*.

receive that sacrament in the waters of the river Jordan, in which our Saviour himself for our example is recorded to have partaken of the sacred rite. Eusebius, de vita Constantini, lib. 4. c. 62. This piece of superstition, without the necessity of supposing other motives, accounts for the long delay of the first christian emperor's baptism.

* From any thing said above, I hope it will not be supposed, that I am in any degree hostile to a legal establishment of christianity, and consequently of some particular form of it. It is the duty of christian governors to provide for their subjects sufficient opportunities of being instructed and trained up, and afterwards of living and abiding, in those religious principles and in that form of worship and order of discipline, which themselves believe to be right; and this cannot be done without a religious establishment, nor without confining their direct support and favour to that alone. But Constantine went too far and interfered too much. Hence probably it is, that some writers are inclined to attribute a much greater share in producing the relaxation of christian morals in the fourth century to the establishment afforded to christianity by Constantine, than can be fairly imputed to it. Even from the few citations above made, it has appeared, that the mere safety, prosperity, and wealth of christians, without any legal establishment of their religion, were capable of producing that effect in so great a degree, that it is extremely difficult to say, how much of it in the fourth century is to be ascribed to that circumstance separately. The other causes of decline also, that were then at work, are fully adequate to account for the farther deterioration which ensued, without insisting so much on the influence of one, which cannot be estimated apart from the mere protection, safety, and wealth of the christian community.

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To this decline then of that strict morality and genuine piety, which are inculcated by the word of God, and which had hitherto, with some exceptions as to particular persons, sects, and short periods, been the general practice and formed the general character of christians, we may refer the date of the going forth of the flying roll. Its admonitions, warnings, and threatenings then became greatly needed. But unhappily they were disregarded. Christians maintained, and persisted in maintaining, their religious profession and in asserting their claim to the blessings of the gospel, as members of the church of Christ, whose lives, instead of exhibiting the pure and lively image of the truth, like the lamps of a candlestick shining to the world, were deformed and blackened by falsehood, deception, injustice, extortion, and every kind of vice. From that time to this the terrible denunciations of the flying roll have not ceased to go forth. They are continually sounded in the ears of the hypocritical, self deceiving, and careless. But since they often hear them without self application or repentance, the curse enters in and rests upon them in all its calamitous efficacy.

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That it may enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name, and it shall abide in the midst of

his house, and shall consume it, with the timbers thereof and the stones thereof." The curse is represented as both abiding and penetrating; as pursuing the sinner into his retirements, laying waste and destroying every portion of bis substance, the most precious and the most durable; and bringing also his family to ruin. In like manner, the psalmist represents the curse of divine wrath, as piercing to the innermost parts of the man, who profanely flings about him the maledictions of his malignity. "It shall come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones*." But the full force and extent of the curse here denounced, are to be learned from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomyt, in which the vengeance appointed to overtake the transgressors of the divine law, is set forth in a most terrific enumeration of corporeal and temporal evils. Jehovah there asserts his right and his power, as the creator, owner, and ruler of all things, and summons the whole circle of his works as the ministers and instruments of his terrible displeasure. Sinful people are threatened with unfruitful seasons and famine, with fevers,

* Psalm, cix. 18.

+ Leviticus, xxvi. 14, and following verses, Deuteronomy, xi. 26-29, xxvii. 14, and following verses, xxviii. 15, and following verses.

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agues, and pestilences; with ulcers and all manner of diseases; with weakness of body and faiJure of children; with perpetual disappointment and doubtfulness, perturbation and terror of heart; with wild beasts and locusts; with wars and sieges, discomfitures and conquests; with captivity, scattering, and exile; and in short, with every molestation, affliction, and variety of ruin, that can befal men, whether as individuals, or as a people. By these means "the lamp of the wicked will be put out*;" "the candlestick of the faithless and impenitent people will be removed+;" the fruitless branches will be lopped off from the vine and cast forth to the burning‡. At the same time it is to be carefully and feelingly remembered, that the earthly curses recorded in the old testament, are only the figures of the future penalties, which await the sinner in those unseen and terrible abodes, "where the worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched."

* Proverbs, xiii. 9.

† Revelation, ii. 5.

‡ John, xv. 2, 6.

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