was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea.

"Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes; we cannot discover their crimes; and what ever idea we may justly entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it remains a matter of surprise, that he was not contented with a more decent and secret method of revenge."

Diocletian, who had been for twenty years master of the world, lived long enough to be a witness of the calamities of the empire, the ruin of heathenism, the almost certain triumph of the religion he had endeavoured to extirpate, the success of his personal enemy, the destruction of his statues, and the misfortunes of his wife and child: whom, having endeavoured in vain to protect by many and importunate intercessions, and having experienced the bitterness of his most earnest prayers being treated with contempt, he was so overwhelmed with sorrow, that, unable to eat or sleep, or rest, he at last died, wasted by hunger and anguish of mind.1

Licinius, the last of these great persecutors, was defeated in several engagements by Constantine, obliged to resign the purple, and, to retire as a private individual to Thesalonica, where he soon died by his own hands or the sentence of the victor.

The seal predicts that the Lord would be the object of a dreadful fear and dismay.

"AND THEY SAID TO THE MOUNTAINS AND ROCKS, FALL ON US, AND HIDE US FROM THE FACE OF HIM THAT SITTETH ON THE THRONE, AND FROM THE WRATH OF THE LAMB FOR THE GREAT DAY OF HIS WRATH IS COME."

Before we adduce historical testimony of the fact, we shall notice the change which appears to have taken place, generally, in the minds of the pagans, during the progress of the Diocletian persecution.

The Christians, because they refused to worship the gods, and had neither images nor sacrifices, were accused by their

Lactantius, p. 42.

enemies of atheism, and of worshipping a crucified malefactor. This, or some such opinion, must have prevailed very extensively at the breaking out of the persecution, because the extirpation of Christianity was the avowed object and boast of the persecutors. But many of the heathens, the fiercest and highest of them, were, at last, made to confess that the God of the Christians could both save and destroy. The pagans, however, although they might admit the Deity of Christ, would not, therefore, renounce paganism and embrace Christianity; for their belief in His Divinity would, in consequence of their notions of local and national deities, lead them, necessarily, no farther, than (a like faith did the Egyptians' and Philistines2) to acknowledge Jesus to be a God; perhaps a very terrible one, who could be worshipped acceptably by his own people only, and according to his own appointed rites. Now, if there were no historical evidence of this state of mind, we might safely conclude, from the known opinions of the heathens, and the success of the supporters of Christianity, that a dread of their God would become very prevalent during the course of the civil wars.

Constantine had early expressed his contempt of the old faith, declared his belief in Christianity, and professed himself to be the servant of Jehovah. His success from the commencement was uniform and almost without a check; and before the end of the war it was manifest to all, that victory would rest with him. The heathens believed victory to be the gift of the gods: seeing, therefore, the defeats and dissasters of all the supporters of paganism, and the successful career of the man who had proclaimed himself the enemy of the gods and the champion of the Christian cause, they would naturally dread that powerful God, whom they had despised, and whose worshippers they had cruelly persecuted and endeavoured to destroy. Now, that such a dread did exist, we have the most undoubted historical testimony in the edict of Galerius, and in the behaviour of Maximin before his death.

Galerius, the chief author of the Diocletian persecution, was attacked, in the year 309, by a painful and loathsome disease;

1 Exodus, xxii. 33.

2 Samuel, v. vi.; compare 2 Kings, xvii. 24, &c.

his body was filled with ulcers, which swarmed with vermin, and diffused an intolerable odour through the whole palace. He had recourse in vain to medicine, to sacrifice, and to charms; and after lingering more than a year in hopeless misery, he died in 311. But a short time before his death, he published an edict, wherein he grants the Christians toleration, acknowledges the divinity of the Lord, and entreats their prayers for his safety. The following is Gibbon's translation of it :

Among the important cares which have occupied our minds for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and re-establish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature the deluded Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and, presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and collected a various society (varios populos, various peoples) from the different provinces of our empire. The edict which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to these unhappy men the effect of our wonted clemency. We permit them, therefore, freely to profess their private opinions.. And we hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the deity whom they adore for our safety and prosperity, &c."

Such is the celebrated edict of Galerius; justifying his past atrocities, accusing the Christians of impious folly, acknowledging their God, and imploring those whom he calls impious fools to pray to their God for his safety and the safety of the empire. It undoubtedly manifests neither remorse nor repentance; but it surely exhibits, in a way that could not be anticipated in the public document of a fierce, proud man, whose will had been long a law to millions, a mind fearfully distracted by contending passions and a special dread of the Lord. If Galerius had been free from terror, he would not have implored the people who alone, among millions, had dared to resist his will, and whom

1 Decline and Fall, c. xvi.

he still hates, to pray to their God for his safety. Before such a man could be driven to make such a request, a great change must have been wrought on his mind, and, not without a fierce and protracted struggle. But he had felt the lash, and the iron had entered into his soul; and neither the secresy of his palace nor the summit of earthly power could mitigate his agony or conceal his terror.

Maximin, after his defeat by Licinius, fled to Tarsus, where he ordered a sumptuous feast, partook of it largely, and then swallowed poison. But its operation being obstructed by the quantity of food and wine which he had gorged, his sufferings were painfully prolonged for many days. In his intolerable agony, he snatched up the earth in handsful which he attempted to devour, and beat his head against the wall till his eyes leaped out from their sockets; then becoming blind and seeing (Lactantius' says) God and His ministers clad in white, judging him, he called out like those who are tortured, it was not he, but others, who did it. Afterward, as if compelled by torture, he confessed his guilt, praying and imploring Christ to pity him. And at last, with groans which he uttered, as one who is consumed by fire, he breathed out his guilty soul.

Having thus explained the different parts of the vision, we shall now conclude with a brief recapitulation: An earthquake is seen the sun becomes black as sackcloth and the moon becomes as blood-the stars of heaven fall to the earth-the heavens depart as a scroll-the mountains and islands are moved out of their places-the kings of the earth, the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, the mighty men, and every bond man and every free man hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and cry to the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. It has been shown that an earthquake-the darkening of the sun-the changing of the moon into blood-the fall of the stars from heaven, represent, in the symbolical language of the Bible, wars and convulsions in states, the fall of princes and nobles— that the judgment represented in the seal cannot be the general

1 De Mort Persecut. 49.

judgment, for it is partial, directed against some special enemies of the Lord-that the scene of it is the Roman world after the publication of the gospel, in the third or fourth century—that the interwoven prophecies and language show it must represent the violent destruction of a pagan system of religion, the fall of princes and nobles, accompanied with a great and general dread of the Lord. Corresponding with these symbolical representations, it has been shown that pagan Romanism, which was established, regulated, and enforced by the laws, was such a system-that this system of superstition and intolerance, which had lasted for more than a thousand years, was demolished in the fourth century by a terrible convulsion-that its supporters, who impiously attempted to extirpate Christianity, were defeated and ruined that their friends and followers fell with them-and that the fierce persecutors, struck with a dreadful dismay of the Lord, were made to deprecate His wrath and proclaim their

terror.

R