"gotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing; or out of another substance or essence, and "is created, or changeable, or alterable." Apud

Socr. i. S.

Such was the Nicene creed, as it stood originally, and before it was interpolated by subsequent councils. Our church hath dropped the anathematizing clauses at the end, and one cannot help wishing that the Nicene fathers had done the same. The Christians in times following were perpetually making anathematisms, even upon the slightest and poorest occasions, and it is really a wonder that they did not at last insert in their litanies, We beseech thee to cursę and confound the Pelagians, Semi-pelagians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, and all heretics and schismatics:

About the time of Constantine, Christian festivals and holy-days began to take place of pagan solemnities.

The council of Arles was held A. D. 314, on account of the Donatists. The tenth canon of this council exhorts men, whose wives had been convicted of adultery, not to marry again till the adulteress were dead. An unreasonable request.

When Constantine was about to make war with Licinius, there was a wonderful apparition, says Eusebius; several regiments of Constantine's soldiers were seen at noon day marching, as victorious, through the cities belonging to Licinius. Eusebius however had the discretion to introduce the story with à pari, they say, and took care by so doing to affirm nothing that was not true; for without question there were people enough who said so. Vit. Const, ii. 6.

One Meyer wrote a book, De Mysterio S. S. Trinitatis ex solius Veteris Testamenti Libris demonstrato. The text which he urges as the most clear and conclusive of all, is Deut. vi. 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: in which he is not at all singular, many of his cabbalistic brethren having made the same remark on the same text.

Rabbi Judah hath preserved a tradition, that the ancient Jews in their Liturgy, used this form of prayer, I and HE, save, I pray: and this Galimatias is a mystical representation of the Trinity, according to some persons who were learned men, but too much addicted to Rabbinism. See Jac. Alting Gram. Hebr. Exerc. iii. and Vitringa in Jesai. xliii. p. 469.

The famous Postellus observed, that there were eleven thousand proofs of the Trinity in the Old Testament, interpreted rightly, that is, itvμonoyınoμusınqnab6aλιτικώς.

"Your friend (says Clarke to Nelson) being a sin❝cere and sober-minded man, has entered only a little way into these traditionary explications of "Scripture; but those who have gone far into them,

have given such visionary and cabbalistical inter"pretations, especially of the Old Testament, as give "too sad occasion for infidels to look upon all reli"gion as enthusiasm, and particularly have caused "the study of the Hebrew language, which of itself " is a plain, easy, inartificial language, to be brought by men of weak judgment abusing it, into the ut "most contempt."

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Abbadie, a man of vivacity and of a warm imagination, wrote two treatises: in the one he proved with much spirit and elegance the truth of natural and re

vealed religion, in the other he defended the divinity of Christ; but how? By laying down his own notion of it, and then arguing that if it was not true, our Saviour was what is too shocking to be named or thought of*, and what no Mahometan would call him.

Few controversies have been carried on with less temper and with less prudence than this.

Before the fourth century was ended, the Consubstantialists differed and disputed amongst themselves, whether in the Trinity there were three hypostases, or one hypostasis: part of them hold the first, and part the second opinion; and it hath been supposed by some, that they had notions directly contrary to each other but the truth is, that they only misunderstood one another, and were in reality of the same mind.

For the word wisac was ambiguous, and had two senses. In the first sense, hypostasis is the existence of a thing, or the manner in which it exists; in the second sense it is the existing thing, or the substance itself.

Three human souls have only one hypostasis, in the first sense, that is, one and the same kind of nature, consisting of intelligence, activity, &c. but in the second sense they are three hypostases, that is, three intelligent active beings.

The Consubstantialists who said, that in the Trinity there was one hypostasis, took the word in the first sense, and their brethren who said there were three hypostases, took the word in the second sense; and thus the dispute was verbal, and as soon as they

came

This odious indiscretion hath been frequent amongst disputers of more zeal than judgment,

"

But in his life of Constantine, he is to be considered as an orator and a panegyrist, rather than as an historian.

Nazarius, who was a Pagan, in his panegyric of Constantine, mentions such a miracle of an arıny descending from heaven to assist that prince against Maxentius. In ore denique est omnium Galliarum, exercitus visos, qui se divinitus missos præ se ferebant—Illi cælo lapsi, illi divinitus missi gloriabantur quod tibi militabant:

In ore est omnium Galliarum, quoth he: These Gauls were what the French call des Temoins Nor mans, Norman witnesses.

It is strange, says Le Clerc, that no Christian author hath mentioned these angels, whom God sent to assist Constantine, and that Nazarius, who speaks of this miracle, says nothing of that of the cross. Bibl. Chois. iii. 352.

Constantine transferred the seat of empire to Byzantium, which he embellished, enlarged, and made equal to ancient Rome, and to which he his gave own name; by which he certainly disobliged the Roman senate and people. This change contributed to weaken the western part of the empire, and to bring on its dissolution. But whether it were prudent or ́no, politically considered, it seems to have been of no moral import; virtue and religion and liberty neither gained nor lost by it: nor in all probability could the Roman empire have continued entire upon the foot that it was in the time of Constantine, though Rome had remained the unrivalled city, and the usual place of the emperor's residence.

Constantine

Constantine had a divine revelation to build Constantinople, says Sozomen, and the emperor himself* affirmed the same in one of his laws; and according to Philostorgius, he declared that he was guided by an heavenly vision in tracing the extent of the new city. In this city no Pagan temples, rites, and ceremonies were permitted, say Eusebius, Sozomen, and Orosius: Zosimus says the contrary. Thus much is certain, that Christianity prevailed far more there than at Rome, Soz. ii. 3.

When Constantine went to war, he carried with him a tent, in form of a chapel, where he prayed to God, and had presbyters and deacons to perform divine service; and thence began the custom in the Roman army for each legion to have a chaplain. Sozom. i. S.

As he was on many occasions generous and liberal, and did so much for the church, and gave so much to Ecclesiastics, Soz. i. 8. he might have extended his favours also to men of letters, but it appears not that he signalized himself that way. In his reign, and in the fourth century, as religious and metaphysical quarrels ran high, and monkery grew and prospered, and miracles abounded, so liberal arts and sciences and polite literature fell into a declining condition. He seems to have been possessed with the building spirit, and spent immense sums upon houses, palaces, and † churches, and particularly upon Constantinople. This,

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*Or seemed to affirm it. Pro commoditate Urbis, quam æterno nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus, hæc vobis privilegia credidimus deferenda, &c. Cod. Th. L. xiii. Tit. v. p. 63. where see Gothofred. † Joannes Ciampini gives an account of them in a Treatise De bacris Aedificiis a Constantino Magno constructis.