of this tyrant, compared his death with that of Pharaoh. Eusebius ix. 9. At this time there was a dreadful famine in the eastern part of the empire, where Maximinus reigned, and a plague which particularly affected the eyes', and took away the sight upon which the Christians could not forbear observing that Maximinus had inflicted that very punishment on many thousand Christians, and had caused one of their eyes to be bored out. The Christians signalized their piety and charity towards all persons in this public calamity, and forced even their Pagan adversaries to admire and commend their behaviour. Eusebius ix. 8. At the same time Maximinus and his army suffered much in a war with the Armenians, with whom he had quarrelled because they were Christians. Maximinus was defeated by Licinius; and then hé repented, and made an edict favourable to the Christians, whom he had inhumanly oppressed and persecuted, and whose eyes he had put out. He died miserably, and upon the rack, his eyes starting out of his head through the violence of his distemper, A. D. 313. All his family were destroyed, and his wife and children put to death, and with them many persons of rank, and governors of provinces, who had been his friends and dependents, and the ministers of his cruelty in tormenting and destroying the Christians, as Pincentius, Culcianus, Theotecnus. Nor was his latter end like that of illustrious generals, who fighting boldly for their friends and their country, and for an honourable cause, met with a death no less honourable: but whilst his army was drawn up in the field, and ready to engage, he was lurking, and hiding his cowardly head at home; and yet he could not conceal himself from God, who suddenly struck his whole body with a sore plague, and inflicted a punishment suitable to his impieties. In the fifth century, there was a famine in Phrygia and the neighbourhood, and then a pestilence; Ex victus mutatione in morbum delapsi, corporibus ob nimiam inflammationem tumescentibus, oculos amittebant: simulque tussi vexati, tertio die moriebantur." Evagrius, *i. 6. For, being tormented with the most acute and insufferable anguish, he rolled himself upon the ground, and pined away by long fasting, so that his whole form was changed, and he looked like a withered and dried skeleton, or like a living sepulchre, where the soul was buried in a rotten and dead body. At last, through the vehemence of the inward inflammation, he lost his sight, and his eyes started out of his head; and yet still breathing and confessing his sins, he called upon Death to come and release him, which advanced slowly, and not till he had acknowledged that he deserved what he suffered, for his cruelty, and for the insults which he had committed against Jesus Christ.' Eusebius E. H. ix. 10. 'Tarsum postremo confugit (Maximinus). Ibi cum jam terra marique perterreretur, nec ullum speraret refugium, angore animi ac metu confugit ad mortem, quasi ad remedium malorum quæ Deus in caput ejus ingessit. Sed prius cibo se infersit ac vino ingurgitavit, ut solent hi qui hoc ultimo se facere arbitrantur. Et sic hausit venenum. Cujus vis stomacho repercussa, valere non potuit in præsens, sed in languorem malum versa pestilentiæ similem, ut diutius protracto spiritu cruciamenta sentiret. Jam sævire in eum cœperat virus; cujus vis cum præcordia ejus ureret, insustentabili dolore usque ad rabiem mentis elatus est, adeo ut per dies quatuor insania percitus haustam manibus terram velut esuriens devoraret. Deinde post multos vesque cruciatus, cum caput suum parietibus infligeret, exilierunt oculi ejus de caveis. Tunc demum, amisso visu, Deum videre cœpit candidatis ministris de se judicantem. Exclamabat ergo sicut ii qui torqueri solent, et non se sed alios fecisse dicebat. Deinde quasi tormentis adactus fatebatur. Christum subinde deprecans et plorans ut suimet misereretur. Sic inter gemitus, quos tanquam cremaretur edebat, nocentem spiritum detestabili genere mortis efflavit.' Lactantius de Mort. Pers. c. 49. gra Eusebius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and Lactantius (as he is commonly called) agree that Maximinus lost his eyesight before he died. In the circumstances wherein Lactantius and Eusebius differ, the preference seems due to Eusebius, as to one who might be better informed of the truth, and who was less inclined to embellish it with common reports. After this, most of the enemies of our religion were despoiled of all their honours. All the rulers of provinces were put to death, who had acted on the side of Maximinus, and who to please him had cruelly treated the Christians, as Pincentius his principal favourite,-Culcianus, who had destroyed so many Christians in Egypt;-together with several others who had assisted in establishing and sup-. porting his tyranny. Nor did the divine justice suffer Theotecnus, one of our violent persecutors, to escape unpunished.' Eusebius ix. 11. A Roman officer, (whose name Eusebius hath not recorded) to oblige Maximinus, oppressed the Christians at Damascus, and spread calumnies against them; and not long after he died by his own hands, says Eusebius, and inflicted upon himself the punishment due to his wickedness. E. H. ix. 5, 6. Licinius, the last of these persecutors, was conquered and put to death by Constantine, A. D. 323. This worthless and stupid prince could not read or write his own name, and hated all men of learning as much as he did the Christians. 6 His education, rustic, and suitable to his mean and obscure birth, made him totally ignorant of letters. He was a declared enemy to all learning, and called it the pest and the poison of the state; but he had a particular hatred for the profession of the law. He also took a delight in tormenting the most illustrious philosophers, and in making them suffer the punishments inflicted on the vilest slaves, for crimes laid to their charge of which they were innocent.' Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. iv. p. 103. Thus perished this foe to religion, liberty, and literature; whose memory will not perish, but stink through all ages: Καὶ λίην κεῖνός γε ἐοικότι κεῖται ὀλέθρω Ὣς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτις τοιαῦτά The Christians had an illustrious friend and protector in Constantius, the father of Constantine, although he was a Pagan. He lived highly honoured, and greatly beloved by his subjects; his reign was prosperous, he died in peace, leaving several children, of whom the eldest succeeded in his dominions, and became master of the Roman empire. After Christianity was thus established, the emperor Julian renounced the faith in which he had been educated, and oppressed the Christians, and endeavoured to restore Paganism. But having But having reigned a short time, he was cut off in the midst of his days, and perished in his rash and unhappy expedition against the Persians. As this prince had his good as well as his bad qualities, Providence seems to have permitted him to fall in battle, and to die an honourable death. They who were employed or permitted by Julian to persecute the Christians, are said to have perished miserably and remarkably. Tillemont gives us the following account of them, faithfully collected from antient fathers and ecclesiastical historians, which probably contains many truths, mixed with some exaggeration and embellishment; for such was the genius of those times, that doubt and diffidence is unavoidable, where angels, and devils, and monks, and miracles, and visions, and divine judgments, are the subject. The apparitions of armed men, and the revelations which were made to Christians of Julian's death, may justly be taken in the lump as so many pious frauds. We have observed that Count Julian, with Felix, superintendant of the finances, and Elpidius, treasurer to the emperor, apostates all three, had received orders to go and seize the effects of the church of Antioch, and carry them to the treasury. They did it on the day of the martyrdom of St. Theodoret, and drew up an account of what they had seized. But Count Julian was not content with taking away the sacred vessels of the church, and with profaning them by his impure hands: carrying to greater lengths the outrage he was doing to Jesus Christ, he overturned and flung them down on the ground, and sat upon them in a criminal manner, so as to commit actions which one dare not name, adding to this all the banters and blasphemies that he could devise against Christ and against the Christians, who, he said, were abandoned of God. Euzoïus, bishop of the Arians, who were still in possession of the great church, opposing himself to these sacrileges, received from him a blow on the face.' Felix, the superintendant, signalized himself also by another impiety; for, as he was viewing the rich and mag. nificent vessels which the emperors Constantine and Constantius had given to the church; Behold, said he, with what plate the son of Mary is served! It is said that Count Julian and he made it the subject of banter, that God should let them thus profane his temple, without interposing by visible miracles. • But their impieties remained not long unpunished; and Julian had no sooner profaned the sacred utensils, than he felt the effect of divine vengeance. He passed the following night with much disquiet, and the next morning he presented to the emperor an inventory of all that had been seized in the church, and then he informed him of what he had done the evening before, with relation to St. Theodoret. He had done it with a view to please that prince: but the emperor told him plainly that he approved not his putting a Christian to death for no other cause than his religion, and in the very place where he (the emperor) was, which would make it believed that it was done by his secret orders. He complained that this would afford an occasion to the Galilæans to write against him, as they had written against his predecessors, and to make a saint and a martyr of Theodoret. He absolutely commanded him, not only to put no more Christians to death, but to suffer none else. to do it. The count, who little expected such-a reception and reply, remained greatly confounded. The emperor, to comfort him, told him that he should go along with him to sacrifice to the Gods, and by that means to obtain the remission of his fault: and the priests of the idols having presented to the emperor some fowls and other food which had been offered to the devil, he ate of them, and gave some to his uncle. The respect and fear with which the count was seized, permitted him not to eat much. He then retired to his own house, vexed that he had done an odious action, and had also displeased the emperor, so that he would not take any nourishment. Yet the little that he had eaten would not digest, and |