Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/426

 408 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, tlie many signal proofs which they have received of the ___iJi_i__ divine favour ; and they trust that the same Providence will for ever continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be de- duced, of a different, but not of an incompatible, na- ture. The mind of Constantine might fluctuate be- tween the pagan and the christian religions. According to the loose and complying notions of polytheism, he might acknowledge the God of the christians as one of the many deities who composed the hierarchy of hea- ven. Or perhaps he might embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects and all the nations of mankind are united in the worship of the common Father and Creator of the universe''. Use and But the counsels of princes are more frequently in- beauty of ^ i, • p it i , the christian nuencecl by views 01 temporal advantage, than by con- niorality. siderations of abstract and speculative truth. The partial and increasing favour of Constantine may natu- rally be referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of the christians ; and to a per- suasion, that the propagation of the gospel would in- culcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil ob- ligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid 1 A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p. 7, and Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 246.) uses the following remarkable ex- pression : " Summe rerum sator, cujus tot nomina sunt, quot linguas gen- ^ tiuni esse voluisli, quern enim te ipse dici velis, scire non possumus." Pa- negyr. Vet. ix. 26. In explaining Constantine's progress in the faith, -Mosheim (p. 971, etc.) is ingenious, subtile, prolix.