.—That God chose Constantine to be the Minister of Blessing.
“ now, with such a mass of impiety oppressing the human
race, and the commonwealth in danger of being utterly destroyed, as if
by the agency of some pestilential disease, and therefore needing
powerful and effectual aid; what was the relief, and what the remedy
which the Divinity devised for these evils? (And by Divinity is meant
the one who is alone and truly God, the possessor of almighty and
eternal power: and surely it cannot be deemed arrogance in one who has
received benefits from God, to acknowledge them in the loftiest terms
of praise.) I myself, then, was the instrument whose services He chose, and esteemed suited for the accomplishment of his will. Accordingly, beginning at the remote Britannic ocean, and the regions where, according to the law of nature, the sun sinks beneath the horizon, through the aid of divine power I banished and utterly removed every form of evil which prevailed, in the hope that the human race, enlightened through my instrumentality, might be recalled to a due observance of the holy laws of God, and at the same time our most blessed faith might prosper under the guidance of his almighty hand.