[Footnote 2: "Upon the whole," says Dr. Priestly, (vol. 2, p. 96) "it appears to me most probable, that Constantine and his friends saw a natural parhelion, and that all the other circumstances were either imagined, or invented; and that the story has lost nothing in passing through the hands of Eusebius." Constantine also states (which I forgot to mention above) that "Christ appeared to him in a dream, the night following, with the very same sign which he had seen in the heavens, ordering him to make a military standard like it, and assuring him that it would be his security in battles." "By this note it will be perceived that I have compared what I have written with the part of the history from whence it was taken, and that I find nothing in it materially erroneous."]
"It appears, however, after all, that Constantine was a man of great moderation, and on the whole, a very good man: yet, that he was not wholly clear from superstition is very evident from the following circumstance. Notwithstanding his extraordinary, and what was supposed by all, miraculous conversion, together with his great pretensions; and all that he had done for christianity, yet he neglected his own _baptism_ till he found he was very nigh his end; when he dressed himself in white, and the bed on which he lay, also all in white, in which dress he was baptised and partook of the _sacrament_! and thus he continued in _white_ till he died. This was undoubtedly from a mistaken notion, that there was something really purifying in those outward ceremonies, and also from the doctrine of the Navatians, a certain sect, whose opinions it was supposed he favoured, though not very openly, i.e. if a person committed sin after having been thus purified he could not die in union with the church.
"You may perhaps object here and say, all this is to no purpose, as christianity was well established before; and had existed for nearly three centuries, and increased too, notwithstanding the many most bitter and cruel persecutions. Therefore what you say respecting Constantine only proves that christianity has been corrupted, but it is no objection against its truth. Very good. If the facts above stated are admitted, let them prove what they will, I am not the author of those facts, nor accountable for what is proved by them. The conversion of Constantine, however, if correct, bears some analogy to the conversion of St. Paul: hence, the supposition that one is not correct, brings a little doubt over the mind respecting the truth of the other: for both being by means which were supernatural; if both are supported on equal testimony, why should they not both share the same fate in our minds? Both were equally possible; it is the want of probability, therefore, arising from the want of equal evidence in its favour, which leads us to reject the truth of the circumstances attending the conversion of Constantine, rather than those attending the conversion of St. Paul. The conversion of Constantine also, if genuine, seems to have been designed for a very different object, and was attended with a very different effect. This would incline me to believe in the validity of that of the apostle's, rather than that of the emperor. Nevertheless, as it respects the facts; he who caused a light at mid-day, above the brightness of the sun, might as easily have painted the sign of the cross on his disk; and he who spake to Saul from Heaven, with an audible voice, in the Hebrew tongue, might as easily have painted letters and words in Greek, so that they might be distinctly read in the firmament!