the Roman world; and it seems difficult to imagine, had a much longer reign been allowed him, how any thing but success could have attended his measures, and Paganism again become the religion of the empire. But this word stopped his further progress -the cause of Christianity was to go on conquering, and to conquer, and therefore it did conquer; and the apostate himself, in his mortal agony, confessed it. "O thou Galilean," he exclaimed, writhing under a deadly wound, with his hand filled with blood, and casting it into the air, "THOU HAST CONQUERED!"

OPENING OF THE SECOND SEAL;

Or the Church in a state of fiery Division and Discord.

"And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come and see. And there went forth another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." (vi. 3, 4.)

Keeping in remembrance that "a man on horseback, exhibited in divine vision, denotes the going forth of some power in military array divinely commissioned to effect changes upon the earth; and that the character of the change is expressed by the colour of the horse ;" and that the white horse denoted the considerable degree of real purity at that time in the

* Dean Woodhouse.

church, we hence infer that the red, or fire-coloured, denotes the church in a state of war or slaughter, angry, intolerant, and persecuting. And this state of murderous animosity is still more clearly expressed, by its being said that the effect of this change would be to "take peace from the earth, and they should kill one another;" and by the symbol of a great sword." The omission of its being notified to the Apostle in a voice of thunder, shows that this change, although equally real, would be less apparent, and brought about in a more quiet way than the first great change from Paganism to Christianity.

We now again come to facts. It was but sixty or seventy years after the Revolution, symbolized by the first seal, that the great Theodosius was raised up to give the last blow to the idolatry of Paganism. He found it still the religion of the Senate ;-the title, ensigns, and prerogatives of the sovereign pontiff, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, had been accepted, inconsistent as it appears, by the preceding Christian emperors ;statues of the gods were still exposed to public adoration, and four hundred temples still remained open, and the fumes of idolatrous sacrifices were still tolerated. Under these circumstances, Theodosius, in a full meeting of the Senate, solemnly proposed the question, whether the worship of Christ, or that of Jupiter, should be the religion of the Romans? The issue of the appeal was, that the latter was degraded and condemned by a large majority; and from this moment Christianity became the religion of

the empire, as it had previously been that of the emperor. The heathen temples were therefore demolished; it was made a capital crime to sacrifice, or to attend to Pagan rites; and by the most severe and indeed sanguinary edicts, the whole system of the heathen mythology, which had been the boast and pride of so many years, gradually dissolved, and was brought into contempt. To use the language of the celebrated historian of Rome, the idol gods of eleven hundred years were "dragged in triumph at the chariot wheels of Theodosius."

Standing, as this great emperor did, "the last of the successors of Augustus and Constantine, whose authority was universally acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire ;" and standing, as he did, its sole barrier from the barbarian nations which, immediately after his death, swept over it like a flood, he appears like a beacon upon the mountain top, or like a rock in the midst of the wide ocean. And it may be noticed as a very remarkable providence, that the abolition of idolatry, which he effected, was the means of more effectually strengthening the cause of Christianity, and better preparing it for that tremendous shock, which, on the ruin of the empire by the Goths and Vandals, levelled every thing else in the dust.

The Church however, amid these scenes of increasing outward prosperity, of which the reign of Theodosius thus forms a memorable epoch, gave likewise increasing signs of departure from the

truth of the gospel. As far as the personal character of the Emperor himself is concerned, there appears great "His reason to believe that he was a real Christian. clemency, liberality, and generosity," says Milner, 66 were admirable. He was brave and successful in war, but his wars were forced upon him. He was an enemy to drunkenness, and was himself a model of gravity, temperance, and chastity in private life.” "I see," he adds, "in Theodosius the triumphs of the cross; nor in all the Pagan history of the Emperors was there any to be compared to him."

Notwithstanding all this excellence, however, such was the aspect of the times, that all he did only served to foster the seeds of corruption, degeneracy, and strife; and the aspect which the Church presented is found exactly to accord with the representation given in this Seal. It was to the last degree uncharitable, fiery, and revengeful-full of internal divisions and discord; and of such deadly animosity, as frequently, particularly in the election of bishops, to break out in mutual slaughter. The splendid triumphs of Constantine on the one hand, and the hostile spirit of Julian on the other, had until this time greatly restrained this factious disposition. But when relieved from Pagan hostility by the sword and edicts of Theodosius, the animosities of Christians towards each other exceeded all bounds; and the most bloody wars amongst themselves, united to the most detestable crimes, were the consequence.

Even the barbarian invasions but gave more play to

this lamentable spirit: for on the breaking up of the empire, and the church being thereby for a long period free from the restraints of civil government, all checks of this description were removed. The schism of the Donatists, a people who are not even accused by their adversaries of corrupt doctrine, nor of peculiar degeneracy in morals, and which had its origin-in faction, and in a contest for worldly power, was the occasion of thousands of Christians perishing by the hands of each other. The Arian controversy likewise produced similar fruits, and of much longer duration. For other particulars, see Milner's and Mosheim's Histories of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries.

THE OPENING OF THE THIRD SEAL;

Or the Church in a most deplorable state of
Degeneracy and Ignorance.

"And when he had opened the third seal, heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo, a black horse; and he that sat upon him had a yoke in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." (vi. 5, 6.)

The state of things just described continued, until, in the providence of God, Justinian mounted the imperial throne, when another new and decisive change took place. "And lo!"-an exclamation of surprise that was not uttered on the opening of the second seal,