the true art of happiness. Fighting with the Alemanni, he was upon the point of being entirely defeated. Finding himself in the utmost danger, he lifted up his eyes to heaven with tears, and said, "O Jesus Christ, whom Clotilda affirms to be the Son of the living God, I implore thy aid. If thou givest me victory, I will believe and be baptized; for I have called upon my own gods in vain." While he was speaking, the Alemanni turned their backs, and began to flee, and at length submitted and craved quarter. Penetrated with a sense of Divine goodness, as many wicked men have been for a time, Clovis submitted to the instructions of Remi, bishop of Rheims, whom the queen sent to teach him. The chief difficulty he started was, that his people would not follow him in his change of religion. This was obviated by the facility with which they received Remi's lessons. What the lessons were, and what exercises of mind and conscience attended the change, we know not; the external circumstances and forms alone we are informed of, and they are not very instructive. The king himself was baptized at Rheims, and so was his sister, and three thousand of his army. He was at that time the only prince who professed orthodox Christianity. Anastasius, the Eastern emperor, favoured heresy; the rest of the European princes were Arians. Thus a woman was employed as the instrument of a change in her husband; it is true the change was only nominal, but it was followed by very signal effects in Europe, namely, by the recovery of the apostolical faith, and no doubt by the happy conversion of many individuals. Gontamond Christians, A. D. In the year 494, Gontamond, the Vandal, still favours the increasing his kindness to the church, opened all the places of public worship, after they had been shut ten years and a half, and, at the desire of Eugenius, LL 2 494. CHAP. recalled all the other bishops. He died in the year XI. A. D. 496. 496, and was succeeded by his brother Thrasamond. AND here I finish the general history of the West, for this century. Much, both of Divine providence and of Divine grace, appears in it. Superstition had grown gradually in this and the former century. Relics, and various other instruments of the same class, were fast advancing into reputation. The monastic solitudes were strongly calculated to augment these evils: and, in the writings of various pious persons, the unguarded and very injudicious addresses to martyrs, which occur frequently, and which were rather rhetorical flights than real prayers, countenanced exceedingly the growing spirit of apostasy. Every new ceremony, while men were in this frame, strengthened the superstitious spirit, and rendered them less disposed to depend on the Saviour, that is, as the apostle says, TO HOLD THE HEAD*, in the faith and love of the Gospel. Had it not been for the great and solid revival of the doctrine of grace in this century, the wholesome effects of which continued all along in the West, Christianity itself, humanly speaking, would have been in danger of total extinction. The intelligent reader will admire the providential and gracious goodness of the Lord, in preparing, furnishing, and giving success to the important labours of Augustine, through which so many in Africa were enabled to glorify their Saviour by faithfulness to death, under a severe persecution. The despised, desolated church, at once overborne by heretics, and by barbarous Pagans, still lived in Italy, Spain, France, and Britain, to the end of the century, when Providence raised up a Clovis to support that, of which he himself, however, *Coloss. ii. 19. knew not the value. We leave the church in Italy and Spain, only tolerated, but mildly treated, particularly in the former; in Britain, confined to the mountains of Wales and Cornwall; in France, ready to rise again into eminence; and in Africa, just recovered from a dreadful scourge, in which she had gloriously suffered. The changes of a secular kind, though very great in all this period, and alone moving the hearts of worldly men, could not destroy the Church, whose root is not in the world. The patience of the godly was exercised by them, the sins of the Church were scourged, and the Gospel was communicated to Barbarians. The general current of corrupt doctrine was strongly set in: idolatry was too deeply rooted in men's hearts, to be eradicated from any, except those who were Christians indeed, and we shall ere long see it established in the formality of public worship. Nothing, however, had hitherto happened, but what had been predicted. The persecutions of the Church, the short interval of peace †, and the desolations of the empire which succeeded ‡, had all been revealed to St. John. And it may deserve to be remarked, that even amidst all this degeneracy and decay, whoever chooses to compare Christian emperors or priests with Pagans in similar situations, will find a great superiority of character in the former. The meliorating of the condition of slaves, the abolition of tortures, and of other cruel or obscene customs, the institution of various plans for the relief of the poor, and the general improvement of the order of society, are to be attributed in a great measure to the benevolent influence and operation of the Christian religion. * Rev. vi. + Ib. viii. 1. Ib. viii. CENT. V. XII. CHAP. XII. THE EASTERN CHURCH IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. CHAP. THE life and transactions of Chrysostom have introduced us into this scene already, and prepared us to expect no very great work of the Spirit of God. The vices which tarnished the West, were superstition, polemical subtilty, and monasticism. These same vices, meeting with little or no check from the revival, which took place in Africa, and spread a benign influence through the Latin churches, prevailed in the East almost universally, and each of them in a much higher degree; yet here and there, the Spirit of God condescended to move amidst the chaos, and it is our duty to watch and discern his operations. Death of Arsaces, bishop of nople, A. D. 405. Arsaces, who was very old, and who had been appointed bishop of Constantinople in the room of Constanti Chrysostom, died in the year 405. In the next year Atticus, who had been a principal agent in the persecution of Chrysostom*, succeeded him. He seems a person extremely well adapted to an age and metropolis of formal and decent religion, neither so zealous as to give offence by his animadversions, nor so dissolute as to excite disgust by his immoralities. He understood mankind, had good sense; and though he had little learning †, yet he possessed, the art of showing off that little to the best advantage. So *It is very possible this expression may be too strong. The authority for it rests with Palladius, p. 95. The panegyrical biographer of Chrysostom might easily magnify the courtly connivance of Atticus into positive persecution. + Socrates contradicts this; he will have it, that Atticus had much learning, piety, and prudence. I doubt not but he was largely possessed of the last quality. The consideration of the taste and spirit of an author, will explain these contradictions. Decency and good sense, not much of zealous godliness, appear to have been predominant in Socrates. exquisite a courtier as he, would naturally gain over Atticus was certainly a person of a candid temper and beneficent disposition. It had been the custom to mention with honour the names of former bishops in the church; and, with a view to conciliate the friends of Chrysostom, he took care to have his name mentioned among the rest. He distributed alms to the poor of other churches besides his own, and sent three hundred pieces of gold to Calliopius, a presbyter of Nice, for the use of such poor as were not common beggars, but persons who were ashamed to beg, and also for the poor of any other communion besides that of the general church. He said to Asclepias, bishop of the Novatians, "You are happy, who have for fifty years been employed in the service of the church ;" and, on all occasions, he behaved with kindness to these dissenters, and very justly owned their faithfulness to the common cause of Christianity in the days of Constantius and Valens. Were all this liberality of sentiment and practice founded on Christian faith and love, it would doubtless be highly laudable in Atticus: such as he is, in virtues and vices, I have represented his character, and must leave him to that Being to whom judgment belongs. He died in the twenty-first year of his bishopric. During the reign of Theodosius the younger, the son and successor of Arcadius, the Christians in Persia were persecuted grievously, says Theodoret t; were kindly protected, and allowed to propagate the Gospel there, says Socrates. Very circumstantial * Socrates, B. vii. c. 25. + Theod. B. xi. c. 39.* B. vii. c. 8. |