A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

(4) The Christian church was brought into a state of great peace and prosperity. Now all Heathen magistrates were put down, and only Christians were advanced to places of authority all over the empire. They had now Christian presidents, Christian governors, Christian judges and officers, instead of their old Heathenish ones. Constantine set himself to put honour upon Christian bishops or ministers, and to build and adorn churches; and now large and beautiful Christian churches were erected in all parts of the world, instead of the old Heathen temples.

This revolution was the greatest revolution and change in the face of things that ever came to pass in the world since the flood. Satan, the prince of darkness, that king and god of the Heathen world, was cast out. The roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God, in the strongest dominion that ever he had, even the Roman empire. This was a remarkable accomplishment of, Jer. x.ii. ⟨p. 207⟩"The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." The chief part of the world was now brought utterly to cast off their old gods and their old religion, to which they had been accustomed much longer than any of their histories give an account of. They had been accustomed to worship the gods so long, that they knew not any beginning of it. It was formerly spoken of as a thing unknown for a nation to change their gods, Jer. ii.10.11.; but now the greater part of the nations of the known world were brought to cast off their former gods. That multitude of gods that they worshipped were all forsaken. Thousands of them were cast away for the worship of the true God, and Christ the only Saviour: and there was a most remarkable fulfilment of that in Is. ii.17.18. "And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low▪ and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish." Since that, it has come to pass, that those gods that were once so famous in the world, as Jupiter, and Saturn, and Minerva, and Juno, &c. are only heard of as things which were of old. They have no temples, no altars, no worshippers, and have not had for many hundred years.