Section 435
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404 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. see such things, and to celebrate such things as many of the really pious and martyrs of God, before us ardently craved to see, and did not see them, and to hear, and did not hear them. But they, indeed, hastening on their course, obtained " what was far better ;" being transferred to the heavens themselves, and to the paradise of celestial pleasures. But we freely acknowledg ing this state of things in our day as better than what we could expect, have been beyond measure astonished at the magnitude of the grace manifested by the author of our mercies, and justly do we admire and adore him with all the powers of our mind, and bear witness to the truth of those declarations recorded, where it is said, " come hither and behold the works of God, the wonders that he hath done upon the earth ; he removeth wars until the ends of the earth, he breaketh the bow and snappeth the spear asunder, and burneth the shields in fire." Rejoicing in these things fulfilled in our day, we shall pursue the tenor of our history. All the race of the enemies of God were destroyed in the manner we have stated, and were thus suddenly swept away from the sight of men, as the divine Word again declares : " I saw the wicked lifted up and exalted like the cedars of Le banon, and I passed by, and lo, he was not ; and I sought, and his place was not found." And now a bright and splendid day, with no overshadowing cloud, irradiated the churches in the whole world with its celestial light ; neither was there any indisposition even on the part of those who were strangers to our faith, to enjoy with us the same blessings, or of sharing at least in the overflowings of these as they were provided from God. CHAPTER II. The restoration of the churches. ALL men, then, were liberated from the oppression of the tyrant, and those who had been delivered from the miseries pre viously existing, acknowledged, one in one way, and another in