s was
seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the military oath, and
to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those soldiers who threw
away their arms during the peace of the church. [27] While Constantine,
in his own dominions, increased the number and zeal of his faithful
adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful faction in those
provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his rivals. A secret
disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects of Maxentius
and Licinius; and the resentment, which the latter did not attempt to
conceal, served only to engage them still more deeply in the interest of
his competitor. The regular correspondence which connected the bishops
of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to communicate their
wishes and their designs, and to transmit without danger any useful
intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might promote the
service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had taken up arms
for the deliverance of the church. [28]

[Footnote 25: In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of
England were only a thirtieth, and the Protestants of France only a
fifteenth, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit and
power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.]

[Footnote 26: This careless temper of the Germans appears almost
uniformly on the history of the conversion of each of the tribes.
The legions of Constantine were recruited with Germans, (Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 86;) and the court even of his father had been filled with
Christians. See the first book of the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius.]

[Footnote 27: De his qui arma projiciunt in pace, placuit eos abstinere
a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best critics apply these
words to the peace of the church.]

[Footnote 28: Eusebius always considers the second civil war against
Licinius as a sort of religious crusade. At the invitation of the
tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed their zones; or, in
other words, had returned to the military service. Their conduct was
afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice; if this
particular application may be received, instead of the lo se and general
sense of the Gr