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For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore
happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death,
left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the enemies
of the republic, or were able both to guard against and to suppress the
attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. These and other gifts
or comforts of this sorrowful life even certain worshippers of demons
have merited to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to
which these belong; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God, who
would not have those who believe in Him desire such things as the
highest good. But we say that they are happy if they rule justly; if
they are not lifted up amid the praises of those who pay them sublime
honors, and the obsequiousness of those who salute them with an
excessive humility, but remember that they are men; if they make their
power the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest possible
extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship God; if more
than their own they love that kingdom in which they are not afraid to
have partners; if they are slow to punish, ready to pardon; if they
apply that punishment as necessary to government and defence of the
republic, and not in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant
pardon, not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that
the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate with the lenity
of mercy and the liberality of benevolence for whatever severity they
may be compelled to decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it
might have been unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires
rather than any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not
through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal
felicity, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who is their
God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and
prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the present
time by hope, and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the reality
itself, when that which we wait for shall have arrived.
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