Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I:
The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and Eusebius.: Chapter LVIII

Chapter LVIII.—He glorifies him again for his Government of the Universe.

The truth of this is assured to us by thy works. It is thy power which removes our guilt, and makes us faithful. The sun and the moon have their settled course. The stars move in no uncertain orbits round this terrestrial globe. The revolution of the seasons recurs according to unerring laws. The solid fabric of the earth was established by thy word: the winds receive their impulse at appointed times; and the course of the waters continues with ceaseless flow, 3204 the ocean is circumscribed by an immovable barrier, and whatever is comprehended within the compass of earth and sea, is all contrived for wondrous and important ends.

“Were it not so, were not all regulated by the determination of thy will, so great a diversity, so manifold a division of power, would unquestionably have brought ruin on the whole race and its affairs. For those agencies which have maintained a mutual strife 3205 would thus have carried to a more deadly length that hostility against the human race which they even now exercise, though unseen by mortal eyes.

Footnotes

Probably meaning rains.

[Constantine seems here to allude to the Gentile deities as powers of evil, capable, if unrestrained by a superior power, of working universal ruin.—Bag.]