Archibald Bower

“ The support of Your Royal Family is therefore most necessary, even upon motives of self-preservation, to every Protestant both here and abroad. May a due sense of that important connection between Your safety and Theirs, be always kept alive in their minds. May our Holy Religion continue to flourish under Your Majesty’s Care, and that of Your Royal Posterity, to the latest times. May neither the open attacks, nor secret machinations of Rome prevail against it. ”

“ I have always preferred the contemporary writers, when equally credible, to those who wrote after, tho’ not without taking notice of their disagreement; and such as flourished nearest the times when the transactions happened, which they relate, to those who lived at a greater distance. Pursuant to this Rule, in delivering the Lives of the Bishops who governed the Church of Rome during the First Ages of Christianity, I have confined myself wholly to the Primitive writers, trusting no Modern any farther, than as he wrote from the Antients. ”

“ The vices and vicious actions of the bad Popes I have not dissembled; but neither have I magnified them: the virtues and commendable actions of the good Popes I have neither lessened nor misconstrued; nay, I have more than once justified the conduct and character of some pious men among them, greatly injured by their own Historians, because they lived, and suffered mankind to live, in peace; applying themselves solely, as it became good Bishops, to the discharge of their Pastoral duty. ”

“ Estates are lawfully bequeathed to the Ministers of the Heathen Temples; no Layman is excluded, let his Condition be ever so low, let his Life be ever so scandalous: Clerks alone are debarred of a Right common to the rest of Mankind. Let a Christian Widow bequeath her whole Estate to a Pagan Priest, her Will is good in Law; let her bequeath the least Share of it to a Minister of God, her Will is null. I do not mention these Things by way of Complaint, but only to let the World know, that I do not complain; for I had rather we should want Money, than Virtue or Grace [1023] . ”

“ By a like obligation, a writer, who has, even ignorantly, combated truth, is bound, not only to lay down his pen, as soon as he finds himself engaged in a bad cause, but, when occasion offers, to turn against error in favour of truth the very weapon he had employed against truth in favour of error. ”

“ Infallibility, even thus curtailed, is, no doubt, a most valuable Treasure to the Owner, but of no more Use to the rest of Mankind than a Treasure concealed under-ground; and, on that very Account, it ought in common Sense to be exploded. ”

“ False and lying Traditions are of an early Date, and the greatest Men have, out of a pious Credulity, suffered themselves to be imposed upon by them. How many Traditions, after having reigned for Ages without Controul, were upon the Reformation, when Men took the Liberty to examine what they believed, rejected by the Church, ashamed to own them, and degraded into popular Errors! ”

“ In this respect we must own the Popes to have been, generally speaking, men of extraordinary talents, the ablest Politicians we read of in History, Statesmen fit to govern the world, and equal to the vast dominion they grasped at; a Dominion over the Minds as well as the Bodies and Estates of mankind ”

“ What a large Field would the so many different and ridiculous Habits of the Monks and Friers, the costly Attire of Bishops and Cardinals, and, above all, the gorgeous and stately Apparel of Celestine’s own Successors, have opened for his Zeal, had he lived in our Days! ”

“ Nestorius himself a
cruel Persecutor. Such were the Sufferings, such was the End, of the famous Nestorius; and both reflect no small Disgrace on the Ecclesiastics of those Times, especially on Celestine and Cyril; for by them this cruel Persecution was raised, and by them it was carried on; the Laymen being only the Ministers of their Cruelty and Revenge. ”

“ Is not the scandalous Method, which he took on this Occasion to extend his own Power, and curtail that of the African Bishops, a Demonstration of his deriving his Claim from the Canons alone? Could there ever offer a better Opportunity, could there ever occur a more urgent Necessity, of asserting a Divine Right? As Zosimus therefore never asserted, nor even mentioned, such a Right, we may well conclude, that he either had no Notion of it, or did not think it sufficiently grounded to be of any Use in the present Dispute. ”