the reality, and the validity of those differences themselves have not thereby been lessened or affected. Truth is unchangeable in itself; and Popery, in its claim to infallibility, cannot profit by experience; nor accommodate itself to the progress of the human mind in its advance to increased knowledge, and more perfect conformity to the will of God. Far be it from us to minister to an angry, unchristian, unsocial feeling towards the members of the Church of Rome: we seek not in their history to find occasion for prolonging angry controversy or rancorous hostility; but, taught by the records of her ambition and her guilt, we shall not surely err if we earnestly invite her members to a consideration of their principles and her practice, whilst we more earnestly attach ourselves to that uncorrupted faith for which the witnesses of the truth have ever zealously contended, not counting their lives dear unto themselves. As the Events narrated in the following pages cannot but be generally known to the readers of Ecclesiastical History, it may be sufficient to state, that the Authorities made use of, include the Works of Mosheim, Milner, Scott, Gibbon, Robertson, Claude, Roscoe, Burnett, Mill, Faber, Eustace, Fry, Blair, Grier, Southey, Middleton, White, Vaughan, Townsend, Father Paul, &c. &c. whose very words are most frequently interwoven with the body of the Narrative ;-utility, not originality, being the Author's object. The Chronological Table; and the Account of the General Councils, prefixed to Vol. I. will, it is presumed, be found useful, as matters of reference, in the course of perusing the History itself. |