I need add no other wishes or prayers to these: They comprehend all happiness to Your Majesty, to Your Royal Family, and to my Country; and they come from the heart of, _Sir_, _Your Majesty’s_ _Most Loyal_, _Most Faithful_, _And most devoted Subject_, ARCHIBALD BOWER. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PREFACE The Work, which I now offer to the Public, I undertook some years since at _Rome_, and brought it down to the Pontificate of _Victor_, that is, to the close of the Second Century. As I was then a most zealous champion for the Pope’s Supremacy, which was held as an article of Faith by the body I belonged to, my chief design, when I engaged in such a work, was, to ascertain that Supremacy, by shewing, century by century, that, from the Apostles times to the present, it had ever been acknowleged by the Catholic Church. But alas! I soon perceived, that I had undertaken more than it was in my power to perform. Nay, while, in order to support and maintain this cause, I examined, with particular attention, the writings of the Apostles, and of the many pious and learned men who had flourished in the three first centuries of the church, I was so far from finding any thing that seemed the least to countenance such a doctrine, that, on the contrary, it appeared evident, beyond all dispute, that, during the above-mentioned period of time, it had been utterly unknown to the Christian world. In spite then of my endeavours to the contrary, Reason getting the better of the strongest prejudices, I began to look upon the Pope’s Supremacy, not only as a prerogative quite chimerical, but as the most impudent attempt that had ever been made: I say, in spite of my endeavours to the contrary; for I was very unwilling to give up a point, upon which I had been taught by _Bellarmine_, that _the whole of Christianity depended_[1]; especially in a country, where a man cannot help being afraid even of his own thoughts, since, upon the least suspicion of his only calling in question any of the received opinions, he may depend upon his being soon convinced by more cogent arguments, than any in _Mood_ and _Figure_. But great is the power of truth; and at last it prevailed: I became a proselyte to the opinion which I had proposed to confute; and sincerely abjured, in my mind, that which I had ignorantly undertaken to defend.