The Partiality, which I have so much complained of above in the works of others, I have taken all possible care to avoid in my own; checking the very first emotions of that zeal, which, on my reflecting how long, and how grosly I had been imposed upon, would, if not carefully watched, have proved as strong a biass in me against the _Pope_, and the _Popish Religion_, as the opposite zeal has proved for them in others. 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. These their Historians have strangely misrepresented, measuring the merit of each Pope by the great Things they atchieved, no matter by what means, for the exaltation of their See; which, in other terms, is measuring their Merit by their Pride and Ambition.
The Length of this History requires, I presume, no Apology. Every one knows, that the Popes acted, for several ages, as the Umpires of _Europe_, or rather as the Sovereigns; several Princes being actually their vassals, and the rest affecting to pay them the same respect as if they were. This emboldened them to intermeddle in the public affairs of each State and Kingdom; insomuch that no remarkable event happened, no revolution, no change of government or constitution, which they did not either promote or oppose, as it suited their interest, with too many of them the only standard of right and wrong; and their authority, through the ignorance, credulity, and superstition of those unhappy times, was, generally speaking, of such weight, as to turn the scale into which it was thrown. Besides, they had, in every Kingdom and Nation, their Legates or Vicars, who, together with the Clergy, formed, as it were, a separate State, and one Kingdom or Empire within another. These, at the instigation of the Popes, their Lords and Masters, were constantly encroaching on the Civil Authority and Jurisdiction, on the Rights of the People, and Prerogatives of Princes. Hence arose innumerable Disputes, which, if Princes did not comply with their demands, ended in Anathemas, Interdicts, Civil Wars, Rebellions, private Assassinations, and public Massacres. Those who are versed in the Histories of other Nations, as well as in that of our own, and know what a considerable part the detail of these fatal disputes takes up in the particular Histories of each State and Kingdom, will not find fault with the Length of this, which, if complete, and as such I offer it to the public, must comprise them all. Besides, I have given a summary account of the many Heresies that have sprung up in the Church; of the Councils that have been held; of the religious and military Orders; of their Founders, institutions, fundamental laws, _&c._; subjects all, in some degree, connected with the History of the Popes.