Gilbert Burnet Quotes (1643-1715)

“The chief glory of Princes, and the chief of their Titles...is, That they are God's Deputies and Vicegerents here on earth; that they re­present him, and by consequence, that they ought to resemble him. The outward respect paid them, carries a proportion to that Character of Divinity which is on them, and that supposes an imitation of the Divine Perfections in them.”

“Cromwell...said, he hoped he should make the name of Englishman, as great as ever that of a Roman had been.”

“[H]e was a man that knew England well, and was lawyer good enough to be an able chancellor, and was certainly a very incorrupt man.”

“A great king, with strong armies and mighty fleets, a vast treasure and powerful allies, fell all at once: and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was so irrecoverably broken with a touch, that he was never able to retrieve, what for want both of judgment and heart he threw up in a day.”

“I began my study with relation to our home matters with Hooker's Ecclesiasticall Policy [sic], which did so fixe me that I never departed from the principles laid down by him, nor was I a litle delighted with the modesty and charity that I observed in him which edified me as much as his book instructed me.”

“A man of the most extraordinary courage, a steady man, even to obstinacy, sincere, but of a rough and boisterous temper, that could not bear contradiction, but would give foul language upon it. He seemed to be a Christian, but in a particular form of his own. He thought it was to be like a divine philosophy in the mind, but he was against all public worship, and every thing that looked like church. He was stiff to all republican principles, and such an enemy to every thing that looked like monarchy, that he set himself in a high opposition against Cromwell when he was made protector. He had indeed studied the history of government in all its branches beyond any man I ever knew.”

“Nor could any be more qualified for writing the History of his own Times, for he was Curious and Inquisitive, and had a large Acquaintance, and the Opportunity of conversing with all sorts of Persons, of all Ranks, from the Throne downwards. He never heard of any Person of Note, whether at home or abroad, whom he did not take some Opportunity of visiting; and if they were not of themselves ready to declare what they knew, he endeavoured to draw them into it by his curious Questions, as I have been informed by those who knew his ways; so that without Question, there were few who could know more, or so much of the Transactions of these Times he writes of.”

“Bishop Burnet was a man of the most extensive knowledge I ever met with; had read and seen a great deal, with a prodigious memory, and a very indifferent judgment: he was extremely partial, and readily took every thing for granted that he heard to the prejudice of those that he did not like: which made him pass for a man of less truth than he really was. I do not think he designedly published any thing he believed to be false. He had a boisterous vehement manner of expressing himself, which often made him ridiculous, especially in the house of lords, when what he said would not have been thought so, delivered in a lower voice, and a calmer behaviour. His vast knowledge occasioned his frequent rambling from the point he was speaking to, which ran him into discourses of so universal a nature, that there was no end to be expected but from a failure of his strength and spirits, of both which he had a larger share than most men; which were accompanied with a most invincible assurance.”

“Burnet I like much. It is observable, that none of his facts has been controverted, except his relation of the birth of the pretender, in which he was certainly mistaken—but his very credulity is a proof of his honesty. Burnet's style and manner are very interesting. It seems as if he had just come from the king's closet, or from the apartments of the men whom he describes, and was telling his reader, in plain honest terms, what he had seen and heard.”