From Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 27:

[I have been upset while reading Gibbon in the past, but this did it for me today.]

I am amazed at anyone who can uphold Ambrose as a church father worthy of respect or admiration or recognize in him some working of the Holy Spirit in harmony with evident life eternal. This is a wicked man who used his church position to influence civic affairs and supported such interference with wretched tricks of these unearthed and bloody skeletons. I have to agree with another bad man Peter Ruckman who called the church fathers the church babies. To think that Augustin supported him is a problem for me in that I have admired Augustin through the lens of Calvin. But this is too much for me. It is exacerbated by the Sunday school lessons teaching church history using these wicked and worldly men. Ruckman's language, which I do not really condone, is more understandable in the face of this deception on a grand scale by church organizations and leadership for what I would guess aids the masses in simplification and maybe apostolic succession or continuity which I do not believe the true church needs. We have the preserved Word of God in the King James Version of the Bible. Ruckman was right about that too. We do not need to trace back a continuous line of leadership to accept truth as truth. We have the testimony of the Spirit of God. We have it in earthen vessels, and we are weak, but God maintains the truth by maintaining His very Word and by His Spirit in every age. We do not need man's stamp of authenticity. Or history. Or man's false church. #Ambrose #PeterRuckman #Augustin #Paulinus #Chrysostem #KJV #churchhistory