Mr. Bull's vindicating lic doctrines. Upon the death of this excellent bishop, we are 1675. told by Mr. Bull himself, that he laid perfectly aside How a stop the papers which he had drawn up in defence of his was put to Harmonia, against the strictures of the younger designs, of Gataker, with a design they should have been com- some cathomunicated to his lordship, had he lived longer, and so have been submitted wholly to his censure and disposal. But as the bishop did not much insist to have Mr. Bull's answer, when he had considered Mr. Gataker's Animadversions, and found so little matter in them deserving one: and as Mr. Bull, when he had finished his answer, which was in a few months after he had received it, began to grow more cool and indifferent, the warmth of his spirits being now a little evaporated; and did not care, as he confessed, to take the pains of reviewing and transcribing it for the bishop's perusal and examination the said answer was dropped for the present, and, the bishop dying in the mean time, was hereupon condemned to lie buried in his study, among his neglected papers, having no farther thoughts of letting them see the light, since he was now dead whom he entirely depended upon for his fatherly direction in this matter; and by whose advice and assistance his former book had been published to the world, which gave occasion for this. Whereof there is this account, that presently upon his receiving his own book from the bishop's hand, with those animadversions interspersed, he set himself with all his might to expose the weakness of them, and more fully vindicate the catholic truths, which he had before so publicly maintained in his first book, against all that is commonly brought for the support 1675. of modern notions contrary to them. S And he acquainteth us, that his papers against Mr. Gataker were written only at his leisure hours, in the midst of much other business continually interrupting him, and with so much haste, that they were not to be read by any body besides himself, and hardly by himself neither, except with the help of his memory. The reason for his so hastily setting about this reply, was, besides that most terrible complaint presented against him, by his most passionate and unfair censurer, who was in hopes of getting his book condemned, and the author silenced, and thought, no doubt, he should hereby do God good service, a dissatisfaction in some, that were otherwise hearty well-wishers both to the church and him, who were yet of the opinion, that he had written somewhat too freely in some parts of his Harmony. And though these Animadversions were not indeed printed, yet having been addressed in a solemn manner to the governors of the church, and strenuously also insisted upon in letters to several of them, as a matter of the utmost consequence to the church; and great means being also used to hinder his preferment by some very eminent men; he thought his silence might be interpreted by some as a tacit acknowledgment of his guilt, and that even his delay might be misconstrued also, and give an advantage to his adversary. Upon this, he concluded not to wait for a set answer to his book, as some would have had him, but immediately fell upon his animadverter, and meeting by the way with an endeavour of a more moderate adversary, could not alto 8 Præf. ad Examen Censuræ. gether pass him by. But the bishop's death inter- 1675. vening, as was said, put a stop to what he had designed, so that he had no farther thoughts about it, till the matter was revived afresh by a book of the learned Dr. Tully, levelled directly at him, of which there will be occasion to speak more hereafter. lectures at Oxford. About the same time Dr. Barlow, then Margaret How public Professor at Oxford, and afterwards bishop of Lin- were read coln, in some of his lectures before that learned against him body, is said to have treated Mr. Bull very roughly, even so far as to give him opprobrious names; an account of which was sent him by his learned and pious friend, Mr. Thomas, at that time chaplain of Christ Church, and resident in that university, who was then present, and took notes of all that related to his friend in those lectures. This treatment brought Mr. Bull to Oxford, who with Mr. Thomas waited upon the professor, told him with what inhumanity he had been treated by him, and offered to clear himself from those imputations by a public disputation; but this would not be accepted of. Mr. Bull and his friend thought it very hard to have lectures read against him in the university by so great a man, as if he were not only to be held for an heretic by the church, but even for an heresiarch too; and not to have liberty after all granted him to purge himself from such a public charge of heresy, in the ordinary way of disputation, and before the same auditory to whom he, for the sake of his book, had been thus represented in such gross colours; they could not believe such a proceeding was by any means equal or justifiable in the professor. A disputation was all that Mr. Bull desired for himself; but was prudently enough declined by this 1675. doctor of the chair, not knowing what might have How Dr. Tully be came Dr. Barlow's second a Bull. been the consequences thereof. He excused himself therefore to Mr. Bull as well as he could, and endeavoured to avoid owning the fact, till Mr. Thomas positively affirmed it to his face, offering to produce the notes which he had taken; to which the professor had no more to say: and they parted with no other satisfaction to Mr. Bull, than that the person who had been so forward to defame him in his absence, durst not make good the charge to his face. XXXVIII. Thus Mr. Bull having got the better of the professor, and hearing no more after this from the divinity-chair, had some rest for a time, and an gainst Mr. opportunity therewith, of examining some other controversies of another nature. But though Dr. Barlow was silent after this visit made him, and cared not to meddle more with Mr. Bull; yet a friend and colleague of his was found willing to undertake the cause, and carry on the charge of heterodoxy and innovation against Mr. Bull, which in his lectures he had begun, but wanted courage to maintain. This was Dr. Tully, formerly fellow of Queen's college, and then principal of St. Edmund's hall adjoining who was indeed an eloquent and learned writer: nor must it be denied, that he was a very valuable person for other reasons, and that he did much good in the university. He had some time before printed a sort of 'system in divinity, for the use of young students, which had been well received, * Præcipuorum Theologiæ Capitum Enchiridion didacticum. Lond. 1665, 1668, &c. it having had several editions. But his notions be- 1675. ing partly different from those of Mr. Bull in his Harmonia, the doctor was prevailed on to appear against him and his book in Latin; and thereby to vindicate both himself and his friend, who had been in such a manner challenged as hath been related, And whereas no answer had yet appeared to Mr. Bull's book, but one in English, and that written too by one that was thrown out by act of parliament from the exercise of his ministry; and as this might be matter of applause to Mr. Bull and his friends, that no one yet of the Church of England had undertook to answer him from the press; and that a famous professor, and he reputed no small master in the polemical part of his profession more especially, thought not fit to venture, when nearly attacked, to maintain the cause against him, but seemed rather to retract the charge of heresy, which had been by him so liberally bestowed; it was therefore concluded, that this charge could not, with any modesty, be kept up longer against the Harmonia and its author, without there was a thorough answer to it, written by some learned divine of the Church of England; and one against whom there could lie no exception; who should therein endeavour to make out, that Mr. Bull's explication of the doctrine of justification was properly heretical, as being contrary in a fundamental point to the testimony of Scripture, and against the opinion of the catholic Fathers, the judgment of the Church of England, and the determinations of all the foreign reformed churches. Now there could not be any one fitter for this than The fitness the learned person already mentioned, being of for such an a of Dr. Tully |