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eth the doctor to be a very worthy person, and con- 1676. sequently one, that could not willingly be guilty of any such defect as he is here charged with. And indeed, it was the unhappiness both of Mr. Baxter and him, that they gave but too much reason for the imputation, under which they both equally lay, of being angry writers. This treatment of him by Mr. Baxter I the rather mention, that, if some things in Mr. Bull's Apology may appear a little too severe upon this writer, the reader may easily think there was some occasion for it more than could have been wished. For the good man it seems had represented to himself those three, Bull, Bellarmin, and Baxter, as the three great adversaries of the faith, which was professed by him, and which he verily believed to be no other than that of the Church of England: and thence he falleth so very foul upon each of these, as if they were in a triple league together, and layeth about with all his might to overthrow what he supposeth to have been designed by them, against that which he esteemed as the very Christian palladium, and is by him so called. The first and last of these pleaded their own cause, as we have seen; and not without success, especially the first; so only Bellarmin is left to shift for himself, who, after all, wrote notwithstanding on this subject with more moderation than most of his communion, or he himself who formed the charge against him, and who for certain was dragged into the controversy, only for the sake of the other two.

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Tombes

There was also another answer, about the same How Mr. time, to Mr. Bull's Harmonia, written in Latin by animad

i Justif. Paulin.

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verted upon

1676. John Tombes, B. D. who hath been before mentioned; of which I find very little notice to have been Mr. Bull. taken, though some k will have it that there were few better disputants in his age than he was; and it is certain, that he had studied this controversy for some time before, both in his debates with the antinomians, and those which he had with the greatest opposer of them among the presbyterians. For he had, near about twenty years before, written also in Latin m some Animadversions upon Mr. Baxter's Aphorisms concerning Justification; and had, on the other hand, preached likewise in London, before an eminent congregation, several sermons against Dr. Crisp, and certain dangerous mistakes and misapplications of the protestant doctrine of justification. Mr. Baxter, it seemeth, printed these animadversions of his adversary, but without acquainting him first therewith, and replied to them. This dealing, Mr. Tombes, being thereby prevented from explaining himself farther as he had intended, hath complained of as hard; even as Mr. Baxter hath done of Dr. Tully: and hereupon he drew out all his artillery against Mr. Bull, whom he considered as an enemy of greater weight, and one from whom he might expect also other treatment; and therefore was resolved to make his last effort now upon one, that was esteemed the most perfect master in controversy, and who had brought together the whole strength of the cause in which he was engaged, with all the management and learning that could set it

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k Athen. Oxon. Life, chap. ix.

1 Ed. Calam. Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's m Animadversiones quædam in Aphorismos

Richardi Baxteri de Justificatione, 1658.
Animad. in Lib. G. Bulli, &c.

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Epist. Ded. ad

off to the best advantage. Besides, he took this oc- 1676. casion of farther clearing and justifying what he had written against the aphorist, before Dr. Tully entered the lists against him: and of giving the world his second and more correct thoughts upon these nice points, so controverted by protestants and papists among themselves. It is also very probable, that he did not find that satisfaction in Dr. Tully's answer to Mr. Bull, this having been out then above a year, which he first looked for: and that he was still more dissatisfied with the answer of Mr. Truman, whose principles were not a little different from his. As for the animadversions of the younger Gataker, he could not have seen them, they not being printed till his own were in the press: and if he had seen and read them, it cannot be thought that he would have been diverted by any thing in them from undertaking a labour which lay so near his heart, and whence he promised himself so great a triumph. But he was now grown old, and not the man he formerly had been, whatsoever he might think of himself, or what assurance soever he might have of victory, as an advocate for the first reformers, as he would be thought to be. For it was evidently a weakness in him, at threescore and twelve years of age, when he was quite worn out, and just ready to drop into his grave, to begin a new combat, unprovoked, and because, about twenty or thirty years before, when he was in the full vigour both of body and mind, he had been successful enough in engaging with an adversary visibly inferior in strength, to undertake now, in his latter days, to grapple with an enemy every way his superior, an exact master in the arts of this sort of war, and one

1676. so extraordinarily accomplished besides, both by experience and study, for maintaining and defending this particular cause dependent betwixt them, as our Mr. Bull was, even beyond some who otherwise might be his rivals in learning; he being then also in the very prime and fulness of strength, and every way qualified for such labours as these of the mind. The old man, zealous however for his cause, published at London his book against Mr. Bull, just at the very same time that Mr. Bull's justification of himself, and his work against Mr. Gataker and Dr. Tully, came forth. But this did him no harm at all; for he had so fully already removed all the material objections of Mr. Tombes, in his answers to the strictures of those two learned Calvinian divines, and so clearly demonstrated the weakness of their foundation, that there needed no farther apology to be made for his book and himself, against such an hypothesis as could be not better defended by the great learning of its supporters. Mr. Tombes's book was called, ° Animadversions upon a book of George Bull's, which he hath entitled, The Apostolical Harmony. According to the title-page, it should have been published in 1676, but Mr. Bull had seen a printed copy of it before the end of 1675, when he was concluding his general preface to his two apologetical treatises aforenamed, so that the edition of it must have been in Michaelmas term of this last year, and about half a year before the author's death.

This Mr. Tombes, our author's last adversary, as

• Animadversiones in Librum Georgii Bulli, cui titulum fecit Harmonia Apostolica, &c.

animad

and verter and

his charac

the ter.

to his cause, were it not for some notions which he 1676. fell into against the catholic practice and doctrine of An account the church, such as men of learning in the several of this new communions could by no means approve of, which particularly Mr. Bull was averse to in highest degree, he might possibly have preserved a reputation among the learned, not inferior to many of his age. He was educated at Oxford, in Magdalen ball, under the famous Mr. William Pemble, author of Vindicia Gratia, and of several other learned treatises, whom he succeeded in the catechetical lecture of the said hall : and approved himself an excellent disputant, and no bad divine upon the principles of the anti-remonstrants, which were then much in fashion. It cannot be denied, but that he was esteemed a person of incomparable parts: and therefore was chosen lecturer in this hall, upon his tutor's decease, when he was yet but one-and-twenty years old, and of six years standing only in the university. Which lecture he held for about seven years; and then left Oxford, and went to Worcester first, and after that to Lemster in Herefordshire; at both which places he made himself very popular by his preaching. But having no preferment bestowed upon him, as some will have it, suitable to his merit, it is thought he became uneasy to see himself so much neglected: and thence made himself to be suspected as a person inclined to the puritans; or not so rightly affected at least to the church established, as by his education he ought to have been. Which suspicion increased more and more concerning him, as the faction against church and state grew stronger: and having acquired no small reputation in the place where he lived, for a more power

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