ings of all the primitive Fathers, and strikes (as we but now observed) at the very heart of the Pelagian heresy.

Thus I have returned a very large answer to the enquiry, concerning the covenant of life made with man in the state of integrity, much larger, I believe, than was expected, and, I am sure, than I at first intended. For I have scarce, I think, omitted any thing which might be said of that covenant with any certainty, either from the express dictates of the sacred oracles, or from the consent of the catholic church, the best guide we can follow in those cases wherein the holy Scriptures speak less plainly.

A

VINDICATION

OF

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND,

FROM

THE ERRORS AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.

Wherein, as is largely proved,

THE RULE OF FAITH, AND ALL THE FUNDAMENTAL ARTICLES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, ARE RECEIVED, TAUGHT,

PROFESSED, AND ACKNOWLEDGED.

BY

DR. GEORGE BULL,

LATE LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S.

WRITTEN,

AT THE REQUEST OF THE COUNTESS OF NEW BRUGH,

IN ANSWER TO A CELEBRATED ROMAN CATHOLIC TREATISE,

ENTITLED,

"THE CATHOLIC SCRIPTURIST."

Published from his Lordship's Manuscript, by his Son Robert Bull, Rector of Tortworth, and Prebendary of Gloucester.

THE

PREFACE.

SOMETIME in last December I received a letter from Mr. Curll the bookseller, acquainting me that a manuscript of my father's, entitled, A Letter to the Countess of Newbrugh, was found among the papers of a gentleman lately deceased. The manuscript hath since been transmitted to me, and I have carefully perused it. And though I was at first surprised to find it not written in my father's own hand, yet, upon farther recollection, I see no manner of reason to question but that the treatise is his; having frequently heard him mention such a letter, and seen several of his papers (written, as near as I can guess, about the same time) transcribed by the same hand. From whence I farther conclude, that the manuscript, of which I am now speaking, is the very same that was sent to the countess of Newbrugh, and which Mr. Nelson so laments the loss of, p. 66. of his Life of my father. For the sake of those readers who may not have seen that excellent piece of Mr. Nelson's, I shall here insert the whole paragraph.

"While Mr. Bull was rector of Suddington, the

providence of God gave him an opportunity of

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fixing two ladies of quality, in that neighbourhood, "in the protestant communion, who had been re"duced to a very wavering state of mind, by the "arts and subtleties of some Romish missionaries. "Their specious pretences to antiquity were easily "detected by this great master of the ancient Fa"thers; and by his thorough acquaintance with Scripture, and the sense of the catholic church "in matters of the greatest importance, he was able "to distinguish between primitive truths, and those " errors which the church of Rome built upon them. "He had frequent conferences with both these la"dies, and answered those objections which appeared to them to have the greatest strength, and by which they were very near falling from their "steadfastness: For one of them he writ a small “treatise, which she had requested from him, but "no copy of it is to be found among those papers "he left behind him; nothing remaineth of it but "the remembrance that it was written, and that "he did thereby succeed in establishing the lady "in the communion of the Church of England. "Both the ladies always owned, with the greatest

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sense of gratitude, this signal service they received "from the learning and capacity of Mr. Bull. None "can well apprehend how grievous a state of human "life doubt is, in matters of consequence, but they “who feel it; and therefore no wonder if they "blest that happy instrument by which fresh light was conveyed into their minds, and those uncer