PREFACE. PREVIOUS to stating the plan and the contents of the present edition of the Works of bishop Bull, some account may be given of the former editions of his works, whether printed separately or collectively. In 1670 he published at London the Harmonia Apostolica in a small 4to. volume. It was reprinted at Basle in 1740. in 8vo. In 1676 he published at London the Examen Censura and Apologia in one volume 4to. In 1685 he published at Oxford the Defensio Fidei Nicænæ in one volume 4to. It has been reprinted at Amsterdam 2. In 1694 he published at Oxford the Judicium Ecclesia Catholicæ, in one volume 8vo. b In 1703 the four preceding works were published at London by John Ernest Grabe, in one volume folio, together with a new tract, Primitiva et Apostolica Traditio, &c. NEW YORK a The 9th chapter of the second section is printed at the end of the fourth volume of the Benedictine edition of Origen. b The bishop of Salisbury (in the preface to work pablished in the present year) speaks of the university of Oxford having republished Bull's Harmonia Apostolica with his whole works. The In 1705 Dr. George Hickes published a work in two volumes, entitled, Several Letters which passed between Dr. G. H. and a popish Priest, &c. In the first volume, p. 225, &c. he inserted a work which was written by Dr. Bull, entitled, The Corruptions of the Church of Rome, &c. an account of which may be seen in Nelson's Life of Bull, p. 329. Dr. Hickes observes in his preface, that an imperfect abstract of this work had stolen into print, but that he now published it with the author's consent. I have not been able to meet with this imperfect abstract; but in the History of the Works of the Learned, 1703, p. 610. I find notice of a book with the following title, The Wonders of the Bishop of Meaux upon the perusal of Dr. Bull's Book considered and answered; and it is not improbable, that this is the work alluded to by Dr. Hickes c. The Corruptions of the Church of Rome had apparently a rapid sale; for I have seen a second edition of it printed in 1707 in 12mo, a third in 1708, and a fourth in 1714 in 8vo. In all these later edi bishop probably alluded to Grabe's edition, forgetting that it was printed, not in Oxford, but in London. The Harmonia Apostolita was never ated at Oxford till now; and the university never, published any edition of Bull's works before the present C I have seen notice in a London Catalogue of the Corruptions of the Church of Rome bearing date 1697. But this must certainly be a mistake, since Bossuet's letter, which called forth this reply, was not written till 1700. tions an appendix was added, containing the Differences between the Churches of England and Rome, by bishop Cousins, and the Creed of pope Pius IV. The work was also reprinted by Dr. Burgess, the present bishop of Salisbury, in the year 1813;d and again in the present year (1827) at the end of a small volume entitled, A Review and Analysis of Bishop Bull's Exposition of the Doctrine of Justification, by Robert Nelson, esq. extracted from his Life of Bishop Bull. It was also printed in 1814 in the second volume of the collection of tracts, entitled, The Churchman armed against the Errors of the Time, p. 51. In 1713, when the bishop had been dead nearly three years, Robert Nelson published an edition of his English Works in three volumes 8vo., the title being, Some important Points of primitive Christianity maintained and defended, in several Sermons and other Discourses, together with a fourth volume containing his Life. None of these Works had hitherto appeared in print. They consisted of twenty Sermons, four Discourses in English upon d At the end of the same pamphlet was printed what was considered to be an original and unpublished letter of bishop Buil, from the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, N. 934. article 71, endorsed, "Copy, Mr. Archdeacon Bull's L'. Jan. 1705. But it is evident, by an inspection of the letter, that it was not written by bishop Bull, but by his son, who was made archdeacon when his father was elected bishop in 1705, and the date of this letter should be 170, i. e. 1706. a 3 different subjects, and a fifth Discourse written in Latin, entitled, Breves Animadversiones in Tractatum Gilberti Clerke, of which there is also an English translation, apparently made by Nelson. The work had a rapid sale, and a second edition of the Life was published in 1714. All the four volumes may be found with title-pages of this date; but upon inspection it will appear, that the volume containing the Life was the only one which was reprinted e. Some few alterations were made in the second edition. A difference will be found at p. 53; but as far as p. 406. the two editions were made exactly to correspond in their pages; in this place there is a slight alteration about the burial of Dr. Grabe, and from hence to the end the paging is different. This edition was reprinted at Oxford by Baxter, in 1816, in three volumes 8vo. ; but the editor appears not to have been aware that the Life of Bull had been published in 1714 as well as in 1713, and he printed from the latter; consequently the alterations, which had been introduced in the second edition, are not found in the reprint made at Oxford f e I have seen notice in London Catalogues of the works of Bull in three volumes 1719, and in two volumes 1725. If there is:ng mistake in these dates, the former copy had probably only a new title-page, but the mention of two volumes is unquestionably wrong. All the three volumes of Nelson's edition were paged throughout, and could not be separated. Gopious extracts from Nelson's Life of Bull have been printed by the bishop of Salisbury in the work already mentioned, page v. |