last hypothesis, most certainly assure yourself how unjust a charge that is, which some 8 bold men have fastened on all the Christian writers before Pelagius, especially on those that flourished within the first three centuries; namely, that they held the same doctrine, which was afterwards condemned by the church as heretical in Pelagius; exalting the rÒ AUTežovσov into the throne of the divine Spirit, and asserting a sufficiency of man's natural powers in his lapsed estate, without the grace of God, to perform those things which conduce unto eternal life. For you may now evidently discern, that those excellent persons were so far from this persuasion, that they believed an absolute necessity of a divine and supernatural principle, even in man entire, to raise and elevate his natural powers unto the attainment of so high an end. And this notion you nowhere find more clearly delivered, than it is by the writers of the first three hundred years. Many learned men have, with a laudable zeal, stood up in vindication of the holy Fathers and martyrs from this foul calumny, and have more than sufficiently done it, by amassing many testimonies out of their writings, wherein they expressly acknowledge an absolute necessity of the divine grace, and the operation of the Holy Spirit in lapsed man, in order to his eternal salvation. But none of them (that I have yet met with) hath made use of this notion, which yet runs (as it were) in a continued vein through the writings "Yet g Among the rest, our countryman Mr. Baxter tells us, "the truth is, most, if not all the Fathers of the first two hun"dred or three hundred years do speak in a language seeming "to lean strongly that way-But the plain truth is, till Pelagius's days, all spoke like Pelagians." Saints' Rest, part I. p. 154. 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 inquiry, 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 NEWBRUGH, IN ANSWER TO A CELEBRATED ROMAN CATHOLIC TREATISE, ENTITLED, "THE CATHOLIC SCRIPTURIST." Published from his Lordship's Manuscript, by his Son Robert Bull, THE PREFACE. COMETIME in last December I received a letter SON 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 |