anxious to accomplish. In the preface, after recording his
high admiration of his late friend's merits, he solemnly ends with the
words, 'beseeching God to enable me to finish what I begin in His name,
and dedicate it to His honour and glory.'[60]

Both in his lifetime and afterwards, Bull has always been held in
deserved repute as one of the most illustrious names in the roll of
English bishops. Nelson called him 'a consummate divine,' and by no
means stood alone in his opinion. Those who attach a high value to
original and comprehensive thought will scarcely consider him entitled
to such an epithet. He was a man of great piety, sound judgment, and
extensive learning, but not of the grasp and power which signally
influences a generation, and leaves a mark in the history of religious
progress. He loved the Church of England with that earnestness of
affection which in the seventeenth century specially characterised
those who remembered its prostration, and had shared its depressed
fortunes. Dr. Skinner, ejected Bishop of Oxford, had admitted him into
orders at the early age of twenty-one. The Canon, he said, could not be
strictly observed in such times of difficulty and distress. They were
not days when the Church could afford to wait for the services of so
zealous and able an advocate. He proved an effective champion, against
all its real and presumed adversaries--Puritans and Nonconformists,
Roman Catholics, Latitudinarians and Socinians. An acute
controversialist, skilled in the critical knowledge of Scripture,
thoroughly versed in the annals of primitive antiquity, he was an
opponent not lightly to be challenged. A devoted adherent of the English
Church, scrupulously observant of all its rites and usages, and
convinced as of 'a certain and evident truth that the Church of England
is in her doctrine, discipline, and worship, most agreeable to the
primitive and apostolical institution,'[61] his only idea of improvement
and reform in Church matters was to remove distinct abuses, and to
restore ancient discipline. Yet he was not so completely the High
Churchman as to be unable to appreciate and enter to some extent into
the minds of those who within his own Church had adopted opposite views.
He used to speak, for example, with the greatest respect of Dr. Conant,
a distinguished Churchman of Puritan views, who had been his rector at
Exeter College, and whose instructions and advice had made, he said,
very deep impression