judgment, temper, and talents for business, as well as his learning and zeal, entitled him to the fullest confidence.

The correspondence subjoined to this edition of his Works will throw still further light upon this part of his history, and tend to confirm this representation of his academical character. Several passages in them shew the lively interest which he took, not only in the literary concerns of the University, but also in the ecclesiastical and parliamentary proceedings connected with its rights and privileges.

This attention, on the part of Dr. Waterland, to academical concerns, may be deemed so much the more deserving of notice, when it is considered, that a very large portion of his time, during the last twenty years of his Headship, was necessarily occupied elsewhere, and his attention required to other professional engagements of high importance. For we have now to trace his progress in a wider field of action, and to view him distinguished both by his honours and his labours in the Church; the one opening the way to the other, as they who had the means of rewarding merit, and were desirous of upholding the interests of sound learning and pure religion, discovered in him one preeminently deserving of their patronage. It is necessary, however, for this purpose, to suspend in some measure the continuation of the biographical part of this narrative, that a more distinct and uninterrupted view may be presented to the reader of the services he has rendered, as an author, to the cause of religious truth, and which have handed down his name to posterity with such distinguished credit.

SECTION III.

WATERLAND'S CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS IN VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

IT was not until some time after Dr. Waterland had attained to academical distinction, that he established his more extensive reputation as an author. The only pieces he had hitherto published were an Assize Sermon preached at Cambridge, July 21, 1713, and a Thanksgiving Sermon preached before the University, June 7, 1716, on the Suppression of the Rebellion. In the year 1719, appeared his first considerable work, entitled, A Vindication of Christ's Divinity, being a Defence of some Queries relating to Dr. Clarke's scheme of the holy Trinity, in answer to a Clergyman in the Country. This being the commencement of the chief polemical contest in which he engaged, and that in which truths of all others the most important were at issue, some account of the previous state of the controversy may not be unacceptable to the reader.

For nearly thirty years of a long and laborious life, Bishop Bull had taken the lead in defence of the doctrines of the Trinity and our Lord's Divinity, against the chief assailants of those doctrines, at home and abroad. Many publications, tending rather to Socinianism than Arianism, were put forth towards the latter end of the 17th century, in Holland and in England. Petavius a Jesuit, Zwicker a Socinian, and Sandius an Anti-Trinitarian, were foremost among foreign writers of this description; against whom Bishop Bull's first great work, his De

fensio Fidei Nicene, was principally directed. His subsequent tract, Judicium Ecclesia Catholicæ, had more immediate reference to the lax opinions of Episcopius and his disciple Curcellæus, and was intended to shew, (as supplementary to his former work,) that the Nicene Fathers held the belief of our Lord's true and proper Divinity to be one of the indispensable terms of Catholic communion. His last great treatise, Primitiva et Apostolica Traditio, in continuation of the same subject, was written expressly against Zwicker; whose extravagant assertions, that the doctrines of our Lord's Divinity, Pre-existence, and Incarnation, were entirely inventions of some of the early heretics, led Bishop Bull to a more full investigation of that part of the subject.

The writers who, at the same time, advocated these heterodox opinions in our own country, were not men of considerable eminence, and were little more than mere importers of these foreign novelties. The names of Biddle, Firmin, and Gilbert Clerke, now scarcely retain a place in our recollection. Yet, excepting some few anonymous writers, these were the chief abettors of Anti-Trinitarianism in England. Some of the anonymous tracts were not, indeed, contemptible productions. One of them, entitled, The Naked Gospel, was written by Dr. Bury, Rector of Exeter college, Oxford, and obtained extensive circulation. Another, called, An Historical Vindication of the Naked Gospel, was ascribed to Le Clerc, an author unquestionably of high literary character. But the labours of these writers would probably not have called forth the powers of

Bishop Bull, had not continental adversaries of still greater reputation taken a prominent part.

It is unnecessary to detail the particular points in debate between this great writer and his several opponents. The reader may find them fully stated in Mr. Nelson's Life of that venerable Prelate. It was Bishop Bull's main object, to take a comprehensive historical view of the subject; and, upon an accurate investigation of the doctrines maintained by the Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers of the Church, to establish a convincing argument, that those doctrines must have been the true primitive articles of the Christian faith, handed down by the Apostles to their successors in the Church; and from which no important deviation, no essential difference, could reasonably be supposed to have gained admittance into the Catholic Creed. This argument had been, by some, contemptuously neglected; by others, insidiously perverted. The authority of the primitive Fathers had become a sort of by-word of reproach among many writers of that period. The Socinians were disposed wholly to set aside their testimony as of no real value. The Arians professed some respect for it, and endeavoured to press it into their own service. Great misrepresentations had obtained currency among the learned, as well as the unlearned, who applied their minds to the subject; and in no instance, perhaps, have profound learning and vigorous intellect been more successfully directed towards correcting such errors, than in these masterly performances of Bishop Bull. To his transcendent merits in this respect, not only the most eminent British and foreign Divines

of his own time have borne testimony; but Theologians in every succeeding period have ascribed to him the credit both of obtaining a complete victory over his opponents, and of having furnished an inexhaustible armoury of weapons for those who came after him in defence of the truth.

But, however decisive this victory might be, it had not the effect of extinguishing the controversial spirit which had become so generally prevalent. The phalanx of adversaries endeavoured to supply by numbers what they wanted in individual strength; and when driven from one untenable position, sought refuge in another. Bishop Bull adhered to his main purpose, that of applying his labours to proofs drawn directly from Scripture or from antiquity; not entering further into metaphysical disquisitions, than was necessary for the illustration of those writings of the primitive Fathers, which he adduced in support of his argument. But it unavoidably occurred, that many subtle and difficult points were brought under discussion, arising out of the peculiar notions started by early heretics, and against which many treatises of the orthodox Fathers had been more immediately directed. The chief heresies they had to combat, were those which led to Tritheism, Sabellianism, or Arianism. In maintaining the great points of our Lord's pre-existence, eternity, and consubstantiality with the Father, the discordant opinions of these several opponents were to be refuted, so as to give neither of them the advantage. In discussing also the subordination of the Son to the Father, more than ordinary precision was necessary, to guard against misconception or misrepresentation,