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 on him.[62] So, on the other hand, although a strenuous opponent of Rome, he did not fail to discriminate and do justice to what was Catholic and true in her system.  And it tells favourably for his candour, that while he defended Trinitarian doctrine with unequalled force and learning, he should have had to defend himself against a charge of Arian tendencies,[63] simply because he did not withhold authorities which showed that the primitive fathers did not always express very defined views upon the subject.  His most notable and unique distinction consisted in the thanks he received, through Bossuet, from the whole Gallican Church, for his defence of the Nicene faith; his most practical service to religion was the energetic protest of his ‘Harmonia Apostolica’ in favour of a healthy and fruitful faith in opposition to the Antinomian doctrines of arbitrary grace which, at the time when he published his ‘Apostolic Harmony,’ had become most widely prevalent in England.

Bull had been ordained at twenty-one; he was consecrated, in 1705, Bishop of St. Davids, at the almost equally exceptional age of seventy.  He succeeded a bad man who had been expelled from his see for glaring simony; and it was felt, not without justice, that the cause of religion and the honour of the Episcopate would gain more by the elevation of a man of the high repute in which Bull was universally held, than it would lose by the growing infirmities of his old age.  He accepted the dignity with hesitation, in hopes that his son, the Archdeacon of Llandaff, who however died before him, would be able greatly to assist him in the discharge of his duties.  But as he was determined that if he could not be as active as he would wish, he would at all events reside strictly in his diocese, he saw little or no more of his friend Nelson, of whom he had said that ’he scarce knew any one in the world for whom he had greater respect and love.’[64] During the first four years of the century there had been a frequent correspondence between them on the subject of his controversy with Bossuet, with whom Nelson had long been in the habit of interchanging friendly courtesies.  The Bishop of Meaux had written, in 1700, to Nelson, expressing admiration of Bull’s work on the Trinity, and wonder as to what he meant by the term ‘Catholic,’ and why it was that, having such respect for primitive antiquity, he remained nevertheless separated from the unity of Rome.  Bull wrote in answer his ‘Corruptions of the Church of Rome,’ and sent the manuscript of it to Nelson in 1704.  It did not, however, reach Bossuet, who died that year.  Bishop Bull followed him in 1709.