laudable Practice

The Dutch Remonstrant theologian Episcopius was, as Nelson notes in his his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , an influential figure in Bull's thinking from his student days . Indeed, Episcopius' Institutiones Theologicae  (1650) was regarded by Bull as "the best System of Divinity that had appeared". That said, however, we have seen how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae  demonstrated a common concern amongst English non-Calvinist Episcopalians that Remonstrant thought could become Socinian-adjacent , a "lurking Poison, which might secretly instil itself into the Minds of unwary Readers". In 1694, Bull returned to this matter, publishing a significant critique of a particular aspect of Episcopius' thought regarding Nicene Christology: In the Year 1694, Dr. Bull, while Rector of Avening, published his Judicium Ecclesia Catholicae , which was printed at Oxford, and written in defence of the Anathema, as his former Book had been of the Faith, pronounced at the...

From the Preface to Taylor's The Psalter of David (1647), a statement of gracious and generous orthodoxy, in a time of bitter and violent confessional divisions in these Islands and in Europe: For in that which is most concerning, and is the best preserver of charity, I mean practical devotion and active piety, the differences of Christendom are not so great and many, to make an eternal dis-union and fracture; and if we instance in Prayer, there is none at all abroad (some indeed we have commenc'd at home, but) in the great divisions of Christendom, none at all but concerning the object of our prayers and adorations. For the Socinian shuts the Holy Ghost from his Litanies, and places the Son of God in a lower form of address. But concerning him I must say, as S. Paul said of the unbelievers, What have I to do with them that are without? For this very thing that they disbelieve the article of the holy Trinity, they make themselves uncapable of the communion of other Christian ...