George Bull may be placed next to Herbert Thorndike. Bull was admitted into Exeter College, Oxford, two years before the imposition of the Engagement. That Act, in 1649, ejected him; in consequence of which he became a student in the house of a Presbyterian Rector. The Puritan influence in the rectory, however, became neutralized by the Rector’s son, through whose friendship the young student came to study Hooker, Hammond, Taylor, Grotius, and Episcopius. The father foresaw the result, and, looking at it from his own point of view, would often say, “My son will corrupt Mr. Bull.”[391] Bull has not, like Thorndike, bequeathed any treatise on systematic Divinity in general, nor has he propounded views of the extreme kind, which the former has done in his _Laws of the Church_; but between Bull’s two great works and certain aspects of Thorndike’s teaching there is a considerable resemblance. The first great work produced by him is his _Harmonia Apostolica_, published in 1670, in which he propounds his views upon justification. His general method is to examine the Scriptures in the light of patristic teaching; and, adopting the same principles of interpretation as Thorndike, he arrives at similar conclusions. He is quite as learned as the contemporary of his earlier days, and he is far more lucid and methodical in his mode of treatment; for he can be easily followed, and he can be clearly understood. Also, he is much more cautious in his statements, and he carefully strives to save himself from misapprehension. He attributes salvation entirely to Christ’s meritorious obedience, of which obedience Christ’s death was the consummation and completion. Bull maintains that this obedience satisfied Divine justice, that this alone is the efficacious cause of eternal life; and he constantly insists that no man can, without Divine grace, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, as flowing from the precious side of the Crucified One, perform the conditions of the covenant.