MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 129 



The chief Anglican classic on the subject now before 

 us is Bishop Bull's discourse Concerning the First 

 Covenant, and the State of Man Before the Fall} This 

 discourse undoubtedly contains speculative and doubt- 

 ful propositions.^ But its main contentions are inde- 

 pendent of them, and are shown to be both scriptural 

 and catholic by sufficiently adequate quotations and 

 references. The doctrine which he thus elaborates 

 and defends may be reduced to the following particu- 

 lars: I. Before our primitive parents had sinned they 

 were brought into conscious communion with God,/ 

 and placed under probation, the terms of which were 

 contained in a divine covenant. 2. The keeping of 

 this covenant was to insure immortality, but its viola- 1 

 tion was to be punished with reversion to the mortality' 

 of man's natural condition. 3. Previously to their fall, . 

 our first parents were able to keep their animal pro- 

 pensities in subjection to the spirit, and wholly to 

 avoid sin. 4. The cause of this capacity for sinless- 

 ness, and of this prospective immunity from physical 



1 The Works of George Bull, D.D., Lord Bishop of St. Davids, 

 Collected and Revised by the Rev. Edward Burton, M.A., Oxford, 

 1827, Vol. II, Discourse V. 



2 For example, his belief, shared in by other writers of his day, 

 that Adam possessed a marvellous degree of intelligence. It is well- 

 nigh impossible to find an adequate treatment of any doctrine which 

 does not incidentally exhibit opinions that are supported neither by 

 accurate exegesis nor by catholic consent. The presence of such 

 elements in a theological treatise does not necessarily rob the treatise 

 of value in relation to its maintenance of catholic doctrine. It is 

 possible to distinguish between the speculative and the catholic ele- 

 ments, and to ignore the former. 



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