Thomas Tully

son of George Tully, was born in S. Maries parish in the City of Carlile in Cumberland 22. Jul. 1620, educated partly in the Free-school there under Mr. John Winter, and afterwards at Barton Kirk in Westmorland, entred in Queens Coll. in Mich. term, an. 1634, where, by the benefit of a good Tutor, Ger. Langbaine, and a severe discipline, he became a noted Disputant, and at length through several advances, Fellow of the said College. In 1642 he was actually created Master of Arts, and soon after, Oxford being garrison’d, he became Master of the Grammar School at Tetbury in Glocestershire. After the surrender of the Garrison, he returned to his College, and became a noted Tutor and Preacher, and in 1657 he was admitted Bach. of Divinity. Soon after he was made Principal of S. Edm. Hall, so that whereas from the surrender of the said Garrison and before, there were very few or no Students in that House, only some of Queens Coll. that lodged there, he, by his diligence and severe government, made it flourish, equal with, if not beyond, any Hall in Oxon. After his Majesties return to his Kingdoms he obtained a Doctorship of Divinity by creation, a Chaplainship to his Majesty by a friend, the rectory of Grigleton alias Grittleton near Malmsbury in Wilts. by a quondam Pupil, and at length in the month of Apr. 1675 the Deanery of Rippon in Yorksh. from his Maj. by the death of Dr. John Neile, who had that Deanery confer’d upon him in the month of May, an. 1674. by the death of the preceeding Incumbent. This Dr. Tully was a pious man, and many ways very learned, chiefly read in the more antient Writers, yet not so wholly addicted to the perusal of them, but that at some time he took delight to converse with later authors. Those that knew him and his constitution, accounted it his great misfortune that he did betake himself to write controversie, when as throughout the whole managery of it, he laboured under many bodily ills and infirmities, which first by lingring decays, did sensibly impair, and at last wholly shatter, his weaker frame and constitution. He was a Person of severe morals, puritanically inclin’d, and a strict Calvinist; which, as may be reasonably presum’d, was some stop to him in his way to preferment; the want of which he did in some degree resent, seeing so many of his juniors in the University, and all the Kings Chaplains twice told over (during the time he served him) not more deserving than himself, advanced before him. He hath written,

Logica Apodictica, sive tractatus brevis & dilucidus de Demonstratione; cum dissertatiunculâ Gassendi eodem pertinente. Oxon. 1662 in 2 sh. in oct. Which tract is commonly bound up at the end of Manuductio ad Logicam, written by Philip de Trieu, sometimes chief professor of Philosophy in the Jesuits Coll. at Doway.

A letter to a friend in Wilts. upon occasion of a late ridiculous pamphlet, wherein was inserted a pretended prophecy of Thom. Becket. Lond. 1666. in two sheets in qu. The said letter was written to Tho. Gore of Alderton Esq. who gave Dr. Tully the rectory of Grigleton, and the Prophecy was published by one W. Tinker alias Littleton a Minister, who therein usurped Dr. Tully’s name to his disparagement.

Praecipuorum Theologiae capitum Enchiridion didacticum. Lond. 1665.68. &c. oct.

Appendicula practica de coena Domini. Printed with the Enchiridion.

Justificatio Paulina sine operibus ex mente Ecclesiae Anglicanae omniumꝫ reliquorum quae reformatae audiunt, asserta & illustrata, &c. Oxon. 1674. qu.

Dissertatiuncula de sententia Paulinâ, &c. Printed with Just. Paulina, written chiefly against Mr. George Bulls book entit. Harmonia Apostolica, and Mr. R. Baxters Aphorismes. But Mr. Baxter sitting not still (as he never yet hath done) published an answer to it bearing this title. A treatise of justifying righteousness, in two books. 1. A treatise of imputed righteousness, &c. with an answer to Dr. Tully’s Letter, (which he calls angry) 2. A friendly debate with the learned and worthy Mr. Christop. Cartwright, containing first his animadversions on his Aphorismes with my answer. Secondly his exceptions against that answer, thirdly my reply to the sum of the controversies agitated in those exceptions. All published instead of a fuller answer to the assaults of Dr. Tully’s Justificatio Paulina. Lond. 1676. oct. The Aphorismes of Mr. Baxter here defended against Dr. Tully were answer’d as to some passages (1) By Will. Eyre of Salisbury in his Vindiciae justificationis gratuitae, &c. (2) By John Crandon Minister of Fawley in Hampshire, more largely in a just volume intit. Mr. Baxters Aphorismes exoriz’d and authoriz’d, &c. Lond. 1654. qu. To both which Mr. Baxter quickly after publish’d distinct replies, placed at the end of his Apol.—Lond. 1654. qu. One called An admonition to Mr. Will. Eyre, &c. and another, An unsavoury volume of Mr. John Crandons anatomiz’d, &c. But Crandon died before this answer against him came out. The said Aphorismes also were excepted against and animadverted upon at their first coming forth 1650, by many learned men (some of whom wrot upon the motion and desire of their author himself) among whom, were Mr. George Lawson, Dr. John Wallis, Mr. John Warren, and Mr. Christoph. Cartwright were the chief) which being (as he himself confesseth) then but crude and defective for want of time, and use of writing, (this being his first) some suspected it of errour in doctrine, some of novelty, some of divers undigested expressions, and some overvaluing it, received those imperfections with the rest. Upon this he published his suspension of these Aphorismes, then his fuller explication and defence of them in his Apologie, &c. Afterward his additional explication and defence both in his Confession of faith ((a))((a)) Edit. Lond. 1655. qu. &c. and in his Four Disputations of Justification ((b))((b)) Ibid. 1658. qu. &c. And tho he hath in these three several pieces thus largely explain’d himself and his Aphorismes, yet Dr. Tully (as he complains) fell notwithstanding upon him, without taking notice of any of those following treatises, which clear and illustrate his former doctrine in these points. But whatever hath been the Doctors dealing towards him on this account, at which he seems to be so much concern’d, of this I am assured that his publishing the above named book, consisting of two parts, the far greater part of the former being by his own acknowledgment written 3 or 4 years before, and nothing newly added, and immediatly directed against the Doctor, but barely the 6.7. and 8. Chapters, with the answer to the Doctors letter, and the latter part being wholly made up of papers which had passed so many years before between the learned Mr. Christ. Cartwright and himself concerning his Aphorismes: his publishing, I say, these in answer to the Doctors book which came out some time after, was generally looked upon as a scornful slighting and very unfair way of his. And tho he thinks fit to call the Doctor in the general Epistle to the Reader more than once a worthy Person, yet for all this in the very entrance on the 6 Chapt. of the first part, he sufficiently discovers his anger against him in liberally bestowing on a great part of his Justificatio Paulina this foul character, viz. that it is defective in point of truth, justice, charity, ingenuity, and pertinency to the matter. But his published papers wrot long before those books, to which they are very improperly by him called answers, is not unusual with him: and the ingenious and learned Mr. Hen. Dodwell hath not long since complained of this his unjust usuage in relation to himself. To conclude: since the publishing of the said Justificatio Paulina, the author thereof is charactarized by some Church men and Fanaticks to have been a main pillar of the Chur. in defence of her true doctrine. Nay, and long before it was published, a certain hot headed Fanatick, tells us in a book ((*))((*)) Lew. du Moul [•] n in his Account of several advances the Ch. of Engl. hath made towards Rome, p. 31. afterwards by him made extant, that he, Tully, with Mr. Tho. Barlow did keep this University of Oxon from being poyson’d with Pelagianism, Socinianisme, Popery, &c. The other things that Dr. Tully hath written, are these,

A Letter to Mr. Rich. Baxter occasion’d by several injurious reflections of his upon a treatise entit. Justificatio Paulina. Oxon. 1675. qu.

Animadversions on Mr. Baxters pamphlet entit. An appeal to the light. Oxon. 1675. qu. Printed with the aforesaid letter. At length our author Dr. Tully, after he had spent his last years in a weakly and lingring condition, surrendred up his pious Soul to God, in the Parsonage house at Grigleton before mention’d, on the fourteenth day of January in sixteen hundred seventy and five,1675/6. and was buried in the Chancel of the Church there. In his Deanery which he had not enjoyed an year, succeeded Dr. Tho. Cartwright sometimes of Qu. College, in his Principality of S. Edm. Hall, Steph. Penton M. A, sometimes Fellow of New Coll. who was elected thereunto by the Provost and Fellows of Queens Coll. (Proprietaries of the said Hall) on the 15 of Feb. 1675, but with this condition that he resign his rectory of Tingwick in Bucks. and that the society of New Coll. present a Fellow of that of Queens thereunto, which was accordingly done) and in his Rectory of Grigleton, Rich. Hine M. of Arts of Merton Coll.