Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tully, Thomas

by Edward Irving Carlyle

TULLY, THOMAS (1620–1676), divine, son of George Tully of Carlisle, was born in St. Mary's parish in that city on 22 July 1620. He was educated in the parish free school under John Winter, and afterwards at Barton Kirk in Westmoreland. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 17 Oct. 1634, graduating B.A. on 4 July 1639, and M.A. on 1 Nov. 1642. He was elected a fellow of the college on 23 Nov. 1643 and admitted 25 March 1644. When Oxford was occupied by the parliamentarians he retired, and obtained the mastership of the grammar school of Tetbury in Oxfordshire. Returning to Oxford, he was admitted B.D. on 23 July 1657, and in the year following was appointed principal of St. Edmund Hall and rector of Grittleton in Wiltshire. After the Restoration he was created D.D. on 9 Nov. 1660, and nominated one of the royal chaplains in ordinary, and in April 1675 was appointed dean of Ripon. He died in the parsonage-house at Grittleton on 14 Jan. 1675-6. Tully's strict adherence to Calvinism, according to Wood, hindered his advancement.

He was the author of:

1. 'Logica Apodeictica, sive Tractatus brevis et dilucidus de demonstratione; cum dissertatiuncula Gassendi eodem pertinente,' Oxford, 1662, 8vo.
2. 'A Letter written to a Friend in Wilts upon occasion of a late ridiculous Pamphlet, wherein was inserted a pretended Prophecie of Thomas Becket's,' London, 1666, 4to.
3. 'Praecipuorum Theologiae Capitum Enchiridion Didacticum,' London, 1668, 8vo; Oxford, 1683, 8vo; Oxford, 1700, 8vo.
4. 'Justificatio Paulina sine Operibus,' Oxford, 1674, 4to. This was a criticism of the 'Harmonia Apostolica' of George Bull [q. v.], bishop of St. David's. Tully also wrote several other controversial pamphlets against Richard Baxter and others. A French poem by him is printed in the Oxford volume of congratulations on Queen Mary's return from Holland (Oxford, 1643).

George Tully or Tullie (1652?-1695), possibly the nephew of Thomas, born in Carlisle about the end of 1652, was the son of Isaac Tully of Carlisle. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 17 May 1670, graduating B.A. on 6 Feb. 1674-5, and M.A. on 1 July 1678, and was elected a fellow on 16 March 1678-9. He became chaplain to Richard Sterne [q. v.], archbishop of York, was appointed subdean in 1680, and a prebendary in 1681, was for a time preacher of St. Nicholas in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in 1691 was presented to the rectory of Gateshead in Durham, where he died on 24 April ] 695, and was buried in the church, leaving a widow and two children.

Besides several sermons, he was the author of:

1. 'A Defence of the Confuter of Bellarmine's Second Note of the Church Antiquity against the Cavils of the Adviser,' London, 1687, 4to.
2. 'The Texts examined which Papists cite out of the Bible for the Proof of their Doctrine of Infallibility,' Oxford, 1687.
3. 'An Answer to a Discourse concerning the Celibacy of the Clergy,' Oxford, 1688, 4to.

He also assisted to translate Plutarch's 'Morals' and the historical works of Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos (Wood, Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 423).

[Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1055; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. 1816; Luttrell's Brief Relation, 1857, i. 381.]

E. I. C.