"Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture "Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following sub"jects-to confirm and establish the Christian faith, and to "confute all heretics and schismatics-upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures-upon the authority of "the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and "practice of the primitive Church-upon the Divinity of our "Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ-upon the Divinity of the 'Holy Ghost-upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creed. "Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity "Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached; and one copy shall be given to the "Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; "and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the "revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the "Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be "paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. "Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali"fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath "taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two "Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons "twice." I PREFACE AM aware that all advocacy of Revealed Truth, which does not proceed from the pen of a layman, will in some quarters, at least, be held to be but prejudiced and valueless. I have accordingly made greater use throughout this work of the statements and testimony of adversaries than of friends to the cause of Christianity. To these I have endeavoured to do justice, "setting down nought in malice;" but rather striving to make my own the honest professions of an honoured name in our Church; whose words, and not my own, I desire may linger in the mind of the reader of these pages. "No man may justly blame me for honour 66 66 ing my spiritual mother, the Church of Eng land, in whose womb I was conceived, at whose "breasts I was nourished, and in whose bosom I 66 hope to die. Bees, by the instinct of nature, do "love their hives, and birds their nests. But, "God is my witness, that according to my utter 66 66 "most talent and poor understanding, I have en"deavoured to set down the naked Truth impartially, without either favour or prejudice, the two capital enemies of right judgment. The one "of which, like a false mirrour, doth represent things fairer and straighter than they are; the other, like the tongue infected with choler, makes "the sweetest meats to taste bitter. My desire "hath been to have Truth for my chiefest friend, "and no enemy but error."-Bramhall (Works, II. 21). 66 I should be ungrateful, were I not here to acknowledge my obligations to the assistance and sympathy of many old and valued friends, more especially to the Rev. William Ince, Sub-Rector and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford; and to Dr. George Rolleston, Fellow of Merton College, and Linacre Professor of Physiology in the University of Oxford. |