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
entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.

"Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified 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."




PREFACE


The first of the subjects which, according to the will of Canon
Bampton, are prescribed for the Lecturers upon his foundation, is the
confirmation and establishment of the Christian faith. This is the aim
which I have kept in view in preparing this volume; and I should wish
my book to be judged as a contribution to apologetics, rather than as
a historical sketch of Christian Mysticism. I say this because I
decided, after some hesitation, to adopt a historical framework for
the Lectures, and this arrangement may cause my object to be
misunderstood. It seemed to me that the instructiveness of tracing the
development and operation of mystical ideas, in the forms which they