"I give and bequeath my Lands "and Eftates to the Chancellor, Masters,

and Scholars of the University of Ox"ford for ever, to have and to hold all "and fingular the faid Lands and Estates

66

upon truft, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to fay, I will and appoint that the Vice"Chancellor of the University of Oxford. ❝ for the time being shall take and receive "all the rents, iffues, and profits thereof, "and (after all taxes, reparations, and ne"ceffary

A 3

(vi)

ceffary deductions made) that he pay "all the remainder to the endowment of "eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be "established for ever in the faid Univer

་

fity-

"I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons fhall be preached

upon either of the following fubjects— "to confirm and establish the Chriftian "Faith, and to confute all heretics and "fchifmatics-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 Jefus Christ 66 -upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghoft -upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' "and Nicene Creeds."

46

PREFACE.

THE Books of Moses constitute a part of divine revelation, against which Infidelity has of late years directed her principal attack. They have been ftudiously reprefented as little better, than a collection of popular traditions built upon fcarcely a ftronger foundation, than the legendary tales of claffical antiquity. They have been pronounced to resemble the writings of Herodotus, rather than those of Thucydides; and to approximate in a still higher degree to the poems of Homer. Sometimes their credibility has been even totally denied; and the whole Volume contemptuously affigned to an age of fabulous uncertainty. At other times the mode of attack

A14

attack has been changed; and the hidden fap of treachery adopted, in preference to the open threats of defiance. Difficulties have then been induftriously started; the language of profane ridicule fedulously adopted; and plausible objections urged in the shape of argument, or infinuated under the mask of an affected liberality. Nor are these antichriftian efforts confined, in the prefent generation, to the fubtle treatife, or the elaborate difquifition. Every vehicle of knowledge is feized upon: and while the bowels of the earth are ranfacked, to convince the literary world of the erroneoufnefs of the Mofaical chronology; history and travels, fatire and tragedy, nay even romances and novels, are employed to diffeminate the poison among other claffes of readers. Such are the labours of modern infidelity; and thus, through the medium of Judaifm, is a blow aimed at the vitals of Christianity.

On the other hand, many perfons, who firmly believe in the great truths of the Gospel,