The third and fourth editions of these Lectures were accompanied by a Preface intended to meet some of the objections urged against the argument of the work by various critics. This Preface is now withdrawn, those portions of it which seemed worth retaining having been thrown into the form of additional notes to the several passages in the Lectures to which they relate. To the present edition it has been thought preferable to prefix a brief summary of the argument of the work as a whole, together with a list of authorities, ancient and modern, whose testimony may be cited in support of the principal doctrines maintained in the body of the work. The summary, though the necessity of it was first suggested by the misapprehensions of some critics concerning the purpose of the main argument, has been drawn up in general terms, without any special reference to such criticisms; its object being simply to assist towards a right apprehension of the argument, not to expose the misapprehensions of individuals. The list of authorities has no pretension to be considered as complete, or as the result of systematic search. It is simply a collection of passages which have come before the author in the general course of his reading, whether before or since the first publication of the Lectures; and, as regards the period subsequent to the Reformation, it is intentionally limited to writers in the communion of the Church of England.