A course of eight sermons preached annually at the university of Oxford, set on foot by the Reverend John Bampton, canon of Salisbury.
According to the directions in his will they are to be preached upon either of the following subjects:
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 creeds. For the support of this lecture, he bequeathed his lands and estates to the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, upon trust that the vice-chancellor for the time being take and receive all the rents and profits thereof; and, after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made, to pay all the remainder to the endowment of these divinity lecture sermons. He also directs in his will, that no person shall be qualified to preach these lectures unless he have 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 same sermon twice. A number of excellent sermons preached at this lecture are now before the public. A more enlarged account of this lecture may be seen in the Christian Observer for May, 1809.
Despite a stated reliance on the plain meaning of the Bible and the dictates of common sense, Buck's Theological Dictionary, first published in London in 1802, seeks to provide a textual basis for the evangelical community. By combining brief essays on orthodox belief and practice with historical entries on various denominations, Buck provided an interpretive lens that allowed antebellum Protestants to see Christianity's almost two millennia as their own history.Wikipedia
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