REV. W. D. CONYBEARE’S LECTURES.
Just published, a Second Edition, considerably improved, price 8s. Cloth, lettered,
AN
ELEMENTARY COURSE
OP
THEOLOGICAL LECTURES,
INwTHREE PARTS.
PART I.—ON THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED.
PART II.—ON THE CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE.
PART II I.—ON THE PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY.
DELIVERED IN BRISTOL COLLEGE, 1831, 1832, 1833,
BY THE REV. W. D. CONYBEARE, F.R.S.
Corresponding Member o f the Institute o f France, Sfc. fyc.
I t has been the object of the author to present a compendious manual of the principal elements
of Theological Study, originally addressed to a class of adult youth, completing the higher
branches of education. It has been attempted to adopt that tone and spirit throughout the
course, which, it was hoped, might prove most useful and impressive to minds so situated J and,
therefore, the various scientific, literary, and critical disquisitions bearing upon the subject, have
been entered into somewhat more fully than might otherwise have been expected in a work so
merely elementary.
In the Introduction, the general application of classical and scientific education to Theology
is discussed, illustrated in the former instance by pointing out the anxious inquiries of Natural
Reason on these subjects, in the ancient philosophical schools, and the confessed weakness of
that teason to obtain a satisfactory solution, unless assisted by Revelation. The evidences of
Natural Theology are compendiously summed up under the various branches of physical science
to which they relate; thus showing the application of scientific education to theological objects;
the argument will here be found to run parallel with that of the several Bridgewater Treatises,
which have appeared since the publication of the first edition of these Lectures; references are
accordingly given in the notes of the present edition, to the portions of those Treatises where
the topics more generally indicated in this manual will be found developed in fuller detail.
A connecting survey of Butler’s argument, from the analogy between the truths disclosed by
natural and revealed religion, is then made to usher in a recapitulation of the great evidences of
Christianity, on the basis of the works of Lardner and Paley.