IN DIVINITY DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, BY JOHN HEY, D. D. AS NORRISIAN PROFESSOR; FROM 1780 TO 1795. SECOND EDITION. VOLUME THE FIRST. (FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1796: BY THE AUTHOR.) CAMBRIDGE: Printed by J. Smith, Printer to the University; AND SOLD BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON; CAMBRIDGE. 1822 TO THE FIRST EDITION. SOME parts of the work now presented to the public may seem to require an Apology, as not being composed with that formality, which may be thought requisite. The fact is, these Lectures were not written in order to be read; the writing was merely a preparation for speaking. To revise them now, and give them an appearance fit to meet the eye of a critical reader, would be a work of much time, and perhaps of little utility. Writings have often been rendered obscure by too laboured a correction, and by endeavours to reduce matter into the least possible compass. This apology, it is hoped, may suffice, if some expressions are found of rather a familiar sort, and if some remain in the form of queries. With respect to subject matter, every reader of Lectures should be aware, that they do not pretend to be wholly original. If the Lecturer compiles with judgment what will be most useful to his particular hearers, and sometimes advances a step or two beyond his predecessors, he does all that ought to be expected from him. In examining what has been already said, he will naturally think for himself, from whence something original will result; and, if one man improves one subject a little, and another another, there is an advancement of knowledge upon the whole. Where subjects have occasioned much dispute, and no decision has been made upon them, in which the generality have acquiesced, such as those relating to languages and customs of remote antiquity, |