Christian Mysticism

Christian Mysticism

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Christian Mysticism, by William Ralph
Inge
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Title: Christian Mysticism
Author: William Ralph Inge
Release Date: January 4, 2005 [eBook #14596]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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MYSTICISM***
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CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM
The Bampton Lectures, 1899
Considered in Eight Lectures Delivered before the University of
Oxford

by
WILLIAM RALPH INGE, D.D. Dean Of S. Paul's
Methuen & Co. Ltd. 36 Essex Street W.c. London

Extract From The Last Will And Testament Of The Late Rev. John
Bampton Canon Of Salisbury
----"I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor,
Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and
to hold all and singular the said Lands and Estates upon trust, and to the
intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and
appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the
time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits
thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made)
that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, and
to be performed in the manner following:
"I direct and appoint that upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a
Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no
others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours
of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between
the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the
third week in Act Term.
"Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
shall 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.
"Also I direct that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
shall be always printed within two months after they are preached; and
one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one
copy to the head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the
City of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and
the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the
Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons;
and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor entitled to the revenue, before
they are printed.
"Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach
the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath 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 Divinity
Lecture Sermons twice."

PREFACE
The first of the subjects which, according to the will of Canon Bampton,
are prescribed for the Lecturers upon his foundation, is the
confirmation and establishment of the Christian faith. This is the aim
which I have kept in view in preparing this volume; and I should wish
my book to be judged as a contribution to apologetics, rather than as a
historical sketch of Christian Mysticism. I say this because I decided,
after some hesitation, to adopt a historical framework for the Lectures,
and this arrangement may cause my object to be misunderstood. It
seemed to me that the instructiveness of tracing the development and
operation of mystical ideas, in the forms which they have assumed as
active forces in history, outweighed the disadvantage of appearing to
waver between apology and narrative. A series of historical essays
would, of course, have been quite unsuitable in the University pulpit,
and, moreover, I did not approach the subject from that side. Until I
began to prepare the Lectures, about a year and a half before they were
delivered, my study of the mystical writers had been directed solely by

my own intellectual and spiritual needs. I was attracted to them in the
hope