however, believes that such a course would have been far less satisfactory than that which he has adopted. It has been his object to put the junior student as much as possible in possession of the process by which he has arrived at the conclusions stated in the text; and to furnish the scholar, who may think it worth while to peruse his book, with a kind of information which he will justly regard as possessing much higher value than the private speculations of a modern writer.
It is only necessary to add, that the Fourth Chapter (on the Sources of Ecclesiastical History) appears here in very much the same form as that in which it was originally published in the British Magazine in June, July, and August of the present year.
Southgate Street, Gloucester,
August 2, 1838.