Hulsean Lectures

The lectures were originally to be given by a "learned and ingenious clergyman" from Cambridge, holding the degree of Master of Arts, who was under the age of forty years.

And as to the ten sermons that remain, of which five are to be preached in the Spring and five in the Autumn as before mentioned, the lecturer or preacher shall take for his subject some of the more difficult texts or obscure parts of the Holy Scriptures, such I mean as may appear to be more generally useful or necessary to be explained, and which may best admit of such a comment or explanation without presuming to pry too far into the profound secrets or awful mysteries of the Almighty.

And in all the said twenty sermons such practical observations shall be made and such useful conclusions added as may best instruct and edify mankind, the said twenty sermons to be every year printed and a new preacher to be every elected (except in the case of the extraordinary merit of the preacher) when it may sometimes be thought proper to continue the same person for five, at the most for six years together, but no longer term, nor shall he ever afterwards be again elected to the same duty.

The first to accept was Christopher Benson, who held the post until 1822, at which time he quit, having found the terms and conditions imposed by the lectureship too fatiguing and laborious.

[4] The topic was somewhat simplified to something that would show the evidence for Revealed Religion, or to explain some of the most difficult texts or obscure parts of Holy Scripture.