Hulsean Lectures

Hulsean Lectures, &c. The Rev. John Hulse, born at Middlewich, Cheshire, in 1708, educated at St John's College, Cambridge, and died in 1789, bequeathed his property to the university, for the founding of two divinity scholarships in St John's College, the Hulsean Prize, the office of Christian Advocate (in 1860 changed into the Hulsean Professorship of Divinity), and that of Hulsean Lecturer or Christian Preacher. The lecturer, appointed annually, must deliver at least four lectures before the university, although the number required was originally twenty, afterwards reduced to eight, and since 1860 to four. The subjects are 'the Evidence for Revealed Religion; the Truth and Excellence of Christianity; Prophecies and Miracles; Direct or Collateral Proofs of the Christian Religion, especially the Collateral Arguments; the most difficult Texts or Obscure Parts of Holy Scripture.' Among the lecturers have been Trench, Christopher Wordsworth, Ellicott, Dean Howson, Farrar, Dr E. A. Abbott, and Bishop Boyd Carpenter.