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PREFACE

This edition of Culverwell’s Discourse, edited by Robert A. Greene and Hugh MacCallum, was originally published in 1971 by the University of Toronto Press. The introduction set the work in its historical and philosophical context. This republication substitutes a brief updated foreword by Robert A. Greene for that original introduction. Bracketed page numbers in the text indicate the pagination of the 1971 edition. Bracketed page numbers in the foreword refer to page numbers in this volume. Capitalization of the chapter titles on page 9 and in the text has been modernized. The chapter numbers in the text have been made arabic to be consistent with those on page 9. The following acknowledgments are repeated from the 1971 edition.

The editors wish to express their gratitude to the institutions and libraries that provided assistance, and to the friends who helped them out of difficulties. Leaves of absence from the University of Toronto afforded the opportunity for research abroad, and the Leverhulme Trust, the Canada Council, and the research fund of the University of Toronto supported the project. The work has been published with the aid of grants from the Humanities Research Council, using funds provided by the Canada Council, and from the Publications Fund of the University of Toronto Press.

We wish to recognize a particular debt to the staffs of the British Library and the Huntington Library, where much of the work was done, and to the Librarian of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Mr. Frank Stubbings, for his generous guidance and advice, which included drawing to our attention the existence of the pulpit from which Culverwell preached his Discourse. The complete list of colleagues and friends who contributed to the solution of individual problems is too long for inclusion here, but we desire especially to thank N. J. Endicott, David Gallop, Allan Pritchard, John Rist, Niall Rudd, D. I. B. Smith, and Peter Walsh; K. H. Kuhn and J. W. Wevers were kind enough to check the accuracy of the Hebrew passages in the text. John Brown’s nineteenth-century edition of the Discourse was of indispensable assistance, and in standing on his shoulders we hope we have avoided the pitfall which Culverwell warned of in his account of the printer who “corrects the old Errata of the first Edition, and makes some new Errours in [his] owne.” Both editors think with affection of the encouragement offered by the late A. S. P. Woodhouse, and with respect (not unmixed with penitence) of the assistance offered by their wives, Barbara and Mary.

R. A. G.

H. M.