The first five lectures printed in this volume were delivered in the
Church of All Hallows-on-the-wall, in the city of London, to an audience
consisting of clergymen, working for the most part in the parishes of
London and its suburbs. They were delivered at the request of an
association of East End incumbents, which is known by the name of Our
Society, on five consecutive Thursday mornings in Lent, 1892. These five
lectures deal with the claim to a supremacy or primacy of jurisdiction,
as of divine right, which is made on behalf of the Roman pontiffs. The
two remaining lectures have been written subsequently, and deal with the
theory that communion with the see of Rome is the necessary condition of
communion with the Catholic Church.