sense, and in the same way rendered 215. en. All the in stances are similar, in that they relate to miraculous cures performed by our Lord, which some of those who received, notwithstanding the prohibition given them, were every where assiduous to divulge. Not that they did literally proclaim them, by crying aloud in the public places, but that they made the matter as well known, as though this method had been takSuch hyperbolical idioms are to be found in all languages. How common is it to say of profligates, that they proclaim their infamy to all the world? because their lives make it as notorious, as it could be made by proclamation. It is in the same sense of publishing, and by the same figure, that proclaiming from the house-tops 216 is opposed to whispering in the ear. Nor is it certain, that the words xnрvoσw and xnрvyμa have any other meaning than those above specified in the Gospels and Acts. 10. THE only remaining sense of the words which I find in the New Testament, and which answers to the import of the English words, preach and preaching, seems to be peculiar to the writings of Paul. Thou, says he 217, who teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest, o xnovoσwv, a man should not steal, dost thou steal? The two clauses illustrate each other, and show that znpvoow in the latter has nearly the same import 215 Matth. x. 27. Luke, xii. 3. 216 Ibid. with Sidaoxo in the former. For, though we may speak properly of proclaiming laws, and thou shalt not steal, is doubtless of the number; it is only of laws newly enacted, or at least not before promulgated, that we use that expression. The law here spoken of was sufficiently known and acknowledged every where; but, though there was no occasion for proclaiming it, it might be very necessary to inculcate and explain it. Now this is properly expressed by the word preach. There are some other places in his epistles, wherein it cannot be doubted, that the word is used in this large acceptation for teaching publicly. Thus we ought to understand his admonition to Timothy 218, xnρužov τov 2oyov, preach the κηρυξον τον λογον, word. Knpvyua is also used by him, with the same latitude, for all public teaching, as when he says It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, dia της μωρίας το κηρυγματος, to save them that believe. Again 220, My speech and my preaching, to xnpvyua us, was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power; there can be no question but the term is used for teaching in general, since xnpvyua, in the confined sense it bears in the Gospels, could hardly admit variety or choice in the expression, nor consequently aught of the enticing words of man's wisdom. There is, besides, one place, where the Apostle Peter uses the word xnρuσσE 221, in speaking of our Lord's κηρύσσειν 218 2 Tim. iv, 2. 219 1 Cor. i. 21. 221 1 Pet. iii. 19. 219 preaching to the spirits in prison: but the passage is so obscure, that no argument can safely be founded on it. 11. NOTHING, however, can be clearer to the attentive and critical reader of the original, than that the aforesaid words are not used with the same latitude in the historical books. In the Acts, in parti. cular, several discourses are recorded, those especially of Peter and Paul, but to none of them are the terms xnpvoow and xnpvyua ever applied. I think it κηρυσσω the more necessary to make this remark, because the English word preach is in the common version frequently applied to them. Now this tends to confound the distinction so well preserved in the history, and to render all our ideas on this head extremely indeterminate. Some will, perhaps, be surprised to be informed that there are, in the Acts alone, no fewer than six Greek words (not synonymous neither) which are (some of them oftner, some of them seldomer) translated by the verb preach. The words are κηρύσσω, ευαγγελιζομαι, καταγγελλω, λαλεω, διαλεγομαι, and παρρησιαζομαι, which last is rendered I preach boldly. I admit that it is impos sible, in translating out of one language into another, to find a distinction of words in one exactly correspondent to what obtains in the other, and so to preserve uniformity, in rendering every different word by a different word, and the same word by the same word. This is what neither propriety nor perspicuity will admit. The rule, however, to trans late uniformly, when it can be done, in a consistency both with propriety and perspicuity, is a good rule, and one of the simplest and surest methods I know, of making us enter into the conceptions of the sacred writers, and adopt their very turn of thinking. 12. I SHALL here take notice only of two passages in the common translation, which, to a reader unacquainted with the original, may appear to contradict my remark in regard to the distinction so carefully observed by the historian. When the Jews, says he 222, were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought, that these words might be preached to them, λαληθηναι αυτοις τα ρήματα ταυτα, the next Sabbath; literally and simply, that these words might be spoken to them. The words here meant, are those contained in the twenty-six preceding verses. Our translators, I suppose, have been the more inclinable to call it preaching, because spoken in a synagogue by permission of the rulers. In another place 223, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, diλeyɛto avtos. Soon after 24, as Paul was long preaching, διαλεγομενε επι πλειον. Aaλeyouaι is properly dissero, disputo. It occurs frequently in the Acts, but, except in this passage, is always rendered to reason, or to dispute. I own that neither of these words suits the context here, as it appears that all present were disciples. The word, however, implies not only to dispute, but to 222 Acts, xiii. 42. 223 Acts, xx. 7. 224 9. discourse on any subject. But what I take the freedom to censure in our translators, is not their rendering diaλeyouau in this place preach, which, considered by itself, might be justified; but it is their confounding it with so many words not synonymous, particularly with xnpuσow, whose meaning, in this book, as well as in the Gospels, is totally diffe rent. 13. Now, in regard to the manner wherein this word has been translated, with which I shall finish what relates peculiarly to it, we may observe, that prædicare, used in the Vulgate, and in all the Latin versions, corresponds entirely to the Greek word in its primitive meaning, and signifies to give public notice by proclamation. In this sense it had been used by the Latin classics, long before the translation of the Bible into their tongue. But prædicare, having been employed uniformly in rendering xnρvσσε, not only in the history, but in the Epistles, has derived, from the latter use, a signification different, and much more limited than it has in profane authors. Now this additional, or acquired signification, is that which has principally obtained amongst ecclesiastics; and hence has arisen the sole meaning in modern languages ascribed to the word, whereby they commonly render the Greek κηρύσσω. The Latin word is manifestly that from which the Italian predicare, the French precher, and the English to preach, are derived. Yet these three words correspond to the Latin, only in the last mentioned |