original Greek word fignifies an overlooker, or one who ftands higher than his fellows and overlooks them; it is a compound word, that primarily fignifies fenfible ideas, tranflated to fignify or include feveral moral or intellectual ideas; therefore all will grant that the nature of the office can be never known by the mere found or fenfe of the word overlooker. (4.) I add farther, the word bishop or epifcopus, even when it is thus tranflated from a fenfible idea, to include feveral intellectual ideas, may yet equally fignify an overseer of the poor; an infpector of the customs; a furveyor of the highways; a fupervisor of the excife, &c. But by the confent of men, and the language of fcripture, it is appropriated to fignify a facred office in the church. (5.) This very idea and name, thus tranflated from things fenfible, to fignify a fpiritual and facred thing, contains but one property of it, (viz.) one that has an overfight, or care over others; but it does not tell us whether it includes a care over one church, or many; over the laity, or the clergy. (6.) Thence it follows, that those who in the complex idea of the word bishop include a. overfight over the clergy, or over a whole diocefe of people, a fuperiority to prefbyters, a diftinct power of ordination, &c. muft neceflarily difagree with thofe who include in it only the care of a fingle congregation. Thus according to the various opinions of men, this word fignifies a pope, a Gallican bishop, a Lutherean fuperintendant, an English prelate, a pastor of a fingle affembly, or a prefbyter or elder. Thus. they quarrel with each other perpetually; and it is well if any of them all have hit precifely the fenfe of the facred writers, and included just the same ideas in it, and no others.

I might make all the fame remarks on the word church or kirk, which is derived from KURIOU OIKOS or the house of the Lord, contracted into kyriok, which fome fuppofe to fignify an affembly of chriftians, fome takeit for all the world that profeffes christianity, and fome make it to mean only the clergy, and on these accounts. it has been the occafion of as many and as furious controverfies as the word bishop which was mentioned before.

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SECT. II.

Of negative and positive Terms.

ROM thefe and other confiderations it will follow, that if we would avoid error in our pursuit of knowledge, we must take good heed to the use of words and terms, and be acquainted with the various kinds of them.

I. TERMS are either pofitive or negative.

Negative terms are fuch as have a little word or fyllable of denying joined to them, according to the various idioms of every language, as unpleasant, impru dent, immortal, irregular, ignorant, infinite, endless, lifeless, deathlefs, nonfenfe, abyfs, anonymous, where the prepofitions un, im, in, non, a, an, and the termi nation lefs, fignify a negation, either in English, Latin or Greek.

Pofitive terms are those which have no fuch negative appendices belonging to them, as life, death, end, fenfe, mortal.

But fo unhappily are our words and ideas linked together, that we can never know which are pofitive ideas, and which are negative, by the word that is used to exprefs them, and that for these reasons ;

There are fome pofitive terms which are made to fignify a negative idea; as dead is properly a thing that is deprived of life; blind implies a negation or privation of sight; deaf a want of hearing; dumb a denial. of speech.

2dly, There are alfo fome negative terms which imply positive ideas, fuch as immortal and deathlefs, which signify ever-living, or a continuance in life; infolent fignifies rude and haughty; indemnify, to keep fafe; and infinite perhaps has a positive idea too, for it is an idea ever growing; and when it is applied to God, it signifies his complete perfection.

3dly, There are both positive and negative terms, invented to signify the fame and contrary ideas; as un

happy and miferable, sinlefs and holy, pure and undefiled, impure and filthy, unkind and cruel, irreligious and profane, unforgiving and revengeful, &c. and there is great deal of beauty and convenience derived to any language from this variety of expreffion; though fometimes it a little confounds our conceptions of being and not-being, our positive and negative ideas.

4thly, I may add alfo, that there are fome words. which are negative in their original language, but seem positive to an Englishman, because the negation is unknown; as abyfs, a place without a bottom; anodyne, an easing medicine; amnefty, an unremembrance, or general pardon; anarchy, a ftate without government; anonymous, that is, nameless; inept, that is, not fit; iniquity, that is, unrighteousness; infant, one that cannot fpeak, (viz.) a child; injurious, not doing justice or right.

The way therefore to know whether any idea be negative or not is to consider whether it primarily imply the abfence, of any positive being, or mode of being; if it doth, then it is a negation or negative idea; otherways it is a positive one, whether the word that expreffes it be positive or negative. Yet after all, in many cafes this is very hard to determine, as in amnesty, infinite, abyfs, which are originally relative terms, but they signify pardon, &c. which feem to be positives. So darkness, madnefs, clown, are positive terms, but they imply the want of light, the want of reafon, and the want of manners; and perhaps these may be ranked among the negative ideas.

Here note, that in the English tongue two negative terms are equal to one positive, and signify the fame thing, as not unhappy, signifies happy; not immortal, signifies mortal; he is no imprudent man, that is, he is a man of prudence; but the fenfe and force of the word in fuch a negative way of expreffions feem to be a little diminished.

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SECT. III.

Of fimple and complex Terms.

II. TERMS aredivided into simple or complex. A simple term is one word, a complex term is when more words are used to signify one thing.

Some terms are complex in words, but not in fense, fuch is the fecond emperor of Rome; for it excites in our minds only the idea of one man (viz.) Augustus.

Some terms are complex in fenfe, but not in words; fo when I say an army, a forest, I mean a multitude of men, or trees; and almost all our moral ideas, as well as many of our natural ones, are expreffed in this manner; religion, piety, loyalty, knavery, theft, include a variety of ideas in each term.

There are other terms which are complex both in words and sense; so when I fay a fierce dog, or a pious man, it excites an idea, not only of those two creatures, but of their peculiar characters also.

Among the terms that are complex in fenfe, but not in words, we may reckon thofe fimple terms which contain a primary and a fecondary idea in them; as when I hear my neighbour fpeak that which is not true, and I say to him this is not true, or this is falfe, I only convey to him the naked idea of his error; this is the primary idea: but if I fay it is a lie, the word lie carries alfo a fecondary idea in it, for it implies both the falfhood of the fpeech, and my reproach and cenfure of the fpeaker. On the other hand, if I fay it is a miftake, this carries alfo a fecondary idea with it; for it not only refers to the falfhood of his fpeech, but includes my tenderness and civility to him at the fame time. Another inftance may be this; when I use the word inceft, adultery, and murder, I convey to another not only the primary idea of thofe actions, but I' include alfo the fecondary idea of their unlawfulness, and my abhorrence of them.

Note 1. Hence it comes to pass, that among words which fignify the fame principal ideas fome are clean

and decent, others unclean; fome chafte, others obfcene; fome are kind, others are affronting and reproachful, because of the fecondary idea which custom has affixed to them. And it is the part of a wife man, when there is a neceffity of expreffing any evil actions, to do it either by a word that has a fecondary idea of kindness, or foftnefs; or a word that carries in it an idea of rebuke and feverity, according as the cafe requires. So when there is a neceffity of expreffing things unclean or obfcene, a wife man will do it in the moft decent language, to excite as few uncleanly ideas as poffible in the minds of the hearers.

Note 2. In length of time, and by the power of cuftom, words fometimes change their primary ideas, as fhall be declared and fometimes they have changed their fecondary ideas, though the primary ideas may remain fo words that were once chafte, by frequent ufe grow obscene and uncleanly; and words that were once honourable, may in the next generation grow mean and contemptible. So the word dame originally fignified a miftrefs of a family, who was a lady, and it is ufed ftill in the English law to fignify a lady; but in common ufe now-a-days it reprefents a farmer's wife, or a mistress of a family of the lower rank in the country. So thofe words of Rabfhaketh, Ifa. xxxvi. 12. in our tranflation, (eat their own dung, &c.) were doubtless decent and clean language, when our tranflators wrote them above a hundred years ago. The word dung has maintained its old fecondary idea and inoffensive sense to this day; but the other word in that fentence has by cuftom acquired a more uncleanly idea, and should now rather be changed into a more decent term, and so it should be read in public, unless it fhould be thought more proper to omit the fentence.*

For that reafon it is, that the Jewish rabbins have fupplied other chafte words in the margin of the Hebrew bible, where the words of the text, through time and custom are degenerated, fo as to carry any base

*So in fome places of the facred historians, where it is written, every one that piffes against the wall, we fhould read every male.