Introduction to the New Testament (Volume 3, PT. 1) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1802. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION TO THE SACRED WRITINGS OF THE NEW COVENANT. CHAP. I. OF THE NAME, AND NUMBER OF THE CANONICAL GOSPELS. THE first book of the New Testament, according to the arrangement in the manuscripts', contains the sour Gospels, or the four Histories of Christ's life. The Greek name Ev*yytMn has three different fenses, as used by prosane writers, by the sacred writers, and by ecclesiastical writers; and these three senses must be carefully distinguished from each other. The want of this distinction has sometimes given rise to mistakes, and induced, for instance, many persons to suppose that St. Paul dictated the Gospel of St. Luke, because in his epistle to the Romans'he uses the expression ' according to my Gospel1.' The word wxyytXm is used by the Greek prosane writers to signify good news in general: but in the New Testament it signifies the joyful intelligence of the advent of the Messiah in particular, and is used by St. Paulb in reference to the prophecies * Rom. xi. 16. b Rom. i. I, z. Vol. III. A of that event. Also St. Mark writes, Chap. i. i--4. * The beginning of the Gospel was John'1: and Christ himself, in his answer to John, who had sent to inquire who he was, thought it sufficient, after relating the miracles, which he had performed, to add ' and the poor have the Gospel preached to them, ' that is, it is announced to the poor that the Messiah is come'. Ecclesiastical writers have taken the word mxyy&w in a new fense, and have used it to signify ( a narrative of the life of Christ.' It is used in this fense in both the old and new superscriptions, which have been prefixed to the four Gospels *j and hence the authors of them have acquired the Title of Evangelists1. I will not undertake to assign the reason, why we have precisely four Gospels, or to discover to what cau...