342 LOGIC : Ott, THE tIGHt VSE OE REASON. is borrowed from the first part of the Latin word; and the old English biscop from the middle of it. -3. The original Greek word signifies an overlooker, or one who stands higher than his fellows and overlooks them ; it is a compound word, that prima- rily signifies sensible ideas, translated to signify or include several moral or intellectual ideas; therefore all will grant that the na- ture of the office can never be known by the mere sound or sense of the word overlooker.+4. I add farther, that the word bishop or episcopus, even when it is thus translated from a sensible idea, to include several intellectual ideas, may yet equally signify an overseer of the poor; an inspector of the customs; a surveyor of the highways; a supervisor of the excise, &c. but by the consent of men, and the language of scripture, it is appropriated to signify a sacred office of the church.-5. This very idea and name, thus translated from things sensible to signify a spiritual and sacred thing, contains but one property of it, namely, one that has the oversight 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. -8. Thence it follows, that those who in the complex idea of the word bishop, include an oversight over the clergy, or over a whole diocese of people, a superiority of presbyters, a distinct power of ordination, &c. must necessarily disagree with those who include in it only the care of a single congregation. Thus, according to the various opinions of men, this word signifies a pope, a Gallican Bishop, a Lutheran super - intendant, an English prelate, a pastor of a single assembly, or a presbyter or elder. Thus they quarrel with each other perpe- tually ; and it is well if any of them have hit precisely the sense of the sacred writers, and included just the same ideas in it, and no others. I might make all the same remarks on the word church or kirk, which is derived from xups ousos, or the house of the Lord, contracted into Kyrioik, which some suppose to signify an as- sembly of christians, some take it for all the world that pro- fesses christianity, and some make it to mean only the clergy ; and on these accounts it has been the occasion of as many and as furious controversies as the word bishop which was mentioned before. SECT. IL Of negative and positive Terms. FROM these and other considerations 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 positive or negative. Negative terms are such as have a little word or syllable of denying jointed to them, according to the various idioms of every
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