this knowledge in a very respectable degree already; while of others much more than this can be said. Yet where it does not already exist, it is quite impossible that it can be more than in part supplied. At the same time we feel the loss and the deficiency; we are sometimes conscious of it even in those who go forth from us with general theological acquirements, which would bear a favourable comparison with the acquirements of those trained in older institutions. It is a matter of regret, when in papers admirable in all other respects, errors of inexact scholarship are to be found, which seem quite out of keeping with the amount of intelligence, and the standard of knowledge, which every where else they display. Feeling the immense value of these studies, and how unwise it would be, because we cannot have all which we would desire, to forego what is possible and within our reach, I have two or three times dedicated a brief course of lectures to the comparative value of words in the New Testament-and these, with some subsequent additions and some defalcations, have supplied the materials of the present volume. I have never doubted that, (setting aside those higher and more solemn lessons, which in a great measure are out of our reach to impart, being to be taught rather by God than men,) there are few things which we should have more at heart than to awaken in our scholars an enthusiasm for the grammar and the lexicon. We shall have done much, very much for those who come to us for theological training and generally for mental guidance, if we can persuade them to have these continually in their hands ; if we can make them believe that with these, and out of these, they may be learning more, obtaining more real and lasting acquisitions, such as will stay by them, such as will form a part of the texture of their own minds for ever, that they shall from these be more effectually accomplishing themselves for their future work, than from many a volume of divinity, studied before its time, even if it were worth studying at all, crudely digested, and therefore turning to no true nourishment of the inner man. But having now ventured to claim for these lectures a somewhat wider audience that at first they had, it may be permitted to me to add here a very few observations on the value of the study of synonyms, not any longer considered in reference to our peculiar needs at King's College, but generally; and on that of the synonyms of the New Testament in particular; as also on the helps to the acquiring of a knowledge of these which are at present in existence. And The value of this study as a discipline for training the mind into close and accurate habits of thought, the amount of instruction which may be drawn from it, the increase of intellectual wealth which it may yield, all this has been implicitly recognized by well-nigh all great writers—for wellnigh all from time to time have paused, themselves to play the dividers and discerners of wordsexplicitly by not a few, who have proclaimed the value which this study had in their eyes. instructive as in any language it must be, it must be eminently so in the Greek—a language spoken by a people of the finest and subtlest intellect; who saw distinctions, where others saw none; who divided out to different words what others often were content to huddle confusedly under a common term; who were themselves singularly alive to its value, diligently cultivating the art of synonymous distinction,' and sometimes even to an extravagant excess; who have bequeathed a multitude of fine and delicate observations on the right distinguishing of their own words to the after world. And while thus, with reference to all Greek, the investigation of the likenesses and differences of words appears especially invited by the characteristic excellences of the language, in respect to 1 The ỏvóμara diaipeîv, Plato, Laches, 197 d. the Greek of the New Testament, plainly there are reasons additional inviting us to this study. If by such investigations as these we become aware of delicate variations in an author's meaning, which otherwise we might have missed, where is it so desirable that we should miss nothing, that we should lose no finer intention of the writer, as in those words which are the vehicles of the very mind of God? If thus the intellectual riches of the student are increased, can this anywhere be of so great importance as there, where the intellectual may, if rightly used, prove spiritual riches as well? If it encourage thoughtful meditation on the exact forces of words, both as they are in themselves, and in their relation to other words, or in any way unveil to us their marvel and their mystery, this can nowhere else have a worth in the least approaching that which it acquires when the words with which we have to do are, to those who receive them aright, words of eternal life; while in the dead carcases of the same, if men suffer the spirit of life to depart from them, all manner of corruptions and heresies may be, as they have been, bred. The words of the New Testament are eminently the σToixeia of Christian theology, and he who will not begin with a patient study of those, shall never make any considerable, least of all any secure, advances in this: for here, as everywhere else, sure disappointment awaits him who thinks to possess the whole without first possessing the parts, of which that whole is composed. Now it is the very nature and necessity of the investigation of synonyms to compel such patient investigation of the forces of words, such accurate weighing of their precise value, absolute and relative, and in this its merits as a mental discipline, consist. Yet when we look around us for assistance herein, neither in respect of Greek synonyms in general, nor specially in respect of those of the New Testament, can it be affirmed that we are even tolerably furnished with books. Whatever there may be to provoke occasional dissent in Döderlein's Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologieen, yet there is no book on Greek synonyms which for compass and completeness can bear comparison with it; and almost all the more important modern languages of Europe have better books devoted to their synonyms than any which has been devoted to the Greek. The works of the early grammarians, as of Ammonius and others, supply a certain amount of important material, but cannot be said even remotely to meet the needs of the student at the present day. Vömel's Synonymisches Wörterbuch, Frankfurt, 1822, an admirable little volume as far as it goes, but at |