CONTAINING A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND DEATH. FOURTH EDITION CORRECTED AND REVISED. BY HENRY GRIFFIN WILLIAMS, B.D. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, Coited for the Syndics of the University Press ̓Αποθανὼν ἔτι λαλεῖται.—Heb. xi. 4. CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE. THE HE present edition of the Select Discourses of John Smith is based on the first edition, published in 1660, compared with the last, published in 1821. During the interval between these dates only one other complete edition made its appearance (1673). The Preface by Dr John Worthington, to whose care the Author's papers were committed after his death, contains all the requisite information respecting the preparation of them for the Press. Notwithstanding the learning and industry bestowed by him upon the task, the first edition of the Discourses abounds in errors, and of these scarcely one had been corrected by subsequent editors. The Discourse on Prophecy, the most learned of all, and that by which the Author is best known, was translated into Latin, and prefixed by Le Clerc to his Commentary on the Prophets, all the errors of the original, which are neither few nor trifling, still remaining. In the present edition, the references have been carefully examined, and, in several instances, assigned to the right authors in place of others to whom they had been incorrectly attributed. The labour involved in such corrections has been considerable, and the Editor is largely indebted to his brother, James B. S. Williams, Esq., M.A., |